Ableton Live looper

Started by tracy, May 18, 2012, 10:03:42 PM

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tracy

Anyone here using the loopers in Ableton Live? I do!

They have some great features, such as detecting the BPM of what you play and syncing the song to it.

I would enjoy hearing others adventrures with Ableton Live loopers, or is this a "hardware only" thread?
@tracyevans    •     http://www.exhibitry.com

Elantric

Me!!

I'm just now putting together an Abelton based portable rig over this summer for live looping and creativity. Not much time spent with it yet, but I want to exploit Max / MSP and PD too.

mbenigni

#2
It's a great looper made all the more powerful by virtue of being integrated into Ableton's Session view with easy drag and drop etc.  The only ommission I wish they would address is an auto-start feature.  Auto-start is really handy when you don't have hands or feet free, e.g. when you're sitting at a drum kit and you want to start recording a loop.  (I can usually kick a pedal to stop a loop, but 9x out of 10 I've got a foot on hi-hat and a right foot on the kick drum on 1.)  I use Ableton's Looper for guitar parts, but for drums I have to use the looper included with NI's Guitar Rig VST because it has auto-start... kind of backwards. ::)

Lately I've been using Live's Looper with my GR55.  The GR55 has USB audio I/O and it's MIDI can be configured to control the Looper ("remote"), so with one USB cable you get full-featured looping vs. the "My First Looper" Roland included with the GR.  https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=6062.0

tracy

What do you mean by Auto-Start? Using a sound to trigger the start?
@tracyevans    •     http://www.exhibitry.com

mbenigni

Quote from: tracy on May 30, 2012, 01:57:38 PM
What do you mean by Auto-Start? Using a sound to trigger the start?

Yes.  Am I mistaken about its ommission?  Maybe its been added in a recent version?  (That would be good news!)

tracy

No, I don't know of any built in feature like this, but I am thinking it could be created fairly painlessly with some add ons.

I have been using a very cool scripting thing called ClyphX lately that is changing how I use Ableton. ClyphX can control the looper (as well as most other items in Live.) With ClyphX you could set a marker in the timeline that would trigger a looper to start when the playhead hits it. Would that meet your need?

I have also been playing with a PizMIDI plugin that translates audio to CCs. I think with a combination of these two tools one could cobble together an auto-start function. I will give it some thought.

I am working on a blog post on using these two tools together that I hope to finish soon. Until then, here are links to both:

PizMIDI - http://www.thepiz.org/pizmidi/

ClyphX - http://beatwise.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=production&action=display&thread=716
@tracyevans    •     http://www.exhibitry.com

Elantric


mbenigni

QuoteWith ClyphX you could set a marker in the timeline that would trigger a looper to start when the playhead hits it. Would that meet your need?

Not exactly, but if one of the PizMIDI plugins can be configured to send a CC event when an audio input reaches an adjustable threshhold, that would do the trick.  I was actually wondering a few hours ago whether Ableton had anything in their stock stable of audio/midi effects that would do this.  Still would like to see a simple checkbox/threshhold knob integrated into the Looper effect itself.

volts3300

Hi,
I use live 8.2 as a looper with an fcb1010 uno pedal board. I only set it up three weeks ago so my experience with it is limited but it has been positive to say the least. I use the "stomp box" mode on the lower pedals to send midi notes to ableton. The upper row is used to send PC messages to guitar rig 5 in ableton to change patches while in bank zero. When I roll bank down to the last bank, it is track mute for tracks 1 through 5. I load my synth sounds in those tracks and turn them off and on as needed. I use one gas pedal as a volume for the magnetic side of the rig and the other gas pedal as a wah. The fcb1010 is pretty limited in that the stomp boxes are global and do not change via the controller bank. Stomp 1 is loop one rec/dub, stomp 2 is loop one clear. Stomp 3 is my amp channel switch, stomp 4 is loop 2 rec/dub, and stomp 5 is loop 2 clear. All of the midi sounds send to return 1 (looper 1), Guitar rig 5 sends to return 2 (looper 2).  I send midi to ableton via fishman triple play. This is working so far but It's my first attempt and I'm certain there is probably an easier way to do this. I like the fact that I can have 5 different midi sounds ready to go at once but don't know if I really require it. I have been reading about different rigs here and I have heard mention of a program called "on stage". I know this is only for mac as of yet and I am wondering if anyone knows of anything similar for pc. It would be nice to set up sets by song rather than try to set up this big do all looper set but I don't want to be opening the lid on my laptop every 5 minutes.

