Abelton Questions

Hey. I sat down last night and attempted to figure out a way to use abelton which is similar to the way I use my hardware. ie has to be a v fast , intuitive way for me to records automation & patterns. No doubt I came up against a big ****ing wall when I tried to do a few things which I need to be able to do

A few question for the advance or not so advanced users.

Why cant I record VST/Effects automations live WITHIN each clip? Or can I? I couldnt figure it out. I'm not talking about clicking the envelopes with my mouse within each clip ( i know you can do this). But I want to be able to do this with my controller, whilst making clips in session/loop view on the fly.

Why cant I save midi mapping settings with my racks\chains. Its seems pointless creating custom chains with macro settings (eg _> massive + eq + reverb ) but have to manually setup your midi controller everytime you load it into a song.

How do you audition say Battery over a loop that is playing without fecking recording into the current clip thats playing.. Its probably something simple but its annoying me. To hear what you are playing you have to 'arm' the track, but arming the track means that if any current clip is playing you are gonna record every key press into the clip (Session view). Switching to 'monitoring' doesnt have any effect. I just want to be able to jam with the current clip.. and then decide if i want to record in or not.


Any help appreciated.]
Stevo

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Why cant I record VST/Effects automations live WITHIN each clip?

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Not possible. Stupid, but it isnt DIRECTLY possible. You can use dummy clips to control things, but that defeats the object of the exercise.

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How do you audition say Battery over a loop that is playing without fecking recording into the current clip thats playing.. Its probably something simple but its annoying me. To hear what you are playing you have to 'arm' the track, but arming the track means that if any current clip is playing you are gonna record every key press into the clip (Session view). Switching to 'monitoring' doesnt have any effect. I just want to be able to jam with the current clip.. and then decide if i want to record in or not

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Turn on "IN" its next to monitor

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Originally Posted by RDR

Not possible. Stupid, but it isnt DIRECTLY possible. You can use dummy clips to control things, but that defeats the object of the exercise.

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elaborate please.

;)

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Originally Posted by massplanck

elaborate please.

;)

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Stolen from the albeton community forum

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The only way to do it is to record automation in arrange view and then copy the envelopes to the clip one by one. But be aware that automation is absolute values, while clip envelopes are offset values. So to make sure the sonic result is the same, you would have to set the knobs for the envelope driven parameters to either center position or maximum position (depends on the type of parameter, i.e. if the clip envelope is unipolar or bipolar).

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If you want an education in albeton, get over to their community, its buzzin and has an entire tips and tricks section, its free and you dont need to 'own' ableton to join.

Actually after this im pretty sure im ditching abelton. :)

I cant make music in the manner I can make killer tracks on a piece of hardware.

The last few days were a trial run to see if I could finally come up with a system that could emulate the speed at which i can get a really good track going with my RS7000. Software is gay. Too much time spend managing this & configuring that and not enough time spent making music.

I have a certain method for making basslines. in 30 seconds I can have somthing killer going in the RS. With a PC & Abelton its more like 30 mins. And even at that it never sits right.. abelton hasnt got the funk for me.

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Originally Posted by massplanck

Actually after this im pretty sure im ditching abelton. :)

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Its a MASSIVE problem for a lot of people, me included

but i own my copy so... better use it!

;) yeah.

I cant understand whiy such a popular piece of music software has only one groove\swing setting. How stupid is that. Zero Funk. Even the lowly MC-303 had about 30. Its probably had a massive *adverse* effect on alot of music being produced today? Groove quantization? What the hell is that? ITS WHAT MAKES YOUR ****ING SONGS SOUND DECENT AS OPPOSED TO SHITE!

I might just move to cubase. Then again in a couple of months i'll have enough bits and bobs to finally have my hardware setup perfect.

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has only one groove\swing setting. How stupid is that. Zero Funk.

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You need to look into it a bit more than that dude.

The swing is in several different places, not as easily accessible than logic,cubase etc...

The overall swing is located next to the tempo
Swing can be chosen per sample
Midi quantize function is easily accessible, did you know that applying a 10% 1/8T will give a straight 1/8 swing as it moves away from the timing grid?

Also WARP markers can easily be moved and each loop finely tuned to its own swing.

Would be nice to have some MPC swings though ;)

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Originally Posted by massplanck

Why cant I save midi mapping settings with my racks\chains. Its seems pointless creating custom chains with macro settings (eg _> massive + eq + reverb ) but have to manually setup your midi controller everytime you load it into a song.

.]
Stevo

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i don't seem to have this problem my midi maps are saved to individual songs ... it just saves them

Just use ableton for playing live and cubase for writing tracks mate.
Easy.

