urb Posted November 15, 2007 Share Posted November 15, 2007 OK chaps - hope one of you has some experience with Ableton. My problem - I've made a shiny new tune using Ableton Live 6 - and I used BFD for my drum part - I recorded them as an 'audio' file as they don't really work as a VST Midi unit - but they do come ujp as a VST. I recorded a groovy drum part and it all sounds great in Ableton - but then I 'rendered' the file to disk - ie created a mix-down to listen to - and the track went over fine as a WAV file but it was MINUS the drum part... which makes me think there's a problem exporting these files or rather 'samples' - if any of you have an idea about where I might have gone wrong - or what buttons I need to push to make the drum samples exportable I'd be really grateful. Thanks Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kneal6 Posted November 21, 2007 Share Posted November 21, 2007 [quote name='urb' post='88888' date='Nov 15 2007, 12:31 PM']OK chaps - hope one of you has some experience with Ableton. My problem - I've made a shiny new tune using Ableton Live 6 - and I used BFD for my drum part - I recorded them as an 'audio' file as they don't really work as a VST Midi unit - but they do come ujp as a VST. I recorded a groovy drum part and it all sounds great in Ableton - but then I 'rendered' the file to disk - ie created a mix-down to listen to - and the track went over fine as a WAV file but it was MINUS the drum part... which makes me think there's a problem exporting these files or rather 'samples' - if any of you have an idea about where I might have gone wrong - or what buttons I need to push to make the drum samples exportable I'd be really grateful. Thanks Mike[/quote] If it plays back fine normally, then it sounds like you've not selected the drum part in the Session view before rendering. Try go into Session view and press ctrl-A before rendering. That's all I can suggest really, I don't know anything about BFD. Are you using it as a VST plugin on a midi track? You might want to try Freezing the drum track before rendering then, that might do it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ped Posted November 21, 2007 Share Posted November 21, 2007 Hi Mike, I use Ableton too - make sure you have all the tracks selected you want rendered and the selection envelope covers the length of the part you want rendered. Then try it again! This should work OK. At least you haven't done what I have managed to do before - record a groove, render it and quit without saving, only to find you haven't got anything in the final wav/mp3 file!! Doh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
urb Posted November 21, 2007 Author Share Posted November 21, 2007 Thanks Ped and Kneal - I actually tried this again and got it to work so it's part of the fun of getting to know this thing! What I'm still slightly struggling with is the whole 'idea' of Ableton being a great ting for creating live mixes with loops and live playing at the same time - I guess what I'm trying to say is - if I am to jam along with some pre-recorded loops in a 'live' situation - what's the best way to record this while I play it? At the moment I am just using Abelton like any other music software i.e. creating parts, mixing and editing as I go - but on the 'demo' in the package you can just mess around with some loops and do all sorts of crazy stuff - I feel I'm missing the point of Ableton or just being a total noob... any thoughts or advice appreciated. M Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ped Posted November 21, 2007 Share Posted November 21, 2007 The whole loop think in Ableton confused me at first, as it seemed the default view and setup was geared towards this rather than traditional recording like you mention, meaning the latter took a while to work out. I guess that if you programmed several loops of different drum beats/keyboard parts for example you could trigger them with a midi device and play over the top, meaning like you could create lots of little loops and parts. If you wanted to then record all of that, you could arm a single audio track taking the audio from the master and record it all onto the one track, or presumably do each track separately as per the demo music . The lessons built in to Ableton are quite good if you happen to find one covering what you need. Cheers ped Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
urb Posted November 21, 2007 Author Share Posted November 21, 2007 Thanks Ped - I'm normally pretty good at working this stuff out - I am using the manual and lessons but sometimes it's just good old lateral thinking that works best - I appreciate your help on this - I don't know many people who use Ableton - thanks again dude. M Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kneal6 Posted November 22, 2007 Share Posted November 22, 2007 [quote name='urb' post='92135' date='Nov 21 2007, 01:37 PM']Thanks Ped and Kneal - I actually tried this again and got it to work so it's part of the fun of getting to know this thing! What I'm still slightly struggling with is the whole 'idea' of Ableton being a great ting for creating live mixes with loops and live playing at the same time - I guess what I'm trying to say is - if I am to jam along with some pre-recorded loops in a 'live' situation - what's the best way to record this while I play it? At the moment I am just using Abelton like any other music software i.e. creating parts, mixing and editing as I go - but on the 'demo' in the package you can just mess around with some loops and do all sorts of crazy stuff - I feel I'm missing the point of Ableton or just being a total noob... any thoughts or advice appreciated. M[/quote] As ped said, you can record the