Live Mode requests

[Maniah]

I really want to use Ext for live performance but IMO, there is one important FR needed which i mentioned before (I feel I could explain it better now).
The issue is when one has multiple arrangements and tracks under Live Mode, there are only so many QWERTY keys (which I prefer to use to leave my keyboard controller available for playing instruments) that can be assigned for triggering. My FR is to allow any set of QWERTY keys (or MIDI notes) to be assigned to multiple sets of arrangments/tracks but allow the user to select which arrangements/tracks will be affected.
IE: in Live Mode, you click the "ADD" button and the Main Strip in which you right click to add arrangments appears (sorry, don't know how to refer to this Main Strip). Now you add arrangements/tracks and assign QWERTY keys to them.
Now add another Main Strip along with arrangements and tracks and assign THE SAME QWERTY KEYS to these.
Currently, if you hit these QWERTY keys, they will affect all arrangements and/or tracks they are assigned to.
With my FR, the user can select which arrangments/tracks will be affected even though the same keys are assigned to multiple arrangements/tracks.
One possible way to do this in an organized simple fasion is to add an on/off button on the Main Strip. If on, the keys/MIDI notes assigned to the arrangements/tracks UNDER that Main Strip will be affected.
Of course, turning on multiple Main Strips will allow the keys/MIDI notes to affect multiple arrangments/tracks for triggering.
This can really assist with Live performance in that the user can work with the limitations of hardware be it MIDI controllers and/or computer peripherals when using a large amount of arrangments and tracks.

[Maniah]

OMG!!!! It actually is working!!!! Why is it that i figure things out AFTER I post a FR?????
Realize now that the Main Strip does activate/dactivate with its assigned trigger. Very Cool Jorgan!!!!!!




EDIT: Woops...no it's not working . I thought that setting the same QWERTY key to multiple Main Strips would trigger one while muting the other. It only works with 2 Main Strips. Once i added a third, the QWERTY key activated both the second and third Main Strips simultaneously while muting the first. Not quite what I am looking for. I still ask for my original FR

[D-Fusion]

OMG!!!! It actually is working!!!! Why is it that i figure things out AFTER I post a FR?????
Realize now that the Main Strip does activate/dactivate with its assigned trigger. Very Cool Jorgan!!!!!!




EDIT: Woops...no it's not working . I thought that setting the same QWERTY key to multiple Main Strips would trigger one while muting the other. It only works with 2 Main Strips. Once i added a third, the QWERTY key activated both the second and third Main Strips simultaneously while muting the first. Not quite what I am looking for. I still ask for my original FR

Happens all the time with me also

[DarkStar]

I don't think you need the On/off buttons.

How about this?
"A trigger would ONLY work IF the Triggers at the higher levels are ON"

So with

Code: Select all

                             trigger
First Group                  A
    Arrangement 01                 1
    Arrangement 02                 2
Second Group                 B
    Arrangement 03                 1
    Arrangement 04                 2
Third Group                  C
    Arrangement 05                 1
    Arrangement 06                 2
    Arrangement 07                 3

Currently:
Pressing "1" switches the play states for Arrangements 01, 03 and 05 all at once.

With my idea:
"1" will only switch the state for Arrangement 01, IF the state for First Group is Play
"1" will only switch the state for Arrangement 03, IF the state for Second Group is Play
"1" will only switch the state for Arrangement 05, IF the state for Third Group is Play

So, if you put the three Group Arrangements in a Mute (mutually exclusive) group, then
A1 switches Arrangement 01 only
B1 switches Arrangement 03 only
C1 switches Arrangement 05 only

Would that do what you are looking for?
As you can have 36 triggers at each level and three levels (forgetting variations) I think you would end up with 46,656 combinations

[and it seems like a small code change to me, but what do I know?]

But we will still need the current way of working, so this mode would need to be an Option switch (perhaps next to "MIDI thru")

[Maniah]

"A trigger would ONLY work IF the Triggers at the higher levels are ON"

How would the triggers at the main high levels be set to "ON"?

I am assuming that "Higher Levels" here is in reference to "Groups" and "ON" is in reference to the "Play State" from the illustrated example.

[DarkStar]

just press "A", "B" or "C" - and as they are in a Mute group starting one will stop the others

[Maniah]

just press "A", "B" or "C" - and as they are in a Mute group starting one will stop the others

Here is an example of what I am doing, this is just one example of an arrangement with a few example tracks (some arrangements also include Vox, Guit, multiple Synth tracks etc.)....


GROUP A

Arrangment 1--------------------1
Kick-------------------------K
Snare-----------------------S
Hats------------------------H
Percussion------------------P
Bass------------------------B

Under Group A, I would have an arrangement. Under the arrangement i have my tracks. To keep things simple I assign each track to the apprpriate QWERTY key IE: the Kick track is assigned to K, Snare track is assigned to S, the Hats track is assigned to H etc..
This way, when I am playing Live I don't have to think about which key is assigned to what track.
As far as arrangements, i have the number keys set to activate them so i am limited to 10 arrangements otherwise i have to start using letter keys which, as you can see, i am saving for tracks.
With your suggestion, i would also utilize keys to activate Groups, this would not suffice with the amount of keys available. In a 1-2 hour set, I can easily use 30-40 arrangements alone.
As you have read, my FR is to have the option to set the same keys to multiple arrangements/tracks because things can get crazy when you are using lots and lots of arrangements/tracks.
The Mute groups idea is good but, in my case, it would have to work with ONE key assigned to each Main Group. Hitting this key would mute the Group in play and activate the next Group in line. This would actually be a pretty good idea. SO whatever order I make the Main Groups is how they will mute/play in a consecutive order.
However (sorry to drag), even though one QWERTY key is assigned to mute/play the Main Groups, there has to be a way to play Groups simultaneuosly if desired. Maybe holding Shift while hitting the QWERTY key assigned to mute/play Groups allows multiple Groups to be activated? Something of the sort....I would have to ponder the best way to do this.
Anyways, there's the main reason for the FR.

