Ableton Forum

Hey guys,

i have a producing question regarding VST instruments and Midi to Audio.
I normally start with sketching a beat in session view. I use microtonic drumsynth as a vst instrument with multiple outs in a grouped submix. Additionaly i got some percussion tracks running as well (either Live´s percussion or the toontrack drummer). When doing this i am working with midi. That´s fast and easy to handle. This way i normally come up with some 4 or 8 bar loops.

But a complete track is way more than that. There is loads of additional stuff as well as variaton.
So normally when producing a whole track switching to arrangement view is the way to go.
My problem is that i dont feel comfortable arranging a whole track in midi...imo you lose sight of what you´re doing and
its getting a mess pretty fast. I think i would prefer audio but i dont know how exactly i could do this transfer step.

how are you doing that? e.g. you got the kickdrum track..are you recording one single kick as audio and placing it then in arrangement viewor are you recording a longer part and chop it up afterwards? what about all the other tracks when doing multiple outs? what about the variatons?
Well...sorry may that´s a dumb question but i am looking for a way to do this efficiently...

thanks
r.

I usually do it measure by measure or phrase by phrase (groupings of 4, 8, 16, 32 etc related measures). Track 1 MIDI Kick, go to Track 2 Audio and set it's input to Track 1, arm for recording and hit play. Stop when done. Chop it up if you prefer, I usually don't but I don't mind working in MIDI, either. Then I rename the track accordingly.

If I understand you right, maybe this will help, too. I don't do the entire track as a MIDI clip. I break it up into those phrases, it's pretty organized and easy to follow. Rename the clips Kick Intro, Kick Intro2, Kick Main, Kick Main2, etc and so forth (I rename a lot). Color code the intro clips if you want, or keep all tracks one color, or whatever else works for you. You can also copy/paste a phrase and modify parts of it to give some variation, keep in mind that if you use Duplicate, any changes you make to one will take place on ALL duplicate clips. I usually close each track so all I see are the title bars, and so I know what all is coming, what I want to drag around to fit better, etc.

That's how I do it, hope I explained it well enough to help you. Probably a lot more than you were asking for, but I do most of my work in Arrangement, then go back to Session to play and experiment.

Hey Kris,

thanks for jumping in. That helped a alot.