Automating Zebra 2 in Ableton

[hojoland]

What is the quickest/easiest way to automate turning on/off oscillators, FMOs, etc... in Ableton 6 for Zebra?

These don't show up as normal automation parameters but I have my Zebra set up with 4 seperate FMO's which I would like to turn on and off to taste throughout a song. Would a potential solution be the X/Y field? Though I'm not sure how you would set this up.

Sorry if this is a re-post, the Ableton manual isn't really helpful here.

Thanks.

[Urs]

Indeed, the XY-fields are your friends here!

Just assign them to the Oscillator Volumes (choose the volume for an axis of an XY and double click the colourful field until the arrows match the full range of the field).

Oscillators whose Volumes are zero will automagically go in StandBy and not produce any sound anymore.

XYs are the very first automatable parameters in the hosts's list - thus Live can see them even though it's restricted to 128 paramneters.

Cheers,

Urs

[hojoland]

Indeed, the XY-fields are your friends here!

Just assign them to the Oscillator Volumes (choose the volume for an axis of an XY and double click the colourful field until the arrows match the full range of the field).

Oscillators whose Volumes are zero will automagically go in StandBy and not produce any sound anymore.

XYs are the very first automatable parameters in the hosts's list - thus Live can see them even though it's restricted to 128 paramneters.

Cheers,

Urs

Much appreciated Urs.

[tylenol]

What is the quickest/easiest way to automate turning on/off oscillators, FMOs, etc... in Ableton 6 for Zebra?

These don't show up as normal automation parameters but I have my Zebra set up with 4 seperate FMO's which I would like to turn on and off to taste throughout a song. Would a potential solution be the X/Y field? Though I'm not sure how you would set this up.

Sorry if this is a re-post, the Ableton manual isn't really helpful here.

Thanks.

You might want to check out the recent thread on how to set up X/Y controls like a vector control, that would work very well for the 4-FMO case you mention. It is here.

[hojoland]

thanks for the tips so far. one additional question if i may:

can you also set up the X/Y panel to change the Global Delay setting from for instance 1/4 to 1/2 or 1/4 to 1/4 dot? it appears you can adjust the levels of the 4 delay syncs but not the actual sync settings themselves?

thanks again.

[Urs]

thanks for the tips so far. one additional question if i may:

can you also set up the X/Y panel to change the Global Delay setting from for instance 1/4 to 1/2 or 1/4 to 1/4 dot? it appears you can adjust the levels of the 4 delay syncs but not the actual sync settings themselves?

thanks again.

Yeah, XYs work on anything that has a knob, but not on parameters that are menus.

[Howard]

can you also set up the X/Y panel to change the Global Delay setting from for instance 1/4 to 1/2 or 1/4 to 1/4 dot?

No, you'll have to modulate Ratios by the appropriate amounts

[hojoland]

can you also set up the X/Y panel to change the Global Delay setting from for instance 1/4 to 1/2 or 1/4 to 1/4 dot?

No, you'll have to modulate Ratios by the appropriate amounts

Do you know what the appropriate ratios are to attain 1/1 - 1/32? Or is it simply:

Take the total 100% "on" value of the ratio (ie - 200) and divide by the number of "even" syncs (ie - 6 for 1/1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32). Does this mean 1/1 is 33.33, 1/2 is 66.66, etc?

[Urs]

Honestly I would have to try it myself...

I think that 200.00 makes a delay twice as long, thus a quarter becomes half a note. Therefore, 150.00 is a dotted quarter etc...

[hojoland]

Honestly I would have to try it myself...

I think that 200.00 makes a delay twice as long, thus a quarter becomes half a note. Therefore, 150.00 is a dotted quarter etc...

Let me know the results of the tweaking, I'm at work and won't get a chance to try this until tomorrow. Thanks.

[bmrzycki]

Honestly I would have to try it myself...

I think that 200.00 makes a delay twice as long, thus a quarter becomes half a note. Therefore, 150.00 is a dotted quarter etc...

Let me know the results of the tweaking, I'm at work and won't get a chance to try this until tomorrow. Thanks.

I had a few minutes to try this out. Here's what I found:

Code: Select all

Delay  Rate      Result
1/4      0.00    now*
1/4      3.12    1/128
1/4      6.25    1/64
1/4     12.50    1/32
1/4     25.00    1/16
1/4     50.00    1/8
1/4     66.66    1/8trip
1/4     75.00    1/8dot
1/4    100.00    1/4
1/4    133.33    1/4trip
1/4    150.00    1/4dot
1/4    200.00    1/2

* According to the Z2 Manual setting the rate knob to 0.00 isn't exactly "now", it's delayed by 4 samples.

If you want to turn off the delay you can assign the delay mix knob to an XY axis and then set the min to 0 and the max to the value you want (say 75.00). Then in Live just use a square automation envelope to disable or enable the XY param.