sixstringsk

Hello, I posted this recently on the Ableton Live forum and haven't gotten a response yet. I was hoping there might be others here with some thoughts. I have been testing Ableton Live 9 and have a question I'm hoping someone from the community can help with. I want to use Live to play backing tracks while automating parameters of my Line6 POD HD500X. I can already do this with Logic Pro, but I want to use Ableton Live for it's performance capabilities. I have a session loaded with audio tracks and a MIDI track to control the POD. I use an iConnectivity interface and it is setup as my output MIDI device within the track. The channel is set within Live and the POD. Within the MIDI clip that I created in Logic, it has Program Change and CC messages. The CC messages are 51, 52, 53, 54 and 58. These messages correspond to various foot switches on the POD. I also have the POD setup to launch the appropriate scene within Live. My process is as such: I select a patch on my Pod that has various foot switches engaged. It varies per song. Each patch has one of the switches designated for scene launch, and it is mapped to the appropriate song. Upon pressing this foot switch, Live plays the correct song and the MIDI clip takes over automation of my Pod with changes at the appropriate time. The problem: As I said, when I load a patch on my POD, the state of the board has various foot switches engaged. For some reason, Live will change the state of some of the foot switches with random, unwanted behavior. For example, I could have an envelope for CC 53 drawn within Live at 127 velocity. The POD will undesirably disable the corresponding foot switch (FS3) at scene launch. However, if I stop Live and then relaunch the scene, the state of the POD is returned to it's correct state and the MIDI behavior reacts perfectly. I welcome any thoughts. Shane

I would think this is possible. In Ableton, you can route each audio track to a different output. So, it seems like what you want to do can be accomplished. We do use a mixer and I route all in-ear audio (CLICK and CUES) to an output on my audio interface that feeds a channel on my mixer. This channel is then only sent out to our in-ear transmitter. I have all of my FOH audio combined into one track in Ableton and it is then routed to a different channel on my mixer. We do have a bit of this audio fed to our in-ears as well, along with being sent to the FOH speakers. You can have multiple tracks in Ableton. So, for instance, you could have BASS, KEYS, BACKING VOX, EXTRA GUITARS, etc. loaded into separate tracks within Ableton and then sent to as many outputs as your interface allows. By the way, I'm speaking of using the Session view in Ableton. There is also an Arrangement view that is more similar to any other DAW. I don't use the Arrangement view. In Ableton you wouldn't need to use a bus, the routing for each track has it's own output parameters. But, like I said earlier... you can accomplish this within Logic. It's just not a great "performance" DAW in my opinion. Ableton Live is most certainly designed for performing live with it. It's also on sale right now for 30% off and there is a demo to try it. Good luck to ya!

Logic is definitely a great DAW and it is my preference when making music. But, Ableton Live is such a great tool in a live setting for performance. Live has this session view which lets you load scenes. Each scene is basically a song and can be fired (played) individually. So you can build a whole set, or in my case our entire song database, and it has endless possibilities. Within each scene you can load multiple audio and MIDI tracks and route them to your hearts desire. I also have MIDI tracks with pre-programmed lighting firing off in time with the song's backing track. I have a MIDI clip that changes my POD HD500X within the song. I have another clip that makes changes to a TC Helicon VoiceLive unit adding harmonies or other vocal effects in time with the backing track. Ableton also has the ability to be MIDI mapped, meaning each scene can be externally "fired" from my POD or any other MIDI capable device. My band is on in-ears too and I have the CLICK audio routed to them. The AUDIO files are routed to the FOH. Now, Ableton is not for everyone and it isn't free. You can do all of this within Logic. In my opinion, it's just more cumbersome. I've read of people doing so and they have all of their songs within Logic along the timeline one right after the other. They user markers to identify each song's starting point and skip between the markers to play the song they wish. Here is a great resource that I used to get started with Ableton Live.

I do this in Logic with excellent results. I setup my backing tracks including some keyboard parts, guitar rhythm when I'm playing solo and other parts to better fill out our songs. I also do all of my MIDI programming within the program. I bounce all of the audio and export the MIDI tracks into Ableton Live when I perform though. I'm sure there could be easier ways to do this, but I've been doing it this way so long and it works for my purposes. 1: To setup in Logic you will need to view the event list by choosing Show>View List Editors. 2: In this Event List you program your changes. Set your playhead at the position along the timeline when you want a change to occur. 3: In this next step I am referring to Logic 10. I remember the view looking slightly different in Logic 9, but I can't remember exactly the difference. Anyway, you will want to select "Controller" in the drop down next the the plus sign. Then press the plus sign to add and event. 4: Edit the event added accordingly. The channel (Ch column) will need to match what you have assigned within your HD Pro. Click and hold the number while you move your mouse up or down to change. The Num column is the MIDI CC that is sent out to make the changes. MIDI CC #51 corresponds to footswitch FS1, #52 to footswitch FS2, and so on through FS8 on the Pod. I have a Pod HD500X which, of course, has footswitches. I know the HD Pro doesn't have footswitches, but I assume you can still program them? The next column is Val. Change the number to 127 if you want to turn the effect ON and set it to 0 if your want to turn it OFF. I hope this helps. I'm just unsure of the footswitch assignment functions within the HD Pro if they are different from the 500X. If the editing pages are the same, then I believe this will set you in the right direction. Regards, Shane

I don't see the screenshot.

Hi Gretsch, I've been doing just what you are asking for some time in Ableton Live and it works great for me. I'll mention that I have my POD setup in "pedalboard mode" as described on page 2.2 of the user manual. It seems that you have yours setup in "preset mode". I'm not sure what differences you may encounter, but I think some of the same principles will apply. I'll also mention that I am using Live 7 and with that version, you cannot make a program change within a clip. This may have changed in Live 9. I'm just not sure. I know that I have seen it discussed pretty heavily on Ableton forums with other users hoping this ability would be included. In Live 7, the program change is sent out when the clip is launched. The only way to change to a different preset (or bank) in my setup would be to use a follow action as you also described. I don't have the need to do this since I use "pedalboard mode" as I mentioned. I also use DMXIS to program lights too. I do all of my MIDI programming in Logic since I also create my backing tracks there. I export those MIDI tracks and pull them into Ableton Live in a track I have labeled MIDI GTR. I also do this for some MIDI changes on a VoiceLive for vocal harmonies and effects labeled MIDI VOX. You'll have to program your MIDI changes using CC values, not note values. I've attached MIDI assignments from the manual. To program your changes in Ableton, make sure the clip inspector is viewable down below. The E should be yellow so that you are drawing envelopes instead of notes. You can then draw in your changes as needed. You can take a look at the attached screenshot of my template. Notice that for the song "All The Small Things" that the Small Things GTR clip is chosen. You can see that in the Envelopes section that 54 is the chosen parameter. 54 corresponds to FS4 on my POD. By drawing the data in between bars 41 through 49, this engages FS4 on my POD during this passage of the song. I believe it is necessary for the POD to make sure and draw the envelope all the way up to 127 velocity. It may not be true any longer, but I think I read that somewhere. Anyway, I hope this helps you some. Feel free to ask if I maybe can help any further. This has worked for my for a couple of years and I'm very satisfied with how it works. Shane