I know this thread is pretty old but I'm new to this stuff and when I saw someone was talking about something similar to what I am doing I figured I'd ask. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I might do this better or easier?

Thanks for reading my post.

Csewell

Has anyone figured out how to set up the Ableton Looper in a rack so there would be an A section, and a B section? Similar to the RC300's single track mode. 3 Tracks, Or loops would be perfect, but 2 is the minimumI think I would need.
Ive tried Mobius, but there Next Loop function does not work in Ableton Live. Ive posted multiple times to there forum about this, but its completely ignored.
Maybe a software version of the RC300?  8)

Elantric

#10
QuoteMaybe a software version of the RC300? 

If you run Windows , Try Ambiloop.
http://www.ambiloop.com/





fuzzfactory

i use lives looper all the time
best looper i have ever used
before the looper i was using albeton to loop "the kid beyond" way
here is a clip of me using the gr-55 and live's looper


Syph

Csewell- setting up 3 loopers should be pretty easy, but there are some limitations on how you would control it.

My first though would be running 3 loopers on 3 tracks
Map the multi function buttons from the 3 loopers to 3 midi pedals (or what ever midi controller you have).
To get the single track behaviour (ie, stopping loop 2&3 when loop 1 starts) you just have to map looper 1's button to looper 2&3 stop buttons. If you have the loopers following global quantise they should change smoothly.

If you need some help setting it up, let me know :)

I have almost finished the ableton rig i have been building for the last year and a half, will post about it soon... (Ultra mega evil grin and steeples fingers)

thedavs



This vid shows you how to rack out loopers it works great, I just set fcb 1010 to pick the clip start and record button to start loop 1 and 2 etc. I had to change the fcb1010 to send out midi notes other wise live looper dose funny things. Hope it helps 


mbenigni

QuoteThis vid shows you how to rack out loopers it works great, I just set fcb 1010 to pick the clip start and record button to start loop 1 and 2 etc.

Cool!  Can't wait to get home and experiment with this!

mbenigni

#15
Works well, elegant way to arrange a lot of loopers.  I wouldn't have thought to use dummy clips like this.  I got it set up and tested but didn't get quite as far as making any music with it.  I might still have a toggle/momentary issue with my pedals or something, but things felt a little clunky and unreliable.  I'd like to hear more details about this comment:

QuoteI just set fcb 1010 to pick the clip start and record button to start loop 1 and 2 etc

I was thinking of using the same pedal assigned to both clip start and the corresponding looper's record/play/overdub button.  Is this what you mean, and does it work well for you?  It's a little hard to "debug" visually since the chain doesn't automatically switch to display the active looper when you start its clip.  (That would be a cool option.)

thedavs

Hi glad your getting some use out of it as i was trying to find a way loop like the r/c 50 with out paying out lol

Yep thats what i done assigned both clip rec and looper rec to the same midi note, It did not work work very well with CC but midi notes work well. Yes its hard to see what loop your on, only way of telling is by the input meter on the rack. only other problem that i found is that the levels dont mix that well with the volumes but when i find a fix for i will let you know.

As i am trying to get into looping live i am trying to find a way of putting down a loop ( I have looper set with no quantization) and that setting the the bpm of the song so all the other loops will be in sync not sure if it can be done ( only been using live 8 for a few days so not sure what it can do)

let me know how you get on,  we will find the perfect looper haha

Dan 

mbenigni

Hiya thedavs.  I did get this working properly over the weekend.  For the moment all looper are set to no quantization and no song start/stop.  That's the easiest way to keep their behaviors intuitive, but it will be interesting to experiment with these settings, particularly with backing tracks on other channels, to see what features are useful once I understand them better.

As for the whole CC vs. Note On/Off thing:  I think you probably had a CC switch set to toggle instead of momentary.  Once I addressed that, everything worked  fine with CC messages.

