Ableton Forum

I reckon this is a simple one. I would very much like to have a "Key" mode, akin to the one in the Instrument Rack, added to the Audio Effect Rack, Chain section.

In this Key mode it should respond to MIDI Note Data, which will select and activate the appropriate Chain, as per setup. Obviously it will require said MIDI Note Data to be routed from another channel, so it will need to show up as a target in "MIDI To" once Key mode is selected.

There's several ways the above could be useful depending on the actual implementation. But the primary one i'm hoping for, is where the MIDI Note Data serves as a Gate Trigger. So when the Audio Effect Rack is in this new Key mode, it will have no effect on the sound passing through, untill it receives MIDI Note Data. At which point it'll switch to the appropriate Chain, and apply the settings and effects of that chain to the sound, for as long as it receives that MIDI Note Data.

If more than 1 chain is set to the same MIDI Note, or several notes are sent to the Audio Effect Rack at the same time, these multiple Chains should then activate simultaneously, which i think makes the most sense.

The result i'm thinking of is something like NI's The Finger, or Sugar Bytes Artillery. With the very big difference that since it's based on the Audio Effect Rack, you're free to use any number of effects in any configuration you please.

It should be fairly easy to add to the existing code, and should be of considerable benefit to anyone that uses Ableton Live for live performance/triggering etc. making lots of sense to the overall purpose of the software.

So please keep up the awesome work (and if it's not too much trouble, do me a solid and add the above)

You can map chain selectors to MIDI keys

- Set up your rack
- Press the chain button
- Arrange your chains across the selection zones like you would with key mapping
- Set your keyboard to the channel you want to use
- cmd+M or press the MIDI button on the top right
- Click in the chain selector at the to where the orange bar is (alternatively map it to a macro and click on teh macro in the same way)
- Press the lowest key on the keyboard you want to use
- While holding it down, press the highest key on the keyboard you want to use, then let them both go.
- Press cmd+M again
- Your MIDI keys will now move the chain selector up and down bringing different chains in and out.

In general you can map any control to a range of keys by pressing low key->high key in MIDI map mode, or in the session view you can repitch an audio loop and set its root by clicking on it and going low key->high key-> root.

Does that do what you want?

That's good knowledge/advice for sure. But I think it's only half the way.
While I haven't had the chance to test it yet, I reckon it'll "only" select the appropriate chain - not gate whether or not the devices are on for the duration of the key being pressed.
But reckon there could be a method to map that as well. Does take up a fair amount of setup though, and is still less flexible than if it was a built in feature.

Still thanks a lot mate

Ah, I see what you mean - you probably want a variation on this technique then https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EP4Rc-opDw . If you use clip envelopes you can make the FX momentary.

This guy did it with an APC but you can do the same with keyboard mapping. The only issue is that if you have keys mapped to clips it overrides the MIDI keys so you can't play an instrument with them, but the same would be true if you mapped keys to chain selectors I think. I don't know if there's a way round that one but it might not be a problem for you.