Composing using MIDI effects goes far beyond just generating some random notes. There are all sorts of things you can do with Arpeggiator, Scale, Note Length, etc. However, as mentioned yesterday, you often end up in a situation where you want to keep some but not all of the material that gets generated. In some […]
COLLABORATING: EDIT FROZEN MIDI
So, what do you do when you’re faced with a frozen track but you want to do some sort of editing that’s not allowed? In that case, you have to get a little creative… Let’s look at the example of MIDI editing. Since you can’t edit the MIDI in a frozen track, the first thing […]
COLLABORATING: THE COMMITMENT ESCAPE HATCH
Some of this stuff about workflow and committing to ideas really isn’t limited to collaboration… it applies just as much when you’re working on your own. But here we are. So… Sometimes you want to commit to an idea by freezing and flattening, but you still want to leave yourself the option of going back […]
NAVIGATING THE MEGA-SET
If you’re navigating through a set using a Launchpad or an APC-40, the obvious way to do it is using the buttons on the controller to move the colored rectangle up or down to the new location in the set. On the Launchpad, you hold down the Session button, while using the up/down buttons to […]
NAVIGATING THE MEGA-SET, pt. 2
There are a few things to bear in mind when mapping Live’s scene navigators. The up/down arrows are pretty straightforward, but the numeric control, not as much. Unlike most controls in Live which work perfectly well when being sent absolute MIDI data, this control is designed to be controlled by relative MIDI data. Absolute MIDI […]
NAVIGATING THE MEGA-SET, pt. 3
OK, a little more on navigation: The last tip was all about how using an absolute (0-127) MIDI CC to control scene navigation is less than ideal, but it turns out there’s also a way you can use that to your advantage. The trick is in knowing that sending a 0 or a 127 to […]
RELATIVE CLIP LAUNCHERS
So, since I’ve gotten so far into the subject of scene navigation, the question inevitably follows: once you’ve gotten to the desired location in your set, then what? How do you launch them clips? The answer lies in the MIDI (or Keyboard) map. While you’re in map mode, take a look at the area directly […]
STORM GATE: THE RACK
For the StormGate rack that I use in my performance set, the concept is simple: have a single knob that can be used to sweep through a variety of patterns. First, you’ll need to program a series of patterns of course. I suggest creating 6-8 patterns for starters. With a manageable number of patterns, you […]
PERFORMANCE RACK COMPRESSION
For a variety of effect racks I’ve built, I’ve found that building in some compression is quite useful. For example, when I first built the StormGate rack, I found that it sounded good on some material and far less so than others. In particular, there’s was lots of material where the result was not nearly […]
THE MASTER FX RACK
While I do the majority of my live effects processing within individual tracks, I also have a few effects that I keep in the Master track. These tend to be dramatic effects used for breakdowns, building tension, etc. There are a few different configurations that I’ve used, but the common element is that I like […]
