Ableton Forum

I often have this problem:

I'm on stage (imagine I was). I have Live running some loops and I have a clip that I would like to trigger spontaneously when the next 16 bars start. So I set everything up, like transpose, etc.

But when the next 16 bars start, I haven't yet clicked the play button. That means that the clip isn't played as a audible "marker" for the next segment of the song. It is started 1/4 note after, depending on the quantization.

I would like to have the clip playing in time even if I click it too late.
So it would be started a little after the "1" of the bar. It would start playback not at the beginning of the WAV file, but with an offset so the loop is still in time.

How can I make this?

practice hitting on time... Live is a sequencing instrument computer program. it doesn't think for you. how can Live interpret whether you're plain late by accident or on purpose?

if you're late and you need the remainder of the sound file, you can open the sample view, drag the play head to (or shift + click on) the desired postition, and be sure to hit play/your controller on time.

or maybe i misunderstood your problem.


still looking for a scale plug for my guitar

I think Live doesn't need to interpret whether I'm late by accident or by purpose.

If the quantization of a clip is set to "Bar" and you hit the clip 20 ms after the beginning of a bar, it's not by purpose.

Live should do the following:
If a clip is triggered up to 1 beat after the beginning of 4 bars, it should be played and not queued. If it is triggered later, it will be queued until the quantization is reached.

You aren't supposed to be hitting it dead on. You are supposed to hit it before so its cued up to go.

That function would be nice for certain things but would definitely hinder other operations with multiple loop triggering (and of various lengths)

would like to have the clip playing in time even if I click it too late.

Live isn't a time-machine.....

Sure in other programs when you're playing MIDI with quantise the note is
moved back to be intime...... Live.... However.... is called "Live".... it's
somewhat designed for "Live" use..... "Live" you can't move back in time
and start from some place in the past.

Sure you could legato it and start from halfway thru the loop..... but then
you'd miss the downbeat and it'd sound crap in most sitations anyway.

I'd hate to have quantise set to 4 bars, hit something 1 bar into a 4 bar
segment and have it start playing right away.... This would be totally the
wrong thing.

-Ben

Why not have ALL your parts running all the time, and instead of bringing stuff in by triggering clips, you do it with the channel Speaker On buttons (mapped to qwerty/midi if you like.)

All your parts will then be "in cycle" and you will be arranging with the mutes. Worked in Jamaica 30 years ago

what you can try is when you start a set/song, launch one clip per track you're using, so that all the clips in a scene will be synched (you can put empty midi clips and audio clips with gain set to 0).
then for all the other clips in your track, set legato to ON, and clip quantization to whatever suits you (it can be 'none').
what will happen is that all the clips will stay synched, and will be launched at the very moment you click on them.
though, the side effect, is that if you use long audio clips (if you're DJing or so), the clips may not always start at the beginning (cause legato is ON).

timewastin wrote:I often have this problem:

I'm on stage (imagine I was). I have Live running some loops and I have a clip that I would like to trigger spontaneously when the next 16 bars start. So I set everything up, like transpose, etc.

But when the next 16 bars start, I haven't yet clicked the play button. That means that the clip isn't played as a audible "marker" for the next segment of the song. It is started 1/4 note after, depending on the quantization.

I would like to have the clip playing in time even if I click it too late.
So it would be started a little after the "1" of the bar. It would start playback not at the beginning of the WAV file, but with an offset so the loop is still in time.

How can I make this?

Hit the play before the end of the last bar and set quantisation to one bar. IT will launch or change on the first bar of hte next scene/clip.

If you are always late by a little bit you will just have to learn to move your hands quicker or change the way you organise your livesets...