Ableton Forum

trying to learn ControlAid, I notice that midistroke seems better for what I want (in particular midi-browsing and other stufff...)

what is controlAid used for, I don't get it now. but it's late, and I'm totally noobie lateral thinker

cheers

you don't really need it for much these days.

back in live 5 you could only have 1 midi control : 1 parameter.

i used to use it to do 1 to many transformations on the midi data, and then i used it for beat juggling too. you don't need that stuff any more though. you can do 'clip fill mode' style beat juggles with a drum rack and a random midi plugin set to alternate.

Ok,

I better understand the use for control aid, and that I don't need it (for now).

BTW midistrokes totally ROCKS !!!! dunno why I didn't use it before

thanks a lot Dylan for your precious help and ideas !!!

I'll keep you informed of the building process of my midistroke+farmpad+padkontrol+faderfox LV2 live template...

musically yours,
supa

Hi

First off, I love what you've done with the Triceratopz, great work man!

One problem tho...

I'm splitting my songs and DJ stuff into clip-packs (quite a lot of work!), but before I go any further I need to know how you get around the fact that packs with less clips won't totally replace the preceding ones. I'm sure there must be a trick to it but I've tried everything (I think!).

thanks again

j

jimmynitcher wrote:Hi

First off, I love what you've done with the Triceratopz, great work man!

One problem tho...

I'm splitting my songs and DJ stuff into clip-packs (quite a lot of work!), but before I go any further I need to know how you get around the fact that packs with less clips won't totally replace the preceding ones. I'm sure there must be a trick to it but I've tried everything (I think!).

thanks again

j

you can just delete the empty scenes if you want your clip packs to work in both templates.

i did that with the version of triceratopz i use with my band.

it's always always always at least 4 per tune tho.

PS: if any of you have adapted your template for the pad kontrol, or for the akai or whatever, i'll buy it back from you if you don't mind me giving it to other people who need it.

So each als has to be identical then, thats a bit of a pita (though I'm glad to confirm the limitation) I was hoping there would be some trick to getting the empty slots to replace somehow as each song has quite different patterns - one might have more follow actions than another or less one-shots etc.

ta

i never use it like that.

each clip pack is different cue points within the same song... that play to the end (no follow actions necessary really)

i've always just jumped cue points with the trigger finger. they're designed to be manipulated on the fly.

it's good that they are identical. it saves you having to redo everything for the different templates.

So your 'Intro'/Drop/Middle/and Outro each have 4 clips cued to the 4 corresponding parts of a song, something like beat/bass/keys/melody? Or you use one channel with the whole song duplicated and cued into 4? (In which case I don't see the need for four channels?)

Say I have a song that starts with just beats then its the beat and a riff, then its the beat again, the only way to arrange that is for me to have the Intro scene with one clip in it and the Middle to have two (and to put the stop buttons back). How can I have four channels always used on every part of a song?

Sorry, I hope I am being clear I think I'm missing something here.

yes. you are missing a lot:

triceratopz is a dj/pa template, and it is meant to be used both ways

allow me to elaborate:

the idea is to give you DJ style control over your live PA sets, so as you don't get shown up by any DJs you may be gigging with. (let's face it... all original live PAs can get boring, especially for girls)

when i DJ i like to breaks my whole tunes down into 4 cue points.

1. intro: first mixable spot... usually at a bar 8 or 16 or 32 before the end of mix point
2. drop (or 1st breakdown): wherever you end your mix and the tune takes over
3. dub (if it's a vocal tune) "hook me" (if it's retriggerable) "breakdown" (if the tune is overly long) etc... : this is the third point, you have the most creative freedom here. call it depending on what the tunes seems to need
4. outro (then i label it with which instruments are there or not)

i also do this for my multi-trak bits in triceratopz - same bar numbers on all cue points from the same tune.

now here's the thing:

the 4 tracks of triceratopz aren't just useful for 4 bus renders within a single tune...

i often load 'normal' dj tunes into there, then have 3 different mashup/powermix choices and then mix them accordingly... if you do this right, and maybe do a little volume automation within the clip envelopes you can mix yourself mixing! it's fucking bonkers... 3 acapella mixes to go over your originals... 4 tune mashups... a 3 channel tune with some live triggering clip options... etc. etc. etc.

it's really crazy and nobody seems to do it but me. you can REALLY wreck shop with that template.

OK thats great, but specifically with reference to dragging or pasting .als are you saying you only drag single channels, because thats the only way I can see all this is possible, whether it be acappellas or tunes or whatever, so when you say you like to break your songs into 4 cue points you mean within a single channel, not split into instruments across 4 channels?

Thanks again I appreciate your patience! (and enthusiasm)

you can drag multi channel clip packs no problem.

Yes but (sorry to keep harping on about this) clip packs must be identical for them to replace each other and I'm finding it hard to do that - I was checking your very helpful manual that came with Triceratopz where you suggest using follow actions which I tried on a set then realized they all had to have them for the dragging to work!

thanks again

i think i'm confused by what you mean by 'identical'.

OK sorry I'll try to be more clear:

If I have a set (using your template) that uses channels 1-3 with follow actions on 2 & 3 and only has 2 one-shots and I drag in a pack that only uses 2 channels and no follow actions or one-shots then the follow actions and one shots from the previous pack will remain.