multi-touch screen as control surface?

These jazz mutant guys have a multi-touch display that can be configured as a midi controller. It looks really cool but I think I'd still rather have good ol' knobs, sliders, and buttons.

neat video demo using Live and a single sample

I was reading the Ableton forums and saw someone mention this video as a good example of using simpler. This guy samples a single acoustic guitar note and then plays with it to create lead, bass, and drums sounds. He then puts them together into a couple of clips and it sounds pretty good. It doesn't go into a lot of detail though but if you don't use simpler you might be surprised how interesting it sounds to vary the sample start time and length in real time.

sync jamming in Ableton part II

I tried syncing three laptops at the same time again, except this time with different equipment than before. Last time we had a midi adapter with 4 outputs so all the slaves had their own dedicated out from the master. This time we didn't have that so we decided to try to chain together the laptops in this order:

firewire410+Mac   -->    x-station+Win  -->    Axiom 25+win
 midi out            midi in --> midi out         midi in

As soon as we had configured our midi sync preferences in Ableton and hit play, the last synth in the chain started playing double time. The tempo was actually double the value set on the master hooked to the FireWire 410. The culprit turned out to the be x-station in the middle. The keyboard was set (by me) to echo midi from the hardware in to both hardware outs. Ableton had also been set to send sync on the hardware midi out. I disabled midi echo on the x-station and left Ableton to send sync.

After fixing that problem we still had sync issues so we decided to run the metronome sync routine I wrote about earlier. this involves taking turns playing our metronomes and adjusting the midi clock sync delay in midi preferences.

The timing still seemed off! Certain notes in midi clips seemed to have heavy swing despite nothing set to swing. I decided to try using the x-stations midi echo instead of Abletons but everyone agreed that was worse. We went back to letting Ableton send sync signals to the Axiom.

Our timing still never seemed to be as tight as it had been before so I'm thinking that a star topology is preferable to daisy chaining laptops running Ableton Live.

There are lots of adapters with loads of outs for fairly cheap. I'll have to pick one up for myself to get a real Ableton laptop orchestra going.

Read my first post on midi syncing multiple laptops with Ableton Live here.

How to swing

Here's a little tip on getting your swing to sound right in Ableton Live. make sure all your clips are set to the same groove setting! If they aren't, your swing will sound wonky. If you want to set a bunch of clips to the same groove just drag a select box around everything on the clip view and you'll get a clip properties box below where you can apply the groove across all selected clips.

I actually like using swing 16 on most songs so I set this in my global preferences and now all new sets I create default to that setting.

By the way, there is no ideal global groove amount, just play with it till you like it. That said, I keep ending up at 64 to get that Kompakt-like micro house swing.

Book Review : Ableton Live 6 - Tips and Tricks

In an effort to jump start my understanding of Live I recently read the book Ableton Live 6 : Tips and Tricks by Martin Delaney. Its a fairly quick read at 142 pages with pictures and made easier by the fact that Martin writes with great passion for his subject. Its pretty obvious this guy loves Live and he should since he teaches it.

I read another book on live and it was a bit of a struggle, but Martin makes a smart move with this book and skips the whole intro to Live thing and gets right down to dishing out tips. He pretty much assumes you've done the tutorial and skimmed through the pdf manual (you have done this right?) and starts giving you a real world breakdown of how he and other musicians get stuff done in Live. Its like having your own friend, who has used Live forever, sit down with you and school you on fundamentals.

There are a few chapters I skipped like "Using Live with other software" but thats because I only plan on using Live. ;)

So I would recommend this book to anyone who's looking for more tip goodness that they can read about from the comfort of the couch. Right now its only $13 on Amazon and I'm not making any ad money on this referral so you know I'm for real.

Ableton on Youtube

Ableton Inc. is really into live video demos on youtube. They probably realize that seeing Live in action is one of the best ways to demonstrate its virtues. There's an official channel with tons of howtos and demos.

