Ableton Forum

Hi guys, this is my first post ever. I have been using Ableton for years now, and got Push about 6 months ago. I love it and it has changed the way I work in deep ways, with much to explore still. That said, I have a live performance issue I need to solve and can't really find an answer. To give it some context, my work has been gaining recognition in the São Paulo scene for the last year or so, but performing live is just now on the cards. I was invited to play on a huge public festival in the city's downtown that millions attend over hundreds of stages by a collective that just did a Boiler Room session. Kinda crazy and daunting to perform for the first time ever like this, but too good an opportunity to refuse, right?

My live set is going pretty well, but here are two issues that are bugging me. It's basically me rearranging loops that form a handful of sections. I leave my drums in midi so I can go and step sequence and finger drum on the fly. Most times it works very well, but sometimes it doesn't and I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong:

1)When moving from session to note in my drum track, I will step sequence fills on the fly. Most times this works fine, the cursor's running and I can improvise at will. Other times, the clip's still playing, and I can finger drum just fine, but the cursors not running, and if I input notes on the sequencer it stays still just the same. Conflicting behaviors, but all I seem to do is go from session to note with my drum track selected.

2) When I go from session mode to note mode in my drum channel and start finger drumming, I will overdub a passage that I think hits the spot. Sometimes it overdubs just fine, but others it will stop the drum clip and record a new clip with just the new drumming. Needless to say it sounds like a trainwreck. All I do is hit the midi overdub button when playing, can't figure out what's wrong

Can you guys help me? This is the last issue I have to solve before playing, and it could make a world of difference during the set.
Much appreciated

In thinking about what could be causing your issues here I considered what button presses might mimic the behavior you're experiencing.

One seems very simple (though it could still be a bug I guess). In the heat of a live performance you are probably hitting buttons quickly and getting into things, yes?
So when you hit record to overdub new drums sounds it's very likely you are somehow activating the "New" button at the same time. This will duplicate all of the playing clips and create a new blank clip for the selected one. So when you record, it only leaves you with the part you just played rather than overdubbing onto what's already there. For this one you may want to consider getting a foot pedal to activate record to avoid hitting the "New" button if that is indeed what is happening.

The first problem, being consistent with flying fingers sounds like you could possibly be hitting "add track" or "add effect" when you are switching between session and note modes. I'm not 100% sure on this particular behavior but if the Push went into a browse mode it's possible you wouldn't be able to enter steps in the step sequencer.

All of this is hypothetical but it seems to make sense, especially the one regarding your overdub problem. Maybe just try to be careful what buttons you're hitting when you're in the midst of a live performance.

If it happens often you may want to consider adding something like a Novation Launchpad or APC 20/40 etc... so you have one device like the APC40 to launch clips and the Push can be dedicated to playing the pads for the performance aspect. Otherwise just be careful...
.... and congratulations and good luck on the Show!

Another possibility could be that when you jump to session mode you are triggering a clip that is on a different scene (Scene.1) from the one you were previously playing (Scene.2).

This jumps the focus so when you select the track you want to do some finger drumming on you can still hear the clip playing from Scene.2 but your focus is on Scene.1. This behaviour could be the culprit in both of your Scenarios.

1) You move focus to a different scene by triggering a clip then use the Selection Control buttons to jump to your finger drumming Track it displays the wrong track.

2) Same as above but the clip slot you land on in Scene.1 is empty so when you hit the Overdue button it starts recording a new clip and stops the old one.


hope all of that made sense.

Thanks for the input, guys.

It seems to be more a case of reply #2. I rehearsed the set yesterday paying special attention so I didn't hit any unwanted buttons. This scenario came up a couple of times, and I noticed that it happened when I pushed the track selection button under the knobs for the drum track. I didn't quite get the exact behaviour that caused this, in the heat of the performance and all, but it indeed seems track focus could be the culprit.

Sorry if the answer is implied in the post, but how can I make sure that when I move from session to note, the clip focused on note mode is the one currently playing?

If you hold select and press the clip that you want to be focused while in session view before switching to note mode you should be golden. By holding select you can select a clip without triggering it (if I remember correctly).

Airyck wrote:If you hold select and press the clip that you want to be focused while in session view before switching to note mode you should be golden. By holding select you can select a clip without triggering it (if I remember correctly).

Nice! This will make the set so much more fun to play and much more stress free. Can't wait to try it out, thanks.