Triggering bass lines with a single trigger. No click.

cutle1 · Post by **cutle1** » Wed Dec 21, 2005 6:43 pm

I have a sequence of pitches (for a bass line) ... C A F G C . I'm using a nice bass pad sound.

I want to set up my drummer with a single trigger that plays the next note in the sequence (in effect, allowing him to play bass). Once the note is triggered, the note down event is carried until the drummer triggers the next note. We aren't playing to click.

I want to use Live to accomplish this but I am a little miffed. This will really open my musical possibiltities. Our music breathes a lot, and we don't like playing to a click. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

cheers

John

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Wed Dec 21, 2005 7:37 pm

Oh man, I've been trying to figure this out for you. I was just going to say "oh, use follow actions, of course" but it's not that simple, Im afraid. Could you tell us a bit more about your setup - how do you use Live in a live situation? That may help me narrow down the list of workarounds.

cutle1 · Post by **cutle1** » Wed Dec 21, 2005 7:54 pm

Machinate wrote:Oh man, I've been trying to figure this out for you. I was just going to say "oh, use follow actions, of course" but it's not that simple, Im afraid. Could you tell us a bit more about your setup - how do you use Live in a live situation? That may help me narrow down the list of workarounds.

Thank you so much for trying to figure this out. Let me tell you more about my set-up. I use Live with a MicroKorg and some soft synths. On a couple of our tunes, we send a click to our drummer so we can trigger backing tracks. He taps in the temp for the tune, and we trigger clips ( a combination of midi and audio clips) using a midi foot controller. This is very limiting for a couple of our songs ... which feature tempo shifts, and a lot of loose breakdowns. We want to integrate these sections with our more structured Live compositions to click.

It would be easy to just play the bass parts, but we've all got our hands full. The idea is to let someone simply tap their foot for each bass note change. We've tried using a Studio Logic foot pedal controller, and actually play the parts, but this is a bit much with all the parts we've got going on. So the idea is to use a single foot tap to trigger each new note. Funny how the Keep It Simple philosophy can be way more complcated! Hope this helps.

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Wed Dec 21, 2005 8:00 pm

John, unfortunately I've got a ton of work to do tonight, otherwise I would have explored this plugin fully:
http://asseca-pt.net/nicfit/notequeue.html
-I once found it through this site:
http://www.calebblake.com/energyxt/

Basically you put it into record mode, and it records all incoming midi. Take it out of record mode and it will play that midi back, but with your velocity and timing, with any incoming midi notes.

Quick testing tells me that it might not work properly in live, though.

Hope this helps

DeadlyKungFu · Post by **DeadlyKungFu** » Wed Dec 21, 2005 8:12 pm

maybe an arpeggiator could be synced to the drummer's trigger, then make the arp pattern to be the notes you want to play.

dunno, I'm at work and don't have Live with me...

telekom · Post by **telekom** » Wed Dec 21, 2005 11:20 pm

After lots of thinking and typing stuff and starting again and having complicated thoughts... maybe the simplest way is to buy one of those cheap 2nd hand Yamaha drum pad units (DD5 or DD6, allegedly on ebay for $20 upwards) and use each of the pads to trigger a different note. I use my SR16 for triggering synth notes sometimes, but the big pads on these cheapo units are better for your big ugly drummer and his big ugly drumsticks.

Sorry drummers. No offence.

polemans · Post by **polemans** » Wed Dec 21, 2005 11:37 pm

i have been trying to do this for quite a while now, unfortunately it's not simple, but it is possible have a look here:

http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic. ... highlight=

hoffman2k came up with a workaround for me but its very time consuming.

1 song could need upwards of 512 scenes , (and thats just for 16 bars x 8 using a 4 note sequence per bar), plus, all the notes will have to be sequenced individually in a seperate clip window.
If you find a simpler way please let me know, i could really use it...
alternatively, buy a 'drumkat turbo' for your drummer, this does exactly what we are asking. you can slave live via midi and trigger samples or vst's and not be tied to a click.. unfortunately i can't get one here in france otherwise i would not hesitate an instant....voila

http://www.alternatemode.com/drumkat.shtml

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Wed Dec 21, 2005 11:49 pm

hehe, funny, I thought the solution was simple: Get EnergyXT, load up that plugin and use it for its intended purpose? How much is Energy XT, anyways? 39 euros! Yes indeed.

I'll test it out when I get my serial

hambone1 · Post by **hambone1** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 12:06 am

Try these out:

http://www.arbitermt.co.uk/studiologic/slmp117.htm

http://www.arbitermt.co.uk/studiologic/slmp113.htm

The cheap Behringer FCB1010 could do a similar thing, too.

Choosing which note to play may be too challenging for a drummer, though...

I play live Impulse percussion with a Yamaha DD-55 percussion controller. Some of my Impulse patches are pitched (marimba, synths, etc) across the 8 pads and 2 foot pedals.

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Sat Dec 24, 2005 12:13 am

hey there. I'd avoid more midi controllers - you'd miss out on this:

Just a quick bump for EnergyXT - I loaded XT in a midi track, inserted the nF_NoteQueue plugin in XT, armed the track, armed NoteQueue and it worked right out of the bat!!!
It saves the notes as a file on your hard drive, so you can back up the data if you want

This IS COOOOL!

Imagine having the most beautiful melodic line, and then stepping through it at will. Like step recording on hardware, but it can be sequenced! I can even use live's own arpeggiator to step through the patterns, heeheeeheeee!!!

You know what else you could do, mid set? Imagine that your drummer is playing along, you feel like doing a brand new bassline - toggle the "rec" button with your midi controller, record a new pattern onto the NoteQueue while you're improvising, and he can play it rhythmically the way he likes, a split second after you played the original line - you can even do chases like that

I wouldn't normally be this excited about this - it's after all pretty basic midi stuff, but it's just so simple to hook up, automate and such, and that makes it a winner, imo.

telekom · Post by **telekom** » Sat Dec 24, 2005 1:03 am

Hi machinate,
I'm very moved by your enthusiasm but I don't understand your description... could you possibly spell it out a bit for us stragglers? (OK just for me then!)

M

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Sat Dec 24, 2005 1:31 am

Uhm, okay, the nF_NoteQueue sits in the midi stream, and has two functions: In one mode it records all incoming midi, and places it in a queue.

In the other mode it plays through all these notes one by one, as the plugin receives midi notes from the incoming midi stream.

So you can "nail that solo" by playing just a single note on the keyboard, since the plugin will automatically play it back at the pitch it was originally recorded at - bring your own rhythm

You can stream your favourite midi keyboard solo into the plugin and freak it like that

hambone1 · Post by **hambone1** » Sat Dec 24, 2005 12:03 pm

Kinda like my son's toy Casio keyboard. He can play any note he wants, but it plays the sequence instead.

Drummer-proof!

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Sat Dec 24, 2005 1:23 pm

hambone1 wrote:Drummer-proof!

More like single-pad, fun-proof... you remember fun, dontcha?

telekom · Post by **telekom** » Sat Dec 24, 2005 1:25 pm

Thanks machinate, merry xmas.

Triggering bass lines with a single trigger. No click.

Triggering bass lines with a single trigger. No click.

follow up, and many thanks for the help