If you have an Octatrack then I would say dont use Ableton Live at all for performance. I also use Ableton but anything I compose in Ableton I just transfer over to the Octatrack for performance. I dont really see the need to use both.
The beauty of the OT is that you can do some much with it and frankly is the only piece of kit you really need to perform. Its easy to get caught up in the gear frenzy and buy this and that and combine them together. At the end of the day you just need the OT.
The only other piece of kit I use is a Pioneer RMX 1000 that I run the OT through. The only reason I use this is because I want to use all 8 audio tracks on the OT.
I also thought about leaving Ableton aside. But I really canāt. I have a system that sets everything in the right key, because I want to jam live, even when I feel like it, creating a song live, without having to mind which key Iām at. I couldnāt miss the freedom to put clips together. I like to have every control at my fingertips without digging into different pages. And all the main controls of my OT are mapped to a midi controller tooā¦ to be able to act fast and keep it interesting.
Soā¦ I use it as main FX unit and live sampler. T1 trhu T2 neighbor T3 record T4 neighborā¦ same for T5-6. I can switch between T2 and T4 and trigger the record arming with a midi controller. So I can instant record tweak and switch between the live and recorded part.
I guess Iām caught up in the gear frenzy. In the end everyone uses the methods which suit them best, it would be a boring world if we all played in the same way.
+1
although when playing long sets, i do like to have something, cheap, fool-proof and immediately bashable, such as an electribe2 along for the ride.
nothing against laptop-live sets, but personally i think nowadays laptops on stage or in the booth look too much like the person is DJing or VJing.
this was different in 2001, when i started playing out live with ableton on a laptop.
back then, DJs would play vinyl or CD, but most VJs were a nuisance already, taking away loads of stage space and acting as if THEY were making the music.
i played on laptops+controllers until 2010, after that i got the OT. never took the laptop on stage again. and never got confused with a VJ again, although people still treat me like a jukebox DJ sometimesā¦ hey at least they realize iām making music on the OT, not the light show ; )
generally, the direction of my studio to live workflow right now is: Rytm or other (jamming) -> Ableton (recording, mixing, editing) -> Octatrack plus e2 and/or Rytm (performing).
So Iām reading the workflows here and Iām wondering in a bit more detail. If you are using ableton to compose, then to export to the OTā¦how are you exporting your clips.
Letās say Iāve made a drum track in ableton with 20 clips each a variation or unique clip of drums. AFAIK I would have to lay them out in the arrangement view, and export the entire track as a wav file. Letās pretend that itās a minute long wav file of drums, it seems like importing that into the OT and trying to slice it would be pretty cumbersome.
Right now Iām trying to get this workflow down as well, before I just cluck my ableton license, push and apc40 lol. Ive arranged the drum clips one after another, exported it to audio. Now Iām going to reimport it, slice it in ableton, put each slice on itās own track, and export all the tracksā¦then ill have files I can reasonably slice on the OT.
Say you have 16 clips each 8 bars long. In ableton,lay out a clip every 8 bars, render the sample chain exactly 16x8 bars long, then use Create slice grid, once in the OT (16 slices). Saves time compared to slicing manually in OT.
PS. The number of clips and length is arbitrary, but render the sample chain with length in bars divisible by four. This will usually yield useful slice/loop results with slice grid. How you trigger them is up to you, many possibilitiesā¦
Having a good bit of trouble syncing Octa to Abletonā¦ as expected though. Read many threads that advised against but I said Iād give it a go.
At the moment Ableton is master sync wise.
Midi goes: Live->Motu 828->Octa->MD->MnM
No joy. It takes a while for the machines to sync up when I hit play on live and even then the sync seems to drift.
My plan was to add extra soft drums/synths in live and build proper tracks. Sort of incorporate ableton into my live jamming. Not working out that way as I am cintinually adjusting delay times in tracks as the delay between machine and ableton tracks seems to change all the time:(
Can anyone advise me on a decent midi clock type device that would cure this and allow me to sync up 3 elektron boxes?
Unfortunately Ableton has no switch to turn the clock off on the sync-ports, so the elektron boxes receive MIDI-clock from USB and an external signal (i.e. multiclock) over MIDI-port. Some synths (DSI i.e.) have setups where u can decide from which port the clock comes from - Elektron (for the moment) not.
Since Ableton sends the transport commands via sync-port(-button) itās neccassary to activate them, cause the multiclock cannot send transport.
