Ableton Forum

Hi all

I'm really new to Live having switched from Logic / Mainstage which got me really excited about live electronic editing etc but then was a massive let down. So, still finding my feet, any help would be great.

Here's what I want to do...

I'm using a midi drum pad (Roland Octapad II -played with sticks not fingers) and want to use one pad to play a synth riff, sounding one note in a pre-defined sequence each time the pad is hit.

Even better would be a double mapping of the pad to play a snare (for example) at the same time as a note in the sequence, so that a roll on the pad would produce a snare roll layered with the riff in time with each other.

The closest I've got so far is mapping a pad to the playhead in the clip viewer so that every time the pad is struck the playhead moves forward and sounds any nots it passes over, but this is a terrible solution as it wouldn't work whilst the rest of the track is playing and it doesn't sound two or more of the same note if they don't have a gap between them.

And I can't seem to map one pad to do 2 things either.

I know this isn't groundbreaking stuff, Andre Duracell does something similar with drum triggers on a live kit, so there must be a way to do it that I'm missing.

Again, any help would be much appreciated

Many thanks

Why not simply map your pad to clip launchs ? Set quantization to none or whatever. And you can map a single midi note or CC to several clips.

i made a midi effect rack to do just that. grab it here



use the 'choices' to select how many notes you want in the sequence (max 16), then use each chain's 'pitch' to make the melody. now bash away on C3.

select the 'auto' switch to see the rack scan through the chains.

Thanks you guys. I can see both of these methods working for short riffs.

Right now I'm investigating the first suggestion, having notes in separate clips.

I'm trying to work out how to make it so that hitting a note (say C3) will play the first clip in a track and hitting C3 again either once it has stopped or during playback will make it play the next clip down in the same track.

I was trying follow actions but they don't behave the way I want in this case.

Also, if I map a pad to launch a clip, it doesn't send midi to the drum sounds any more - how can I make it do both?

Any ideas?

the clip method requires that you use the 'select next scene on launch' preference.
only works on scenes though, not clips in a track, so it can get pretty awkward if you're using backing track clips at the same time.

Library Music wrote: Also, if I map a pad to launch a clip, it doesn't send midi to the drum sounds any more - how can I make it do both?

Any ideas?

I am not at home so can't check this but I think you could map your MIDI to two clips, one with the drum hit and one with the sequence. Make the clip with the drum hit a retriggerable one-shot and make the one with the riff a non retriggerable one-shot.

Please someone confirm or deny that this is possible.

Yeah when using loops i use clips.....
but if you are using one shots and you want them on the same trigger pad.
simple use multi in the drum rack (hold alt/option and drag new sample over the top)
here you now have two samples on the same pad.... but when you play they play at the same time,
so to play them separately you need to set velocity zones.
1-63 for sample one and 64-127 for the other. your sample will play at the same volume, this merialy relates to how hard you hit the pad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1fSms12Zhk
www.soundcloud.com/michaellpenman

Hi all thanks for the help on double mapping, I'll try it

So, before I give up (I really don't want to!), here's an example of what I'm trying to do by Andre Duracell except he's using live drums and i have midi pads.

I don't know what software he's using, but the drum triggers on the snare kick and tom trigger a sequence of notes one by one.

I don't think he's using any of the options suggested so far - any more ideas?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGeX-SgPsIA

Maybe map to a global clip launch and to the "next scene" button...
But as far as I know, Duracell uses max/MSP for this.