Ableton Forum

is this possible? i have MIDI clip which is sending MIDI to my external drum machine recorded already and i want to overdub it with some additional notes. before i record, however, i want to audition the new material without recording the notes. i know i can do this in Arrangement view, but i can't seem to figure it out in session. how can i listen to what's already been record and play over top of it without recording?

thanks

you could make sure the midi track monitoring is set to auto, and record enable the track, but be sure to turn off the overdub (ovr) button at the top of the session view. This way you can playback your track and audition new material (because the track is armed). Then when you are sure you want to record the new notes you can simply turn overdub back on and there you go.

you could also simply use a new midi clip on a new midi track for the new notes so you can always revert back to the original beat later if you need to. I haven't gotten into clip follow actions very much yet, but I believe you could possibly set the midi clip you already have with the main beat to auto trigger the new midi clip on the new midi track that contains your additional overdubbed hits whenever you start it. You could probably make a stop clip on the exisiting midi track that would kill the new overdub midi clip as well.

Or at least, that is what I think follow actions are for, I haven't really tried them out yet. Someone please correct that if I am totally wrong about them.

thanks! turning overdub off worked. i misunderstood that button; i thought when it was off, it would still record but would replace rather than mix MIDI data.