ABLETON LIVE 6

[Anderton]

One of the cool things about chains if you can have several chains within a chain -- for example, with effects, this means you can have parallel effects chains.

I created two chains to process drums, one with Auto Filter and Pan, the other with Filter Delay and Redux. That alone is a cool feature, but we're not done yet.

Referring to the picture, note that there's a "Chain Selector" (the orange line). This can be MIDI-controlled, for reasons that will become clear shortly. Each Chain can cover a particular range of values for selection. If they overlap, then putting the selector in that range will enable all overlapping chains. If there's only one chain and the selector is over that range, only that chain will be enabled.

This actually is much less confusing than it sounds I couldn't wrap my head around when I read about this in the manual, but setting up a couple chains made it easy...so let's look at the concrete example in the picture.

In this case, the first chain covers a range of 0-96, and fades out over a range of 48-96. The second chain covers a range of 48 to 127, and fades in over a range of 48-96. Moving the selector from 0-48 means only the first chain of effects will produce an output at the end of the chain. Moving the selector further to the right, from 48-96, fades out the audio from chain 1 while fading in the audio from chain 2. Moving past 96 means you'll hear only audio from chain 2.

These ranges are arbitrary; for example, the first chain could cover a range of 0-24 and fade out from 12-24, while the second could cover a range from 12-32 and fade in 12-24. The reason why I chose a wider range is because I tied the Chain Selector to MIDI, and I could move the control over its full rotation. If I used a smaller range, I had to be more precise with how I moved the control.

Of course, you could stick more chains in there to create even more effects. In a sense, this becomes almost like "wave sequencing for effects," if you're familiar with that synthesis process (basically, multiple sounds fade in and out through envelopes to "morph" in and out of each other).

[Anderton]

The chain select function works with MIDI effects and instruments as well. With MIDI, filtering applies to notes and continuous controllers, and fades apply to velocities; the net result is like fades with audio effects, in that levels of what's being driven by MIDI fade out or fade in.

With instruments, you can use the chain selector to essentially dial in different instruments, as if you were changing presets. But the fade function works as well, so is easy to crossfade among various instrument sounds.

Anyway, the musical significance of all this is particularly germane if you have the selector dialed in to a MIDI controller, as you can get all these variations between chains in a rack. So a track can contain the same basic audio or MIDI data, but by running it through a chain, you can create a huge number of variations...you gotta love it.

[Anderton]

Before moving off of the subject of racks (unless anyone has any questions/comments), I should add that you can put racks within racks within racks within...you get the idea. A rack is basically an entity, and can be treated as a single device chain.

So, what use is this? Well, if you've built up a lot of rack presets you like, you might want to bring in a rack to another rack that's under development so you don't need to "re-invent the wheel." Frankly, though, I haven't had a reason yet to put a rack within a rack...I can pretty much get where I want to go without going deeper than parallel chains.

[Anderton]

While at Messe, we talked a bit about my doing a Pro Review. I said that one problem I had was that having been into Live since V1.0, I had adopted a workflow and way of using the program that often times didn't take advantage of the newer features his team had been adding. He didn't see anything wrong with that, as part of Live's charm is you can approach it in different ways...just because it has a feature doesn't mean you have to use it.

Still, I also realized that a Pro Review was just the thing to give me a kick in the butt, and become more familiar with other elements of what the program can do. I'm not sure all of them will become incorporated into what I do with Live, but all it takes is one or two cool features to add an entirely different dimension to one's use of the program.

Anyway, I realize this is a bit off-topic, but I thought it might be interesting to get some insights into how one of the main people at Ableton thinks about Live: That it's a very flexible, customizable tool and there's no "right" way to use it.

[amaury]

First off, I must apologize for not being more active in this thread due to a bunch of unforeseen (and hopefully finished!) circumstances. Anyway, I met with Gerhard Behles at Messe and mentioned my wish of "gee, it sure would be great to be able to play the note range handles in a MIDI rack." He asked why I don't just use the Pitch MIDI plug-in, which can indeed restrict low and high note ranges. However, the problem I have with that is while you can freely adjust the lower note cutoff, the higher note cutoff adds to the lower note cutoff -- e.g., you can set the higher cutoff to be a certain number of semitones higher than the lower cutoff. So, if you change the lower cutoff note, you also change the higher cutoff note, whether you want to or not. So while this is good for cutting off the lower note (ideal if you want to get rid of a kick drum while leaving other drums in place) because you can simply set the high note to be as high as possible, it's not as flexible as what I would like to see.