The only thing that doesn't work quite as I'd prefer is the Undo feature.  If, for example, you clear a loop, then record something new, then press Undo, it doesn't revert to the cleared/silent state.  Instead, it will skip that state and revert to the last loop w/ content in it - which is bad if that content is no longer relevant.  So I've got switches in pairs - one for record/playback/dub, one for stop & clear of that same looper.  That seems like a good arrangement, although it takes up a lot of real estate.  (With my little FBV mkII it only allows for two loopers.  I wish I could use the toe-down on the expression pedal to toggle between looper 1/2 and looper 3/4 on the other footswitches, but this isn't supported by the Line 6 Editor.)  Ordinarily I might rely on the mouse for stop, clear and undo, but embedding the loopers in a rack actually makes this more difficult to navigate in realtime.

Anyway, let's keep comparing notes.  Between the two of us we should come up with something interesting.

thedavs

hi glad your getting some use out of this.

The undo problem i was having then i changed to midi notes and it sorted it but i was clicking around a lot in settings so i might off changed something by mistake. I have the FCB1010 so i only have rec and clear setup so i have 3 loopers on guitar input and one looper in mic input leaving me with other pedals free.

We have an RC50 setup as master so when we loop that it sets the tempo for live 8 as only two of us in the band and he dose beatbox so he sets the drums and bass then all other loops will play in time. Would be cool if we could set my internal loopers in live 8 to get their tempo from the global time clock.

i do not know a lot about live or this type of music system i was very old school (valve amps) until i got my gr55 then it went mad from their when i seen what you can do with midi and live 8

Dan

calkutta

Quote from: fuzzfactory on September 09, 2013, 09:56:55 PM
i use lives looper all the time
best looper i have ever used
before the looper i was using albeton to loop "the kid beyond" way
here is a clip of me using the gr-55 and live's looper

I truly Loved what you are doing...truly amazing...i am disabled from MS and use a RC 300,is the Live looper better you think than the RC300?,and if you could,explain why...the main thing i enjoy bout the RC is that its standalone and never has crashed on me...i sit inna wheelchair,with a customized turntable instrument for scratching called a QFO,look it up if you havent seen them,and the looper on my feet,and my computer off to the edge of the chair to control effects and beats from there...anyway,here is some of my music....no way as good as yours,im just wondering if I should start trying to learn the Abelton looper...would i still use the RC 300 for the pedals?-lots I dont know and I am truly sorry if I seem Ignorant in this email.
again,Beautiful work...truly...and im a friggin critique..lol
JP
my page so when u get a spare chance,take a listen-thanks for even reading this,it an honor to even get to speak with you.https://soundcloud.com/afreeagent
sonic collage artist
Turntables-
Samplers-
Computers/Software-
RC-300-and me.

fuzzfactory

thank you sooooo much for your kind words calkutta and i am happy you did what i do....

i have to say ableton's live looper is the best i have ever used...
sure it takes a bit of time and effort to to get it all up and running but
at the end of the day anything worth while takes some effort

please feel free to email me at forrestroush@gmail.com and i can help you on the "live" path

peace and chicken greeezz

forrest "fuzz"

Elantric

http://www.abletonguitarist.com/

http://www.abletonguitarist.com/articles/2014/7/14/the-endless-stompbox-is-it-real
THE ENDLESS STOMPBOX: IS IT REAL?

by Sean




The Looptimus by Loop Community. In Doge-speak - Many build quality. Such midi.

I am here to tell you yes - yes, it is real. But it wasn't so long ago that it used to seem so very, very far away.

For over a year I struggled with finding the right midi foot pedal to use as a guitar multi-fx stomp box whose factory presets were under my control. The foot pedal itself should be solidly made, work effortlessly, be endlessly customizable and fit whatever workflow I wished to place it in within Ableton. It should also be affordable within reason. On the software side, I also desired component and effects that could also be handmade and drag-and-dropped based on my preferences and taste from the most atomic of elements in the signal chain.

My path was full of missteps. I spent hundreds on impressive-looking and sounding gear like the Apogee Gio, and made compromises trying to make it work despite fatal flaws when used with Ableton instead of what it was meant for, Logic and Garageband (both also excellent, of course, but I am an Ableton man). The Gio has amazing A/D conversion and great sounding audio, the switches are high quality, the build is solid aluminum with a nice finish, the switches light up for good visibility during performance... I could go on. For my needs, I realized too late that I needed a foot pedal that did not double as my audio interface, as I wanted to do vocals as well and the Gio had only one In/Out. There are ways around this, but in my experience Ableton and Audio/Midi Setup both do not love "Aggregate Device" setups, and so I really wanted one Audio Interface with multiple I/O. I now use a Apollo Twin Duo (one guitar channel and one mic channel, two out - one for headphones and one for studio monitors). I love it, but that is the topic for another day.