[soma]

My biggest gripe is that there is no midi/qwerty learn button.

So far I can see xt's live being more powerful than ableton's but what I can't see is it being as quick to use in a live situation


A few things that would make it better for DJ'ing are:

- a "learn" button for each triggerable part that would pick up the first qwerty, midi note or cc (remembering port and channel) that is touched.

-a way to cross fade the output levels of anything playing via a quick A/B or through assign and a cross fader.

-A way to adjust quickly the length of a variation or group on the fly to say 1 beat 4 beats 8 beats 16 beats or actual length. (if the actual length of the variation is less than the selected length, the rest of the selected length would be filled with silence)

-A quick reverse for a variation and/or group.

-A button for trigger mode.

-At the bottom of each variation's sequencer view add an envelope for sequence offset so you can re-arrange the variation on the fly.

(I'm not even going to mention time stretch and transient or quantized slicing of audio be cause I think I saw the Jorgen was already working on that).

[Maniah]

- a "learn" button for each triggerable part that would pick up the first qwerty, midi note or cc (remembering port and channel) that is touched.

Yes, this would be nice.

-A way to adjust quickly the length of a variation or group on the fly to say 1 beat 4 beats 8 beats 16 beats or actual length. (if the actual length of the variation is less than the selected length, the rest of the selected length would be filled with silence)

This is an awesome feature Ableton Live utilizes. What would be cool is to have a CC (knob) set so that turining the knob gives different beat settings.

(I'm not even going to mention time stretch and transient or quantized slicing of audio be cause I think I saw the Jorgen was already working on that).

Really???? Is Jorgan working on this???? OOoooooo......

[soma]

About adjusting the length, I was also thinking that it would be cool if you could adjust the length but make the start position = to the current position quantized to the closest beat, so it would really become more like a "set loop to" 1,4,8, or 16. This is great if you have a long arrangement and need to kind of keep it from progressing while you set up other stuff.

(I'm kind of stealing this idea from DJ mixers with a loop function. Traktor has an elegant version of this, much better than Live's I think)

[Maniah]

About adjusting the length, I was also thinking that it would be cool if you could adjust the length but make the start position = to the current position quantized to the closest beat, so it would really become more like a "set loop to" 1,4,8, or 16. This is great if you have a long arrangement and need to kind of keep it from progressing while you set up other stuff.

(I'm kind of stealing this idea from DJ mixers with a loop function. Traktor has an elegant version of this, much better than Live's I think)

Yeah, this would definitely spice up Live Mode. I am still working on how FRs in this thread could be implemented into Live Mode with as much ease as possible (for the user, not for the coder...sorry Jorgan ).
I'll post later....... any other requests?

[DarkStar]

My biggest gripe is that there is no midi/qwerty learn button.
. . .
A few things that would make it better for DJ'ing are:

- a "learn" button for each triggerable part that would pick up the first qwerty, midi note or cc (remembering port and channel) that is touched.

unless I have completely misunderstood you,
Ctrl+click or middle-click does the job for me

[in eXT, AFAIK, MIDI Learn does not learn the channel (01-16) anywhere, would be nice it if did though]

[soma]

My biggest gripe is that there is no midi/qwerty learn button.
. . .
A few things that would make it better for DJ'ing are:

- a "learn" button for each triggerable part that would pick up the first qwerty, midi note or cc (remembering port and channel) that is touched.

unless I have completely misunderstood you,
Ctrl+click or middle-click does the job for me

[in eXT, AFAIK, MIDI Learn does not learn the channel (01-16) anywhere, would be nice it if did though]

[Maniah]

Here are some requests for better Live mode implementations. Refer to illustration (I borrowed these images from the online manual to illustrate the FRs):

1) This is the original FR for this thread. This button
activates a Group for MIDI/QWERTY triggering. Activating multiple Groups will allow simultaneous triggering.

2) It would be convenient if adding an arrangement to a Group automatically adds
the tracks that are under the arrangement. To view these tracks, click this button.

3) In Live mode, it would be ideal to have the ability to add different arrangements from prior works. The FR is to be able to save song arrangements (be it in Single or Multi mode) as Arrangement files.
These files can be previewed via the Browser.
Simply go to the folder where the Arrangements are saved, click on an arrangement and preview the tracks under that arrangement within the Browser. To add the arrangement to the Live set, simply drag it onto the Main Group bar.

Along with these requests, add extra goodies like seperate BPM settings per Group and/or Arrangments. As per Soma's request, the looping/quantizing feature would definitely be a plus and eventually the time stretching for audio files.

[soma]

what about arranging the layout a little better so you can see more triggers at once?

http://home.comcast.net/~soma720/Live_xt.jpg