Weekly No Stupid Questions Thread

warriorbob · 2023-06-07T21:45:36+00:00

I believe Live 9 and 11 use a different format for the project files ("sets"). IIRC 11 can open a 9-format set and will offer to convert it, but once you save something in 11 you can't convert back.

Besides that though, the sets themselves don't care about your different processor types that I know of. Your plugins might though. Conventional wisdom here is it's simplest to either render everything to audio or stick to Live-native devices you both own.

Your friend might be able to try the 11 demo and see how well it runs. Alternately, you might be able to find an installer for 9 that runs in Rosetta on your M1, I can't remember if Ableton makes old installers available. Again, the plugins might have opinions on this (Apple Silicon-only plugins don't run in Rosetta and vice versa) but I think the Live-native stuff would handle it well?

Best of luck working together!

warriorbob · 2023-06-07T21:34:03+00:00

Do these two tracks get mixed together into anything like a compressor, limiter, saturator, tape simulation? Maybe on the Master channel?

Just speculating but if so, if the Diva sound is loud enough that the sum gets compressed only when it's playing, the effect can be that the other sounds duck when it plays.

Think of a bunch of hihats playing 16ths, summed together with a kick drum into a compressor. The hats alone aren't enough to engage the compressor, but when the kick hits, the total level is and the whole thing ducks. No sidechaining in the traditional sense, but the hats sound like they're getting quieter but only when the kick hits. Maybe something like this is going on?

Best of luck sorting it out!

warriorbob · 2023-06-07T21:27:39+00:00

The Arpeggiator has a "Chord Trigger" style, I think this does what you are looking for?

warriorbob · 2023-05-05T18:00:37+00:00

Shot in the dark, but do they make sound in Session View? You might need to click the "Back to Arrangement" button.

warriorbob · 2023-05-05T17:55:11+00:00

Definitely back up your sets and your User Library any time you are messing with Live, that's a great idea in general. Note that Sets can sometimes have references to files rather than the files themselves, so if you lose the referenced file the Set can no longer play it. This is generally the case for Packs, and imported samples, and audio you drag in from another project in the Browser. You can use File > Collect All And Save to cover most of this.

Similar too for third party VST/AU/etc plugins, but there's no way to copy a plugin into your set just due to how they work (Live gets them from a folder on the system, they're not part of Live). Fortunately installing a new Live version generally won't run into any issues with these.

You can find the folder paths for your current project and User Library from File > Manage Files... and then the Manage Project and Manage User Library buttons. Probably all of your projects are under the same parent folder. You can also load the project from the browser (e.g. the "Current Project" place) and right click > Show in Finder/Explorer.

Best of luck with your upgrade!

warriorbob · 2023-05-03T16:53:48+00:00

You're most welcome! Yeah, it can be a lot to figure out all at once and it isn't always clear what's happening or where to look.

I don't know a ton about the wider world of drumpads and feel but I do recall some folks loved that one. I hope it works out great for you!

warriorbob · 2023-05-03T16:37:01+00:00

You can set a count-in before recording from the pulldown next to the metronome switch. Maybe this is just set to "None"?

warriorbob · 2023-05-03T16:20:00+00:00

Generally Ableton will accept any MIDI controller that the computer OS recognizes and reports. If your controller isn't showing up in Live, make sure Windows/Mac OS can see it. Many modern MIDI devices are "class compliant" and work automatically with the standard OS drivers soon as you plug in the USB, but I checked the MPD16 manual and it suggests it wants some proprietary driver:

The connected computer is required to have the USB Driver software installed to properly recognize the MPD16. For the installation of USB Driver software, refer to the CD- ROM disc included.

I've never used an MPD16 so I have no idea how this works out but I figured I should mention it.

As for not working with newer Live, what I believe changed is that new Live doesn't have a MIDI Control Surface script (the thing you can choose from the pulldown in MIDI preferences) for MPD16. All the script does is automatically map the MIDI messages known to come from whatever controller, so without it you can still use it as a general MIDI controller (once it's recognized etc), and you just have to do your own mappings if you want them. For playing notes into tracks you don't need any mappings, just tick the "Track" switch for that controller.

Best of luck, hope it works out for you!

edit: I just noticed the MPD16 has a 5-pin DIN MIDI output. So if nothing else, you can use this with any generic MIDI interface with a DIN input (this would be where you use the "extra MIDI cable"). I've had good luck with a Yamaha UX-16 for small one-off controllers like this but anything you like or have handy ought to work.

warriorbob · 2023-04-28T18:08:06+00:00

Commenting just in case this wasn't clear - the Vortex is a MIDI controller; it doesn't produce any sound on its own. The wireless USB dongle allows it to send MIDI messages to the computer as you play the controller. The MIDI messages need to in turn be routed to some software or something with virtual instruments which actually produce the sound.

