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 […]
ONE SCALE, MANY MODES
Someone just asked me a question about creating custom Scale presets. Scale is used to force all incoming notes to conform to a particular scale. While the Scale’s interface is perfectly logical, it’s pretty tricky to wrap one’s head around. I’m not really going to get into explaining it except to say that it’s […]
TRANSPOSE VS. BASE
If you take a look at the Scale device, you’ll notice that right below the Base knob, there’s a Transpose control. And yet, I said you should use Base when changing the key of a preset scale… The difference is that Base simply transposes the scale, while Transpose will transpose each incoming note. Er, or […]
TEMPO CHANGE MACRO
In my current version of my live set, I’m using macro clips to change Live’s master tempo. Unlike the previous example which uses a note message to toggle the metronome on and off, this technique is going to involve using a clip to send CC data via a clip envelope. Let’s take a look at […]
TEMPO CHANGE MACRO, pt. 2
A couple more points about the way I’m setting up the tempo change clips: Qantization is set to None. No need to wait until the beginning of the next bar to get the tempo change going. For Launch mode, I’m using toggle. When combined with no quantization, toggle mode makes it easy to jump to […]
ROUND NUMBER TEMPO MACRO MADNESS
I’ve you’ve been digging in and trying out the tempo change macro, you may have bumped into the problem of getting the tempo exactly right. In other words, you may find that instead of the tempo landing at 95bpm, it ends up at 95.31. From a strict tempo perspective, this isn’t usually a huge deal. […]
ROUND NUMBER TEMPO MACRO MADNESS – ON ICE!
OK, here I go again getting neck-deep into some nerdy minutae. I hope it’s clear by this point that I dig into this stuff partly to demonstrate the broad array of simple solutions there are to all sorts of problems. More than anything, I hope to share with you a bit of my though process […]
MIDI SYNC: THE LOWDOWN
A few tips back, I mentioned that I sometimes give a really short answer to people who ask me how to set up MIDI sync with Live. It is this: “Don’t” Let me explain. There are two situations where sync is handy: in the studio and on stage. In the studio, MIDI sync is very […]
WE DON’T NEED NO STINKING MIDI SYNC
So. If MIDI sync isn’t going to do the trick, how do we work without it? Well, first off – it all depends on the context. The short drama I’m going to present right now can be easily adapted to some contexts but not as well to others…I leave it to you to digest and […]
SHOULD I MIX IN ABLETON LIVE? THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE GLITCHY
A couple of years back, I stopped mixing in Live. This started as a workaround for performance problems I was encountering, but turned out to have a great creative benefit as well. People are sometimes surprised to hear that my studio life isn’t entirely Live-centric. Well, for a number of years it was. When Live 7 […]
