(!) 'Kid Beyond' Style rig tutorial (Control Ableton Live)

Machine-gun Overdubbing using Ableton Live and Bome's Midi Translator Pro.

Like many people, I was blown away by the Kid Beyond video on the Ableton site, and seeing as I've been using Ableton for years I thought I'd give it a whirl and try and duplicate the elegant simplicity of his rig. The challenge was this: to keep to an absolute minimum the need for button (or pedal) presses, to keep everything automatically synced and to remove the need for a screen. As an added bonus, I want to be able to save everything I record, and to resample whatever is looping in the same easy way as I record layers.

The rig I've developed has 8 buttons, for 8 tracks. Hit 1 to start recording on track one at the start of the next bar. Hitting 2 will start recording on track 2 at start of the next bar while track 1 continues playing back what you've just recorded. You can continue this for any track, simply hit the next destination, and at the end of the bar, you'll start recording on the new destination track. Hitting the same button as the track you are recording will stop the recording process, and leave all the clips you just recorded looping cleanly.

Doing this on channel 8 is different. Channel 8 will resample the result, stop all the other clips, insert a new layer, copy the stopped clips in to save later, and empty out all the recording slots so you can continue adding stuff in. I usually have a high pass and low pass filter ready on this channel to allow me to remove the tops or bottoms to give some sonic space for more layering.

It would be pretty poor form of me to brag about what a great setup I've got without showing you *exactly* how to do it yourself, so that's what I'll do next. Hopefully you'll learn some useful tips and tricks along the way. With some of the techniques used here you can really take control of ableton and make live setups that finally free you from the dreaded mouse, bane of electronic musicians everywhere. If you take everything that's cool about a guy on stage with a load of noise screaming out of an electric guitar, and then try and imagine it's polar opposite, it's the sight of a mouse and a laptop.

Preparation
You will need:

Ableton Live (obviously).

Bome's Midi Translator Pro (free for 30 days , but once you learn how to use it in this tutorial you'll want it all year round) – you can use the free version if you like, but you will not be able to completely automate the cleanup macro that I use for the resampling without assigning an extra button and remembering to press it after the bar ends. Timers in MTPro are incredibly useful tools.

An external midi controller with a free key or button per track. I developed this using a Tascam US-428 (in 'four control banks' mode) so my 8 track buttons send the Midi notes E0 - B0. In the following setup screens, whenever you see [Note On #1:F#0, vel 127] replace it with whatever midi information your midi controller squirts out. I have also developed a version of this rig specifically for the US-428 which controls the on-board LEDs to show you which channel is recording (flashing red) and which have been recorded to already (steady red). I will release a further tutorial at a later date if there is demand.

A modicum of technical knowledge about your PC and MIDI is required. I'll document in reasonable detail, but If I write so a chimp could do it, it will make for very boring reading...continued in next post....

The Ableton Setup:

Preparation:

Important: Turn off the Options/Computer MIDI Keyboard, as it will prevent you from accessing keys you need to use for automation.

In Preferences/Record Warp Launch and make sure Exclusive/Arm is deselected as we will have to arm 8 tracks at once.

Set quantize to 1 bar

Creating the Ableton Rig:
We're going top create 9 audio tracks and set them up as follows:


Create 9 audio tracks & name them. Track 9 will be used as an input strip.

For tracks 1-7:
Choose '9-Input' as the input source, turn monitoring to 'off' and arm for recording.

Track 8:
Choose 'resampling' as the input source, turn monitoring to 'off' and arm for recording.

Track 9:
Choose your external audio source as input, set monitoring to 'in'.

Finally, set up the keyboard assignments as follows, placing the number keys into the top row of cells on tracks 1-8 and the top row of letters q-i into the 'stop' buttons on the first 8 clips and SHIFT+1 through 8 into the channel selection cell.



Now save that template. You can play with it just using the number keys if you like, the basic functionality is all there and even on it's own, this template can be useful. For troubleshooting purposes , I recommend turning off all Midi input at this point until you have everything running.

BOME's MIDI Translator Pro (MTPro)

Preparation & Theory:

Set the Midi In to come from your Midi device.

We are going to set up several MTPro presets, and switch between them. The basic theory is that when recording on channel x, we need to add an extra keystroke to turn that channel off when we're done. There are 4 distinct types of preset, one of which will be copied & amended 7 times for tracks 1-7.

Preset [Safe]
This is the preset we need to select before we start recording in Ableton. It simply captures your 8 incoming Midi notes and changes preset accordingly.

Preset [Always Active]
Now go to Preset/Edit ”Always Active” Preset and add these translators (remember, you can cut & paste these from preset [safe] to copy those incoming note assignments).

With Preset [safe] selected, when we press 1-8, two things will happen. The keypress '1-8' will be sent through to ableton, starting recording on that channel, and MTPro will flip to a new preset:

Preset [rec 1]
Here's the active preset for recording on channel 1. The first bank of 8 translators add an additional keystroke of '1' to stop recording on this channel – note that this translator is turned off for channel 1.

The second bank of translators deals with preset switching. In all cases apart from the first this can be copied & pasted from [safe], but notice that preset 1 switches back to safe.