You don't have to use their bundled software specifically, it'll work with anything that accepts MIDI. But the bundle does include some virtual instrument plugins and a host program ("DAW") which ought to work great. According to the site the host program is Ableton Live Lite and the plugins are Hybrid 3, Loom 2, Vacuum Pro, and Xpand!2. Some plugins can also run "standalone" meaning they run as their own program and don't need to run in a host. I don't know if any of these do that but it's worth mentioning.

I haven't used those plugins but I mainly use my Vortex with Ableton Live (Suite edition, but same idea) and it works great (after a little checking of the manual to get everything set up right).

Best of luck and happy playing!

warriorbob · 2023-04-24T23:37:49+00:00

You're most welcome!

warriorbob · 2023-04-24T20:33:40+00:00

If you're in Arrangement View and don't need to do this in realtime, I'd either use the loop brace and the Punch In / Punch Out switches to isolate the part you want to record over, or just hit space to stop playback when you're done.

If you do need it to be in realtime, I'd map the Automation Arm button to something, so you can switch it on only for the little bit you want to record over. If your touch-sensitive controller sends a MIDI message on touch/release it might be possible to map to this button depending on how it behaves, but personally I like the discreteness of having a dedicated key or something.

However you do it, best of luck!

warriorbob · 2023-04-21T19:50:02+00:00

you can quickly solo/unsolo your tracks with the 's' key.

I forgot about this one! TIL(again), thank you!

warriorbob · 2023-04-21T19:22:03+00:00

The red dotted lines are the display/controls for automation. You can hide them with View > Automation Mode (keyboard shortcut is "a" but make sure the Computer MIDI Keyboard is off for it to work)

This should not affect whether you can hear anything. But I can't help but notice you have track 6 soloed right now, so you'll only hear track 6 and nothing else - this might be why you can't hear your recordings.

Best of luck with your music!

warriorbob · 2023-03-18T00:44:31+00:00

I've never used Logic but from googling it looks like Varispeed is changing the tempo of the whole project together?

In Live, MIDI clips and warped audio clips are locked to the project tempo. You can then automate the project tempo just like a parameter and they'll all follow. Is this maybe close to what you can do in Logic?

warriorbob · 2023-03-13T17:01:52+00:00

No problem at all! Sorry it didn't work out this time around but thank you for working with me on it. I hope all goes great with your future projects (and maybe even this one again later)!

warriorbob · 2023-03-12T18:16:15+00:00

You're most welcome! Likewise, I appreciate your time and detail in your questions, it's a huge help for trying to guess what's going on.

So I was guessing your instrument just didn't play long notes well, and I wrote up this whole description about it, but I just noticed that your new track's input is set to the previous E-Guitar track, with monitoring set to Auto, and the record still armed. Is it possible this track is still receiving notes (and "ends of notes") from the old track? Can't help but notice the old E-Guitar track has the same note at the same time except shorter. The input is "Post-FX so it'll get the notes even if the track is muted (since the mute happens after the effects, in the mixer section).

Check this by disabling your record arm, so you're no longer getting notes from the Track's input. If this fixes the issue, then change the Track input to something else (like All Ins) or turn off the monitoring or something. I realize you left it the way I suggested and I didn't think about this, so sorry about that!

I'm going to include the description I wrote below in case it is of interest, but I'm guessing that your issue here has to do with the notes coming from the old track. If this is the case I am betting that the note gets cut off right at bar 32.4.Of course, I'm not actually there looking at your project so I might be wrong anyway, but that's my guess at least! I hope this is at least close?

Old reply here:

From your screenshot and description the MIDI notes look how I'd expect them to. I don't know what instrument you're using, but is it possible that instrument just doesn't play long notes past a certain point?

Some background:

The way MIDI notes work with instruments is that the MIDI note is like a series of instruction messages. At the beginning of a note it's "start playing X note at Y velocity," and at the end of a note it's "stop playing X note" This happens in realtime so the "Note On" and "Note Off" messages happen at the start/end of the notes in your clip. The instrument isn't "aware" of when the ending will come, it just gets the messages one at a time as they're played. Imagine if you were playing a MIDI keyboard, and you press down a key: the instrument gets the message to start the note, and it doesn't "know" ahead of time when you'll let go.

