Ableton Forum

hi!
i have dozen of songs written and arranged in live's arrangement view. now i got this gig in three weeks and i want to play these songs from live, live. but then i'll have to open each song one after another and lose continous mix...
so, is there a way? can i open several live sets at a time? or do i have to trasfer all song into one live set (session view)...
please help!!
what do i do oh what a world what a world?

Try opening another Live .. click the icon again.

If you are lucky and your songs dont make too much use of Rewire it will work!!! (you will still see a rewire host error on load of the second instance))

some people have a problem withe their audio card clashing as it is requested by both apps, some people get a midi error.

Me .. it works fine

some songs take a mysterious age to load, a very few dont load at all. and I've never figured out why.

Try it, it might work for you - I tend to color both apps different for differentian ... man it is unbeleivable funky when it works. Clashing my songs together in 2 session views is unbeatable.

mirza wrote:can i open several live sets at a time? or do i have to trasfer all song into one live set (session view)

I would do it all in one live instance. I haven't tried to open several instances, but it feels like a wrong thing to do.

I suggest you bounce the clips which have effects (or synths) that you don't need to tweak in realtime.

1.

I start by making the arrangement in session view....

2.

I dump it down to arrangement view so I can playback to show the
drummer and listen to it for possible changes....

3.

Then I play with the arrangement a little....

4.

Then I check again and make sure I can play what's in the arrangement
simply by going thru the scenes..... Remember you can remove stop
buttons with Ctrl + E

5.

Copy and Paste all the songs into the one......

a)

I don't automate params from the arrangement view (unless it's things I'll
be tweaking live to demo how I'll do it)

b)

I don't add effects to each track other than an EQ3.

c)

I have the following sends....

Drum send with compression
Bass send with settings for my Bass guitar sound
Filter send with AutoFilter, EQ, Chorus, Reverb
Delay send with Filter delay, Simple delay, Ping Pong.

Each on/off switch assigned to midi buttons and keyboard

d)

I use clip envelopes to do any fades or send changes that are needed to
be standard each time it's played. i.e. For a fade-in I'll copy the clip and
make a version that has the volume envelope tweaked, then I'll play the
scene with the full volume version before it loops.


Now.... Seeing all my tracks have the same lack of effects whereby
everything is in sends, or pre-bounced.... I'm able to put one song on-top
of another without needing any major changes.

Now I can play down thru the scenes, go from song to song, all from within
session view. I can select things from previous or future tunes as a DJ
would, and I can always add a copy of something on another track if I need
to crossfade.

If there is a synth part that needs a lot of knob tweaking I can always
assign to the synth plugin, bidule or whatever.... Rather than using effects
in the Live track.

I can get pretty much the same product as spending hours tweaking in
arrangement view, however it's all live, it takes less CPU (not using
shitloads of effects for different tunes), etc etc


If I was able to tweak effects inside the sends from the clip envelope I
would..... Lack of a feature there..... Only reason I don't add effects to
each track is because, each song is different and that's way too much menu
selections and changes to go thru live.... Everything has to be ready rather
then u trying to setup an EQ sound b4 hitting play on the next thing....
No way I'd have 20 different effects in each track....

I did try a diagonal approach, whereby each tune was below and to the right
of the last, giving me more tracks that I can put song specific effects on,
but CPU seemed to be an issue..... might have to test that again now I
know it better.....

If you're doing stuff live you really need to sort out a method that works in
the studio and on the stage, that's what has taken me more time then
anything else..... If you've written a bunch of arrangements with hundreds
of tweaks and adjustments, it might be better to just render them in parts
and DJ it.

-Ben

MrYellow thanks for that info, its very helpful (I'm facing the same thing as mirza).

You didn't mention: how do you handle differences in tempo, song-to-song? Do you change it with the mouse? Can this be automated like fades, with a clip envelope?

In Live4 u can put 100bpm as the scene name and it will change....

I have Live3 tho....

Personally.... I'm thinking of getting a springy and non-springy expression
pedal..... um.... how to explain....

1 pedal would set the tempo.... the other would have a spring built into it
so it has a resting center postion and rocks back and forth from there.
Altering the tempo by just a small amount, with the CC output being scaled
in Bidule.

That way I can speed up and slow down easy on the spot while it springs
back to exactly where I left it when I release the pedal.....

Just an idea I'm toying with..... Cause I like bands that modify the tempo a
lot to build tension...... Imagine myself being able to quickly slow down at
the end of a bar and be back to full tempo on 1.... or gradually slow down
and speed up over time while having my hands busy and while being able
to quickly get back to the "default" tempo.

Normally.....

In arrangement view you can set the bounds for the tempo, then assign
midi so that a full knob rotation will only change between those bounds.
Thus you can adjust the bounds for really fine or more course tempo
adjustment.

-Ben

In Live4 u can put 100bpm as the scene name and it will change....

that solves that... thanks!

the live tempo control idea is a good one. thats one area that hasn't been explored much in computer-based music, AFAIK - either recorded or live.