This video has a very excited Robert Henke demoing Sampler. Now I don't own any of the additional instruments but these videos (and part II) make me want to get Sampler now.



btw, in case you missed it, I added my own video to Youtube demoing the rockband guitar to Ableton hack I blogged about earlier.

Midi sync jamming with multiple computers and Ableton Live

One of the coolest things about Ableton Live is midi syncing multiple laptops together for jamming. The first time I tried it I was a little worried about how tight the timing would be but my fears turned out to be unfounded. It was a little tricky though so here's a few tips for anyone who wants to try it.

Make sure that sync is enabled on the inputs and outputs you are using. Also, make sure that track and remote are off on the slave computers midi input or your master will start triggering your slaves sounds too! Sometimes you can't do this is the slave uses a midi controller with built-in midi interface. If this is the case, you can usually configure the master midi controller to not echo midi note and controller data on the physical midi port thus allowing you to enable track and remote on the slave again. Some experimentation with your jam partners is probably a good idea here.

On the slave computers select the Ext button to enable syncing to an external clock. If you are recieving midi clock sync already you will see an green square blinking next to the Ext button. The master will see an orange block blinking if sync is being sent. These are very useful for diagnosing sync problems so learn to use them!

Finally, once you have sync working, mute any tracks that have active clips and turn on the metronomes on all synced computers. You will now easily be able to hear how off the sync is. Have the slave computer adjust the midi clock sync delay until it is perfect. You'll know you are close when the dueling metronomes start phasing each other out.

If you are syncing more than two computers, do this last step one by one between the master and each slave.

I've hooked up three laptops with Ableton and it worked great. I'd be curious to hear from anyone else if they've done more.

Read my next post on syncing multiple laptops in Ableton Live here.

First impressions of Ableton 7

So I got Ableton Live 7 downloaded and installed. It updated my library and so far it opens all my old projects from version 6. Here are some of the highlights:

• Import audio loops to midi track! It slices the loop into a drum rack and creates a midi track for it. Try throwing midi effects on that!
• New compressor w/ sidechain had me tweaking my kick and bass to pump and breathe.

I'll be testing it out with another Ableton 7 user this week so midi sync and live set exchange will be tested later.

rockband instruments and midi

When I first heard they were going to make Rockband, the first thing I wondered is if they would allow a free jam mode. How cool would it be if you and a few other players could just pick up the instruments and trigger sounds that weren't related to one of the "preset" songs?

So now that the game is out its awesome but it doesn't seem to have this feature (yet?) so I set about trying to wire the controllers into Ableton Live so I could trigger sounds of my own.

One thing that really makes this easy is that the Xbox Harmonix controllers are all joysticks and are natively supported on XP. This makes hooking up stuff to them dead easy.

Unfortunately, none of the current joy to midi programs on windows handle more than one joystick very well.

The first program I tried was called joytokey. This doesn't use midi, it just maps the controller input to keystrokes which you can use to trigger Live events.

First I just mapped different sounds to each pad in impulse and played them with the fret buttons. The problem is that this feels weird, probably because it doesn't use the string switch thingie. My right hand didn't have anything to do. Also, it would cut off notes if I played more than a few at a time. I believe this is a limitation of the keyboard interface, not joytokey or rockband.

So I decided to use a joy to midi program called rejoice to avoid the note limitation of joytokey. After playing with it for a few minutes I realized I could map multiple midi events to one joystick events. To get strumming you need the notes to be triggered by the strum, so I triggered all the pads in impulse at once with the strum paddle, and then I unmute the fret sounds with the fret buttons. This simulates the sound of rockband pretty well.



links
ableton demo, works for as long as you like but you can't save

ableton thread on rejoice - this programs site has disapeared and there's almost no trace it was ever written. no help either!

rejoice download - handles a single device well though

joytokey - for joystick to keystrokes. Works simultaneously with rejoice. It will jam up and cut off your notes when more than three notes are played

VIMIDIJoY- one joystick at a time

Livesticks - does not support the hats (pov switch) which you need for the strum paddle on the guitars, but handles multiple joysticks with precision. Difficult to set up. Possibly works on mac