Hi Craig,

 

I would say, why don't you use a MIDI effect Rack for that matter?

 

-Place a MIDI effect Rack on your track

-Load a Pitch affect for example (that won't do anything, and that you can delete later if you want, but it serves to create a Chain)

-Now edit the Key range of the chain: set its upper and lower note at will, and you're done: you have a MIDI note filtering.

 

Even going further, you could have multiple 'preset' of key ranges within the same Rack, by creating multiple Chains with each their own key range. Using the Chain selector, you could then use one of the 'presets' at a given time.

 

I hope I'm not overlooking your use case.

 

Kind regards,

Amaury

[Anderton]

I think I mentioned earlier that I wanted to be able to control them in real time, with a MIDI controller, rather than have to open up a chain. For me, Live is all about live performance; I try very hard to minimize having to do anything in the program itself, as opposed to be triggered via MIDI or the laptop keyboard itself. That's why the pitch thing solves at least half the problem: You can restrict the low note range, and control it via MIDI. But I want everything! And I want it now!! :)

[nerol1st]

I don't think there is a program I hate more than Live. I have given this product a go more than once and can't stand the way it works.

[Anderton]

Hey, don't mince words, tell us what you really think. I presume you're not so much into the whole DJ/looping thing?

[nerol1st]

Sorry I will go in to a bit more depth.

 

To be more precise I have tried the demo (meh gives a good intro to live I guess) and have abelton live lite 4 (came with the my UX2).

 

My exsperience with both was sheer frustration. I was able to finally get it to record both midi and audio but that was as far as I was able to get (and it took me a while to get to that point). I was never able to actually do any arranging I do not get the workflow of the program, it's very frustrating for me as someone who is used to programs like Audition, PT, Nuendo,Cubase, Logic, Reason to get.

 

Yes it's exstreamly nice that they give tutorials, but even those are sometimes difficult to struggle through as sometimes you can't tell what part of the screen they are refering to.

 

Every DAW has a learning curve, I realise this but this particular program because of it's forien (to me) lay out seems a bit higher than the other ones I have listed. I imagine that if all you did was rap and the like this program would be a dream, but I just do not like it.

[Rabid]

The mixer in Session view is most like a conventional mixer, unlike Arrangement view, which has more of an Acid/Sonar/Vegas kind of feel. So, will the configurable mixer satisfy those who want Live to be a DAW? For some people, yes; for others, no. The improved metering is a big help in terms of knowing what's actually going on with your levels, and the "longer-throw" faders make it easier to dial in an exact value. I don't really care about seeing knobs -- fields work okay for me -- but if they make people comfortable, fine. ...

 

 

I would like to address this point and your general sentiment behind it if I may. I’ve never noticed Live being marketed as a full DAW replacement, and after using it since version 2 have not considered that myself. Like you (I think) I consider Live to be a great tool for both live performance and quick arranging, but when it comes to finalizing a song I prefer to either export tracks from Live or rewire it to something like Sonar.

 

However, go to a forum like KVR and you will see thread after thread of people asking for recommendations about a DAW and there is always someone insisting that Live is all they need and that Live can do anything that any other DAW can do. Then people take their word, go out and buy it, and then start complaining that it does not have full DAW features. I used to think the hoards of people making this claim must not use or need a real DAW with multi tracking abilities to finalize a song in linier fashion but this week I got “Albleton Live 6 Power” and the author states on the first page of chapter 1 “Live is a full-blown music production environment suitable for any artistic style. You’ll find all the features you’d expect from other digital audio workstations.” No wonder people by this product and expect to be able to finalize a complete CD or produce a surround sound move soundtrack just as they would in Pro Tools, Sonar or Logic Pro.

 

I hate to see Live move in this direction. Both Acid and FruityLoops have followed this path and are turning into bloat ware. I know that software developers depend on updates to bring in continued finance and these updates is what drives software to expand outside of the initial focus, but software also tends to loose the market when it looses its identity.

