Ableton Forum

Sorry for crossposting this but I got no replies in the Support Forum and this should be an easy question:

--

This is the most basic thing ever. I'm sure this has been covered but I can't seem to find the right answer with search. If there's an old thread, a link will be fine.

I want to layer drum sounds, where Sonic Charge Microtonic provides the basic sounds and sequencing, and NI Battery provides some additional layered sounds.

I've got Microtonic running on one track playing a sequence. I've set up Microtonic to send MIDI information on channel 1 (you have to pick a particular channel). Next to it I've got a track with Battery. I've hit record and chosen "4-Microtonic" on MIDI from. Battery accepts MIDI on all channels. What am I doing wrong? Battery is getting MIDI okay from my keyboard if I switch to that, and it plays fine if I drop in a MIDI loop.

I remember something about there being issues with AU implementation in the relationship between NI and Ableton, so Battery is a VST, not an AU.

There's obviously something I'm not getting about MIDI routing in Live, as I just tried it with a demo of Drumaxx to see if it was NI-specific and it's the same issue. It'll play off a MIDI loop, and it will play from my keyboard, but not from the Microtonic track. Similarly, I can't get Drumaxx to trigger Battery even though it's outputting MIDI.

The Live manual only has a paragraph on this (p183 "Layering Instruments"), but as far as I can tell, I'm doing everything it says to do and getting no love.

Thanks!

At the risk of asking a stupid question, do you have monitor switched to "IN" on the battery track? It sounds like that's your problem, because if midi loops play fine on the track it means it's probably still set to AUTO.

Thanks, I appreciate stupid questions as I've probably missed something totally basic. I've tried it on both "in" and "auto" with no luck (I've also tried the battery channel with record enabled and disabled). I should be clear that I'm not playing a loop. If I drop a loop into the Battery track, I have sound no problem. I've got an instrument (Microtonic) that has a step sequencer that outputs MIDI as well as audio. The MIDI should go from one track to another. If I take a MIDI step sequencer from Reaktor on one track and try and route the output into Battery, I have the same issue, so I think it's me and MIDI routing and not Live's fault.

Here's a picture of the paired channels if it matters.




I do have a workaround, which is to simply export my step sequences as MIDI loops, but I want to edit the step sequencer in real time and it would be nice to have have it driving both drum modules at once. And the manual seems to say that this is possible.