Ableton Forum

GR2 is a cpu hog. I'd like to be able to use it on just one track and have 3 or 4 others feeding from that 1 track, so I can have 4-5 guitar loops going at once. I tried putting the plug on Audio 1 and then setting the "audio from" on tracks 2, 3, 4 to Audio 1 and then arming all 5 tracks, but then I can't move from track to track with my foot pedal to record clips. Is there a better way? Workaround?

It's a while since I've done this but I think I usually set all tracks to record and set my foot controller to send different notes with each pedal press. I then map the notes to empty clips in each track and launch and record as required.

I use one bank to control GR 2 and another to map to midi in Live and change banks as required. You need to remember to insert a midi track and send it to GR 2.

If I get lazy I just set this up for one track and insert other audio tracks. When I record a clip I then drag it to another audio track and record into the same clip space, which is now empty, again.

I don't doubt that there are other ways of doing this.

umm well i just set the audio to come in and distributed to 3 other tracks, so i have one master input routed to 3 tracks that record the clips. Then I have a send turned all the way up on these three tracks and a FreeAmpSE on the aux/send/return (whatever you would call it). This way i only need to use one instance & have the flxibility to change the guitar sound after recording. I prefer grouping things through the sends, makes things a lot easier.

I dont understand your problem of not being able to move from track to track. I use mackie emulation on my FCB1010 so i can move left, right, up, down, fire individual clips/slots, undo, scene fire and arm 3 tracks with just one bank.

i feel for you though with the CPU hogging amp sims. FreeAmpSE2 is so beautiful sounding (not sure how it compares to GitRig, never tried it) but it seems to use up LOADS of cpu.

Meef Chaloin wrote:I dont understand your problem of not being able to move from track to track. I use mackie emulation on my FCB1010 so i can move left, right, up, down, fire individual clips/slots, undo, scene fire and arm 3 tracks with just one bank.

Does anyone know if I can use Mackie emulation with the Roland FC-200 and if so how I would se that up?

OK, I'll figure out the footwsitch stuff in a bit, but right now I'm having a brain freeze on what should be some basic stuff. I just want to record a guitar loop on one track, stop recording, have the loop start playing then record another loop on another track. I want to use only one instance of GR2. So I have the plug on track 1, on track 2, I set the "Audio From" to track 1. I arm track 1 and record a loop, click on the clip and it stops recording and starts looping. Fine. Now I arm track 2, but I can't hear anything I'm playing while the original loop is playing and track 2 is just recroding the loop from track 1. I've tried playing around with the monitor settings, but I'm not getting it. I know it's something stupid and simple probably. Anyone?

OK, I guess I can put the plug on a return track and have the sends up on multiple tracks, but that means every track has to use the same GR2 preset.......

You're making this hard for yourself...

The easiest way to do what you want without thinking about routing is simply to set up miltiple audio tracks. On one you insert GR and record your loop. When you've done that simply drag the loop to the next audio track and repeat until you're out of ideas. You do need to make sure you record the output of GR and not the output of of the guitar but that should not be a problem if you record on the same track into which the plugin is inserted. All other audio tracks should be as they were created as they are simply playing an audio file dragged from your GR track.

One plus of this setup is that when you start to automate with your foot pedal it's really easy. Set your pedal up to send out a midi note. Map the note to the first clip slot in your GR track and your sorted.

If you want to record the audio from your GR track don't send it, take it! Instead of using send from your GR track use the input dialogue on the track you want the audio to go to to select the GR track as it's input source. You can then set multiple tracks to record/auto and input from GR track. You then record into each of these in turn as you require new layers in your loop. (Only activate them as required.)

The final set up with foot controller should be

1. Track with GR set to "in"
2. A midi track sending to GR track to allow you to control GR via your footpedal or midi controller.
3. Multiple tracks set to record/auto with input from GR track and clips mapped to midi notes on your foot pedal/ midi controler.

After that you should be sorted.

Hope this helps.

Bazz wrote:
You do need to make sure you record the output of GR and not the output of of the guitar but that should not be a problem if you record on the same track into which the plugin is inserted. .

Now I'm confusing myself.

To record the output of GR rather than the guitar you have to record onto another track with it's audio input set to take the audio from the GR track. Not on the GR track itself which will only record the guitar.

