Ableton Forum

Hello.

I am using Ableton live to run the click, backing tracks, and lights for my band.

I want to use session view to build my bands set for the night. Each scene would be a different song and control the various portions of the show. The first clip holding the click track, second controlling midi dmx lights, third playing backing tracks, and so forth for each song. The problem is, my songs have time signature changes. A song may switch from 4/4 to 6/8 to 3/4 etc.

Is this possible within the individual scenes, or will I have to build my set as one giant, long, thing in arrangement view and write all the automaton there?

For instance I have mapped my whole song out in arrangement view including time signature changes. When I pull the track to session view, it just defaults to whatever time the scene is set to start at. The entire thing is 4/4 for example, not 4/4>7/4>4/4.

Please help!

You can change time signature by naming a clip in the master and triggering a scene but as far as I know you cannot record a time signature change within a clip just as you cannot record a master fader change in a channel clip... it's a master function that you need to use the arrangement for.

There could be a way that I am not aware of but that's as I understand it anyway.

The way to do this is every time you have a tempo change or a time signature change, you create a new scene.

you can end up with 20-30 scenes for one song, but it doesn't matter, I generally color code my songs.

To make a scene trigger the next scene, just put a midi clip with the note you use to trigger, and route the midi track to the Iac Driver bus.

let's say your first scene has 16 bars in 3/4, make a midi clip of 16 bars (and make sure your midi clip is in 3/4!), and on the 'and' of the 4th beat of the last bar put the note that triggers next scene.


Make sure Iac Driver is set to input ->remote, and output -> track in the midi prefs

Hope this helps

Thank you for your replies!

I was afraid this was going to be the answer.

This is a very cumbersome way to get something simple accomplished. Hopefully this functionality will come in the future.

Nevertheless, I think I can work with this.

Thank you!

Really it's not that complicated, and in my case, even if the song is all in 4/4, I like to separate it by sections. It's easier for rehearsals, I can practice by sections.

A feature I have been asking for years is the tempo automation, to be able to play songs with accelerando, ritardando, and other irregular tempo movements...