Until these possibilities of clock routing arenāt included wether in Live nor in the Elektron boxes, it is almost impossible the get a proper sync. There is a chance to calibrate the clock on the output port switches, but sync always needs a half bar to run exactly in time.
Iām very limited with midi understanding and new to OT but Iāve so far also found ableton + OT midi sync unusable. Iāve found that if I rewire ableton from Sonar that everythingās ok though. But this removes the ability to record in ableton. However you can still use most of abletonās other sorceryā¦ And I āthinkā I can drag/drop wavs from sonar to ableton, so itās easy enough to record a loop or whatever in sonar then drag to ableton for warping/arrangement etc. I need to check the drag/drop thing though to remind myself if thatās possible but vaguely remember doing this before.
Aha, so thereās always going to be a sync issue.
I could definitely live with a bar or two or drift before it syncs up, no problem. Like, I donāt wish to perform with live, I just wanted to sync it up with my three Elektron boxes for composition purposes.
Thanks for the multi clock recommendation and the tips, TheDiePie:)
Much obliged.
well, I have the same purpose with the Elektron boxes and therefore sync is a most essential requirement. Imho these boxes were primarily not made for āclassic composingā so Overbridge points in the right direction to come a bit closer to straight planned results.
On the other hand, I really lke these āaccidentialā results!
Expert Sleepers makes a handful of MIDI sync devices, at least one of which is specifically for improving DAW stability. http://www.expert-sleepers.co.uk/
their site doesnāt seem to be loading for me right now thoughā¦
Expert Sleepers makes a handful of MIDI sync devices, at least one of which is specifically for improving DAW stability. http://www.expert-sleepers.co.uk/
their site doesnāt seem to be loading for me right now thoughā¦[/quote]
Yeah, their site is down for me also.
Itās taken a while to get it right, but Iāve now got a āset and forgetā sync between OT and Live. The way I work is to do all the composition on the OT, and just keep feeding it material from Live. OT is master, Live is slaved, the OT midi sync offset in Live is about -12.8ms in my case. (128k buffer). Thatās while monitoring on the OT, with Live coming in through a Thru machine. Yes- it takes a couple bars for Live to sync up, when starting up. However, once itās locked I donāt have any drift, just some barely perceptible jitter (and I mean barely). Donāt even think about tempo changes with this setup though. Terrible. Audio back to the OT is captured perfectly, but audio from the OT to Live needs the start point adjusted a bit. I use a different amount of midi sync offset to record perfectly synced clips INTO Live.
Iāve done a ton of experiments to get to the numbers I use, but now it works the same way all the time, every time, without an external clock sync device. One thing Iāve noticed though, is that Liveās response to a sync input is non-linear. Meaning, the -12.8ms offset that sounds rock-solid at 120bpm introduces a slight offset between OT and Live at 85bpm. Weāre talking really minor here (like an additional -2ms, which some folks might not even care about. Iām OCD for solid sync though.
The non-linearity thing is actually a huge revelation for me, and answers so many baffling Live sync questions Iāve had in the past. Iāll probably put together a list of all the midi sync offsets needed for all my most used tempos, dial 'em in when needed, and be done.
Iām not clear whether there are any external clock options out there that do not require a computer in the equation, but Iād be interested to know!
The interface is an iConnectivity iCA4+, by the way.
Hi guys,
Not a VS thread.
I know lots of you use both the almighty OT and Live with Push, so I was wondering, how do you integrate them and how well do they work?
I just want to play my ableton live tracks live and mangle them with the OTā¦after reading some posts it seems like OT cannot play long samples, right? deal breaker here?
Some folks buy, declare false info, and sell the OT before they have any idea what it can do. Sometimes folks read it canāt play long samples, never look into it, and think itās true even though theyāve owned one for several yearsā¦
Can anyone help me out with the correct setting to use the OT in ABL10 as a controller ?
I cant seem to find the right setting that I can use the OT sequencer to sequence a Drum Rack or any other instrument.
If I trigger a sample trig by hand (for eaxmple the KICK on nr 9), I can see a midi note being triggered into a drumrack in ableton (its not the correct note, but this is easily fixed), But once I start the sequencer on the OT and program that kick into the sequencer, it will not trigger the drumrack. So manually it works, but not when using that exact same kick in the sequencer itself.
Iām probably overlooking a routing somwhere, but cant seem to find it.
Any help would be fab.
In the end everyone uses the methods which suit them best, it would be a boring world if we all played in the same way.
