Ableton Forum

Hello All,

When I'm using Ableton's Looper and I've pressed the one button (multi-purpose transport button) to start it in the initial record-mode, I'd like to use the one button to set it to continue recording until the next bar (or whatever the boundary is) and then _Stop_.

Background: For looping I've been using Mobius as a VST plugin to run 3 different loopers, each with their own 'one big button'. I'm trying to migrate to using Ableton's Looper (so I can eventually move on from 32-bit), and hoping to replicate everything I could previously do in Mobius. In Mobius, I was able to use a triple tap to do exactly what I want in this case, but that doesn't seem to be available in Looper.

Recapping the obvious: When you're in Record mode, a single tap will set it to switch to Overdub mode at the next boundary. When you're in Overdub, a single tap will switch to Play mode at the next boundary, or a double-tap will witch to Stop at the next boundary. What I want, ideally, is to be able to go from Record to Stop using the one button.

Musically this happens if, for example, I want to record a live solo over looped material, and save that solo off to bring back later in the song.
I'm playing a two handed instrument, controlling the loops only with a foot controller, and in this case I'd like to play something else at the downbeat after the solo. I want to record something once, and somehow go directly (at the bar line) from record mode to stop mode.

So I thought I'd poll the community to see if there are ideas on how to pull this off. I know I can map some other midi control to the stop button of the Looper, but that doesn't suit my purpose because it requires an extra midi control button. As I mentioned, I have multiple Loopers, and with limited midi control buttons, it would be great if I could find a solution using the one button I already have (currently mapped to the one MPT button of that Looper).

Is there any way to map a double-tap or triple-tap of a midi note/cc/whatever to a control in Ableton? Or another idea for how to pull this off?

Thanks for your help,
Stokes.

Double-tap to stop.
But if you have one more stomp/footswitch available you'd better off directly mapping the little stop button imho.

[jur] wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 09, 2020 9:53 am

Double-tap to stop.
But if you have one more stomp/footswitch available you'd better off directly mapping the little stop button imho.

Thanks for the reply. Double tap doesn't stop for me when I'm in Record mode. Any number of taps during Record cues Overdub mode to start on the next boundary, and then once I'm in Overdub mode, double-tap will stop.

I'm using Looper in Live 9, but intend to upgrade to 10 (especially if that solved my problem). In Live 10's Looper, will a double-tap while in Record mode transition to Stop at the next boundary?

Nope, it behaves the same way, my mistake.
So back to the 2nd suggestion: use one more footswitch to map the little stop button.

Or you could use a midi app like Max (standalone) or Midi Pipe to to do whatever to your midi before it enters Live.

[jur] wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 09, 2020 3:59 pm

Or you could use a midi app like Max (standalone) or Midi Pipe to to do whatever to your midi before it enters Live.

Ok, thanks for checking. I've never used those kinds of tools. Can they detect a double-tap or triple-tap (e.g. on a midi note) and do something different with it?

I use a custom foot controller that can pretty much send any sequence of CCs or notes I like when I press a button, but it doesn't really have multi-tap detection.

---
Update: I tried this with MidiPipe, and I haven't been able to figure out how to detect a double-tap. This seems like a cool tool, very flexible, the kind of thing I would love if I could figure it out... but I can't find any good documentation on how it works.

I did get this to work with MidiPipe! The author gave me enough of a tip to get started using the AppleScript component, and I wrote something that would detect a triple tap on one note, and output a different note (in addition) when the triple tap occurs. I mapped the different note to my stop button, and now I have the feature I was after!

I have to run MidiPipe always, whenever I run Ableton Live, but it works just as I need it to. I have a little more tweaking to do to make sure my midi routing is working right and that I haven't introduced any lag, but it looks like it's going to work.

I'll share my AppleScript code if that's of interest to anyone.

Thanks for the tip, Jur!

--Stokes