The BopPad is a highly flexible MIDI device that can spit out a variety of data to control MIDI capable software and hardware. One thing that users have been wondering about is how to play different sounds based on the location in a particular quadrant. This is usually done with notes, and while the BopPad… Read more »
In the previous two articles, we approached looping in Live in two different ways. Both have their advantages, and each offers a distinct workflow. One thing they both lack, however, is some sort of LED feedback so that we can tell what’s going on in Live by looking at our SoftStep. In this article we will look at… Read more »
In the last article we created a very simple, bare-bones looping setup in Live using Session Mode, Audio Clips, and the SoftStep. In this article we will explore the other built in solution to looping in Live by exploring how to setup a looping template using the Looper device.
Live Looping comes in many different flavors and can be approached from many different angles. Within the context of Ableton Live, the intrepid performer can explore a plethora of looping techniques to find the one that best suits their goals. You can use Session View to leverage the power of clips to capture ideas. You… Read more »
Live is a great tool for making music on the computer and, as we saw in a previous article, you can leverage its MIDI capabilities to talk to external MIDI gear. There are a lot of great sound making tools that don’t live inside of our DAWs and Live makes it easy to incorporate these… Read more »
With the advent of small, portable, MIDI enabled analog synthesizers, computer musicians now have the option of controlling a lot more than VSTs. If you have a USB MIDI interface (or other means of getting MIDI from your computer to 5 Pin MIDI connections), you can leverage the sequencing power of Live to control all… Read more »
In the previous two articles, Part One, and Part Two, we learned how to interact with Control Surfaces using the Live API, and programmatically move through the API to find what we are looking for. In this final part in this series I will walk you through the basics of writing MIDI Remote Scripts for… Read more »
In the previous installment we discussed locating and gathering information about loaded Control Surface scripts using M4l and the Live API. In this installment we will look at applying our session control to any Control Surface that has a SessionComponent. This will involve some iterations and checks, things which aren’t the cleanest in Max, but they… Read more »
In the previous article we looked at some ways that you can use Live to interact with controllers. We used the API to get information about Live, we used the API to control Live, we monitored audio across tracks, and used all this information to get useful visual feedback on a controller. If you’d like… Read more »
In the previous article I walked you through one approach for getting information from Live out to a controller using M4L and some remote MIDI routing. In this section we’ll look at how we can use the Live API to fully integrate our devices into the Live environment.
The world of controllers has evolved quite rapidly since I started using computers for music back in 2009. The choices are almost endless, and you can get your hands on almost any configuration of knobs, buttons, sliders, and even touch screens. Along with these controllers, integration options have evolved right along side. There are complex… Read more »
In the previous articles we discussed how to setup effects racks using parallel chains to process incoming audio in different ways. Hopefully those discussions proved useful and were able to help you generate some new ideas, but we can take it a step further. What if wanted to process different parts of the audio differently?… Read more »
In the previous article we discussed using effect racks and native Live devices to build a complex and flexible parallel audio signal processor. Effect Racks are a fantastic way to build devices like this, but they also excel at creating a variety of effects that can be used in real time. When creating effects for… Read more »
Let’s talk about Effect Racks in Ableton Live. If you’re a seasoned user, I’m sure that you know about racks, and if you are a relative rookie, you should get to know them, and know them WELL. Arguably one of Live’s most powerful tools for both setting up creative effects and crafting useful utilities that… Read more »