some questions/frustrations with Live/Reason setup

joshcarter · Post by **joshcarter** » Sat Jun 08, 2002 8:08 pm

Hi all,

I bought Live recently to go along with Reason. Very cool stuff. I've been mostly successful with getting things to work as I want, but there are a couple sticking points I'm hoping people here can help with. (I've solved a few already by reading through old threads.)

First, I'm running Live as a Rewire master and Reason 1.01 as the slave. When I have record enabled on a track I can monitor the sound coming out of Reason (of course), but I'd also like to monitor without having to record-enable a track. Is there a way to do this? (I thought the "monitor audio input in live" switch would do the trick, but it doesn't -- at least not for Rewire.)

Second, recording of a new clip doesn't seem to adhere to the song's quantization setting. That is, when I hit record and stop-record it seems to quantize to the next quarter note, even if I have the global quantize set to bar. (I also have the default new clip quantize set to 2 bars.) I'd really prefer if recording was bar-quantized, especially when I'm playing my MIDI drum kit. I'd like to hit my start-record pad sometime in the measure before (say on the 3), then play 8 bars or whatever, hit the stop-record pad sometime in bar 8, and have Live stop recording the clip at the start of bar 9. As it stands, I have a really tough time focusing on playing *and* hitting start/stop record at just the right moment. Either my playing gets messed up or I wind up recording a 7 bar and 3 beat loop. :)

Third, is there a way to adjust the volume when auditioning clips? Some clips are recorded really hot, others really soft, and it never seems to be "just right." This is a minor issue, though.

In any case, I'm really jazzed about Live -- it's a totally great application. Ableton has done a fantastic job breaking new ground with a music application, and it *almost* perfectly suits my needs. If I can resolve my first two issue above, it will be totally perfect!

Many, many thanks,
Josh

System setup:
Live 1.5 (rewire master)
Reason 1.01 (rewire slave)
PowerMac G3/300 with OS 9.2.1
Sound Manager built-in audio
USB Midisport 2x2 MIDI adapter
TrapKAT and Octapad drum controllers
Old MIDI keyboard (for recording only -- not part of my live rig)

The very second I have Reason 2 in my hands, the system will be:
Live 1.5
Reason 2
PowerBook G4/550 with MacOS 10.1.5
(and the other stuff)

DeviantJR · Post by **DeviantJR** » Mon Jun 10, 2002 1:48 am

Josh, I'm an avid Reason user and I just downloaded the demo of Live today to play around with and see what it's all about. I don't have any answers to your questions, but I'm hoping maybe you can answer a couple of mine. How does the rewire system work with Live? Let's say I have 2 mixers completely full, in Live, would it put each channel of the mixer to a track, or would both mixers go to one track in Live? I'm thinking about purchasing Live so that I can add extra effects and VST effects to my individual reason tracks, but if it puts everything I do in Reason to one track, that would be pretty pointless.

Also, does Live support VST Instruments? And if I were to play my keyboard into Live would it record it, or do I have to record it in another audio editor and load it into Live?

joshcarter · Post by **joshcarter** » Mon Jun 10, 2002 2:47 am

Rewire into Live is *very* flexible. All of Reason's 64 outputs in the hardware interface are accessible in Live, so strictly speaking you don't even need to use Reason's mixers -- just wire all your instruments straight into outputs in the hardware interface. In Live you can choose either stereo pairs of outputs from Reason, or single mono outs. The clocks are auto sync'd, too, so all your Reason sequences and effects (e.g. delays) are beat-matched to Live. I think you'll be extremely impressed with how well they integrate. I had no plans to buy Live until I downloaded the demo, said "wow!", and bought it very shortly after. The only issues/problems I've had with the two are the ones mentioned in this thread.

As for VST instruments: nope. They do support VST effects, though.

Best regards,
Josh

joshcarter · Post by **joshcarter** » Tue Jun 11, 2002 4:15 pm

Okay, Gerhard's post in another thread was the key to my first problem (monitoring Reason): take a track, record-enable it, select all the clip slots, then do a "Remote Slot Button" (command-E). Now flipping among scenes will leave the track in record-enable but not actually record there. This lets me monitor when I want, and I can also re-enable slot buttons on certain scenes if I later want to record there. Great solution -- it solves my problem and is also very flexible. Thanks Gerhard!

As for the second problem (recording quantization): I've done some more experiments, at it appears that starting recording will bar quantize like you expect, but it's stopping recording that appears to always beat-quantize, thus leaving me with my troublesome 7 bar/3 beat loops. Anyone else have any suggestions or solutions here? (Aside from growing a third arm so I can hit the button right on the beat.)

Many thanks,
Josh

dp · Post by dp » Fri Jun 14, 2002 12:13 am

josh,

i found that if you have the loop button enabled and the quantization to a bar, its much easier to record clips at the correct length.

but say if it is looping every 8 bars and you record a 16 bar loop, the loop will then only play the first 8 bars of your recorded clip. you have to unclick the loop button until your long loop gets past 8 bars then reclick it, and the loop will be at the longer length. quirky, but it works.

Gerhard · Post by **Gerhard** » Fri Jun 21, 2002 9:51 am

Josh, there was a bug in 1.5 that, under certain circumstance, would result in recorded clips having the wrong loop length. This is fixed in 1.5.1.

Gerhard
ableton

SongCarver · Post by **SongCarver** » Fri Jun 21, 2002 2:49 pm

I still get the same 3'3 bar problem under mac OS X and LIVE 1. 51

Any ideas...still bugs in there??

Gerhard · Post by **Gerhard** » Fri Jun 21, 2002 6:40 pm

We are investigating this - just wrote you an email about that.

Gerhard
ableton

some questions/frustrations with Live/Reason setup

some questions/frustrations with Live/Reason setup

ah-ha!

.

same prob