Axis Mundi
Axis Mundi
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Posted : Aug 4, 2011 01:55
Apparently if you export your project (via the "File" command) which has changes in tempo in the tempo track, the analysis file won't save the tempo changes. So when you export the project to wav (via the "File" command), put it back into the project and line it up so it matches the section of the project you exported. Then Consolidate that newly added track clip. the resulting analysis file will then have markers in the clip corresponding to the changes in tempo in the tempo track. Then, fish both the newly consolidated clip and the associated analysis file out of the project folder and put it somewhere else for later use in your DJ/life set.
mudpeople
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Posted : Aug 4, 2011 03:14
Quote:
On 2011-07-04 04:19, Axis Mundi wrote:
Let Sugar Bytes Turnado be the first FX vst you get if you have an APC40. This thing is awesome!
Just let it be the first FX VST you get. It will pay for itself in 24 hrs. Effectrix as well, and Unique is a superb virtual-analog synth with some crazy neat options. Thesys is a good step/chord/arp/param/modulation sequencer, with built in synth, if youre into that sort of thing. I prefer more MIDI control a la CLOCKWOrK. Pure analog-style mono-seq.
Which reminds me; I found a workaround, sorta, to my problem of too many CC hogged by ClockWOrK, and its dumb-ass obvious; derr i can haz 15 other channels with 128 CC msgs each derrr herrrrr. Ive got 2 ClockWOrKs sequencing my 2 Wendy Carlos Racks of virtual analog, and now I can actually use the note-skips and velocity/CC knobs. 16 steps = 32 knobs, 32 buttons, and at least 2 parameter knobs, not counting hidden knobs... so about 70 CC msgs each. BUT I CAN CONTROL EVERYTHING, from teh microKONTROL!!!!
Lately Ive been getting into Max for Live which is, well, a bit overwhelming at first. Im sure you all know Cycling 74, or Pluggo plugs, or even PureData. Well same thing, and just today i found a whole mess of PureData plugs ported to m4live. Its a whole new program with M4L, almost relearning how to walk...
Some amxds that I like;
TrDrAx-4 channel TRx0x sequencer
rStep-step sequencer good for drum racks
lots of MIDI utilities, like a program changer (toggle presets, from MIDI controller, made for win) and a rack of 16 macros
weird little generative things like the nwdlbots and the Wife Knob something or other (plays with your knb for you)
a decent 303 emulation (PureData has one like it too)
Monolake's plugs, the ML-185 is the M-185 sequencer from RYK ported which is a neat kind of sequencer
LOTS AND LOTS OF MONOME, APC40 and LAUNCHPAD utilities that give my microKONTROL pad-nis envy
Max is also good for integration of hardware into Live, so theres a ton of hardwaer-specific plugs that make it easy (or so I imagine) to use your hardware with Live.
Also all the plugs can be accessed in Max itself, and tweaked to personalize or cannibalized for your own plugs. Ive sorta gotten into the world of visual programming languages such as Max, PureData, Delphi and the rest and its... Technical... I recommend PureData, its from the same guy behind Max, open source freeware. The plugs made in the various languages seem pretty easy to port; Max4Live has TONS of Puredata, Pluggo, and Max plugs and programmers among others. The entire Pluggo rack comes built into M4L too.
Did I mention IT DOES VIDEO TOO? Theres a plug that is a random sequencer running off either video or a pic, and others designed to add visual aspects to Live. Ive always thought a visualizaton would make Live so much more fun...
.
willsanquil
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Posted : Aug 9, 2011 08:05
Don't laugh at me, but I found out something really amazing this weekend that kind of stunned me in its simplicity.
You don't need to warp tracks to play them through Ableton.
It sounds silly, but I had a major DJ breakthrough this weekend with NOT warping tracks. I have a vast chillout/dub/etc library, but the BPM analyzers rarely get the tempo right..and even if the tempo is right it's kind of a crapshoot as to whether or not I will be able to properly warp a track so that I could beatmatch it like I do with psy.
This ended up basically restricting me from ever playing chillout or dub as I couldn't warp it. However, a lot of that material has long intros and outros..and if there's no solid beat or percussion it can sound amazing to just blend ambient/chill even if its not beatmatched.
So if you can't warp it, you can still play it! Especially if you have the ability to Cue - get one track playing, copy it over into another channel, put that channel and the next song you're going to play (which is in its own channel) on Cue and test out the mix while the first track is going!
