One thing I found frustrating when tooling around with skins recently is that you can’t change the color of the rectangle that appears around the clip grid when you’ve got a Launchpad or APC device connected. By default, it shows up red: While changing skins doesn’t change the color of the rectangle, there are a […]
THE DO NOTHING BUTTON
When you’ve got a controller that needs to be set up as a control surface (like the Launchpad or APC40), disabling dangerous controls (or any sort of control customization) is done by enabling the device as both a control surface…. …and a standard MIDI Remote. When set up in this way, any custom mappings created […]
DANGEROUS BUTTONS
Sometimes a feature is a liability. For example, on the APC40 you might find it handy to have the Stop button located conveniently at the front of the controller, right above the crossfader. On the gig? Not so much – it’s just plain dangerous. On the VCM-600, the scene navigation knob can be pushed down […]
COPY TIME
Sometimes when I’m working in the Arrangement view, I wish there was a Copy Time command. I want to be able to click on a clip, then copy everything in that range of time to the clipboard, along the lines of the Duplicate Time and Cut Time commands. Here’s the workaround. First, highlight a clip […]
A FEW GOOD TRACKS
Once I’ve got my basic production done and I’m ready to try out a new beat in a performance situation, I’ll first lay out a basic arrangement. This helps me figure out what I might want to do with the piece. Then I’ll print a few stems from the arrangement. In the following example, I’ve […]
MO TRACKS MO PROBLEMS
It seems that almost everyone’s first instinct when faced with idea of creating a live electronic set (as opposed to a DJ set), is to use a large number of tracks. After all, performing with 8 tracks obviously offers much greater opportunity for improvisation than a two track set. In practice however, working with too […]
UTILITY TEMPLATES
When I’m not using templates to put together a performance, I’m generally using them to import a premade set of tracks into a production Set. For example, when I want to record the output of my Machinedrum, I first locate my Drums set in the Templates folder: …and then drag it into whatever Set I’m […]
TEMPLATE!
Templates can be a really great tool for speeding your workflow. Personally, I don’t get much mileage out of the production oriented templates that ship with Live: …but I do get great benefit out of working with templates for live performance. As I’m getting ready for the Hobo’s Ball, its really nice to be able […]
THE SOUNDS SET
I’ve recently made a new addition to my Sounds Project, and its so simple I can’t believe it took me so long to think of it. The project folder now contains a Sounds Set: Every time I sit down to do some sampling or sound design, I do it in this set. The format of […]
SKIN IT YERSELF
To make your own skin for Live, you’ll first want to head over and download the skin editor by SonicTransfer. Once you’ve got that fired up on your computer, you’re ready to start skinning. The editor consists of two sections: a preview on the left that shows you changes to your skin as you make […]
