Ableton Forum

Hi everyone!
This is my first post on this forum, but I use Ableton for a wile now...
I had no problems so far. I actually learned everything by myself, san build in lesions.

No I have a serious problem.
I bought a lauchpad two weeks ago.
Before that I was working mostly in arrangement view.
I recorded whole album with my band into Ableton and I mixed all tracks.
Now I want to play this sessions live in a Session view.
We want to have open forms. That means that I'm responsible for the form of the song.
The problem is that things are not that simple.
We have crazy time signatures and odd number of periods in one section and we want to have a free flow
in the songs, so we go to next section on cue.
In some cases I wasn't able to program Launch parameters so that things stay in sync and within peroids.
I want to launch everything from master channel (scenes)

For example:

I want to control just two channels (one is MIDI for my Slim Phatty and the other is just percussion click for the drummer)

A section is 23/8 and 4 bars long.
A' is actually the same but has a follow action set to 4.0.0 (four bars) which brings as to B section and I set Launch quantization to four bars. With this method I can build up things since I don't have to worry for transition to next section. And I also have set new sections to send a program change to my Slim Phatty.

Here is the problem...
I want to be able to hit next scene within 4 bars of section A (anywhere in this period) so that A section plays to the end and than
A' comes directly on 1st beat! Than A' is set to follow to the next section after 4 bars, so I can have free hands to do something more interesting than switching sections.

Well, this doesn't work this way. If I want to switch from A to A' I have to set A's quantization to 1 bar, so I can launch A' on the last bar of A. This works, but I want to be able to launch it within 4 bars so that this 4 bars are played to the end and than A'.

Ok this is not that big problem, but the big one comes....

If I'm really lucky, than we are in section B (follow actions works fine if the Legato is off and if I don't have any quantization set for section that follows. )
B section is 4 bars of 4/4. Here we have 20 clips of MIDI CCs for my slim phatty, all in 4 bars of 4/4 and set to Legato, so the form stays fixed. I mess around with this clips and click channel stays in one clip and looping.

So when I want to go to the last period of B section (which is set to follow to C section after 4 bars and I has quantization setting to 4 bars) it is a NIGHTMARE!!!!!!!!
I tried everything that comes to mind... I tried all kind of quantizations, Legato (which is not compatible with follow actions)
scene time signatures, oh and YES, I always set clips time signatures. Than I tried different global settings of quantizations and
result is so unpredictable that it drives me mad!
The last period (clip) of section B should start on first beat and than after 4 bars to the C section which is 7/8.
It is almost impossible to get that last clip of B on first beat.
I don't understand why is this so complex to program.
Is ableton so confused because of odd time signatures or because of Legato clips...

This should be much easier to work around.

So you got the idea. I just want to launch next clip within previous one, but I want that previous one plays himself to the and then the next one.

Did I missed something important here???

If anyone has any suggestions I would be really thankful to hear!

Thanx in advance!

Vitja

PS.
I hope this wasn't covered in older posts.

Ok, I will ask this like this:

If I have a clip A which contains 5 bars of 7/8 (a cycle) that is looping , is it possible to program Launch box of the next clip B (cycle) that contains let say 6 bars of 9/8 in a way that when I press it's play button it will start to play when previous clip comes to the end of cycle (5 bars of 7/8) and on first beat. But I want to be free of when I hit the next scene launch button.
If I hit it in 3rd bar or if I hit it in 5th bar of A , A should play 'till the end of it's cycle and than B clip comes in on beat one.
I tried this for two weeks now and I watched all kind of tutorials on net, but without luck.

So who can explain this to me. Is it possible or is this something that nobody thought about, or is Ableton just for 4/4 or for songs with fixed time signatures.

Please help me, I have a band waiting for me to fix this.
And I'm sorry for previous post, that was to confusing. I had a hell of a night in search of this solution and my english is so so...

I don't usually like suggesting this, because it requires external software, but with the specifics of your situation it might be the best advice.

You can install or use an internal midi router (or external if you have the spare jacks) to send te output of a channel back into Live. (The output midi channel should probably be something that won't conflict with playing)

Then map specific Notes to the desired scenes that you'd like triggered.

Now, for example, make a clip on the scene you will trigger first. The clip will be the length you want the scene to remain playing for. At the end of the clip have a note that will trigger the scene you want to play next.


