Ableton Live

Kill Me Sarah · Post by **Kill Me Sarah** » Mon Mar 06, 2006 2:54 pm

I heard there were a couple Live gurus out there. So far I'm liking the interface pretty well. The idea of arranging my music as loops is kind of new to me, but I like it. One thing I'm having trouble with is when I record an arrangement, there are parts where i want one track to go solo for just a couple beats and then have the rest of the mix come back in. It works while I'm doing it live, but when I go back and listen to the arrangement, everything just plays thru normally. Anyone know what I'm talking about/how to fix it?

starfinger · Post by **starfinger** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 9:47 am

Let me get this straight.. you're playing in session view and your changes aren't showing up in the arrangement view? Did you hit record?

Also note that if you are playing back an arrangement and hit anything in session view, the track you hit switches to live mode and the arrangement version will not be played. When it gets into this state, the weird looking button by the transport controls turns red to indicate there is a discrepancy between the two views.

-craig

starfinger · Post by **starfinger** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 9:49 am

oh wait, i see what you're trying to do. the arrangement does not record use of the track solo and mutes (a hotly contested lack of functionality). It does record volume fader movements, so use that instead. I think if you map a key to a fader it can act like a mute.. I dont' have it in front of me at the moment.

if you do set it up that way, you can use a utility plugin on the track to control relative volumes and mutes separately.

-craig

Kill Me Sarah · Post by **Kill Me Sarah** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 9:53 am

starfinger wrote:Let me get this straight.. you're playing in session view and your changes aren't showing up in the arrangement view? Did you hit record?

Also note that if you are playing back an arrangement and hit anything in session view, the track you hit switches to live mode and the arrangement version will not be played. When it gets into this state, the weird looking button by the transport controls turns red to indicate there is a discrepancy between the two views.

-craig

I actually figured out how to do what I wanted. I didn't know how to use that pencil tool to drag the panning/volume/etc. on the tracks. It's a tool that I keep finding these limitations for, and then I realize I just didn't know how to do what I needed to do, and then I love it. So far it does pretty much everythign I could ask for. I may even spring for the full version some day.

But while I have your attention, here's a question. I'm recording to ableton thru TonePort's Gearbox, which will accept two different inputs simultaneously. Is there anyway to record two instruments simultaneously in Live to two separate tracks?

starfinger · Post by **starfinger** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 11:10 am

Bear with me, since i'm going by memory here.
(what version of Live is it, by the way?)

You should be able to pick the input for each track via a dropdown menu on each track. That menu may be invisible in session view, but always appear in Arrangement view (as of Live 5, I think). The tiny buttons on the far right (in session view) toggle the visibility of all the track parts: inputs, outputs, sends, faders, x-fader, etc... So use that to make the inputs show up if they are not there.

If the input select dropdown menu on the track only has an option for the stereo pair of your two inputs, then you have to make the mono versions available in the preference menu. Go to the audio tab on the preferences menu. There is a button for 'input config' or something like that. If you hit that, you can select the mono version of the 2 channels, and they will be selectable individually in the tracks.

To enable 2 tracks for recording simultaneously, I think you have to hold Ctrl when arming the tracks.

Do you have the help window in the bottom left showing? that is very helpful.

-craig

Kill Me Sarah · Post by **Kill Me Sarah** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 11:34 am

starfinger wrote:Bear with me, since i'm going by memory here.
(what version of Live is it, by the way?)

You should be able to pick the input for each track via a dropdown menu on each track. That menu may be invisible in session view, but always appear in Arrangement view (as of Live 5, I think). The tiny buttons on the far right (in session view) toggle the visibility of all the track parts: inputs, outputs, sends, faders, x-fader, etc... So use that to make the inputs show up if they are not there.

If the input select dropdown menu on the track only has an option for the stereo pair of your two inputs, then you have to make the mono versions available in the preference menu. Go to the audio tab on the preferences menu. There is a button for 'input config' or something like that. If you hit that, you can select the mono version of the 2 channels, and they will be selectable individually in the tracks.

To enable 2 tracks for recording simultaneously, I think you have to hold Ctrl when arming the tracks.

Do you have the help window in the bottom left showing? that is very helpful.

-craig

You're a veritable genius. I'm using Live Lite 4 (comes packaged w/ Line 6 TonePort).

So I figured out to record to two tracks simultaneously, but do you know if there's a way to launch the recording of both those tracks at the same time? If you push one record and then the next, then when you playback they're not N*SYNC.

starfinger · Post by **starfinger** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 11:38 am

you are in the session view right?
trigger multiple recording clips with the scene controls on the far right.

you may need to set an option in preferences that says 'scene triggers record' or something like that. it used to be a default behavior, but is not anymore.

if you have global quantize on, and it's currently playing, you can arm multiple tracks manually and they'll both start together on the next beat (or whatever the quanitzation is set to)

-craig

Kill Me Sarah · Post by **Kill Me Sarah** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 10:51 am

Another question (not sure if this arose from changes I made earlier or what). I've tried recording some tracks with just vocals and guitars, but it seems like the the vocals are getting warped according to some project tempo setting or something. Is there a way to disable this?

starfinger · Post by **starfinger** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 11:12 am

if you click on your vocal clip, it should appear in the bottom pane along with all its properties, and there should be a 'warp' button there.

everything is warped by default when you record it, but it shouldn't result in an audible change unless you change the project tempo after recording it.

-craig

Kill Me Sarah · Post by **Kill Me Sarah** » Mon Mar 13, 2006 11:58 am

I've come across a problem where switching to other programs (internet explorer specifically) crashes Live. Have you come across this? Know of any fixes?

edit: actually it seems that any action that interrupts it is crashing it now. I wasn't have this trouble when it was first installed (perhaps a re-install is in order?). I just tried saving a Live Set without stopping the audio and that crashed it.

edit2: Update...I reinstalled it, still had troubles. Earlier, after reading some Line 6 notes on using TonePort, I had disabled my onboard sound and had set the TonePort as the default. This made things much easier because I dind't have to keep plugging my speakers from the TonePort to the PC and instead all of my PC sounds played through the TonePort. But I reenabled my onboard sound, re-booted, and now the problem seems to have been eliminated. Just thought I'd post this for posterity

edit3: Update...I really liked having the TonePort as my main audio device so I hunted around some more. I eventually tried rolling back to the older drivers that come WITH the TonePort instead of the ones that they tell you to update to, and this eliminated the problem with the ASIO crashing, which was what was causing the problem.