Ableton Forum

Hello,

so a friend of mine and i have composed some tracks. They are in different different live sets (one for each track), each having 10 to 16 individual tracks, each using different instruments (internal and external), different return channles, different effects. in the near future we want to perform them on stage. As a controller we use the APC40.
We want to perform them without having a pause between two live sets.
And i don't want to fuse them into one big live set, because i think, that's a lot of reorganisation work.

So i thought the following:

i use two instances of live.
the masterchannel of each instance is routed to its own stereo out (my soundcard has 8 outs, so that is no problem), which goes into an external mixer.
With this configuration i can play song 1 with instance 1, song 2 on instance 2, song 3 on instance 1 and so on, without having a pause between two songs, because i can load the new song while the old on is still playing.
so far, so good.
BUT:
Some time ago (Live 8.0.9) i tested this and i found out that the APC40 can only be used by one instance of live, the one that was started first (or second, i don't remember). Even if the APC40 was set in the preferences of the other instance, this instance didn't react to the APC40.
Is this true also for Live 8.2.1?
If so, is there some workaround that allows me to use one APC40 (i dont't want to buy a second one) by two instances of live? (not a the same time of course, but one ater the other)
Thank you
Hannes

h:nez wrote: We want to perform them without having a pause between two live sets.
And i don't want to fuse them into one big live set, because i think, that's a lot of reorganisation work.

If you ever find the answer, keep me posted

Have to bump this as I myself would like to simultaneously control parameters of both instances using one controller. So basically control track mute/solo, volume, pan, effects etc. etc. of both instances at the same time. I wonder if it is even possible with the latest version?

I wanna bump this since live 9 is out and hopefully they have some sort of a solution incorporated in this version.

I just figured out a bit of a workaround, but its by no means ideal. When you are ready to mix in the second track, press play manually in the second instance of live and once you have mixed out the first instance, close that instance. Now go to preferences / midi sync and change Input, and output from APC40 to none, and then change them both back to APC40, the red rectangle should now appear around the 8x5 clips as usual. Now you can control the rest of the track with the apc40 and do the same for mixing in all subsequent tracks. This works for all connected hardware as far as i could see. Hope this helps, and if anyone else has a better solution, i would love to hear it.

Way too easy to mess that up in a live situation!

(if I'm understanding what you want to do...)

- Buy an external effect box (used Korg Kaoss Pad 2 can be found for well under $100, but anything with Delay/reverb should work).

- route your master outs to FX box.

- When you reach the climax of the first set, turn the FX wet and feedback up.

- have your set's organized so you can easily double click and open your 2nd set.

- lower the FX box's wet/feedback all the way down when ready. (this can be either sync'd or free wheeling FX, either way it will form a transition period and will give your audience a time to reflect/cheer/applaud

- start set 2!

Was thinking of doing that, some kind of a hardware looper to transition between tracks, but i cant afford one and there has to be a good software based solution. I tried using rewire to record loops to a different program but you lose the use of vsts in ableton then. Reaper has a solution that routes audio from one program into it without the need for rewire but its a virtual sound card so you cant use your hardware one at the same time from ableton so thats no good. Hardware definitely seems to be the bet way to go but i hope someone comes up with a good software based solution soon that hopefully can be midi mapped. Answers on a postcard