The Gio also had another flaw - if it did not connect to Logic or Garageband within a certain amount of time, it would shut down to assumedly conserve power. While I would normally be in favor of this feature, since I was using it with Ableton Live alone I would get 5-10 minutes into using it as a midi footswitch for FX and live sampling and bam, the darn thing would become unresponsive unless I unplugged it, replugged it back in, and then remapped it and initialized it in Ableton Midi Sync Preferences and because it was an Audio Interface, also in the the Audio In/Out section of Prefs. Also, the switches on the product sent momentary data, not on/off for the typical stomp box behavior. I am not gonna stand there and hold down the trigger just to get distortion for a few bars. Huge bummer. I thought about rewiting Logic or MainStage into Ableton, but then I realized I would be doing all my effects processing outside of Ableton and it would defeat the point completely!

Quite frustrated, I researched a workflow utilizing a Behringer FCB1010 in Ableton. Each foot pedal sent a midi note or cc, and it seemed like the perfect idea. There were many many switches which is nice for using it as an effects box and live looper (which was my true, full intent), AND there were two expression pedals which would be awesome for a Wah-Wah and Volume Pedal, side by side... and it only cost 150 bucks? Where do I sign up?

Well, apparently where you sign up is your local city college to enroll in classes in Computer Science, Fortran, Python and whatever other scripting needed to actually get this piece of gear rigged up to work the way you would like to with Ableton. Now, I am a bit of a gear head, have a school background in Engineering, am very techie-inclined, and I am a pretty deep Graphic Designer who works in 3D mediums - this can be some complicated stuff. I have also been playing guitar over 20 years. However, the amount of reviews on Amazon, product message boards, complaints of poor support, attempts that had gone D.O.A. by folks who were trying this out, etc. - sounded like something that would drive me nuts to setup. I don't mind technical stuff, but man sometimes you just want to play music and be totally right brain - nothing like technical problems to take you out of the moment. So forget that.

Luckily, a ray of hope shone through last September when I was making my usual monthly rounds through Kickstarter.com (if you don't do this, I highly recommend it. It's an exciting space especially for musicians). I came across a prospective product made by LoopCommunity.com called the Looptimus. After some short reading and checking out the videos I immediately backed the campaign. It was made to work with Ableton Live. It was totally plug and play if you just wanted to get started, but it was endlessly customizable if you wanted to tinker. It was solid as a brick and was made of aluminum which made it super light as well, but heavy enough to not skitter across the floor when you stomp it. It was affordable as well. It had 20(!) banks of 6 midi switches, each of which fires a note. For anyone who read my post about Midi Channel re-routing, you will appreciate this - you can easily(!) change the Midi Channel on the pedal itself without messing with software!!! This means when you have to deal with less than flexible hardware that have a midi channel baked into them with no recourse or way of changing it, the Looptimus can be flexible and save your life, allowing more devices at once to be used with Live (For the laymen out there, you only get 16 midi channels to use with Applications like Live so it can be quite limited if you are really into gear like I am). You can buy it now directly from the makers at LoopCommunity since the Kickstarter is now over - I love it and give it my full recommendation.

With that, the hardware portion of the problem was solved. A few short months later, I not only own one Looptimus pedal - I own 2! I use one as a live sampler that will allow me to record clips of my voice or guitar several times over, loop them immediately and then mix and affect them in Live (I'll cover this in another post down the road). And of course, the second I use as a Midi Foot Pedal that takes the shape of a Virtual Guitar Stompbox that I design and tinker with to my needs.

Let's dig in further. With hardware out of the way, this is where the software part of the equation comes in. I have been use Native Instruments' awesome Guitar Rig Pro 5 for several months and had already gone through all the presets, marked my faves, rated them with the 5 Star system the program uses, and began getting out of the presets to create my own tones from scratch. Amp emulation, compression, reverb, auto-wah, even Hendrix-like reverse guitar in real time - I needed these presets in Ableton but Guitar Rig runs in a shell as a VST inside of Ableton, which means there was a impenetrable layer of software between the Midi notes my Looptimus would fire off and the software that needed to receive them to change effects.

