Ableton Forum

While setting up the macro controls in the audio effects rack I put in my master channel, I ran into some trouble...
I can't seem to get a series signal, only parallel. When you drag an effect (beat repeat for example) into a track, 100% of the signal runs through it as it should but as soon as I take an effect and drop it into the effects rack it becomes a parallel effect loop.

Could someone tell me how to get around this? It would make things so much simpler.

Cheers!

you just need to watch where the second effect is being dropped. Before your drag and drop with the effect is complete make sure its going to the right of the beat repeat. A yellow line should show where its going to be dropped.

Right, I get that but I'm not talking about pre and post effects... I'm talking about "return chains" the effects chain inside a rack ie; drum rack, instrument rack, effects rack, etc... the ones you can assign to macro controls. Those seem to only be parallel.

This is from the manual:
"Return Chains. A Drum Rack's return chains appear in a separate section at the bottom of the chain list. Up to six chains of audio effects can be added here, which are fed by send sliders in each of the drum chains above."

So I did a little trouble shooting and It can be done. Here's what you do.
Route the effects (where it says rack output) to return track a or b. Then once the signal is running through,
turn the original track of but keep the clip playing. This kind of defeats the purpose of using the macro controls in the first place... which is to make things simpler not more complicated!

There should be an easier way to do this, a way to get a true series effects signal strait to the rack output.

Any thoughts????

Anybody have any advice? I'm having the same problem. It seems when using the effects racks I can't figure out how to makes the effects run in series as opposed to parallel. Anyone??

Drag until you see a vertical line to the left of the existing effect, this will drop the effect in as an addition to the same chain rather than creating a new chain...

Cheers
D

yep... the returns in the drum rack are parallel. if you want to route a number of different intruments to the same effects chain you can group those instrument chains together and then place the effects at then end of this grouped rack. it gets a bit russian doll quite quickly, with grouped devices within grouped devices. Stay sober and do not operate heavy machinery for at least half an hour after working on the device.