Ableton Forum

Yes, yet another person who can't get these three to work together!

I want to use the FCB1010 on stage to 1) control effects on my guitar, and 2) play sound effects like song intros or other in-song samples

Well, i finally managed to get Ableton to trigger the sound effects. I use Bank 01 of the FCB to handle the 6 sound effects i need over the course of a set. My FCB is set to play MIDI notes on every button, by the way. So 10 banks x 10 buttons = 100 MIDI notes. The pedals are set to send Control Changes.

Now, when i open Guitar Rig as a VST, it completely ignores the FCB, even though my settings are still saved from standalone mode. GR works perfectly in standalone mode, but i can't get it to do the same as a VST. I can work around it by doing the whole MIDI Map thing in Live, but this is a real pain, plus i can't actually get to the 10th button or the two expression pedals. While in MIDI Map Mode, I click on each part of the Rig Kontrol in GR's "Live View", then press the button on the FCB. Of course, Rig Kontrol only has 9 buttons and 1 expression pedal, so i can only program those buttons. And anyway, Guitar Rig fails to save these settings, so when i close and re-open Guitar Rig, i have to change these settings all over again.

The solution clearly is for me to use Guitar Rig as a standalone, and open it outside of Ableton. That's fine, but there's a different problem: on my Desktop PC, my soundcard (Echo Mia) doesn't like it when two programs both want control of it, so it forces one to play sounds in slow motion. In this case, when i open Guitar Rig in standalone mode, Ableton plays back files in super slow motion, making it unusable. I havent tested yet on my laptop, which uses a Mackie Onyx as an interface (i don't have Ableton installed on my laptop, am i even allowed to install/authorize it twice?)

So, bottom line:
1) Is there any way to get Guitar Rig (as a VST) to remember my button settings on the FCB1010? Will simply saving a Live Set (and not closing Guitar Rig) save the button settings when i close and re-open Ableton?
2) Can i get Guitar Rig to recognize the last button and expression pedal on the FCB1010? MIDI Learn seems to be disabled when Guitar Rig is a VST. Will these settings save if i close and re-open Ableton?
3) If i absolutely must use Guitar Rig as a standalone, what will typically cause Ableton to play files in slow motion? Can i resolve this somehow, or am i forced to use Guitar Rig as a VST?

I've been a Cubase user for years now, so Ableton is totally new to me. I pretty much only bought it because it is the only thing i could find that will trigger sound effects from MIDI notes. Kind of silly that i paid all that money for such a simple application, i know! But i really needed that functionality and nothing else can do it (that i know of).

I am in the same boat, i can get fcb1010 to work in guitar rig 3 in stand alone mode, but as a vst i just can't get it to work, and its irritating me, usually i can figure things out for myself, but lately don't have anytime to fool around with things, and just want to start recording some guitar ideas, using the fcb1010 controlling the effects in guitar rig, i wish someone can help us out.

Has anybody had any luck finding a solution for this?

edit - sorry, I didn't realize how recent this thread is....
Just wanted to chime in to say I'm in the same boat. Can't get midi control of Guitar Rig to work in Live.

What I´ve done so far (and it´s quite useful) is activate the Rig Control and assign to it the effects and stuff I want to use with my FCB. Then, in the VST settings in abbleton, I assign a CC note to each control.

It works, but I´m not there yet. There´s a problem: The footswitch of the Guitar Rig responses to different velocities (0 for off and 127 for on). So, what I must do is to set two pedals of my FCB with the same CC and different velocities (that´s not very useful though...)

UPDATE / EDIT

I´ve solved it adding a second CC with the velocity value 0, so when you press the pedal once, it switch the control on, and the next time it will switch it off by sending the same CC# with Vel. 0.

If anyone has any doubts about what I´m saying (because my english may not be that good) please ask and I´ll be glad to explain it better

So here's a way to fix this situation, but you'll probably not like it.
If you set up Logic's Mainstage, you can route it through Ableton Live in a Channel, thus you can have the FCB pedal triggering the diferent banks and parameters of -not only Guitar Rig- but also all the other fantastic effects of Logic's library.

Unfortunately, this is not the answer you want, because it will make your session extremely heavy and liable to mess up at any given moment.

hi
epiqseba, you said "to assign a cc in the guitar rig vst"
that's my problem
i mean, in guitar rig 3 it was ok, i just press "configure" in live plugin and then i press the "RK switch" and the parametr just appear in the vst, than, from there i assign a midi note or cc.
but in guitar rig 4 i can't do it. it doesn't work.
do u know something about?

please man, i'm getting crazy!
thanks, manu

Invoking this thread because I've found simple solution that maybe helpful to many people.

So let's recall the situation:
Guitar Rig is correctly mapped to your foot controller in standalone mode, there are a couple of tutorials on youtube how to set next/previous patch, expression pedal etc.
In my case it's Line 6 FBV Express MKII, but I guess it doesn't really matter.

When you launch Ableton and Guitar Rig as plugin, its MIDI mapping page becomes empty. It does not respond to your CCs and you are not able to change input MIDI device etc.

The reason for that is Ableton "locks" foot controller (if you specify one in MIDI preferences) to let you use it in application.

Here's the hint that works for me: when you "MIDI learn" your Guitar Rig in standalone mode, provide DIFFERENT MIDI input, which is not used in Ableton later! In other words, do not use your foot controller driver as midi input when you learn.
When you start Ableton, you'll see that Guitar Rig displays all your settings (CCs for next/prev patch and others) correctly. Just add additional MIDI track which has foot controller on input and Guitar Rig on output, arm it and enjoy your settings.

Here raises the question: how to learn Guitar Rig without foot controller driver on input?
I've installed free MIDI Ox and MIDI Yoke which provide you virtual MIDI cables and routing features.
Just launch MIDI Ox, choose foot controller as input and MIDI Yoke 1 as output.
In Guitar Rig standalone pick MIDI Yoke 1 as input device. In this way you'll be able to learn Guitar Rig linked to another MIDI port, not used by Ableton later.
This works both for Guitar Rig 4 and 5.
Just to recap: Guitar Rig remembers CCs defined for MIDI Yoke 1 and in Ableton you will trigger the same CC's from original foot controller driver.

Let me know somebody will have questions.

How can you do that with a mac?

Bodicitadrummer wrote:How can you do that with a mac?

Sorry not familiar with that, but I guess some MIDI virtual cabels should be present on mac platform as well.
MIDIOX can be partially replaced by MidiPipe http://web.mac.com/nicowald/SubtleSoft/MidiPipe.html.
I'm sure somebody on this forum has already tried MIDI Routing tools on different platforms.