Alternatives are:

Use Arrangement View, or a combination of Arrangement and Session view. Arrangement View even has markers that can be triggered, similar to scenes but looping is hell. If you do this method, get really well acquainted with the Back to Arrange button.

Look into Clyphx. It might be the easiest answer to your problem and the solution to a few future ones.

Thanx allot!!!!!!!!!!

I just downloaded Clyphx.
I think I can find solution here.
Anyway it seem great tool for live.

I still don't understand that it is impossible to launch clips in a way I want to.
This is most common way that band wants to play live with click and MIDI sequencers.

Tomorrow I will try it out!

No, this just sucks!
ClyphX is great! but it doesn't solve the problem.
It is all about quantization. I really don't understand this.
How couldn't this be implemented???
One bar of 7/8 means 7/8 not 4/4.
Eh, this just sucks.
I was doing whole project in Live just because of it's "open form to sessions".
I'm really sad about this.

you can of course program in arrangement time signature changes and odd measures.

I'm really not completely sure what you are trying to achieve - is it in session view in a jamming kind of way?

I tried also time signatures in master channel but this doesn't change anything only the metronome.
I was sure that this will solve my problem but nothing...

So I will try to explain my problem as clear as possible.

If we have a clip (lets call it A) which is 4 bars long and one bar is 7/8. This is A's length (not that I'm looping it four times around). So one cycle of A is 4x 7/8, right.
And we have a second clip (just below A), we will call it B.
B's one cycle is 4 bars of 9/8, Ok.
Now, I want to play my A clip for X times. This is up to performance... It could be 23X or 2X it doesn't matter.
So this clip is looping. looping,looping. And than I want to go to the B clip. So Let say that we are somewhere in the middle of
a clip A (it shouldn't matter where!!!). Than I decide that this will be our LAST A and when it comes to the end of it's cycle I want to go smoothly to clip B on 1st beat without any quantization. With this I mean that I can press play button of a clip B wherever the A is playing and A is playing to the end and than B. I don't want to skip any part of clip A. I just want a perfect transition and without needing to press play button on the last 1/8. This is the only way that my clips are working fine, If I'm precise enough.

Legato is not what I want. It masses up follow actions!
And I think follow actions are the problem here.

Please, help me with this nightmare!

Thanx!

What if you put your A clip in scene 1, name the scene 1 '7/8'.
Put clip B in scene 2, name the scene 2 '9/8'.
Set global quantization to 1 Bar.
Triggering scenes should work as expected (waiting for the end of the bar AND changing the time signature).

Hope i got it. Good luck.

As I said, I tried that already. It doesn't work.
It ads one 1/8 or something like it...

I tried everything.

I'm lost.

Sorry but did you really rename your scenes as i suggested, and trigged the clips by triggering the scene ? naming a scene */* changes the global time signature.

chapelier fou wrote:Sorry but did you really rename your scenes as i suggested, and trigged the clips by triggering the scene ? naming a scene */* changes the global time signature.

I was going to paste exactly the same suggestion as chapelier fou, but he posted while I was still confirming that it worked as I thought. I get the same result - it works perfectly.

But make sure that global quantize is set to one bar.

YESSSSS! IT WORKS!!!!

I did some experiments.
What I did wrong was that I thought that the quantization of a clip has something to do with launching scenes. But
for that you have to use global quantization, right? And make sure that you have the right time signatures in master channel.
Only thing here is that master channel has ho follow actions. But for this I can find solution in ClyphX.

Thank you soooooooo much guys!
I'm dancing and playing stuff at the moment and this thing brings me to life!
It would be so damn strange if this wouldn't be possible, so I was sure that I'm doing something wrong, but I tried almost everything except this settings.
Oh, I can't tell you how frustrating this was! I feel so stupid right now, but is good
So, best thing is to relay on global quantization when you have a change in time signatures for next scene.
I just expected that settings in Launch box are enough.

Great, now I can finally start to work!

Thanx again, and I hope I wont bother you again!

Good day!

Vitja

You're Dancing ? ... to 23/8 !?

that takes some skills

Hahahaha! Yes! You can dance to 23/8 if you know how to divide it
We have a project based on fu**ed up grooves. It used to be dance oriented music, but we call it something like can't dance . I'm not sure how to say this in english

Good news !!!
Enjoy your d-d-d-d-d-dance !