Ableton Forum

Trying to figure out a way to do this - here's the concept:
Since Ableton doesn't allow multiple songs to be open at once, my workaround is compiling needed songs into 1 large arrangement (using Ableton's arrangement view). I have locators at each turn in each of the songs within the arrangement, and I'd like to assign a midi pad control to certain locators - but the twist is, I'd like to re-use the pad controls. For example, say I have 4 songs in an arrangement. I have an 8-pad midi controller. I'd like to use Pad 1 to trigger 1st verse of 1st song, Pad 2 to trigger Chorus of 1st song, etc. But then for the 2nd song in the arrangement, I'd like to re-use Pad 1 for the 1st verse of the 2nd song, Pad 2 as Chorus in 2nd song, etc. Is this possible to "re-use" the pads? Maybe if the controller had different banks?

If that's not possible, is there a way to have a midi controller open different Ableton files? So essentially, it wouldn't actually do any playing/stopping/etc. action, it would just open another Ableton file?

Thanks so much...

dnuke25 wrote:Trying to figure out a way to do this - here's the concept:
Since Ableton doesn't allow multiple songs to be open at once, my workaround is compiling needed songs into 1 large arrangement (using Ableton's arrangement view). I have locators at each turn in each of the songs within the arrangement, and I'd like to assign a midi pad control to certain locators - but the twist is, I'd like to re-use the pad controls. For example, say I have 4 songs in an arrangement. I have an 8-pad midi controller. I'd like to use Pad 1 to trigger 1st verse of 1st song, Pad 2 to trigger Chorus of 1st song, etc. But then for the 2nd song in the arrangement, I'd like to re-use Pad 1 for the 1st verse of the 2nd song, Pad 2 as Chorus in 2nd song, etc. Is this possible to "re-use" the pads? Maybe if the controller had different banks?

If that's not possible, is there a way to have a midi controller open different Ableton files? So essentially, it wouldn't actually do any playing/stopping/etc. action, it would just open another Ableton file?

Thanks so much...

You could have different banks on the midi controller set so that on different banks, each pad sends a different message, or you could look into Bome's midi translator.

That allows you to use a midi message to do non-traditional thinks inside ableton. For example, I use a midi foot controller that is set so that I press a button and it will be the same as pressing the up arrow, another one is the same as pressing cmd + z for a quick undo, etc...