THE Rack List. (What can you do with Racks?)

friend_kami · Post by **friend_kami** » Thu Jun 05, 2008 12:55 pm

edit: nvm. its routed really fine now, thanks.

labrat51 · Post by **labrat51** » Wed Jun 11, 2008 11:09 am

ok i built this baby last night, its just a whole bunch of beat repeats assigned to one macro

http://www.labrataudio.com/masterollar.adg

now its not quite finished yet but i need a few pointers.

1. is it really necessary to assign the on/off switches as well to each one so i can conserve cpu usage or does the effects rack take care of that automatically? i want to build some much bigger racks in the future but i don't want to risk an onstage crash.

2. how do i stop the annoying thing where i turn the midi assigned dial to control the macro, but i'm getting bits of the original audio in between the drum rolls. its a real buildup killer. i want those rolls to go smoothly from one to the other, just a standard 4, to 8, to 16, to 24, to 32 then BANG back into the main track, as heard on countless records time immemoriam. SURELY a software as sophisticated as ableton should let me do this without having to write it in arrangemet mode.

any help would be greatly appreciated. and before i get a rtfm quote, the page you may be referring to is to fade between chains. sorry, but that doesn't work either.

friend_kami · Post by **friend_kami** » Wed Jun 11, 2008 7:33 pm

labrat51 wrote:ok i built this baby last night, its just a whole bunch of beat repeats assigned to one macro

http://www.labrataudio.com/masterollar.adg

now its not quite finished yet but i need a few pointers.

1. is it really necessary to assign the on/off switches as well to each one so i can conserve cpu usage or does the effects rack take care of that automatically? i want to build some much bigger racks in the future but i don't want to risk an onstage crash.

2. how do i stop the annoying thing where i turn the midi assigned dial to control the macro, but i'm getting bits of the original audio in between the drum rolls. its a real buildup killer. i want those rolls to go smoothly from one to the other, just a standard 4, to 8, to 16, to 24, to 32 then BANG back into the main track, as heard on countless records time immemoriam. SURELY a software as sophisticated as ableton should let me do this without having to write it in arrangemet mode.

any help would be greatly appreciated. and before i get a rtfm quote, the page you may be referring to is to fade between chains. sorry, but that doesn't work either.

try this and see if thats what youre after.
map the repeater on to a button, and control the rate with a fader or whatever,
the mix mode is just the mix/insert/gate buttons.

is that what you were going for?
or did i misunderstand you?

http://nwrecords.com/storage/racks/effects/repeater.adg

labrat51 · Post by **labrat51** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 7:16 am

you know what , thats pretty much it.

how did they get it to work so smoothly.

anyway, thanks very much for that, i can get on with my li(f)e now

friend_kami · Post by **friend_kami** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 3:16 pm

labrat51 wrote:you know what , thats pretty much it.

how did they get it to work so smoothly.

anyway, thanks very much for that, i can get on with my li(f)e now

well its basicly just one of the two beatrepeat racks that ive stuck into an FSU rack i built some time ago. first off, since im just using one chain the repeater doesnt run its cycle if you change the rate, as opposed to several chains where you would have one at 1 bar that has to run its cycle (1 bar) before dropping to silence (since there no more audio coming through it because you have moved on to another chain) and moving on with the other chain (1/2 bar) which also has to run its cycle.

when theres no need for any repeats the macro just turns it off to prevent any modification to the output.

labrat51 · Post by **labrat51** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 3:50 pm

bloody marvellous.

oh by the way, any idea how i can get the most out of my cpu when using fx racks.

i'm (sorry i just discovered this so its still quite exciting for me) on the one now where i have made a chain of about 15 different fx and i want to switch between them using a rotary pot.(pretending to have lots of fx as presets i can switch through) now assigned to the same macro as the chain selector i set up device on/off commands working across the same parameter ranges as the chain lengths. would i get more mileage by doing the same thing to the speaker on button in the chain window? i just find it slightly hungrier than i would have thought.

Dr. Zoiberg · Post by **Dr. Zoiberg** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 3:53 pm

Best way to save cpu is to assign the macro to the effect on/off switches, with ranges like 1-10,11-20, and so on.

labrat51 · Post by **labrat51** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 3:58 pm

thanks zoiberg.