output by making a new audio track and changing the input to "resample", then recording on that track. However, especially if you're triggering/mixing/....ing about with stuff in realtime, you'd be better off using the record button at the top of the screen to record into the Arrangement View. That way it will record everything you do (i.e. midi data and anything you change with the keyboard/mouse) and you'll be able to edit/fix/remix it later on. You could record your bass to it's own separate track and still be able to change things round, add fx etc later. If you're playing bass at the same time, you probably want a foot pedal to trigger different parts/loops with, I've got a behringer fcb1010 which is very good for this, and it's got 2 wah-type pedals on it as well which you could assign to anything - a low-pass filter on the main out is fun, you can make your own wah-wahs, weird pedal-controlled effects, it's only limited by your imagination really. Then you can use the buttons to trigger either individual loops or groups (i.e. one stomp for verse, one stomp for chorus); you could also use them to mute/unmute tracks, then have everything playing at the same time and just bring them in or out with the pedal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
urb Posted November 22, 2007 Author Share Posted November 22, 2007 Damn that foot-switch sounds great - thanks for the ideas - Ableton is great so I'm pleased I've got it but all these ideas are really exciting - my only problem now is - I have a sore finger from a cracked callous - I've been playing too much recently - time for a break I think! Thanks mate M Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
urb Posted November 22, 2007 Author Share Posted November 22, 2007 [quote name='kneal6' post='92549' date='Nov 22 2007, 09:13 AM']If you're playing bass at the same time, you probably want a foot pedal to trigger different parts/loops with, I've got a behringer fcb1010 which is very good for this, and it's got 2 wah-type pedals on it as well which you could assign to anything - a low-pass filter on the main out is fun, you can make your own wah-wahs, weird pedal-controlled effects, it's only limited by your imagination really. Then you can use the buttons to trigger either individual loops or groups (i.e. one stomp for verse, one stomp for chorus); you could also use them to mute/unmute tracks, then have everything playing at the same time and just bring them in or out with the pedal.[/quote] OK next stupid question - a. I assume you connect this pedal by USB etc to your laptop? b. do you use the MIDI functions in Ableton to assign various presets - how do you do this? I'll send you the cheque for these lessons soon I promise...! Thanks again M Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dr.funk Posted November 22, 2007 Share Posted November 22, 2007 The pedal is midi so you would need to connect it to the midi in out on your soundcard or buy a separate usb interface. Then you click the midi map button at the top (its near the play button) and then you click on the control you wish to assign and simply turn the controller and it maps to it! You can also map keyboard keys to control functions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kneal6 Posted November 22, 2007 Share Posted November 22, 2007 [quote name='dr.funk' post='92570' date='Nov 22 2007, 10:11 AM']The pedal is midi so you would need to connect it to the midi in out on your soundcard or buy a separate usb interface. Then you click the midi map button at the top (its near the play button) and then you click on the control you wish to assign and simply turn the controller and it maps to it! You can also map keyboard keys to control functions.[/quote] What he said. If you don't have a midi port on your laptop though you can get usb->midi converter things off ebay for really cheap so you would be able to do it with one of those. I had to set up the FCB to send midi notes instead of CC codes for it to work with Live, loads of foot tapping but it's quite simple if you've got the manual. You can assign things in Live to midi notes/controllers by clicking the midi button on the top-right, click on what you want to assign then stomp the pedal. Pretty simple, although there's a few settings you sometimes need to fiddle about with to get it to work properly. Also, you can make your own foot controller by getting an old PC keyboard, removing most of the keys and leaving just a few spaced apart so you can hit them with your foot. [url="http://www.createdigitalmusic.com/2007/08/02/get-loopy-with-the-diy-10-ableton-footcontroller-no-soldering-required/"]check it out [/url] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
urb Posted November 22, 2007 Author Share Posted November 22, 2007 Great stuff guys thanks - love that video of the footcontroller - shame the music sucks! Groovy thread - thanks for all the brilliant tips - just wait for my finger to heal up and I'll get looping. M Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slaphappygarry Posted November 22, 2007 Share Posted November 22, 2007 Hey Urb, In logic you have a bounce down function called 'realtime' and one called 'offline'. In Logic, offline will NOT include any third party software you are running in the session (BFD, Reason etc...). Have a wee look about in your bounce options and use realtime if its set to offline. Real time is... well... real time. So it will take as long as your project is to bounce whereas offline will bounce the lot super quick. I don't use Ableton but if the question was exactly the same an about Logic that would be my suggestion. G Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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