Presets [rec 2] – [rec 7]
These are variants on the above. You can copy and paste [rec 1] and simply change the following 3 properties:

Make sure that the translator 'rec again' is turned off for the channel you are currently editing.

Change the keystroke to match.

Only switch to [safe] on the channel you are editing.

If you examine the red highlighted areas from the two graphics it should be fairly obvious how the rest pan out.

[rec 8]
This final channel is used for resampling. I have split the final timer-triggered key command into several parts for ease of reading, but it could be done with a single translator.

The first bank of translators tells clips 1-7 to stop playing at the end of the bar.

The second bank will start a timer called mixdown. This needs to last longer than 1 bar at the tempo you are recording at – my choice of 3.5 seconds allows me to safely record as low as 75 bpm. Any lower and there's a small [possibility my cleanup could be triggered before the end of the bar. If you plan on recording slower than this you may need to increase this delay time, or you may wish to speed it up for better response.

The final sequence of commands are triggered from the timer in top-down order. It starts by capturing and inserting the current scene (CTRL+SHFT+I), selects the next track (SHFT+1-7) then copies and pastes the now stopped clips 1-7 into the new slots created for them (Up CTRL+X Down CTRL+V), deletes a stray on 8(Up Del), leaves the resample playing on track 8 and finally shifts back to [safe].

In Use:
We should be ready to go. Fire up MTPro, select the [safe] preset.

Fire up Ableton and load the scene we created earlier.

Hit play.

From now on, all your recording is managed through the 8 buttons/keys we've assigned. Hit 1 and start recording, hit it again when you're finished (before the end of the last bar), or hit another channel to immediately start recording on that channel instead. If you want to resample that to a single loop, hit button eight to start resampling and any button again to stop, thus allowing you to easily set any loop size for your resampled loop.

That's it. Couldn't be simpler in operation.

[edited by Florian/Bome Software]: the files used in this tutorial are included with Midi Translator Pro/Author/Player since version 1.6, under the name "Ableton MGO.bmtp".

I hope this tutorial has been of help. If anyone can think of ways to streamline this, make it better, or just abuse it in cool ways, let me know! Please send any feedback to chelfyn@gmail.com. Cheers.

Hi Chelfyn,

that's an incredible setup you made there! Thanks a lot, can't wait to try it out!

Florian

WOW!!
Now that's a really cool rig you created there. I like it a lot.
But there's one problem I have.

I inserted some vst Effects on the input track, which I activated and controlled them with an Evolution UC-17, depending on what Instrument I use.
Now after saving my Project and reopening it, the Plugins disappeared.
Why aren't they being saved as well?

EDIT: Okay, nevermind, I solved the Problem somehow and can now enjoy this fantastic Rig even more

Great setup indeed, Chelfyn!!

I did run into one problem though which seemed to stem from a single translator that was missing from the picture of the "rec8" preset:

a "Cut&Paste" command for track 6 (between the "Shift(6)" and "Shift(7)" commands).

After I added that in, it worked as described.

Please confirm that this was indeed missing from the picture you included for "rec8".

Thank you very much for this setup and the tutorial!

M.O.

just wondering if Kid Beyond is a member here, since he's an avid fan of MTPro. I'd be curious to see how close his setup is to Chelfyn's.
And also if he has any other tips. I sent a message to his agent, would be nice to get some feedback...

M.O.

Some time ago I've had a long talk with Kid Beyond and though we did not exchange preset files, we've identified a number of improvements for Midi Translator, of which some have already made their way into MT Pro. He is a great guy, though I don't think he's following these forums.

Florian

How would one alter this setup so that recording stops automatically at the end of each bar...like one stomp start stop recording.

It would be nice to eliminate the need for the second stomp to stop recording.

seeing how few people have responded to this post so far, I'm wondering if anybody has really recreated this besides me and experimented with it.

I have come across another thing that confused me a bit:

chelfyn writes about Preset 8:

It starts by capturing and inserting the current scene (CTRL+SHFT+I), selects the next track (SHFT+1-7) then copies and pastes the now stopped clips 1-7 into the new slots created for them (Up CTRL+X Down CTRL+V), deletes a stray on 8(Up Del), leaves the resample playing on track 8 and finally shifts back to [safe].

My confusion is with the need to cut and paste. The capture and insert scene command already copies the currently playing clips into the newly created scene. If anything, there should only be a need to delete the clips in the old scene.

It's not that chelfyn's setup doesn't work, it works, but I don't see a need for this step.

I hope to see more input from people who have recreated and/or modified this setup.

Max.

Mate - this is great, it has got me off to a good start on what I want to do with Live. I adapted what you have here to work with Midi. However the issue I have is that Midi seems to work slightly differently in terms of the monitoring.

I think with Audio you would still be able to monitor what you were putting through the input channel when you are not recording. IN midi I cannot hear what I am playing until it loops.... any ideas How I could solve that.

Cheers

Steve

Hi Steve,

this should be a separate thread.
i think the answer to your question lies in the understanding of basic midi. check google for some basic sites on MIDI (e.g.: http://www.tweakheadz.com/how_to_get_st ... _midi.html)

Max.

Thanks for the reply. I'm pretty clear on the difference between midi and audio having being playing with this stuff since 1986 on hardware sequencers.

