Ableton Forum

This would be a killer feature IMO!!!

I think most of the functionality is already in Looper and it would just need a new mode.

Specifically the record overdub feature could be applied such that instead of continuously adding the input to the looped content, it would overwrite it.

What is so cool about a look-ahead looper compared to a regular one?

The workflow gets turned on its head, or rather on its feet.

Now, when you want to work with a looper you first decide you want to loop something, then start the looper and then play. And if your playing sucked you do it over again.....and again, and again......

With a look ahead looper, the looper is always recording in sort of a wrapped around rolling shutter manner. So you just play and play and at the point where you think: Finally, this take was awesome! You turn the looper to play - and there it is: this awesome section looping for you.

This may sound like not much of a change, but for everyone liking to play live, no matter if instrumentalist or DJ this could be a huge addition to their sound with a lot less beforehand thinking involved that just takes away from the actual task of playing.

From looking at what Looper can already do, I think all the programming is already in place, it only needs to be enabled.

i like this idea ^^

you can sort of do this already, but Looper is a fatally flawed device so I tend not to use it.

But here's how you set up a "lookahead" looper using Live's Looper

1. put looper on a channel
2. set its output selector to "never"
3. map the feedback control to a macro called "loop ON"
4. map the "mute" button of that chain to the same macro "loop ON"
5. make a parallel chain called "straight"

now set the looper going in overdub mode and with the "Loop ON" macro at 0%, play for a while and when you decide you have a loop you want to keep turn the "Loop ON" to 100%

the previous X bars you just played are now looping.

+1

Angstrom wrote:you can sort of do this already, but Looper is a fatally flawed device so I tend not to use it.

But here's how you set up a "lookahead" looper using Live's Looper

1. put looper on a channel
2. set its output selector to "never"
3. map the feedback control to a macro called "loop ON"
4. map the "mute" button of that chain to the same macro "loop ON"
5. make a parallel chain called "straight"

now set the looper going in overdub mode and with the "Loop ON" macro at 0%, play for a while and when you decide you have a loop you want to keep turn the "Loop ON" to 100%

the previous X bars you just played are now looping.

HA!
Just when I was thinking about a workaround the forum comes to the rescue again

But I'm not sure if your explanation is missing a step, or if this is the deeply flawed nature you spoke of. Because when I do this, the recorded stuff gets looped as desired, but gets louder with each pass after I turned the Loop On macro to 100%.

TomViolenz wrote:

Angstrom wrote:you can sort of do this already, but Looper is a fatally flawed device so I tend not to use it.

But here's how you set up a "lookahead" looper using Live's Looper

1. put looper on a channel
2. set its output selector to "never"
3. map the feedback control to a macro called "loop ON"
4. map the "mute" button of that chain to the same macro "loop ON"
5. make a parallel chain called "straight"

now set the looper going in overdub mode and with the "Loop ON" macro at 0%, play for a while and when you decide you have a loop you want to keep turn the "Loop ON" to 100%

the previous X bars you just played are now looping.

HA!
Just when I was thinking about a workaround the forum comes to the rescue again

But I'm not sure if your explanation is missing a step, or if this is the deeply flawed nature you spoke of. Because when I do this, the recorded stuff gets looped as desired, but gets louder with each pass after I turned the Loop On macro to 100%.

perhaps I missed a step, or explained it badly. I'm damn tired today.

here's a rack
http://angstromnoises.com/?attachment_id=909

you'll need to activate the looper's Overdub mode to set it going - but then you can just turn the Macro up when you need it to sustain what you have decided to keep.

Thanks, but the link in the attachment leads to a page with lots of numbers and nothing else

But actually I have solved it now perhaps a bit differently than your solution, but your tip with having a straight second chain and the output mode set to never put me on a good path

Here is what I did and which is unfortunately only workable because I have Bomes which can send several Midi messages when only one button is pressed and depending on toggle mode (which is unfortunately necessary since you can't macro map the Play and Overdub buttons only Midi map them)

So here it goes:

1 Looper
2 group
3 second (empty chain)
4 one macro mapped to both chain mutes with the ranges inverted for one of them
5 one Midi message assigned to overdub a different one to play
(which in my Bomes set up are sent depending on which toggle state my button is)

When Overdub is active the Looper chain is muted, when Play is active the straight chain is muted.

The settings on the Looper are. Output: Never, Feedback: 0% Overdub mode.

Now the button toggles between the straight signal and the signal as it was just recorded into the Looper (with constant volume) ---> Perfect look ahead Looper

If you "save link as" to save the file ang-lookahead-looper.adg you can just drag that into Live.
Turns out that .adg files are XML. How nice and hackable.

Angstrom wrote:If you "save link as" to save the file ang-lookahead-looper.adg you can just drag that into Live.
Turns out that .adg files are XML. How nice and hackable.

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Ableton MajorVersion="4" MinorVersion="9.0_305" SchemaChangeCount="19" Creator="Ableton Live 9.2.3b4" Revision="c642f59d8d6f98969cf4b2d7287eb3effd01b0ea">

Interesting. I did not know that.

But your rack behaves just as I had described earlier. When looping the volume rises with each pass. Which makes sense I guess since the input is still being added in overdub mode. So you would have to somehow still switch to play with the macro (or per Midi like in my approach above)

*bookmark* for later