In tandem with the hardware problem, I had simultaneously been trying to wrap my head around this particular software problem for months as well. There was much googling, asking around, tweeting and research going down. The problem with issues like this and most issues with Ableton is that the dilemma becomes "How do I succinctly search for the correct descriptive terms to get the results I need?" In this case, I needed to know "How do I get the Looptimus to cycle through presets or custom blends of tones I made in Novation's awesome Guitar Rig Pro 5 software when loaded as a VST/Plug-In on an Audio Track?" I was so close, yet for months I was so far.
As you can see, it's hard to midi map something when it is completely inside its own sandboxed area. ?M doesn't have a prayer of reaching this treasure trove of tones alone.


As you can see, it's hard to midi map something when it is completely inside its own sandboxed area. ?M doesn't have a prayer of reaching this treasure trove of tones alone.

Two months ago I stumbled onto a general audio message board that had nothing to do with Ableton, and someone on it back in 2006 (not usually a good sign) was discussing how to change presets in Guitar Rig with Midi notes translating into the needed Program Change messages that speak to Guitar Rig. Now, I had known that Native Instruments also created a few generations of a hardware Midi Footpedal that was also an audio interface made to work with Guitar Rig, called the RigKontrol - and then seemingly end-of-life'd it. It looked pretty awesome but you can't buy them anymore. For legacy support however, the Guitar Rig interface is still littered with references and settings for this ghost pedal I have never owned. Luckily, they left a setting within the Prefs area of the Guitar Rig VST that has a "Add Controller" workflow and a "Midi Learn" capability. This is our chink in the armor between Live's Midi Mapping and Guitar Rig 5's Program Control changes - the answer has to do with creative Midi and Audio Track Routing. Yay for message boards - if you get into Ableton at all you will spend a lot of time on them when things come up.

Here is the lowdown - we are going to load a Guitar Rig 5 MFX plugin on our guitar's Monitor-In track, create a Midi track that will fire off Empty "Dummy" Audio clips that house midi notes inside of their envelopes and embed Program Change IDs in them, route the midi from that track into the guitar's Monitor-In track, and within that the Guitar Rig 5 MFX plugin will receive the midi note, and through it's deprecated "Midi Learn" feature, it will already know which Effect Preset to apply to the Guitar Signal. *Whew!* This took me months to figure out, so bear with me and try the below process step by step, and you will get there.

Please note that you will need:

- a Midi foot pedal that sends on/off midi notes, not momentary ones. (just save yourself the frustration get the Looptimus)
- Ableton Live 9 (not sure if Suite is required, but I will be using Suite).
- Guitar Rig Pro 5 MFX (comes standard with Guitar Rig Pro).
- last but not least, patience - but I promise it is worth it.

How do you get there, and how do you do all of this? Let's go check it out.

1) Create a new audio track (?T) and name the track "GTR IN." On this track, you need to set "Audio In" to be "Ext. In," then choose your guitar's audio channel. Then set "Monitor" to "In." Then set "Audio" to "Master." You should now be able to hear your guitar through your headphones or monitor speakers. Add an instance of "Guitar Rig 5 MFX" to the track. NOTE YOU MUST USE the MFX version, not the FX version or this whole project will not work.

2) Open the "Guitar Rig 5 MFX" plug-in. At the top three menus in the left pane you need to click the third choice, dubbed "Options." From there, the "Controller" tab should be open already, but if it is not click on it to load it. The area will be empty, but at the bottom of that area on the left is a button that says "Add Controller." Click this button once for every button you have to assign as a stomp box on your Foot Pedal, whatever it may be. I am using the Looptimus which has 6 assignable buttons, so I am using 6 presets.
Here is the flow to add stomp box modules called "controllers" in Guitar Rig parlance. Add one for every "stomp box slot" you have on your midi foot pedal.

Here is the flow to add stomp box modules called "controllers" in Guitar Rig parlance. Add one for every "stomp box slot" you have on your midi foot pedal.