I probably did not explain myself well. The set-up provided in this posting works fine in Live with audio for a few reasons:

1) you do not have the concept of different sounds coming through as I do with midi (i.e. if I arm all my midi tracks, when I play, all intruments sound)

2) You do not have to deal with the OVR concept, if you click record again with audio it will record, however with midi if OVR is not selected, it will not record and the midi track does also not re-record

Here's what I am trying to do:

a) 4 VST's set-up on 4 tracks
b) 1 button clicking on microKontrol (mK) will select which VST responds to my keyboard playing (I am currently doing this by having the arm buttons linked to the Micro Kontrol)
c) 1 button clicking on mK to record a variable loop, same button clicking will stop recording and set loop legnth (I do this by modifying the set-up in this post to work with midi).
d) Now I have to have another button linked to the OVR setting to allow me to add to the loop I have just recorded (that seems ok).

I am now going to try modify the Bomes set-up in this posting to allow me to do the equivalent of a mixdown with midi (ie copy those loops for re-use and allow me to go back to a) for new loops.


It's working, but I feel way out of my depth here with what should be happening with Bome...so if anyone is also into doing this sort of stuff with live midi playing and looping and has some ideas....twould be much appreciated.

Cheers

Steve

Since updating to V1.6 my overdubbing rig doesn't seem to work as it should now. Is anyone else finding this?

Hi,

we've taken great care to ensure compatibility with older versions of Midi Translator. What exactly is not working anymore? Is anything working at all? Do the LEDs show any activity, and/or the log (from the Options menu)?

Thanks,
Florian

I made a variation of this rig awhile ago with 4 channels rather than 8 (and set up specifically for my foot controller). I've only just come to integrate it into my set and it's not behaving properly in 1.6. I can't swear to it, but I'm sure it worked fine when I first tried it in 1.5.

The problems I'm having with it are:

(1) Each clip, after starting to record, will only finish recording and start playing back by hitting the same button on my foot controller. If I start recording on a different channel, it will just keep recording on the first.

(2) The final resampling channel doesn't clean up. It operates as just another recording channel (with the same problem that I mentioned before) without going back and clearing the other channels for further sampling.

Maybe it's my imagination that it worked in 1.5, but I'm pretty sure it did. Either way, I'd love some assistance on getting this working. Florian, I hope you don't mind ... I've sent you both my MTPro file and my Ableton Live set to see if it helps.

Cheers,
Mark.

Hi Florian

I'm can you confirm that this patch works with the new version of MT pro, and ableton live 7.

I've had this working before on live 6 and an old version of MT pro

I'm experiencing the same problems as MarkRM

Hi,

after some twiddling, I think I found the cause of the problem: the old MT Pro had a bug with "Stop Processing": it would only handle it for the current preset. This is fixed in 1.6 -- stop processing will cause a "stop" also for all following presets. Now, inadvertently, Chelfyn's presets exploited this bug in 1.5, therefore it doesn't work anymore with 1.6.

The fix is to uncheck all "Stop Processing" options in the "safe" and in the "[always active]" presets. Keep "Stop Processing" in the "rec X" presets.

Here is the updated original file: Ableton Live MGO Rig 1.01.bmtp (right-click on it, and choose "Save Link As...")

Let us know if that fixes it!

Regards,
Florian

Hi Florian

Have you test the updated preset?

I've just tested it and the resampling still doesn't work.

Shame because i really wanted to use this in my new live setup.

When i record in slot 1 it automatically stops after one bar - very strange.

Can you think of any other reasons why its not working.

Which version of MT pro do i need for this to work?

Yes, I tested it and worked fine, meaning:

- after pressing the first button, I could record any number of measures until I press the same button again, or until I press a different button
- pressing 8 will do a mixdown until I press 8 again

I've done this with MT Pro 1.6.0.

Might be an incompatibility with Live 7? I've tested with Live 6.

Regards,
Florian

Sorry, my mistake

just to comfirm this works with Ableton 7

Absolutely amazing setup - Just another reason to buy MT pro

thanks

Florian

awesome!
Florian

Quick quesion regarding this setup. If I put specific effects inserts on each of the first 7 tracks, I won't be able to hear those effects until the recorded clips playback, is this correct?

In my case I would like to prepare the 7 tracks with 7 specific effects settings, that I also need to hear as I record each track, and not just upon playback. I guess I could do this via Chains on track 9 (the input) and record the effects as part of each track's audio instead of each track's live effects. But the problem with that is not enough buttons on the foot controller

Thanks

Is there any way to do this on a mac yet? I am patiently waiting for MT to come to mac, but is there a temporary workaround that anyone knows about?

Hi,

When someone asked about modifying the setup for use with midi, the reply came that this subject deserved its own thread.

Was this created? I can't find it if so.

I'd like to do a combination rig of 4 midi and 4 audio tracks.

Thanks!

-m@

Hi Florian,

i am working on porting your setup to work with a mac.
As a starting point, i used the MGO 1.01 preset.
I programmed my midi controller (FCB1010 UnO) to send the notes E0 to B0.

Recording the loops 1 - 7 works flawlessly, but when trying to make a mixdown on CH 8, the set behaves unexpectedly:

On the first press of switch 8, the mixdown loop starts recording.
On the second press of switch 8, the loops 1-7 stop, and a new scene is created containing the currently running clip (which is only the mixdown-loop on channel 8 ).

