Auto-arm tracks when selected & dis-armed when de-select

[Maddcow]

Hi all. A new Live 7 user here, and new to Live in general.

Is it possible to configure Live to automatically arm a track when it's selected and then disarm it when another track is selected (with the new track automatically being armed etc)?

Here's my scenario: I'm a sax/wind synth player using Live for live gigs where it's processing the audio from my sax with fx etc, and also hosting a dozen softsynths for my WX5 wind controller. With the synths, each synth is loaded into a different track with clips that are used to load patches into that particular synth. Because I don't use the synths simultaneously, I need to turn off (or dis-arm) each track when it's not currently being used and armed when being used. Ideally, it'd be great to be able to select a track and for it to automatically arm upon selection.

I'm using a Behringer FCB1010 MIDI foot controller so I can automate quite a few things, but so far it seems that Live can't do what I've described above.

Does anyone know if what I'm asking is possible? I'm using a MacBook Pro with Leopard 10.5.4 if this makes any difference with scripts etc. Perhaps there's another way to be able to achieve what I want?

Cheers
Gary

[glitchrock-buddha]

You can set the arming of tracks to be exclusive (in preferences), but this only seems to work with the mouse. Like you, I've found that when I map the record enable buttons, exclusive selection doesn't work. I'd love to hear if anyone know why and how to make it work.

[jlgrimes]

Hi all. A new Live 7 user here, and new to Live in general.

Is it possible to configure Live to automatically arm a track when it's selected and then disarm it when another track is selected (with the new track automatically being armed etc)?

Here's my scenario: I'm a sax/wind synth player using Live for live gigs where it's processing the audio from my sax with fx etc, and also hosting a dozen softsynths for my WX5 wind controller. With the synths, each synth is loaded into a different track with clips that are used to load patches into that particular synth. Because I don't use the synths simultaneously, I need to turn off (or dis-arm) each track when it's not currently being used and armed when being used. Ideally, it'd be great to be able to select a track and for it to automatically arm upon selection.

I'm using a Behringer FCB1010 MIDI foot controller so I can automate quite a few things, but so far it seems that Live can't do what I've described above.

Does anyone know if what I'm asking is possible? I'm using a MacBook Pro with Leopard 10.5.4 if this makes any difference with scripts etc. Perhaps there's another way to be able to achieve what I want?

Cheers
Gary

I wish Live could do this as well.

Reason and Logic can arm tracks merely by selection. Sonar and Cubase auto arms midi tracks which is slightly different but basically give the same results.


Live 7 was supposed to have a new feature which auto armed newly inserted softsynths but backed out on it at the last minute.



The only alternative is to assign your computer keyboard or midi controller to each track arm, but to me this is a waste of button real estate and confusing, so in theory for a 32 track composition you would need to assign 32 tracks to be armed by keys. I'd prefer arm by selection. At least include it as an option because old time Live users probably wouldn't like it.

But some controllers like the mackie control is supposed to make stuff like this easy but that controller is like $1000 and you might already be short of space to put it.

I wish they did something about this.

You should list that as a feature request. Ableton probably is concerned about it since they tried to do something about it when 7 came out.

[blinkeye]

What are the possibilities of arming selected tracks with Live currently?

It seems like it's possible through:

1) third-party programs like controlaid

2) faderfox controllers

3) mackie control emulation (not sure about this though I think I read about it somewhere about doing exactly that with it)

Is anyone doing this successfully with the above mentioned or other solutions? Do they require pre-mapped templates in order to work?

[blinkeye]

oh yeah, also

4) tranzport control emulation

[JBlongz]

This is possible via the option.txt setting. I did this in Ableton 9 beta. But forgot the actually command to put in the text. I'm looking for this currently.

[Blurr]

Sounds like a Rack might help ? Racks add elegant simplification to a project. A single armed track to capture ALL your WX5 sound and a second track for your program change clips.

You can have as many chains in your rack as you have WX5 sofsynths and then use the FCB pedals to choose the correct chain.

Each pedal could be set to send two CC messages. One to select the correct chain position and the second to select your program change clip.

To select the clip you would use a dedicated CC# but the chain selector would have a single CC# with individual values set for each rack chain. I found the following post that I think is worth quoting.

I wasn’t able to find this anywhere on the ableton forums (or anywhere else) so I thought I’d post my solution for using Live for guitar effects in performance, controlled by the Behringer FCB1010 midi pedal.  It enables you to do everything within a single effect rack using just the chain selector, so you don’t end up wasting CPU on muted channels.  In terms of the FCB1010, it allows you to switch on an effect and only deselect it when you change to another effect, so you’ll never get confused as to which one is active when you’re performing (since you can’t toggle each pedal’s LED indicator, it only turns off when you press a different pedal).  It’s also useful if, like me, you also use Live for triggering samples and drum loops and use other midi controllers, all within the same set.

First, open up an effect rack.  For each effect chain you add, say a flanger, distortion, open the chain selector and set it to be active for a range of only one midi value. For example, set your first effect chain for 0 to 0, the second as 1 to 1, and so on.

Next you need to program your FCB1010 to send out only CC messages.  If you don’t know how to program it, there are plenty of resources on the web to help you, e.g. http://www.mtnsys.com/faq-fcb/IdiotsGuide.htm

Basically, you need to set up the pedals you want to use to activate single values along the chain selector (0-127). To do this you use the same CC for each pedal, but with different values.  For example, for your first effect (chain selector range 0-0), use CC#22 with a range value of 0 to 0.  For next pedal, set it up so it again send out on CC#22 but with a value of 1 to 1.  Then 2-2, 3-3, so on and so forth.

Once you’ve assigned all the pedals you want to use, open up Live’s midi mapping and simply assign any of the pedals you’ve programmed to the chain selector on your rack.  You should now find that, when you select a pedal, the chain selector will ‘jump’ to that particular value and hence activate that chain of effects.  If you want to select more than one at a time, you can even overlap them and stuff like that.

Hope this is useful, and not to confusing to read.

____________________________________

http://www.telegramsband.com

.