Vermeee
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Posted : Aug 9, 2011 14:03
u dont need to copy the track to another to cue ..
just create an audio channel as receiver... send this audio channel to the master...
send all urs track channel to that new audio created channel in the output configuration ...
then click the little buton i-o in the master fade and choose the cue output to channel 3/4 and master to channel 1/2
now check if the metronome volume knob s set as SOLO or CUE..let it as CUE..... so now the output 3/4 from ur audio 2 dj will have the cue from ur project and everytime u press the solo buton in ur apc 40 instead of workin as a solo , it ll work as a cue to ur headphone...
Vermeee
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Posted : Aug 9, 2011 14:05
as long as ur track is playin but the volume fader s at 0... u ll hear it in ur headphone.. ( channel 3/4 from ur soundcard ) and obviously it wont go to the master channel
http://soundcloud.com/bgos
willsanquil
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Posted : Aug 9, 2011 18:34
Yes, I am familiar with how to cue within Ableton... but you aren't understanding what I am doing I don't think.
I just started track 1. It has 8 minutes left. I know what track I want to play next, but I don't know if it's going to mix well. I look through the waveform/remember the track, and see where I might want to mix it out...say at 6 minutes.
I have 4 minutes to test out a mix, so I duplicate track 1 into another audio channel so that I can play it at the 6 minute mark *while the original instance of track 1 is still ~8 minutes*
This allows me to know beforehand that the mix I'm going to do is going to work well, afterward I delete the 2nd instance of track 1, take the Cue off for the 2 channels I was playing and wait for my mix point.
BTW - If Cue is enabled you don't need to keep the volume fader at zero....you just need to disable the yellow button that sends the audio out to the master or wherever you have it routed.
On the APC its easy, you just hit the yellow button/cue button at the same time.
This is the primary reason why I have 4 virtual decks in my setup - 2 for 'real' tracks and 2 for 'cueing' tracks. It's been working exceptionally well for me. If you want to make an apple pie from scratch...you must first invent the universe
www.soundcloud.com/tasp www.soundcloud.com/kinematic-records
willsanquil
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Posted : Aug 11, 2011 05:25
Unless I can't find it, you can't automate sample length in sampler but you can in simpler. Great thing to automate when sampling voices!
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch...you must first invent the universe
www.soundcloud.com/tasp www.soundcloud.com/kinematic-records
willsanquil
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Posted : Aug 16, 2011 04:45
You can get really quick with editing midi clips and creating loops.
One of my favorite methods for creating patterns is to start with a really small loop of straight 16ths, like a quarter of a bar long. Duplicate that out to a couple bars, make some changes to the pattern, consolidate. Now adjust the loop length again, add more changes, consolidate.
Now split the big clip into different pieces, add changes and variation to each one.
Sometimes I'll end up writing something cool in the first part of a bar but the rest sucks. Change the loop to only encompass that good section, consolidate - now add changes to your duplicated loop of goodness.
Very easy to get a lot of different evolving patterns with this method.
Also don't forget about unlinking your clip envelope....really interesting to have that looping at a different time than your loop.
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch...you must first invent the universe
www.soundcloud.com/tasp www.soundcloud.com/kinematic-records
willsanquil
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Posted : Aug 17, 2011 07:46
A lot of time when I warp tracks, I set the first kick to 1.1.1 and then drag the start marker backwards.
Say the intro is just shy of 4 bars long...you don't want to cut out that 1 bar if it's a vocal sample or something, but you also want to make sure the intro is exactly 4 bars long for mixing purposes.
Most of the time if you zoom all the way out and drag the start marker wayyyy to the left directly after the setting of 1.1.1 the marker will force itself to the closest whole number (or at least it does most of the time)
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch...you must first invent the universe
www.soundcloud.com/tasp www.soundcloud.com/kinematic-records
willsanquil
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Posted : Aug 18, 2011 00:41
Audio Effect Racks > Sends
OK - one of my favorite techniques is to send a sound to mutiple return channels, tweak their parameters and then bounce the reusulting sonic salad down to one bit of audio. This was inspired by reading about the common production technique of having a couple reverbs and a couple delays on send for use with multiple different instruments during the course of the tune to ensure continuity.
The main premise of it is to add an effect without losing any of the original signal - you have the entire unaltered original + the effected version on top of it - this is especially good with things like reverb, becuase as you know when you put a reverb unit directly on a sound and crank up the dry/wet...your sound decreases in volume.
OK - so that's great, but unless I was really meticulous with making sure I would bounce down what I wanted (hard when I might want to tweak something later) I would end up with projects where I had a billion and a half send/return tracks - I would get around this by naming them after the instrument they followed.
However, Audio Effect Racks work the same way but better...
I'll give you an example of what I'm working on now. I have a main melody/motif and I want to introduce it beforehand in some way..I know! I'll reverse it, stretch the shit out of it so that the short 16th notes are looooooong, and then put some reverb and ping pong delay on it.