The clips on channels 1-7 however are not moved down to the new scene and the mixdown-loop doesn't get deleted....

What am I doing wrong here??

When examining your preset, i found out that in the "rec 8" - preset, you use outgoing keystrokes that differ from your original setup.
It used to be like this:
up Ctrl(x ) down Ctrl(v )
and in version 1.01 it looks like this:
[VK 1998844 X] Ctrl(x ) [VK 464945228 X] Ctrl(v )

This rises a couple of questions:
1) Is this a way to simulate mouse clicks?
2) and if so, is this available in the Mac version of MT Pro?
3) and if not, can the preset still function with the old keystrokes such as up and down?

What I did to make the setup mac-compatible:
I changed the keystrokes from "rec 8" to the equivalent mac keystrokes:
• i changed the "cleardown" keystroke to "command(shift (I))"
• i changed the "cut&paste" keystrokes to "up command(x ) down command(v )"
• i changed the "clear slot 8" keystroke to "up backspace"

Does anybody see my mistake? me needs help... :-/ after hours of fiddling around, my head smokes and simply doesn't want to wrap around the MGO 1.01 preset....

greetings from the netherlands...


sawatzki


EDIT: Ok, i looked deeply into the setup once more and discovered where it goes wrong:

the translator "select channel" shows unexpected behaviour - it does select the track, but you are not able to navigate between the slots with the arrow-keys. I have no clue as to why this happens, but after fiddling around a little longer, i found out that when you press TAB twice (to go to arrange-view and back), arrowkey-navigation is again possible.

So i tried to implement two tab keystrokes in the "select channel"-translators...

Unfortunately, this didn't work out, because when you enter a "tab"-keystroke with the corresponding button in MT Pro, the program awaits a second, simultaneous keystroke.
The result always looked like this:

Tab(Tab )
which translates to: press "tab" while holding "tab"

instead of:
Tab Tab
which translates to: press "tab" twice...

This seems to be a bug in MT Pro, right?

My workaround of the workaround:
In each "select channel"-translator, i added a "Tab" as last keystroke.
After each "select channel"-translator, i added as new one whith only one "tab" as outgoing keystroke.

Now almost everything works as expected.

Only one bug is left in the setup:

If you want to mix down lets say 4 running loops (and loops 5-7 are still empty), the "rec 8"-preset will copy the last loop (that would be loop 4) to the remaining channels too, ending up with copies of loop 4 on channels 5, 6 and 7...

This happens, because the preset instructs live to cut and paste the clips down to the new scene. If there is no clip to cut (as in channel 5-7), live will ignore the "cut" command and paste the last cutted loop into the slot.

We'll see if that issue can be solved...

I'll keep you posted...

Hi sawatzki,

indeed, you've stumbled on a number of known bugs with keystroke emulation on Mac:

1) some keystrokes are not displayed correctly. If Mac (or Win) version does not recognize the keystroke in a preset (e.g. the attached keyboard does not have such a key), it is displayed in "native" format, i.e. the [VK 123456 X] format.

2) some keystrokes are not correctly sent, especially Command/Shift/Ctrl combinations it seems

3) editing sometimes creates invalid keystroke sequences, like your Tab(Tab).

Thanks for bearing with us! Fixing keystrokes is the big remaining issue before releasing the final version of MT 1.6.1/Mac.

Thanks,
Florian

Hi Florian,

First of all, thanx for your reply and thanx for making such a great software.

Besides the known bugs with keystroke emulation, there is one more thing in the MGO setup that doesn't give the expected results, and it seems to me that it's a systematic bug / restriction in your MGO setup:

when you want to make a mixdown loop of less than 7 recorded loops, the setup will place copies of the last present loop onto the remaining looping-channels. This is the case, because the instruction to "go up, cut the clip, go down, paste the clip" doesn't work on channels with no loop on them.
The "cut"-command is ignored by live, because there is no clip to cut.
The "paste"-command pastes the contents of the clipboard (being the last successful "cut") onto the second scene.

Hi Sawatzki,

thanks for the update. INdeed, I don't know much about Ableton Live, or this preset in particular. It was created by "Chelfyn" (see the first posts in this thread). Maybe Chelfyn knows how to fix your problem?

Thanks,
Florian

chelfyn wrote:[rec 8]
This final channel is used for resampling. I have split the final timer-triggered key command into several parts for ease of reading, but it could be done with a single translator.

The first bank of translators tells clips 1-7 to stop playing at the end of the bar.

The second bank will start a timer called mixdown. This needs to last longer than 1 bar at the tempo you are recording at – my choice of 3.5 seconds allows me to safely record as low as 75 bpm. Any lower and there's a small [possibility my cleanup could be triggered before the end of the bar. If you plan on recording slower than this you may need to increase this delay time, or you may wish to speed it up for better response.

The final sequence of commands are triggered from the timer in top-down order. It starts by capturing and inserting the current scene (CTRL+SHFT+I), selects the next track (SHFT+1-7) then copies and pastes the now stopped clips 1-7 into the new slots created for them (Up CTRL+X Down CTRL+V), deletes a stray on 8(Up Del), leaves the resample playing on track 8 and finally shifts back to [safe].