3. Now go back to the Presets Tab above, and spend some time deciding which tones you would like from the Guitar Rig Pro library, or just choose X amount of them for your X foot pedal slots and drag them into a new Preset Attribute in the grid at the upper left. You can do this by first double-clicking in an empty grid slot, which will results in an editable text area. Name it "Pedalboard 1" or something similarly descriptive. Once you finalize the name, you are now free to drag presets into that Preset Attribute Group, think of it like an iTunes Playlist or a Photo Album in iPhoto - you are not moving the presents into that group, you are simply creating a pointer to the original file so you can group them and cross-reference them in several ways. Once you get all of them added, make sure the group name is selected/highlighted. This grouping is going to make it easier to add each preset to a Controller back in the "Options" > "Add Controller" view. NOTE: You can always replace all the presets inside the group later on once you have all of this setup, so don't let that hold you back.
All presets added to Preset Attribute Group "Pedalboard 1," and the group "Pedalboard 1" is now highlighted/selected.

Al

Elantric

#22
http://www.abletonguitarist.com/

http://www.abletonguitarist.com/articles/2014/7/14/the-endless-stompbox-is-it-real

THE ENDLESS STOMPBOX: IS IT REAL?
(continued)
https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=6053.msg87970#msg87970

4. Time to get these effects assigned to some switches! Go back to the "Options" > "Controller" view a few tabs over, and then start with the controller you created at the top of the list.

First, name it the same name of the effect you are planning to assign to it so you can keep things straight. Then to the right is a drop down that says Menu. Click it to fly it open, and then hover to "Preset Selection > Jump to... >" and then choose one of the X presets you selected in your group in the previous step. Had we not done that, you would have had to scroll through hundreds and hundreds to find what you are looking for - trust me, it's gets annoying. This saves a lot of time!


Effects Flyout Menu

5. I chose "Wurly Guit" for my first preset. Ensure that the checkmark section on the first controller displays the preset you have selected and that the checkmark is checked "on" like so:
http://static.squarespace.com/static/53c2adf5e4b0d5fd0ebbddb2/t/53c386e5e4b06821a4e8f185/1405322983107/Wurly%20Guit%20Success?format=500w
Preset loaded.

6. Now go through this process for all your other presets until you have them all assigned. Go ahead, I'll wait...

7. OK. With that done, now we have all our effects assigned to virtual Controllers, and they are waiting for the right signal to fire to tell them it's time to apply/change a preset. Since we have a midi foot pedal like the Looptimus or something comparable, we are going to use a Midi Note and accompanying Program Change message for this role. But how do we get the Midi Note to reach and talk to Guitar Rig in the way we need it to, and how will Guitar Rig know which note means what?

We need to first use a nice trick that Ableton affords us. Audio Clips have a feature that is helpful for items like this called an Envelope. Basically an envelope lets us use an Audio Clip as a way to modulate a parameter of any effect on a track, or fire a midi note(s) whenever we like within said clip. The clip can also contain something called a Program Change message that we will be utilizing. We can record an audio clip with just silence, but when placed on a Midi Track it becomes a vehicle for the real message we want to deliver, a midi note that does not play sound but rather affects a program change - inside of Guitar Rig. First I need you to make some Empty Audio Clips, these are referred to as "Dummy Clips." 

8. In your Ableton Set, I want you to make a new Audio Track (?T), record arm it by clicking the record icon at the bottom of the track so it is red, and on X number of empty clipslots on the page I want you to make as many empty audio clips as you have presets/footswitches to fill. Each one of these clips can be a recording of anything, or of nothing - it doesn't matter. Just arm the track to record and click each clip slot once to begin recording and again to stop recording and repeat on a new slot. Once you have done this, click the stop button to stop the loops from playing back. Select all the clips and then hit hold Shift and hit Tab until you see the Launch Editor below next to the Midi Editor (this toggles from Device View to Clip View - we want Clip View for this part - see below). Once there, change the launch mode of the clips to "No Quantization" - this means you can fire the clips to change presets and the clips will not wait for the next beat to give your the distortion or other effect you want. Change "Launch Mode" to "Trigger." Turn off "Legato", and turn off "Loop." Now shorten each clips' loop brackets to be as short as possible.

Get yo' clip settings on.

9. Make a new Midi Track (?T), and drag the Dummy Audio clips right over onto it.

10. Now it is time to add midi notes to the clips. Make sure you are in the Notes section as in the below picture - and NOT the Clip, Launch or Envelopes sections. In each clip, add one note in the first bar. The length does not matter, but each clip needs its own unique note. I used C-2, C#-2, D-2, D#-2, E-2 and F-2. Also for each clip, change the "Program Change" field to a unique value, starting with 1 and counting up until all have assignments. I had six, so the program changes went 1-6.

