Re: Any experienced Ableton users able to give me a hand?

[Mech <mech@m3ch.net>]

At 9:57 AM +0100 6/5/09, Simeon Harris wrote:
>
>so is it possible to play a midi clip by sending it a pc message?

Eyup!  :)

>i see you can either loop the clip or have a one shot....one step at 
>a time, i guess!

Yeah, I was saving all that for the last part of the configuration.

First, get the MIDI clip working the way you want it to work.

Next step is easy.  Just assign a MIDI message (e.g. program change 
perhaps?) to fire the clip, the same way as you'd fire an Audio clip 
from such a message.

Select the MIDI Bindings button again.  This time, click on the MIDI 
clip you wish to fire.  Now send the program change you want to use 
to trigger that clip.  A new binding should now appear on the left 
side screen, reflecting the connection between your PC and firing the 
MIDI clip.

So when you now exit the MIDI Bindings mode, you should be able to 
fire the clip merely by sending that specific PC message on its 
specific MIDI channel.

Some other thoughts, caveats:

Don't forget that the clips (usually) fire according to the quantize 
value.  That means that if the quantize is set for one bar, the clip 
will wait until the bar boundary to fire.  This may be useful (stack 
up a bunch of individual clips that wait and then all fire off at the 
start of a bar, for instance) or not ("why doesn't this @#$! button 
work right when I press it").  If you want to turn this behavior off, 
you could set the quantize value to "None".  This might cause 
problems with other clips, since that value is global, but you should 
be able to change the quantize value of an individual clip within its 
edit pane.

If you're working in Session view, you can only have one clip playing 
in each vertical column at a time.  However, you can have multiple 
clips playing in a left-right row.  As a matter of fact, if you click 
one of the clip slots under the Master track, it will fire every clip 
in that row at the next quantize boundary.  You should also be able 
to bind those Master slots to a MIDI command, so you could 
conceivably use a single PC command to initiate a half-dozen MIDI 
clips simultaneously.

If you wished, you could change the clips you're using on the fly by 
merely moving them in and out of different rows (while binding your 
Program Change to the row clip, rather than individual MIDI clips). 
This is especially nice while composing, since you can try different 
combinations of MIDI clips without having to redo their MIDI 
bindings, or mess around with reconfiguring your foot controller. 
Just swap different clips in or out of a row and fire it.

Okay, there's a little more food for thought.  Hope that helps a bit!

        --m.
-- 
_____
"take one step outside yourself. the whole path lasts no longer than 
one step..."