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Originally Posted by massplanck

I have a certain method for making basslines. in 30 seconds I can have somthing killer going in the RS. With a PC & Abelton its more like 30 mins. And even at that it never sits right.. abelton hasnt got the funk for me.

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are you referring to the yamaha rs 7000?
i'm about to purchase either an electribe sx or an rs 7000, which one would you recommend? my main interest is to make it easier to craft beats, to lay down rhytms extremely quick and change the patterns on the fly

i want some direct contact with the patterns, i truly despise the mouse

i dont get it... it sounds like you want to either use software & ableton, or either use hardware alone. maybe both?? fm8 and my machinedrum work great together



edit: just saw the 2nd post on cubase... does cubase do seperate groove control for each midi track... pretty handy id say. i never really use swing in ableton, coz its a bit of pain. usually just go for the hardware for that.

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Originally Posted by stjohn

i dont get it... it sounds like you want to either use software & ableton, or either use hardware alone. maybe both?? fm8 and my machinedrum work great together



edit: just saw the 2nd post on cubase... does cubase do seperate groove control for each midi track... pretty handy id say. i never really use swing in ableton, coz its a bit of pain. usually just go for the hardware for that.

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it has different grooves for parts and/or whole tracks

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Originally Posted by massplanck

;) yeah.

I cant understand whiy such a popular piece of music software has only one groove\swing setting.

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Thats only the groove intensity. You can change the swing settings in every individual clip to impose 8, 16 or 32 note triplet swing on each clip. Then you can control the intensity of the swing using the master control...

Dunno how well it works though, I tend to just shift stuff around to create swing... It is a pain in the ass though, real slow way to do it!!

Guys I know you can change the groove settings for each clip. But it all relates back to the overall original swing/groove setting. That doesnt even alter note volumes. Its complete gack.

It has no funk.

Solution.

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/closeup/MPK49--Main

Akai midi keyboard with all the legendary Akai groove templates coming as standard.

Oooohhh. That sounds good!

AARRGGHHH :no: 300 quid?

200 in the states.... its not a bad feature set... id prefer one of the CME keyboards though.

steve... the groove control is up at the top left near the bpm. problem solved :lol:

rory. i know where it is. thats not groove control\quantization in the sense that I know.. thats just one knob with one generic swing setting for abelton. in other words its just one generic groove template and its called swing in this case & and you have the option of deciding whether your clips have no swing, or are quantized to diff settings. this shitty little groove template doesnt even affect note velocities, so by definition it cant even called it self a groove tempate.

So to summarize Abelton has 3 Groove Settings at most (if you change swing quantization on each clip) (which dont even alter the velocity of notes) which are basically a variation of the standard swing template.
My shitty little MC303 which i had in 1997 had 71 Groove Templates
The Akai had legendar settings for groove quantization which you can import in Cubase and apply to your midi tracks.

Hense my assertation that Ableton has no funk.

"GROOVE TEMPLATES

MC303 Groove quantise approaches the sophistication provided by software such as Steinberg's Cubase. 71 templates are provided, including 'normal', 'heavy' and 'pushed' dance, fusion, reggae, pops and rhumba, each with light and hard accenting and light and hard swing. In addition, there's a variety of exotic options including samba, salsas, quintuplets, and lagging triplets. The Timing knob adjusts quantisation 'strength' in percentage terms. When used with Groove Templates, this knob can also adjust the degree to which note velocities are moved towards Template velocities."

i dunno guys. Abelton is good and all but its at version 7 now and this hasnt been implemented yet nor is there any sign off it ever happening. People are most concerned about frequency analysis & sidechain compression etc these days then actuall notes & funk & groove. Back to basics please guys. Even their appegiator is shockingly shite.

Note placement, velocity & groove are what matter most to me. If groove templates\quatization are used right you can make a track without **** all need for compression & eq.

that last post was a joke :rolleyes:

post up on the ableton forum... and they might look to include it in the next update..or u might get some interesting workarounds

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Originally Posted by stjohn

that last post was a joke :rolleyes:

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Its also a standard answer to the problem whenever I ask it. :)

I dunno why I should ask for them to implement it. Its 2008 now, Live version 7 complete with mega sidechaining , frequency analysis & support for 1712896128k bitrates. If they havent cottoned on to one of the most basic aspects of making musical parts sound coherant & gel I think I should just leave them in their ignorance.

Wont somebody please think of the midi notes?

i wonder is there a midi plug in that can do what u want

Nope. Probably need to be built into the DAW for it to work effectively. You need to be able to select groups of notes and "groove quantize" them. Rather than playing them through a midi plugin & having them quantized on the fly.

Program the groove in yaself!

are you crazy? the arpeggiators in ableton are the best i've ever used....i cant use those in cubase at all, ableton gives instant gratification and some beautiful melodic work