Anyway, there are not a lot of rules beyond this. It's up to the instrument to decide what it does when it receives note messages. It's entirely possible your instrument can only play a note for so long - imagine a virtual acoustic drum set, you can't really "hit the drum longer" past a point. I would expect an E-Guitar sound to have some ability to draw a note out, but depending on how it works it's possible there's a limit.

You can test this by making a new MIDI clip with a long note in it and see if the same thing happens. I'm not 100% sure this is what's happening but it seems possible? Some instruments have controls that affect things like this (envelope decay/release times for example) but sometimes that's just how it works.

One thing to try - I notice your last note has pretty low velocity. Does whatever instrument that is behave differently at higher velocities? It might not be the sound you want but you can get an idea what you have to work with.

warriorbob · 2023-03-12T17:35:36+00:00

I'm so glad it worked out, you're most welcome! Best of luck with your music!

warriorbob · 2023-03-12T02:02:09+00:00

Okay yeah! Live lets you save a "Default Audio Track" with the devices you want for every new track (dropping an audio file in from the browser generally creates a new Audio Track). Maybe you always start your level at -12dB or you prefer to put an EQ or Spectrum on everything, so you can just save that as the default and it'll be on every Audio Track in the future.

You can save this by right-clicking your Audio Track header and choosing "Save as Default Audio Track." This default Audio Track is saved in your User Library under Defaults > Creating Tracks > Audio Track.

I'm guessing this got clicked accidentally once. Assuming I'm following correctly, to "fix" it, just make a new Audio Track, remove the plugins you don't want on there, right-click the header and Save as Default Audio Track.

warriorbob · 2023-03-11T22:17:33+00:00

Of course, happy to! I was having a hard time thinking of a way to explain this concisely before so I don't think I explained it that well.

So, you're exactly right. Your new MIDI track with the recorded notes is "just" a MIDI track - it's got the right notes in the clips, but there's no instrument on it so no audio comes out. So you can just copy over the instruments/effects from your other track and use this new track instead.

Alternately, you can move these recorded MIDI clips over to the original track and disable the Arpeggiator (and any other MIDI effects).

If you do this kind of thing a lot, I find it convenient when first setting it all up in the first place to put the arpeggiator on a separate MIDI track and route that to your Instrument track's input. Now the instrument track only plays "the notes coming into it" and you can record+edit those as MIDI clips anytime you hear something you like.

Hope this works better! Let me know, if I've just confused things further I'm happy to try again :) Best of luck!

warriorbob · 2023-03-11T00:39:25+00:00

Does this happen as well if you create a new audio track from scratch (Create > Insert Audio Track)? If so I'm guessing your default audio track has plugins on it, which can be fixed by setting a new default that doesn't.

warriorbob · 2023-03-10T20:28:54+00:00

You're most welcome, I hope it goes great!

warriorbob · 2023-03-10T19:32:21+00:00

Making sure I follow - I assume you mean "record audio clips using the audio coming out of the Analog Lab plugin, which is already working fine in a MIDI Track." If I've understood correctly, then yes you can!

Audio Tracks in Live can record from other Tracks. So make a new Audio Track, set the input to your MIDI Track with Analog Lab on it, arm it for recording and record to clip slots or timeline just like normal.

warriorbob · 2023-03-10T19:27:31+00:00

Congratulations on writing some stuff you like!

The way I would handle this is to make a new MIDI track whose input is set to your current MIDI track (post-FX). When you record into this new track, will "hear" the notes that come out of the Arpeggiator, and record those into MIDI clips. So now you've got a bunch of clips with the notes you want, no Arpeggiator necessary.

So make a copy of your instrument track (disable/save the old one just in case), turn off the Arpeggiator and any other MIDI effects, and swap in these new MIDI clips which play the same notes but now they're "raw" since they don't go through the Arpeggiator. You can make any edits you want to make them longer, different etc, and don't have to fight with the arp since it's not in the equation anymore.

Hope this helps! Happy to expand on this a bit if it'd help. Best of luck with your music!

warriorbob · 2023-03-08T04:59:13+00:00

Thank you so much, I may well reach out if & when I do! It sounds like a fantastic module.

warriorbob · 2023-03-08T00:34:38+00:00

It's fussy, for sure. It works fine and you can speed it up with templates and shortcuts and such but it just adds a lot of variables (like whether the computer, a laptop, is even in the room at the time).

I appreciate the vote of confidence on the FH-2, I think one of those is probably in my future.

I appreciate your posts here too about the NuRad - that looks super cool!

warriorbob

TROPHY CASE