In Use:
We should be ready to go. Fire up MTPro, select the [safe] preset.

Fire up Ableton and load the scene we created earlier.

Hit play.

From now on, all your recording is managed through the 8 buttons/keys we've assigned. Hit 1 and start recording, hit it again when you're finished (before the end of the last bar), or hit another channel to immediately start recording on that channel instead. If you want to resample that to a single loop, hit button eight to start resampling and any button again to stop, thus allowing you to easily set any loop size for your resampled loop.

That's it. Couldn't be simpler in operation.

[edited by Florian/Bome Software]: the files used in this tutorial are included with Midi Translator Pro/Author/Player since version 1.6, under the name "Ableton MGO.bmtp".

I hope this tutorial has been of help. If anyone can think of ways to streamline this, make it better, or just abuse it in cool ways, let me know! Please send any feedback to chelfyn@gmail.com. Cheers.

Chelfyn

there's a problem i have this tutorial all completed now and i ran my ableton 6 and basically everything works for example using my qwerty computer keyboard to trigger in Ableton when capturing loops BUT it is NOT creating a new inserted scene with copy and pasted loops onto a brand new scene... even though the macro is in bomes already. What could be the problem. All it does when i Press 8 is it records on track 8 on scene 1 and then i hit 8 again and it just continues playing back that loop. Unless i am missing or misunderstanding something here. Please email me at pdnmusic at gmail dot com so we i can continue fast replies if needed.

Thanks so much,

Paul-

sawatzki, would you be willing to post your template of the mac version?

i'm running a FCB1010 into live 7 and struggling to get this to work...cheers.

paul7622000 wrote: All it does when i Press 8 is it records on track 8 on scene 1 and then i hit 8 again and it just continues playing back that loop.

Yup, same here. I´m using Live 7.0.3 and Translator v1.61 build 896 with the 1.01 bmtp and have been through this thread line by line but still can´t get it to work. Help please!!

Also same here. Pressing 8 just records into slot 8

I'm using Live 8 with MT 1.7

Any ideas?

*EDIT*

O.k sorted it.

Doh! of course.

Just pressing 8 on the keypad just records into a slot because it isn't running the whole sequence of keypresses programmed into MT.

When *triggering* the slots via a midi keyboard -> MT -> Live8, it gives the correct result.

Cheers,
bagginz

HI All,
I have been working with Chelfyn's MGO setup and Ableton Live 8.01 (8 Core MacPro- OSX Leopard FCB 1010...

Many Thanks to Florian Reudi Celfyn Sawatzki Amaury Dom Gerhard and you all !

I can concur with Sawatzki's findings exactly!

"the translator "select channel" shows unexpected behaviour - it does select the track, but you are not able to navigate between the slots with the arrow-keys. I have no clue as to why this happens, but after fiddling around a little longer, i found out that when you press TAB twice (to go to arrange-view and back), arrowkey-navigation is again possible....."


I am investigating why the translator "select channel"cannot 'gain' control of the GUI in the way that is needed here.
This happens in [rec 8] in Celfyn's button press that leads to Cleardown-Select Channel-Cut and Paste.


The channels are 'almost' selected but not highlighted.... thus arrow key navigation CANNOT select the clips for cutting and pasting.

I believe that the problem or the fix is with Ableton 8 and/or Apple OSX Leopard because an actual computer keyboard yields the same issue when I manually try to select a track via a remote keyboard stroke..... the only way to select and highlight a track with the 'real' HID is to select the track with the mouse then arrow navigation is possible!.

Thanks in advance,
AL
p.s. does the MGO work as expected under Windowz XP?

I've found a workaround for this (I'm using WinXP):

in [rec 8], add "Alt(Up)" after each "Keystroke: Shift(x )" in each [Select Channel] so it'll look like this:

Select Channel -- On timer "mixdown" -- Keystroke:Shift(1 )Alt(Up )
.
.
.
Select Channel -- On timer "mixdown" -- Keystroke:Shift(8 )Alt(Up )

The Alt-Up causes the clip to be selected like it does in Ableton v7

I'm guessing it's one of the v8 bugs floating around, but at least it does the trick.

Also, make sure any VST windows do NOT open or the delay they cause while opening doesn't allow the cut/paste to finish properly.

it's always SOMETHING...

Hi DeRoc,
thanks for the idea. It works fine in my rig(I am running OSX 10.5.6 and Ableton
The keystroke for a Mac would be Option instead of Alt as it is under Windows XP.
Sawatzki's Tab workaround worked for me... but intermittently. I suspect the problem was most likely because it required too many window opening and closings.
The simple Alt(up) or Opt(Up) command is working more easily on my system.

So thanks again DeRoc!

Loop recording in the studio as well as live is a very useful tool for me as a guitarist.... I like to mostly keep my hands on the instrument an off of the mouse and keyboard.
I find that I can settle into the groove and lay down more solid rhythm parts when I can 'catch it the next time around'
AL

Glad that worked for you, too!
(it was 'bugging' me that the clip was left un-selected; I figured there was one way or another to get it selected again)

Hi - I'm no programmer but would love to work this out for my system. Anyone here up for helping me with this for a fee? Thanks in advance,
James

Hi All,

This is a great tutorial - however the images will not download from the forum site. Have tried this on both a Mac & PC. Can some repost the tutorial with the images imbedded ?, thanks

Found the PDF on the Tutorial pages of the Bome site - all sorted, cheers

sorry guys!
when we updated our site, these images were moved. Now it's fixed.

