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Looper's Delight
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Hey all; I've been using Live as my primary looping device since I replaced my RC-20 with it a while back, and I've found it to be quite workable. I've got the following setup: - Live & Reason (slaves off of Live, following tempo and start-stop assignments) running on a windows XP laptop, with an M-audio quattro audio interface (4-in, 4-out); - MIDI control via 49-key midiman keystation & a Drumkat DK10; - a 6-stereo-input, 2-zone line mixer, for mixing in guitar, mic'd instruments and turntables; Pros and cons: Pro: - Live provides automatic locking to tempo for loop record/playback -- loops of different lengths display as clock sweeps with repetition counters during playback, so you can easily see where you are in each loop, and how long you have until it ends; - effectively infinite number of loops/tracks -- this comes in handy when using Reason -- you can assign a base of devices in Reason to its own mixer, and main output, and then directly assign various other "solo" instruments directly to individual Live tracks. - assignable MIDI and keyboard shortcuts -- I've assigned each track's "arm" and "record start/stop" for each clip slot to MIDI keys on one channel. Since clip recording picks up at the beginning of the next bar, this makes throwing in a new loop pretty seamless. - VST effects -- though these can suck down processing power, I've recently discovered the wonderful world of freeware VST effects, many of which actually don't suck. Effects params can also be assigned to MIDI control, which is nice. Since Reason doesn't accept VST plug-ins, playing Reason thru Live, and applying effects, is a nice workaround. - Graphical interface -- the ability to cut-and-paste, drag-and-drop, etc, makes all the difference -- the interface is intuitive and easy to pick up. - Tempo shift without pitch change -- their "Warp audio" control is pretty slick -- the ability to micromanage the quantization of clips of audio is pretty nifty too. Cons: - not enough controls are assignable to MIDI -- for example, version 2.0 added a tap tempo, but it's only mouse-clickable, not MIDI-assignable. I'd love to have this connected to a spare drum pad. - no real feedback control -- once you start a loop, gracefully rolling it off is a challenge. While the system does have assignable crossfaders, raising interesting possibilties, it's still tough to get blends to work well sometimes. - As with most (all?) software, the occasional crash or audio drop-out comes with the territory; Overall, I think it's a great tool for Live looping, as long as you spend the time to get accquainted with it (as with any instrument), and set up a decent template, with MIDI assignments that make sense to you, ahead of time. I'm thinking that a pocket fader or Evolution U-control would make a good addition, since the most tedious mousework involved in the program tends to be tweaking levels (and other params). HTH, Gene ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jonah, Jim" <Jim.Jonah@compuware.com> To: <Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com> Sent: Wednesday, August 20, 2003 10:42 AM Subject: ableton live questions > I know several of you answered that you are using Live, so I'm looking >for a > little more detail on exactly how you're using it and if you're happy >with > it, etc. > > How well does this work for live looping? My initial goal would be to >play > multiple simple loops (not reversing/cutting/slicing and dicing loops) that > repeat endlessly and/or repeat x number of times with/without decay over the > top of pre-programmed sections of songs and at will move on to the next > "scene". > > Also (OT), are any of you mixing audio and midi (soft synths/soft drum > machines) using Live? If so, what are you using for midi instruments > (drums/synths/etc)? If you're using Reason, are you using any other VST > plug-ins? If so, using what host (since it appears that Live doesn't really > handle midi, other than controller elements - or am I reading the docs/using > the demo version wrong)? Are you able to keep the looseness of the > arrangment while rewired to Reason (i.e. will Reason, or whatever else > you're using, jump from pattern to pattern as Live moves from scene to > scene?) > > Thanks! > > Jim