So, I reverse, I stretch, I cut - now I have a bunch of long notes. I put the reverb and the ping pong on, tweak them to taste. Hm - I think that if I automated in a quick jump in the Redux unit's downsample (on soft) that would add a cool effect to the delay (side note: putting different FX units in the path of a delay unit for a very short amount of time with lots of feedback is fun) - so I do so.
Hm. It sounds cool but the redux effect is too strong. What I would normally do is duplicate the effect chain, paste it into a send/return track, and then mix it lower so that it's there but not as in your face.
The much simpler method is to highlight your effects strip, hit CTRL+G to group them together into an Audio Effect Rack, open up your Chains and CTRL+D to duplicate the chain that you had. Now, take the redux module off the first chain and keep the automated redux on the second chain....just mix the volume on that whole redux'd chain a bit. I chose -10db.
This is awesome because it feels more intuitive - instead of the sound's FX being all over the place in different menus, it's right in it's own channel. It also allows me to not have to worry about bouncing down stuff right away, as I am not cluttering up my send/returns with stuff I'll only use for one sound. Also note that when multiple copies of the same unit are in a rack you can right click on a parameter and apply that change to its sibling units.
I still keep multiple reverbs/delays on sends if I know I'm going to use it for more than one effect.
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch...you must first invent the universe
www.soundcloud.com/tasp www.soundcloud.com/kinematic-records
willsanquil
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Posted : Aug 18, 2011 23:35
Done some more playing around and there are things that I forgot to mention:
With racks you can freeze the track and catch the whole thing in one pass, you cant do that with sends.
However, you cant do infinite feedback loops as nicely as with a send, because you can route a send to itself.
BUT you can bypass this and get the best of both worlds by using drum rack. Drum rack has it's own internal send/returns! And each cell can have it's own sample/instrument that has it's own audio effect rack after it....
If you want to record an infinite feedback loop with sends, you have to record it 1:1 as it's playing and when I do it, it usually involves switching a lot of routing options which doesn't take much time but time nonetheless and can also create confusion later if I'm not tidy.
With drum rack you can just freeze and then pull the whole thing to another audio track for editing....especially great when you have really long feedback parts and you have to check to see if your automation of feedback and other parameters are having the intended effect.
willsanquil
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Posted : Aug 19, 2011 23:57
A note about using drum rack in this way...you will be restricted to using just one MIDI note at a time through drum racks piano roll. However, this note (default is c3) can be changed, you can put random midi devices before your instrument to generate more than that one note (plus the scale device to make it sound nice), and you can also create another MIDI track, write a pattern in it, and then route it to that particular drum rack cell with your synth in it and use the regular piano roll as you normally would.
However, routing a midi clip into the drum rack will make it so that the track containing the drum rack will not be freezeable.
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch...you must first invent the universe
www.soundcloud.com/tasp www.soundcloud.com/kinematic-records
mudpeople
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Posted : Aug 20, 2011 19:52
Ive been overwhelmed exploring the MaxForLive devices, so much potential but a little too much at first, but after figuring out what does what, the possibilities begin to show themselves.
I also found that its not all that difficult to use the devices as building blocks for more specific personal applications; Ive been seeking a good drum sequencer to run Transistordrums 2, easily arranged in realtime, for my live setup, without quite finding just what I had in mind, except the TrDrAx m4l device, but it only has 4 channels, and velocity control which I don't need. So as an experiment I opened it up in Max, duplicated the sequencers, deleted what I dont need, arranged the step interface on a single layer, and just for fun gave the steps the classic 808 colors, now its as easy as clicking in patterns. I was surprised how intuitive it was working in Max, it was the first time I did more than tweak MIDI settings in it and I have read exactly 0 tutorials, loaded 0 examples. If one is patient enough to properly route the signal flow between modules everything seems to be pretty self-explanatory.
In my live setup Ive got a MIDI rack full of Scale devices of all the scales I could want, mostly cannibalized from Axis' rack, on every synth rack as well as every device receiving note data, making everything automatically stay in key, plus every device receiving note data, arpeggiators, step sequencers, the works. All of the racks' macros are mapped to the same 2 controls so everything stays in key when its changed. Im not fully certain all of them are entirely necessary, but Id rather be safe. I want to see about racking complimentary scales, 3rds, 5ths, 7th basenotes, and such for more variety and more complex musicality. Its inspiring for studio work too, hearing how everythign sounds in whatever key. And keeping everything in tune makes everything stand out and interact cleanly.