( i wonder if this is something for the wishlist?)

labrat51 · Post by **labrat51** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 6:04 pm

ok, now i'm trying to sqeeze the rqnge for q controller. i want something to move a long distance but over a short amount of controller movement.

i saw one thing with 2 sets of macro's. the parameter mapped to one macro, which was in turn mapped to another one. is this how to do it?

friend_kami · Post by **friend_kami** » Fri Jun 13, 2008 7:46 pm

labrat51 wrote:ok, now i'm trying to sqeeze the rqnge for q controller. i want something to move a long distance but over a short amount of controller movement.

i saw one thing with 2 sets of macro's. the parameter mapped to one macro, which was in turn mapped to another one. is this how to do it?

yeah, that works.

friend_kami · Post by **friend_kami** » Fri Jun 13, 2008 7:47 pm

Dr. Zoiberg wrote:Best way to save cpu is to assign the macro to the effect on/off switches, with ranges like 1-10,11-20, and so on.

if its native live devices it shouldnt matter though right? i thought the native devices didnt seal cpu cycles unless they have an input signal, so when you set it up in a chain and you pass that specific devices range it doesnt have a signal coming to it and thus no cpu?

Angstrom · Post by **Angstrom** » Fri Jun 13, 2008 7:52 pm

friend_kami wrote:
Dr. Zoiberg wrote:Best way to save cpu is to assign the macro to the effect on/off switches, with ranges like 1-10,11-20, and so on.
if its native live devices it shouldnt matter though right? i thought the native devices didnt seal cpu cycles unless they have an input signal, so when you set it up in a chain and you pass that specific devices range it doesnt have a signal coming to it and thus no cpu?

they do consume some CPU when inactive

http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 184#702184

labrat51 · Post by **labrat51** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 4:47 pm

uses a bit of cpu when inactive......would that be its GUI support, and just so the program remembers its there? i guess it would have to so as your plugin doesn't disintegrate as soon as the off button is pressed....................

well, so far all this new fangled multi effect-ness seems to work great. got 4 pretty large multi fx racks going right now ( on/off switches mapped equivalent to chain range) couple of those repeaters ( cheers for that by the way its wonderful!!!!) haven't bothered with the chain mute buttons as i guess the cycles i'll shave off are about as important as making 0.0000000001p per share after a day's trading.(but people do it you know) 16 tracks, 4 returns, and i got the lot down to 23percent on a macbook pro!!!!! loving it. thanks for all your help people.

what gets me though is increasing latency doesn't do much to drop cpu load with live once past the 512 buffer.never thought that airport would have so much influence over music software either. i guess it keeps me off the internet and focused on the important things in life, like dragging people's brains inside out and through their ears though the use of sound.

you all have a good weekend now. its been.....educational.

Angstrom · Post by **Angstrom** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 4:55 pm

yep, that's pretty much what it is (I think).

The Live devices don't do any more than most VST in this, as a lot of VST have their components go into a dormant mode when there is no signal present. There can be trouble if something in the chain is murmuring away at -100db though, as that still means everything in that chain needs calculating.

I don't think there is anything particularly unusual about Live's own devices in the dormant CPU drain department though.

labrat51 · Post by **labrat51** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 5:09 pm

you'd have thought they'd have written a de-normaliser algorithm into it to prevent exactly that (remember digitalfishphones did one to stick on any plugin chain over vst to prevent cpu spikes on a pentium 4? i actually got it to work on cubase sx and kontakt, i was having horrendous trouble when the instrument wasn't playing any notes, spikes of like 35% until i slotted one of these in after. i think it basically cut off anything below a certain threshold)

ere, maybe we could fool the bugger completely by ending each chain with a noise gate set to cut anything off below -65dB.....scrub that , the cycles you'd save and the ones you'd put back by using the gate........swings n bloody roundabouts innit.

ah well, the quest for ultimate cpu efficiency continues......back on our horses lads....

THE Rack List. (What can you do with Racks?)

having trouble with this one

Re: having trouble with this one

increased range for controllers

Re: increased range for controllers