One unique midi note per Dummy Audio Clip.


Make sure your program change values are set, starting with 1 and counting up.

11. Now go into "Midi Map Mode" (?M) and click on the first clip, then click on your midi footswitch to map the footswitch buttons to the clips. Do this for each clip. Exit "Midi Map Mode" (?M, again).

12. Once this is all done, open the "Guitar Rig 5 MFX" plugin back up, and go back to the "Options" > "Controller" section where all of your Preset Controller Assignments live. Observe that each preset has a "Learn" button. Press the first one, then click on the first button on your Midi Footswitch (this is the Dummy Clip that you should have entered the Program Change of "1" into). This will fire the first clip, and Guitar Rig will now remember it! Once the clip has finished playing, go back to Guitar Rig, pop out the flyout menu, and click "Lock." This will keep the Learn and Preset selections you have chosen locked in. Note that the controller assignment displayed in Guitar Rig will show one number lower than the Program Change you indicated. This is as planned, Ableton and Guitar talk two different languages, it's cool.

Key 0? I thought we entered Program Change 1 along with our Midi Note? Don't trip - this is as planned. Let's move on.

13. Do the same for all your other presets. You should be hearing your presets being applied to your guitar signal. If you are not, go back to the "Presets" tab and ensure that "Pedalboard 1" is highlighted. If it still does not work, you missed a step somewhere.

14. When you are done with all of that, close the Guitar Wing window and save this instance of the Guitar Rig Plugin as "Pedalboard 1" or something similarly descriptive. You can do this by hitting the upper right-most disk icon on the header of the Guitar Rig plugin on the Audio Track's device view (see pic below). I have a few of these now, so it is good idea to number them and label them effectively. Each one will be a different stomp box array for you to play through, and they can be hot swapped in at anytime!

For the love of god, save your work. You don't want to have to do all that again, do you?

15. Save this effect and all the mappings into your default Ableton set, or into whichever sets you want to use it in. There is some quirkiness upon reopening Ableton with this setup inside your set, but it is fixable easily - if you find that the next time you open your Ableton set, you step on your foot pedal and the wrong presets come up on your guitar, simply open the Guitar Rig Plugin on the "GTR-IN" Track, select the "Pedalboard 1" Preset Attribute Group, and all should be right with the world when you click the Foot Pedal Again! Let's hope Ableton Live 10 finds a workaround for this stuff, or that Native Instruments' Guitar Rig 6 makes a more intuitive way to map this stuff!

So... The Endless Stompbox lives! I told you. Have fun with this, and let me know if you have questions about the setup.

Cheers!

Sean

Elantric

http://loopcommunity.com/looptimus
http://loopcommunity.com/sites/all/themes/lc20/images/looptimus/manual.pdf





The Ultimate Foot Controller for Running Tracks in Live Performance
Works with Prime, Ableton Live, Mainstage and any other MIDI capable application!

Features
Made from high quality powder-coated aluminum
9 Heavy Duty, long life foot switches
20 Banks, 6 MIDI notes per bank
Assignable program changes per button
PAD mode: play synths or pads with your feet
Dedicated 'STOP' button across all banks
5-pin MIDI & expression jack
All-access bank & 16 MIDI channels
USB bus powered or 9V power supply
8x5" x 5" x 1.5"






Dr.Khokon

Any of you'll run into serious issues using the Live 9 (or 8 for that matter) looper? One of the primary problems being that upon using an external foot-controller like the evil FCB1010 (yea it's pure evil, but that's what I got now) the looper  plays back the looped part in erratic ways : sometimes a 4 or 8 bar loop will play back the first 2 bars or play the first bar or two and then randomly jump ahead to the end of the loop. On dragging the loop and dropping it on of the session slots one can see that the audio has been recorded perfectly. So it's simply the looper glitching up. This issue seems to be very prevalent, so I'm surprised there's no trouble amongst the users here. Furthermore the Behringer footpedal is another bummer, even upon programming it to send just MIDI notes, it still glitches up by sending an occasional CC value right after the MIDI note. Especially for people who use Looper and the FCB1010 in conjunction and have found a glitchfree solution, any help or insight will be appreciated.