On the topic of Audio Fx Racks and send/returns; Ive got 3 main sends, one for synths, one for percs, one for kick/bass, the kick/bass and percs are sent to another return with my fx rack and Minimal Systems' BK Filter, a second set of the same is on the synth return, both sets' on/offs mapped to microKONTROL pads with the macro knobs of both sets mapped to the same 2 controls, one for the chain selector, hte other the filter cutoff, with Turnado knobs mapped to the mK pots. The rack chains are all crossfaded so they can be smoothly layered with more possible combinations. The rack could use some more chains but the ones Ive got do the trick. In particular Ive found Melda Productions' free plugs very useful for individual effects, they sound great, perhaps the best freeware fx Ive ever used, highly recommended. Personally Ive never really been satisfied with Live's native effects, even less so since finding Melda..
willsanquil
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Posted : Aug 27, 2011 01:36
Tasp DJ/Live set Hybrid 2.0
The new version integrates the same functionality as my last setup, but with the added bonus of a modified Tom Cosm Automatic Glitch Machine from the following video. A working knowledge of the stuff contained in that video is necessary if you are going to understand the modification - he expains it much better than I will, so go watch that first and then come back here.
I like the autoglitch, but my main issue with it is that you have to constantly change the routing with your mouse. You could probably write a M4L patch to bypass this, but I thought that instead of re-routing the signal each time through the dropdown box you could use Sends and different dummy clips instead, which are changeable through MIDI controllers and whatnot.
So, in the template you will see a Routing section in Teal, which contains the Sends channes from Tom's Video - I took out Route as it didn't seem to be necessary. Final Out is the last step in the various FX chains before going out to the master (via the Routing group), so that you can have a volume knob for the sum of all of your auto-glitches.
So, as you can see the 4 Decks are all routed to Sends, which goes out to the master through the Routing group channel. When the "Master" dummy clip in the sends channel is playing, all of the sends are set to 0%. Then there are separated FX ONLY clips that will turn down the volume of Sends to 0% but will enable the respective send. If you have the Final Out volume up, you will hear only the glitched audio path.
If you look down further there are also FX MIX clips, which will keep Sends volume at 100% and will also send out their respective send channel, so that if the Final Out volume is up you will get the original unaltered audio + the glitched audio on top.
Now, there is also the issue of the different FX chains that the glitch is using and which is controlled by the dummy clips in FX1,2,3 and 4 as per toms video. I think it's great, but it could use a little tweaking for even more potential...
The concept is to have each one of the FX1,2,3,4 channels contain not a single FX chain, but multiple FX chains in an Audio Effect rack that you can change with the channel selector. So instead of just a beat repeat, have a beat repeat and a flanger in different chains, and have each one take up half of the range. Now, go back through and add in another set of clip automation for your flanger. When the chain selector is focused on the beat repeat, the flanger automations wont do anything and vice versa - though I'm sure it could get interesting real fast if you were to overlap the ranges.
Additionally, you can use the macro knobs to modulate the parameters of the various FX units in your chains that aren't being automated by your clip envelopes. So, you could bind the Pitch parameter of the beat repeat to macro 1, and also bind a Flanger parameter to macro 1. Make this work by entering in specific min/max ranges in the Map Mode so that both the minimum value and maximum value of each knob modulates the parameters on all the FX modules you want in a pleasing way.
If you do this, you can open up a staggering world of potential that can either be very subtle and locked down, or wild and ridiculously glitchy.
My specific setup with MIDI controllers and tracks will probably be:
3 Virtual decks, the Sends track, and the four FX channels - 8 in total, which matches up perfectly with the APC 40 layout. I will then have the routing group and final out after that, and also an additional channel running Omnisphere, and also an additional channel running Zebra2 for live synth duty - both of which can be fed into the autoglitch.
Omnisphere has a nice iPad app which I use in tandem with another iPad app called Touchable which gives you a second 'red box' for clip launching and whatnot, but I primarily use it for its onscreen keyboard/drum pad for triggering Omnisphere/Zebra.
Download my Live Pack that contains the template below - it contains a rough mix of my newest track as well as a bonus
I hope you enjoy!
I took out almost all of the FX and plugins I had in this pack and reformatted it a bit so its easier to understand, so it's missing a bunch of stuff that I don't feel like doing with the built in ableton effects, but it's certainly possible to do so. I would suggest limiters all over the place in different channels to make sure you don't get anything nasty coming through. I also added a couple different EQs, the most important one being a high-pass filter on the Final Out channel to take away bass frequencies, because you usually want those nice and clean.
It's also a nice idea to have a couple knobs on your MIDI controller assigned to EQ, so that you could on demand only glitch certain portions of the spectrum.