Regards,
Florian

This is a great setup. I spent a few hours adapting the scripts for my Apple Laptop, and I have to say this is probably the best guitar looping rig I have ever used. I configured up a Behringer FCB1010 to use with this, and had to change the note velocities on the script to 64 to work with the FCB1010. Thanks to the auther for this, cheers

Hi,

There is no preset shown when I open the Ableton Live MGO Rig 1.01.bmtp.
I saw the Ableton Live MGO Rig 1.00.bmtp did not worked due to a bug of the v1.5, so I try the new preset, but nothing in.
I use the v1.71.
How can I do ?
Thank's
David

Mr. Clean - would you be willing to upload your script? I'm using Ableton 8.1 on a Mac tower running 10.5.8 and an FCB1010 foot controller. Or if you like email it to me at james@jamesbowersmusic.com ?
Much appreciated!
James

This is an excellent script and it was first mentioned that the file itself was available at Midi Translator Pro/Author/Player since version 1.6, under the name "Ableton MGO.bmtp". This looks to me like a windows file path. I searched my Mac and found a presets folder at User/Bome's Midi Translator/Presets. It contains 24 presets, but none named Ableton MGO.bmtp

In his post Friday January 4th 2008, Florian points to an updated version of the file ... " Here is the updated original file: Ableton Live MGO Rig 1.01.bmtp " Sadly this link is dead.

Seemingly, there have been a lot of excellent developments on this file by Florian, Sawatzki, Misteralan and Mr_Clean. It would be terrific to share the customized versions of the script here on the forum, or with links, or as email attachments. If anyone has a recent working versions of the script - especially a version adapted to the Mac and using the FCB1010, would you continue sharing it on the forum or email me about it? I can be reached by email at james@jamesbowersmusic.com

Thanks everyone for your insightful post, and especially to chelfyn for an excellent framework.
James

I've just purchased MT Pro 1.7.0 beta 8 build 362 & using with Mac OSX 10.6.4 and Ableton Live 8.1.3. The well written Kid Beyond tutorial seemed like a good place to start as the "Ableton Live MGO Rig 1.00.bmtp is included with the product download.

However as already noted in this thread it doesn't work as described.

I've already made the changes suggested by florian in Jan 2008 "The fix is to uncheck all "Stop Processing" options in the "safe" and in the "[always active]" presets. Keep "Stop Processing" in the "rec X" presets." This gets the first 7 tracks working as expected but the track 8 behaviour fails and I get that as described by sawatzki in November 2008. I haven't implemented the all the changes suggested by sawatzki as I'm not sure all are necessary as MT looks like it has several updates since that time.

It sounds like sawatzki and misteralan and Mr_Clean have all got some version of this running on their rigs.

Anyone willing to share a working file??

As this is a tutorial patch and an included bmtp file with the software it would be very useful to have an updated file online.

Thanks.

Awesome setup… Chelfyn’s preset sold me on Bome’s Midi Translator -- Even without the track 8 resampling/cleanup working!

Unfortunately a different behavior has changed today and I can’t figure out why: Until today, any track which was already looping a clip could be stopped/restarted by pressing the same footpedal used to launch recording of that clip to begin with.

Today, however, after I record a clip into track 1 using pedal 1 on my FCB1010, a 3rd tap on pedal one only restarts the clip in time with my quantization settings - instead of stopping playback as it used to.

If I record samples in a verse and need to stop them at the chorus, I want to be able to start them again at the next verse, all without affecting other clips which are looping continuously.

I’m using a new Macbook Pro with Bome’s MTPro 1.6.1, but I got the MGO Rig 1.01 which was included in the MTPro v1.7 Beta. I’ve modified the MGO Rig 1.01 only to map one footpedal to the ‘delete’ key, and another pedal to the ‘tap tempo’. I also changed the incoming trigger velocities to 64 (which is necessary with an FCB1010 as noted by Mr_Clean in another post).

Still though, it worked until today. I can’t figure out what I could have done to change this behavior, nor can I find anything written into the preset which would cause the looping track to stop, the way it was doing before! Tried going back the the original preset, and also tried changing my MIDI preferences in Ableton to see if there was any effect… nope.

Do other people using Chelfyn’s preset find they can stop a clip using that same pedal? Or have any idea how to change this without mapping other pedals to the stop buttons on each track?

Thanks!

Oh, man - can't believe it took me hours to figure this out... I see now that the "problem" I was having was simply due to the clip launch settings in Ableton. Default clip launch should be set to 'Toggle' if you want to be able to turn a recorded loop on and off using the same pedal.

I have also developed a version of this rig specifically for
the US-428 which controls the on-board LEDs to show you which
channel is recording (flashing red) and which have been recorded to
already (steady red). I will release a further tutorial at a later date if
there is demand.

I would be very interested to see how you did this. Great tutorial by the way! I'm setting it up now for use with my Maschine controller, but would love to have visual feedback of the clip states on the buttons I use.

