Using Ableton Live for TV / Theatre work

[noiseboyuk]

Hi all, I thought I’d try and get a bit of Ableton knowledge from the wise and the good here. I’m using Live 8 and a Launchpad, but not in the way in which it was designed. I’m using it for theatre / TV shows, and not predictable ones either. Essentially I’m entirely uninterested in the Arrangement view, and also don’t want anything tempo synced. All I need is - mostly – one shot sound effects and music cues, and occasionally looping.

I’ve figured out most of the basics, but here’s a list of things I’d like it to do that I think it probably can’t but thought I’d check just in case.

1. Have one clip trigger a 2nd clip (or more) simultaneously (so they start at the same time)
2. Have one clip’s start fade out another clip
3. Have one clip stop ALL clips (without using up an entire scene to do so)

Thanks for any help.

[BDeep]

I think the problem you're facing is that you don't know upfront which clips you'll trigger in which order. Or that is how I read it. I will try and answer with the possibilities i see though.

1. Have one clip trigger a 2nd clip (or more) simultaneously (so they start at the same time)
I think the best way to do this is to make a scene (... no punt intended ) with the clips you want to trigger simultaneously (it's a complete row in the Session view, start it by using the scene trigger on the right).
2. Have one clip’s start fade out another clip
The way to do this is to make a duplicate clip of the clip you want to fade out and insert the fade by using an envelope. Use Follow Actions in the Launch options of the original clip to select the clip with the fade out to start when you stop the original clip.
3. Have one clip stop ALL clips (without using up an entire scene to do so)
Don't believe you can do that, but why not use the stop button?

I'm sure you have follow up questions, so shoot!

[noiseboyuk]

BDeep, many many thanks.

1 - ah yes of course, makes sense. And I'll throw in a follow up question that you anticipated right away - in tandem with this it would be great to be able to delay the triggering of one or more of these clips, so - say - 3 sound effects trigger right away, while a 4th is half a second behind. I guess I could use Follow Actions (not that I really understand that) if the effect had ended on one clip, but typically there would still be a tails I would want to overlap. I'd prefer it in units of time, but could of course make it work in bars.

2 - Now I'll confess I'm a bit confused here. Let's say there's a 10 second piece of music, and I want (for some reason) a door knock to trigger the fade out, which I might play after 5 seconds. So I'd have in a vertical track - Music, Music Fade, and Door Knock, which are a group. I play Music. After 5 seconds, I press Door Knock, and this stops Music, also triggering Follow Actions which I have set to the next clip - Music Fade. Now, won't that start playing from the start of Music Fade? How would it continue seamlessly to start Music Fade in the exact place Music was stopped?

Oh, there's another problem for me here by the way - I usually route all music to one output and fader, and sound effects to another for live mixing, which would mean keeping music and sound effects on different tracks, and yet Follow Actions seems to work only on a single track.

3 - In the world of TV etc, its common to need one sound effect to stop everything else (simple example - a game might have music and sound effects all blaring away on multiple cues, and then a Klaxon would stop everything else dead). Now, I realise that I can do this by having a scene with a klaxon on it, and triggering the whole scene - job done. It's just if you need several of these, you burn up the scenes very quickly. I'm guessing that's the answer though, and I'll just need to scroll the Launchpad around - as much as possible I'd like to keep to one generic page of 8x8.

Again, very grateful for your help - thanks.

[noiseboyuk]

I've been using it in anger in the last couple of days. There's lots to really like about it, and getting my head round a different way of working. However, it isn't a replacement for SpotOn really (the standard software used in TV), it simply can't handle the complexities and subtleties that serious work needs. If the issues I highlighted in (1) and (2) above were addressed, it would suddenly become a good deal more appealing for this kind of work.

As far as the hardware is concerned, the Launchpad Pro has RGB colours which would really help, but still lacks some basics, especially an LED readout of the session number. I'd also prefer dedication session buttons to switch between 1-8.

Still, as is, it's been good enough (just) for the job I'm currently on, you can go quite a long way with it.