Head back in gear!

Bazz wrote:

Bazz wrote:
You do need to make sure you record the output of GR and not the output of of the guitar but that should not be a problem if you record on the same track into which the plugin is inserted. .

Now I'm confusing myself.

To record the output of GR rather than the guitar you have to record onto another track with it's audio input set to take the audio from the GR track. Not on the GR track itself which will only record the guitar.

Head back in gear!

Thanks for your help. It is confusing. I think GR needs to be thought of as an fx plugin. Eventually I want to do this all hands free, so I'd rather not have to drag a clip to another track. Last night I had it working with the GR plug on a return track. Then I can have multiple tracks armed and just have their sends cranked up. The disadvantage is that all the guitar tracks will use the same GR preset. The other problem I have is that GR2 is unstable and noisy and annoying in many ways.........sometimes I think about just using my MIDI guitar and going through a plugin like Slayer or Real Guitar or something and use a simulated "real guitar" sound. I always feel so much "safer" and under control when I leave audio land and go back to MIDI land. GR2 is like riding a motorcycle on the freeway without a helmet and playing soft synths through MIDI is like riding in an air-conditioned BMW.

If you're going to use multiple instances of GR2, you'll need to make sure that you are not on the high res settings. Also, what really eats up CPU with GR2 are not the sims but the effects (especially reverb). You could consider using a reverb VST in a send track so that you're not using multiple instances of the same reverb.

feyshay wrote:If you're going to use multiple instances of GR2, you'll need to make sure that you are not on the high res settings. Also, what really eats up CPU with GR2 are not the sims but the effects (especially reverb). You could consider using a reverb VST in a send track so that you're not using multiple instances of the same reverb.

I'm having enough trouble with a single instance. The whole point of what I'm trying to do is use a single instance of GR2 to drive multiple tracks.

It'll take some tweaking to get GR2 to work for you. I'm not a big fan of sims, but you're not going to find sims better than GR2 and the Pod XT.
You're not going to be playing multiple tracks at one time, so why not just render and make it easy on yourself. Plus, why would want to have identical sounding guitar on the same track?
I imagine, though, if you have your effects wet enough and your gain turned up high enough (on the amp so that the distortion you want is wet enough) you could probably send your tracks to a return track and get close to what you want, no?

feyshay wrote:It'll take some tweaking to get GR2 to work for you. I'm not a big fan of sims, but you're not going to find sims better than GR2 and the Pod XT.
You're not going to be playing multiple tracks at one time, so why not just render and make it easy on yourself. Plus, why would want to have identical sounding guitar on the same track?
I imagine, though, if you have your effects wet enough and your gain turned up high enough (on the amp so that the distortion you want is wet enough) you could probably send your tracks to a return track and get close to what you want, no?

Well I was hoping to be able to do live looping within Live using GR2, so I would need multiple tracks, but at this point I couldn't imagine using GR2 in a live situation.

What type of processor/RAM are you using? You should be able to get a single instance of GR 2 working OK on a reasonably modern machine as long as you don't use High Quality setting and you don't bring the latency of your sound card down to the point where things start to fall apart.

If you set up to record multiple tracks then you can step through your GR 2 programs with a foot controller recording the audio out of GR 2 onto each track. This should allow live looping without ever using more than one instance of GR 2.

Note that many of the presets can be changed to greatly reduce CPU load whilst having a similar audio effect, especially if not exposed solo but used a s part of a loop.

Bazz wrote:What type of processor/RAM are you using? You should be able to get a single instance of GR 2 working OK on a reasonably modern machine as long as you don't use High Quality setting and you don't bring the latency of your sound card down to the point where things start to fall apart.

If you set up to record multiple tracks then you can step through your GR 2 programs with a foot controller recording the audio out of GR 2 onto each track. This should allow live looping without ever using more than one instance of GR 2.

Note that many of the presets can be changed to greatly reduce CPU load whilst having a similar audio effect, especially if not exposed solo but used a s part of a loop.

I have a Powerbook G4, 1.25 GHZ w/ 1GB RAM. I need to play around with it more...Do you know if it's "better" to use the Rig Kontrol as the input AND output as opposed to using built in audio as the output, or does it make no difference?