Thanks for the detailed tutorial.

Anyone here using this? And if so, is it working for you?

I ask because I just built a DIY foot pedal that works like a charm and I was looking to see if anyone has come up with alternative scripts/workflows for live looping.

If anyone is still actively researching ways to do live looping / wouldn't mind brainstorming ideas with me, I'd love to connect, I have a nice little studio and some great gear. I've developed my own workflow but I'm constantly looking for better setups, including more automation using Bomes, so if ANYONE has any input, whether it's some good links, or exchanging contact info I'd really love to hear from you!

My email is benjamintoppi@gmail.com

Thanks!

Please help an MT Newbie!

Hello everyone!

First off - thanks so much for this effort and skill. I am a newbie to MT, but not at all a newbie to MIDI or pro audio and live performance. Looping is going to be one of the core pillars of a new set-up I'm creating, I just got rid of the Repeater, and I would love to try this out. Would anyone be kind enough to share their functional code, perhaps their entire saved MT file, with me? It would really help me learn a lot about using Bome's MT, especially since I haven't programmed since the 8th grade, and Q-Basic was the language - lol. I bought MT Pro, but could really use the help with the learning curve, and I learn best by exploring another person's work.

It would be very much appreciated!

My email is famusvictim@gmail.com - and yup, that's spelled correctly.

I hope the community supports me - I have gigged as a pro for ten years in post-rock and experimental music, but have been forced to create a one-man-show due to the onset of a severe disability that interrupts practice schedules, and MT's capabilities are at the core of making it work... just need a coding jump-start... and will soon be tossing tips to Newbies myself.

peace from philly

Hi famusvictim

I can share some of the many projects I have. You can also go through the presets that come with MIDI Translator and see how those work.

DvlsAdvct wrote:Hi famusvictim

I can share some of the many projects I have. You can also go through the presets that come with MIDI Translator and see how those work.

Hello DvlsAdvct,

That would be more than generous... I really know exactly what I want MIDI to do for my "one man band", and how I want my software and hardware to become a versatile unique instrument. I worked in a tight nit band where our sound/lighting/tech guy was already employed with Masque sound (they do ALL the shows on Broadways and a large portion of international music acts coming through the northeast). He was only working with us as a labor of love... but thanks to him, I began to understand MIDI was capable operating like malleable code - not just commands - before I even knew MT existed, so when I found Bome, I was overjoyed!!! "This is it!" I thought, but soon realized that the majority of current MT users are already well versed in code, and that Bome's market seemed to be a boutique one, with loyal boutique users. I knew there would be doing 8th grade all over again - lol!

Because I honestly believe MT and Bome can expand to a larger market, now that a LOT more serious musicians are adopting computers via simple GUIs (mainly live obviously), and now that more and more kids are coming up with computers just as much as guitars, I see a huge opportunity for expanding musicians individual creativity by enticing them to learn how to use MT. I would love to help Bome with this, if Bome wants my help. I have over a decade's experience in pro-video, including instructional and online videos, and I want to make instructional videos that can make MT seem more accessible and appealing to the average musician who uses a computer. I will do this for free, but of course, I will need some hand-holding and direction along the way. I want to help Bome get to more experimental musicians, and would be glad to do this for nothing more than what you've already offered - a little help.

For these musicians (like the kind I used to be before I worked with that tech of mine), just being told that a program can do cool things with programming does not draw them in, and in fact, just the word "programming" can scare a lot of them away. But I firmly believe that instructional videos where very clear and tangible "real world" goals for live or studio work are demonstrated from concept to completion will bring inspire more creative artists to brave the scary world of basic programming. I would suggest a series of videos demonstrating a single goal per video: where ensemble goals, solo goals, and even integrated systems, such as lighting rigs synced to music) are achieved with MT script. I want to do this because I simply believe in the product, and I am always surprised and disappointed when I mention MT to my experimental and electronic musician friends, only to have them tell me they've never heard of it!

I would suggest a "trial run" or "test video"... we can think of a single practical scenario that many instrumentalists who also use a laptops might encounter - such as syncing multiple computers, controlling multiple variables in two software programs and one plug-in with a single button push, or even something as simple as using a foot controller that only sends PC signals to trigger CC signals... a very utilitarian beginner's trick. Does this sound like a good idea? lemme know.

Sorry for the long post, but my offer is simple... if you help me with your examples, like you offered, and work with me to figure out what videos would be most likely to entice the average musician, I will create the videos for free, because in the end, my setup won't be possible without Bome, and Florian has already proved to me that this is more about a creative community than an impersonal company.

If the videos are good enough for your needs, you can even host them on your site, as official promos or introduction vids for newbies... free means free. If not, I'll just use them to show my friends, or post them on YouTube with your permission. I just want to have fun helping!

Please contact me at famusvictim@gmail.com, DvlsAdvct, because I would love to chat about this, and of course, take you up on your offer to help the newbie with examples. My name is Erik btw.

many sincere thanks!!!

By the way - finally got around to using Chelfyn's rig, and love it enough to mod it for my show...
Thanks Chelfyn

I have one qualm in general - gonna post it to feature requests if not there already - one MIDI output per translator is perhaps the most cumbersome thing about MT, and limits the program from every being a useful compositional tool, for those who want to create custom single button 4-part harmony controller set-ups, for example.

