RE: ableton live questions

["Per Boysen" <per@boysen.se>]

> From: Mark Sottilaro [mailto:sine@zerocrossing.net] 
> my idea 
> for Live 
> is to first, do a recording in Digital Performer 4.  Produce it as I 
> feel appropriate.  Then cut up different parts of what I looped and 
> turn them into loops in Live.  I'd keep all my sequenced 
> parts in that 
> form and my rig would be Laptop playing my prerecorded loops, 
> Sequencer 
> doing the sequenced bits (I can bring tracks in and out and play it 
> live as I go along) and a CD player to add little scratched 
> bits, sound 
> bites and interludes between pieces where I can reconfigure Live and 
> the sequencer.
> 
> I haven't purchased Live yet, as I'm not sure I totally need 
> it.  Does 
> this seem like the best tool for what I'm trying to do?  Again, this 
> isn't about Live looping, but more about being able to create an 
> interactive mix when bringing out the whole looping rig is not 
> appropriate.

First I was thinking that you can actually do this quite as well with
your Repeater, but when I read the last sentence it was clear to me what
it is that you want to do. Yes, I think Live would be perfect for this
project of yours. It has a very easy and fast graphic user interface. If
you don't have to play an instrument all the time you can also use your
hands to play Live. Right in front of me, on this table, I have a little
midi keyboard ("Miditech  midcontrol") with twelve buttons to twist. It
took me two minutes to assign those twelve buttons to Ableton tracks,
volume faders, fx sends etc. Then I started to create music with my left
hand on those buttons (adjusting the mix) and my right hand on the
computer mouse (moving loops into clips, opening fx plug-ins etc etc).
Wow, what a flow! I could do two things at the same time while planning
the next step to continue with. It's really a powerful live mixing
environment. Even the stuff I miss, from working in Logic for many
years, make sense when you look at Live this way - as a live mixers
instrument. My only (first) problem with Ableton was that most music I
coaxed out sounded like "music someone just coaxed out with Ableton" ;-)


But, thinking about your visionary application of Ableton, you should
know that if you slave it by ReWire to a host application you can not
run VST plug-ins in Live at the same time. Why can't you bounce your
sequnced DP parts into stereo (!) files and play them as well from
Ableton?

Best wishes

Per Boysen
-------------
www.boysen.se
www.looproom.com