The Ableton Q&A Thread

[nowaysj]

Are you doing video work? Why do you export at 48khz?

[Disco Nutter]

Got me there, just checked and I am exporting at 44.1khz. I guess I used to export at 48 for no particular reason, I just had it set up like that.

[Perej]

Got me there, just checked and I am exporting at 44.1khz. I guess I used to export at 48 for no particular reason, I just had it set up like that.

Thanks mate.

Also, I can no longer see the little box where can I change the output of a track, (the bit where you can select 'master' or whatever). How can I get that back? At the moment i just see the volume & panning options on each column along with arm etc.

[bibbyj]

Also, I can no longer see the little box where can I change the output of a track, (the bit where you can select 'master' or whatever). How can I get that back? At the moment i just see the volume & panning options on each column along with arm etc.

Is the bottom right "IO" Button selected ?

Or try hiding the bottom right arrow device view panel.

[hurlingdervish]

So I was trying to emulate a wavetable wave-morphing effect with racked simplers the other day and had it set so a macro swept through the chain selector with zones for each simpler (small loops from each sample) fading in and out. A problem came up though, when you shift outside of a chains range, sweeping back into it doesn't fade that wave back in again, forgoing the ability to have an LFO type effect on the custom wavetable. You have to retrigger everything for part of the chain to come back in. If you extend each chains range indefinitely, the volume doesn't fade out fast enough and you get things layering that you don't want to layer.

Anybody have any experience with this?

[nowaysj]

Thinking about this... Just used the chain selector for the first time the other day so can't say really liked it for fx. Really fun to play fx chains, got them mapped to drum pads.

But why aren't ur sames retriggering? Maybe if you send a string of like 32nd or 64th notes? It will retrigger as u sweep into range?

The more I do with live the more I feel like max is the way to go. I constantly need a more nuanced interface to do what I want to do, like triggers working in conjunction with if then statements.

Really basic q though, u r using the fade ranges in the chain selector?

[hurlingdervish]

Thinking about this... Just used the chain selector for the first time the other day so can't say really liked it for fx. Really fun to play fx chains, got them mapped to drum pads.

But why aren't ur sames retriggering? Maybe if you send a string of like 32nd or 64th notes? It will retrigger as u sweep into range?

The more I do with live the more I feel like max is the way to go. I constantly need a more nuanced interface to do what I want to do, like triggers working in conjunction with if then statements.

Really basic q though, u r using the fade ranges in the chain selector?

yea
imagine abcd are each simpler
-----[]--------------
a>
__<b>
_____ <c>
_________ <d>

by the time i hit D, A and B will mute

[hurlingdervish]

I guess for a workaround I could repeat the chains by duplicating the group of simplers for however many repetitions I want, but then I'd end up with like 32 chains lol

and yea retriggering works fine. So its still workable, you just have to play by its rules, which I guess is fair since its an instrument I'm creating out of tools not made for creating instruments like it.

[Aerandir]

I have a lot of automation in massive. When i play it, sometimes it sounds as intended, and sometimes it sounds very different than the original (for example there is no glide between the midi notes). I thought it was the case of ableton ommiting different things in order to play it back smoothly, but it seems not to be. When i export it at highest settings it still plays some automation correctly and other not so well.
Just to be clear: it is not that some parts are played well and others not. For example part X may be played well, but if I play it back once more it is screwed up.

[symmetricalsounds]

you sure you don't have some automation working against other things going on?

[Disco Nutter]

Sometimes, if your notes reach beyond the end of a midi clip, Live doesn't receive a midi note off message and this can alter how some sounds recreate with each playthrough. Especially when you have retrigger effects and so on.

[Aerandir]

OMFG LOL. I'm so stupid. I remember that I had automated glide-time for purpose, so I was sure it was because of this "unglided" sound.
I took a while to look at it carefully, lol.


No wonder it didn't glide
It is interesting that it reacted differently to that automation though.

[Disco Nutter]

You can press CTRL+ALT+O to free up a lot of space on that project.

[nowaysj]

I bet you that view is really helpful in the limited space of ableton's revolutionary one monitor gui.

==

So I've got a Q and I think I already know the answer to it, but god, I hope I don't:

DUMMY CLIPS:

Okay, so I've got a buss with a dummy clip in it. The dummy clip is designed to turn up or down the first macro of the fx rack on the buss.

Make sense?

Okay, so (hard to explain) the dummy clip's automation only affects the total range of where the actual macro knob is set... does that make sense? So if the Macro knob is set to 127, the dummy clip can modulate the parameter controlled by the macro knob from 0 to 127. Now I turn the macro knob down to say 64, the automation within the dummy clip only can modulate the value controlled by the macro knob from 0 to 64.

This is not really the behavior I want here.

I'd like the dummy clip automation to actually affect the value of the macro knob, not operate within the range of the macro knob. Gnaw what I'm saying?

==

Ultimately what I'm trying to achieve is: I'm trying to structure this freeform kind of jam song. I'm trying to do this with scenes. So I can get into and out of sections of the song by launching a scene. Pretty reasonable, right? So the thing is, I'm doing all kinds of fucked up knob tweaking and fx chain modulating, and I just can't reset everything by hand to drop into the next scene/section of the song. So I'd like to use dummy clips (or something else, please let me know!) to reset various parameters back to their basic levels for that section... which I can then begin to play/tweak as the section develops.

Soo... the net problem that I'm having is... the intro dummy clip, sets macro knob 1 (which is a wet mix) to max value, right, so a really wet intro. But I've got to have the actual macro knob at 127 to allow the automation to go all the way up to the max.

At the end of the intro section, I'd like to cut the wet down to zero. So, I've got an dummy clip with the value of macro one knob, or the wet, down to 0. Now the thing here is: The actual macro one knob is at 127, but the dummy clip sets the value to 0. It is dry now. Okay, that is good, BUT, I can no longer turn the actual macro knob one and have it affect the wetness of the audio effect rack.

Again, what I think would resolve my problem is have the dummy clip affect the actual value of the macro one knob, rather than the potential range of the macro one knob's value.

Holy carp that is a long winded inarticulate post.

TL;DR: I'm fucked?

Anyone know what I'm talking about, know a way to get the behavior I'm looking for?

[hurlingdervish]

use a second reverb?

dummy clip automation is always relative unless you use third party plugins. Some third party stuff records their automation fully into clips just like operator would into arrangement. I don't know about effects though.

[nowaysj]

use a second reverb?

Not really an alternative, at least with my current IQ and processing power and midi controllers. Take this issue and multiply it by 20, and then multiply it 5 sections of the song. I'd have 100 extra fx and knobs and pads and the like to control them all. Fuck that mate. Would be easier to have eight people here all crowded around my midi controllers hitting buttons and turning knobs at the appropriate times.

[hurlingdervish]

use a second reverb?

Not really an alternative, at least with my current IQ and processing power and midi controllers. Take this issue and multiply it by 20, and then multiply it 5 sections of the song. I'd have 100 extra fx and knobs and pads and the like to control them all. Fuck that mate. Would be easier to have eight people here all crowded around my midi controllers hitting buttons and turning knobs at the appropriate times.

screenshot dat shit

[nowaysj]

screenshot dat shit

Could if this was reason. All the connections are entirely virtual/nonvisual

[hurlingdervish]

screenshot dat shit

Could if this was reason. All the connections are entirely virtual/nonvisual

I just figured your session view at the very least was a giant mess

[Aerandir]

You can press CTRL+ALT+O to free up a lot of space on that project.

Thanks!