Ableton Forum

It's refreshingly simple going from session to arrangement, so, what's a good way take a complex arrangement to the session? Dragging over is a mess, and I'd rather not consolidate everything.

Should I just avoid complex arrangements if session view is where it's gonna end up? I'm having a conceptual brain-freeze on this one.

thanks for the help!

Hey!

Here's my method. It might sound long winded but after a few times it becomes second nature....I have also written a bunch of autohotkey scripts that do the bulk of this transition for me which I plan on posting with a video for my next tutorial.

In my arrangment view, I create 6 new audio tracks at the bottom and label them

Bass
Kick
Percussion
Synth
Tech
Rest

(these are the 6 audiochannels I use in my live set)

I then go through all of my exsisting audio and midi tracks and route the audio to whatever group they fit into. So say for example i have two bassline tracks, they both get fed into the new Bass track... and all my percussion gets grouped etc...

I route my sends to the Rest channel.

Then I arm all 6 of the audio channels, hit record and play the tune from the start. If all goes to plan it will record the entire arrangment grouped into 6 layers.

Once that is done, I discard all the other tracks (remembering to save the project as a different file first!!!) and am left with my 6 new tracks.

I then zip through the new rendered files cutting them all into individual loops. This is where the autohotkey script comes in handy.. I push #1 (windows key + 1) and it will cut a loop of 1 bar from my cursor, loop it, and set a follow action to 1 bar. #1-9 do the same for 1 bar, 2 bars, 4 bars, 8 bars, 16 bars, 32 bars etc....

I do this for all the tracks, then select all, cut, tab, paste... walla. A brand new live set of your arrangment with the absolute minimum of cpu usage as it's only playing back samples.

Hope this helps!

COSM wrote:This is where the autohotkey script comes in handy.. I push #1 (windows key + 1) and it will cut a loop of 1 bar from my cursor, loop it, and set a follow action to 1 bar. #1-9 do the same for 1 bar, 2 bars, 4 bars, 8 bars, 16 bars, 32 bars etc....

this sounds interesting!

I havent really looked into autohotkeys

I was amazed when i discovered it. Using autohotkeys, bome's midi translator and midiyoke have allowed me to assign any keystroke or midicontroll to the most complex tasks... I rely on them very heavily for both production and performance.

Reccomend getting into the depths of them asap!

COSM wrote:I was amazed when i discovered it. Using autohotkeys, bome's midi translator and midiyoke have allowed me to assign any keystroke or midicontroll to the most complex tasks... I rely on them very heavily for both production and performance.

Reccomend getting into the depths of them asap!

cool - I just got googling - installing it now!

there's alot of things like that where I didnt look into it because I didnt have a specific thing I wanted to do

but there's probably loads

so what do you do with the midi translators?

I'm being the thread hijack king today.

I use it to translate midi messages into keystrokes, so that autohotkeys can recognise them.

for example, 4 pads on my pad control (in my "navagation scene") are assigned to up down left and right. When I hit one, it sends a CC value to bome's, which then converts that into a keystroke (the arrow keys).

However, I also have 4 pads assigned to alt-up, alt-down, alt-left and alt-right... so when bomes receives those CC values it outputs those keystrokes.

I have a "sample pictch" scene on my padcontrol where all the pads change the pitch of a sample. I hit the +12 pad, it sends CC value whatever to bomes, bome's then sends the pitch +12 keystroke that I assign (think its #a off the top of my head), then auto hot keys runs a script whever #a is pushed that clicks the mouse in a specific area of the screen (the pitch box on the sample view down the bottom), inputs the numbers 12, hits return, then pushes alt up twice to go back up to the sample. This all happens pretty much instantly..

So I have pad's assigned to the key intervals (minor third, major third, perfect 5th and major 7th) so I can change the pitch of any sample with one hit of a pad.

This of course means you need to have a consistent layout on your live set.. so that the key places you want autohotkeys to click and change are always in the same place, but that isn't too hard to work out.

Tech as fuck!

-Tom

awesome

thanks

COSM- wow, thanks. there goes tomorrow..gonna give it a shot. I'd hoped that one could work from either direction- arrangement>session/session>arrangement, so I'm looking forward to trying your technique.

anyone else care to share their method?

COSM wrote:I'm being the thread hijack king today.

I use it to translate midi messages into keystrokes, so that autohotkeys can recognise them.

for example, 4 pads on my pad control (in my "navagation scene") are assigned to up down left and right. When I hit one, it sends a CC value to bome's, which then converts that into a keystroke (the arrow keys).

However, I also have 4 pads assigned to alt-up, alt-down, alt-left and alt-right... so when bomes receives those CC values it outputs those keystrokes.

I have a "sample pictch" scene on my padcontrol where all the pads change the pitch of a sample. I hit the +12 pad, it sends CC value whatever to bomes, bome's then sends the pitch +12 keystroke that I assign (think its #a off the top of my head), then auto hot keys runs a script whever #a is pushed that clicks the mouse in a specific area of the screen (the pitch box on the sample view down the bottom), inputs the numbers 12, hits return, then pushes alt up twice to go back up to the sample. This all happens pretty much instantly..

So I have pad's assigned to the key intervals (minor third, major third, perfect 5th and major 7th) so I can change the pitch of any sample with one hit of a pad.

This of course means you need to have a consistent layout on your live set.. so that the key places you want autohotkeys to click and change are always in the same place, but that isn't too hard to work out.

Tech as fuck!

-Tom

you should run a Live wworkshop on it when you're in Melb .

I'd love to, if only I had the time , next trip!

..anyone else want to weigh in on other methods for moving complex arrangements to the session view?

corina wrote:COSM- wow, thanks. ...anyone else care to share their method?

What didn't you like in this solution?

COSM wrote:Here's my method. It might sound long winded but after a few times it becomes second nature....I have also written a bunch of autohotkey scripts that do the bulk of this transition for me which I plan on posting with a video for my next tutorial.

Did you write this tutorial in the meantime?

Cool, I've never heard of AutoHotKey until now. This sounds like a really good reason to run Ableton on Windows.

Imo anyone using a PC should also use AutoHotkey, as it can make life in many fields easier/faster with a little programming effort.