Hi All,

I have this completely rigged and customized for a nanoKONTROL2, so I could add mute, solo, volume and panning. Used the record buttons as the main input messsages in this script.

Everything works great....

My only complaint is that I can't revisit and overdub the loops, so I am going to build one where I can create layers via new clips horizontally... would be incredible live, in terms of forcing the listener to lose track of which loops are attached to each other, and build sparse accents that can be added in for spicing up an arrangement, and allowing more musical diversity.

If someone wants my nanoKONTROL2 version that requires only a little alteration to the nano (like momentary to toggle, etc), just let me know... if you wait a bit, I'll have one ready for at least 28 clips on seven tracks and a simple switcher function between inputs (for me that means vox, guitars, and vibraphone)

If anyone has a QuNeo... I'm going to be putting together some things.

Anyone got any thoughts on LIve 9's looper????

Hey guys,
Great work chelfyn!! Thanks for sharing, I'm definitely "stealing" the idea to use track 1 to 8 as the base template, with all important things mapped around it. What I'm currently trying out is mapping the 1-8 track cells to my bottom buttons on the Livid Code, and with a toggle shift button, flipping these buttons to the 1-8 Aux tracks (A-H). Fast interaction with the first 8 tracks / 8 aux is what I'm going for.
Fredzed

Hey there,

New user here - thanks for the awesome tutorial Chelfyn!

I've been having a problem with this setup, and that's the fact that when I use this setup to record session view into arrangement view, all the armed channels, not just the one I'm recording a new clip to, record the input audio. After seing this i tried using a setup that unarms the tracks when moving on to the next one, but that messes up the length of the loops, because they stop recording when unarm the tracks. Does anyone have a workaround for this?

Roomie

Hey all, I am running Live 9 Suite (9.1.1) and have been trying to build a live looping station for some time with limited success. I now own Bomes and I am ready to make this happen - it sounds amazing.

Has anyone set this up on a MacBook Pro running Mavericks 10.9.2, using Live 9.1.1 64 bit?

If anyone has any tips, or a step by step guide that is written with the newest software in mind, that would be so incredible... I read the above thread and I will definitely try to build this myself, but I am very pressed for time these days as I am pursuing music after my day job and considerable commute. I would love to repurpose an existing template or setup in Bomes, and even an existing live set in Ableton that are already built to work together. I would be happy to throw a few bucks your way for your trouble for this head start, as I have spent a year or so working on this and this thread is giving me a glimmer of hope for the first time!

Thanks guys, so inspiring!
Sean

I too just got started and have the same set-up (9.1, Mac, etc). I set-up the BOME preset as described and it's not fully working (The 8 key doesn't capture-insert). My biggest question in fact is whether to push on and fix this or not. I'm using Ableton's Push and am wondering if there's a better way given Push's depth of functionality. This rig was developed long before the comprehensive functionality of Push's hardware came out.

The problem I have is that if I want to record on one track and switch to recording on another at the end of the bar, I can't switch tracks and start recording instantly from one bar to the next.

If I arm both to record so I can start recording on the second track at the end of the first, then the audio is routed through both tracks simultaneously and you hear the doubling of the gain and the effects from both tracks while recording the first.

Anyone have set-ups or knowledge of Push to bypass this flaw? Is this rig purposeful in Push or would it make sense to program another way?

Thanks,
Noah

Seems like the problem has to do with Live having to "click" on the track in order for the key strokes to work. After the Capture insert scene command. the select track command highlights the track but does not give the arrow keys the ability to move around thus preventing the rest of the script from completing the delete function. Maybe simulating a mouse click on the track could help. But then you couldn't move the track around live if you need to or add or subtract tracks, or anything else that resizes the window.

I'd really like to hit a pedal that captures and inserts the scene then clears out all the tracks above. you can create banks on the fly.

anyone doing this?

I think I figured it out. You have to have "Select on Launch" enabled in the Record Warp Launch tab of Live's Preferences. Without it the Keystroke portion of the patch won't work. I also made a patch the uses Capture and Insert Scene instead of Resample as was suggested above. IT is indeed cool. Now you can bank an unlimited amount of times with a simple pedal push. Im still testing it for bugs.

OK, I gave up on the EHX 2800, now I am evaluating Ableton Live which seems very very cooler

I want to control Ableton with the FC300, and I dont mind switching modes to control the VG99

I connect my FC300 to the VG99, and plug the VG99 into my MacPro.

However, I am getting some odd behavior. I think the VG99 is intercepting the MIDI messages, and remapping them to something else.

In Ableton, I followed the video tutorial for Remote setup. I go into MIDI Map Mode, click on the Play button, push the pedal. The yellow light in upper right blinks indicating a MIDI message, a "B" appears on the button, and a MIDI Map appears in the list. All good so far...

However, after leaving MIDI map mode, nothing happens when I push the pedal. The yellow light blinks, but the button does not respond.

Very odd, the new MIDI map entry is Channel=1 Note/Control=Pitchbend Path=Transport Name=Start. This is odd because I programmed the pedal to send CC# 1

I see that others have gotten this working. What is the the secret sauce?

Thanks in advance
Peter