 

Robert

[amplayer]

Like you (I think) I consider Live to be a great tool for both live performance and quick arranging, but when it comes to finalizing a song I prefer to either export tracks from Live or rewire it to something like Sonar.

 

 

I don't use Live for live performance, but it is obviously well suited to that application. I agree totally that finalizing a piece of music is better suited to a full featured DAW app though.

 

 

I hate to see Live move in this direction. Both Acid and FruityLoops have followed this path and are turning into bloat ware. I know that software developers depend on updates to bring in continued finance and these updates is what drives software to expand outside of the initial focus, but software also tends to loose the market when it looses its identity.

 

 

As I have already said in this thread, I fully agree that I don't want Live to get bloated with too many DAW features. I don't want Live to lose its beautiful way of operating quickly and efficiently for loop/section based music.

[Anderton]

One of the enhancements in Live 6 involves routing, where if a track (or Master) is selected as an input, you now have the option to grab the signal at three different points in the channel: Pre FX (the raw, unprocessed signal), Post FX (after any effects chains but not including mixer settings), or Post Mixer. Check out the image to see how these options are presented. With the latter, any fades, pans, etc. that you do with the mixer will affect the what gets recorded.

An obvious use, as described in the manual, is to use an audio track to record the output of a MIDI track, post-mixer. But here’s another use of routing which I find handy in getting around the “solo button doesn’t record” limitation when doing live performances: I simply set up a track Live to grab the final mixer outputs, and record them in real time. This track becomes, essentially, the stereo “master” recording that includes the final audio, including any breakbeats achieved by using the solo button. (Of course, the signal should also go to any regular outputs, like to a monitoring system, so you can hear what’s going on.)

Referring to the second image, track 13 has been designated the Master track for recording the mixer output. So, in the track Input Type, choose Master. As you want the recording to include any send effects or level changes (like if you do a fadeout with the master output slider), for the Input Channel, choose Post Mixer.

As to monitor, as you’re simply recording into this track, you don’t really want to monitor its output as you’re already monitoring the mixer output through whatever amplification system you’re using. As a result, I recommend turning Monitor off.

The only caution is to make sure your master levels are set so that the recording levels going into the “master” track aren’t too loud or too soft.

Once you’ve captured this track, you can render it to disk, edit, add mastering effects, etc. In most cases it’s easier just to press Live’s record button to record all your moves, but if you depend on hitting the solo button during your performance, recording from the outputs provides a suitable workaround.

[Anderton]

These days, it’s not uncommon to transfer a project from one DAW to another, which in most cases requires rendering any tracks with soft synths or processors (unless the target DAW has the same complement of plug-ins). On another subject, it’s not uncommon to run out of computing power and need to trim back some soft synths, especially if you need really low latency. Although Live has an excellent track freeze implementation, sometimes when you’ve created an instrument part, it’s simpler just to render it as an audio track and be done with it. (If you’re really concerned about re-creating the track some day, you can still remove the instrument: Keep the MIDI track, and save the instrument preset for later recall.)

Anyway, the new routing options make it easy to record a MIDI track as audio, or render a track. What’s more, if you want to render two versions – one with effects, and one without – that’s easy, too.

Referring to the image, Track 1 has Simpler set up with a guitar sound that includes reverb and delay. Track 2, SIMP+FX, is tapping audio from Simpler, Post-FX but pre-mixer (check out the Audio From section: It shows 1-SIMPLER and Post-FX). Meanwhile, Track 3, SIMP-FX, is tapping audio from the Simpler chain but note that Pre-FX is being selected. Therefore, this track has the Simpler sound only, without the reverb and delay.

If you then hit record with the clip looping, you’ll end up with two tracks in the Arrangement view – Simpler with FX, and the same part without FX.

[10101]

I agree totally that finalizing a piece of music is better suited to a full featured DAW app though.

 

 

Why? What will I lose if I use Live instead of another program?

[openrivers]

you can display only one automation track at one time.

 

when you change parameters by mouse IN A VST PLUGIN, only 128 parameters are supported to be recorded by automation.

cubase for example has not this limitation.

[Myshell]

Live 6 is working great for me. Haven't had a single crash and use it extensively in performance situations.

...made the switch from 5 after Armin Van Buuren recommended to it me. He told me he loved it. Does all his music from his laptop now...with just Logic and Live.

