When using Live’s Export Audio/Video command, the default behavior is to render offline, faster than real time. In most cases this works just fine, however, there are some cases where you’ll want to force live to Export your song in real time, playing the audio as it goes. For example, very often, I want to […]
EFFECT IT, PRINT IT
If you’ve been doing all of your audio processing “in the box” lately, today is a reminder to try sending audio outside of your computer to process it, even if you don’t have fancy studio hardware. Guitar pedals are a great way to go here: if you don’t have any, borrow a few from a […]
GO EXTERNAL
Even if all of your synthesizers and effect processors are software, there are a few things you want to know about Live’s External Instrument and External Audio Effect devices. First, a few words of introduction… External Audio Effect is a handy utility that allows you to route audio out of your computer, through a hardware […]
COLOR THE RECTANGLE
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 […]