[amplayer]

Why? What will I lose if I use Live instead of another program?

 

 

Well, for me, Live is best used to create an individual groove that then becomes part of a larger piece of music. If you standardly work in only bars of 4/4, and you also do not write to video, then staying in Live will probably be fine.

For me, I often write to picture (at 29.97 fps), which Live only sort-of supports. Also, even when I'm not writing to picture, sometimes I like to have a bar of 2/4. While you could do that in Live, it is more convenient to do in a full DAW software package.

 

To me, Live is an EXCELLENT co-application to my DAW. Live is fast and easy to create grooves with, and that makes it a beautiful app when paired with a full-featured DAW, since it is great at the very things my DAW software is lacking.

[Anderton]

To me, Live is an EXCELLENT co-application to my DAW. Live is fast and easy to create grooves with, and that makes it a beautiful app when paired with a full-featured DAW, since it is great at the very things my DAW software is lacking.

 

 

...all the more reason why it's great ReWire exists!

[10101]

I understand that Live's tempo and pitch stretching algorithms involve compromises between sound quality and resource-saving. But when making DJ mix CDs, for example, it would be nice to have an "off-line" algorithm that would only go for pristine sound quality. Actually, it would not only be "nice", it would be just what one would expect from a professional DJ tool.

[10101]

Also, it would be nice to have playlists. This is simply essential for DJs (and mere folders won't do because there are multiple sort criteria, so it needs to be an XML library file - like iTunes and Adobe Lightroom), but producers and others should welcome it as well as it would enable flexible sorting of clips.

Any comments from Ableton on these two suggestions?

[amplayer]

I just ran into a problem in Live on the PC that I did NOT experience with the exact same setup in Live on the Mac.

 

Here's the scenario:

A Reason DrRex track is needed. Live 6 is invoked and Reason 3 is rewired into Live 6.

Rather than keep the sequence in Reason, I write the MIDI track to disk from Reason and import the MIDI track into Live 6 by dumping the MIDI file onto a session view track. The reason I do it this way is so I can fool around with the MIDI in Live.

On the Mac, this works great. On the PC, the playback stuttered drastically. I searched through the support areas of propellerheads and ableton and I found no issues related to this. Finally, after a lot of guessing, I decided to turn off multiprocessor support in Live even though I'm running on a Core 2 duo processor. I figured maybe it would help since there are 2 processes which could logically run on different processors. Well, this DID FIX IT.

I still don't get it though. On my Mac, the multiprocessor support is enabled, and no similar problem exists. My PC is a much more powerful machine than the Mac, so it doesn't make sense to me.

 

Anyone here know why this might be the case?

[amplayer]

...all the more reason why it's great ReWire exists!

 

 

Um. Actually, NO. Live disables all its plug-ins when it runs as a rewire slave. At least for me, that means I don't use Live as a rewire slave.

 

Enabling plug-ins when running as a rewire slave is a big wish-list item for me.

[Filch]

Um. Actually, NO. Live disables all its plug-ins when it runs as a rewire slave. At least for me, that means I don't use Live as a rewire slave. Enabling plug-ins when running as a rewire slave is a big wish-list item for me.

 

 

Wow, That is a biggee. I haven't decided on what SEQ app to pair up with Live for rewire, yet. Glad I learned about this before I made any purchases. I guess you'll have to render any effects first..... meh

[amplayer]

Wow, That is a biggee. I haven't decided on what SEQ app to pair up with Live for rewire, yet. Glad I learned about this before I made any purchases. I guess you'll have to render any effects first..... meh

 

 

Yeah, well it might not be Ableton's fault. As far as I know, there aren't any programs that run plug-ins while running as a rewire slave. Maybe it is part of the propellerheads rewire specification. I don't know.

A really crummy workaround is to save all the effects as presets and then instantiate them from the presets in a different application later.

[Cmusicmaker]

As far as I know, there aren't any programs that run plug-ins while running as a rewire slave. Maybe it is part of the propellerheads rewire specification. I don't know.

 

 

I would be very surprised if Ableton did not add such functionality into Live 7. But right now...Project 5 definitely can host DX/DXi and VST/VSTi as a rewire host or slave.

 

http://www.project5.com