MIDI "Live" Looping & Velocity Feedback...?

[mech]

(apologies for the pun in the subject line; i couldn't resist... )

Hoping somebody can help me out a bit here, and that I'm merely missing a function rather than walking down the dreaded "feature request" path.

I'm trying to implement Live Looping using Ableton's MIDI clips. If you're not entirely certain what I'm talking about, check out the Kid Beyond profile and video under the Artists section of Ableton's site. Now imagine doing that same sort of realtime Looping, only by recording MIDI data rather than Audio.

The roadblock I've run into is that with conventional audio Live Looping devices, there is a vital function called "Feedback". This controls how a looped line fades out over time, and allows parts to make room in the mix for subsequent overdubs. The Feedback parameter is usually expressed as a percentage. So, for instance, setting a value of 80% means that each repetition will only be 80% as loud as the last. Or 50% means that the second pass is only half as loud as the first, and the third is half as loud as the second, and so on, and so on...

My current issue is that I'm trying to implement something similar by using MIDI Velocity. Let's say a given note is recorded into a clip with a Velocity of 100, then the clip is looped. On first playback, that note sounds with the original velocity of 100. On the next repetition, that same note has a Velocity of 80. On the next, 60; then 40, 20, and finally 0 (which, if the synth supports running state, is the equivalent of a note-off).

Actually, I think this is almost exactly the same effect that is implemented with the Decay parameter on the Arpeggiator (section 21.1.2 in the Live manual). The only difference is that I want to implement the same type of effect in realtime on a MIDI clip I've just recorded, rather than on an Arpeggiator sequence.

I'm somewhat stumped at a way to kludge this. Is there something I'm overlooking here...?

TIA!

--m

[annihilator.1]

a delay fx

[mech]

a delay fx?:

You mean like a MIDI delay? Yeah, that's on the right track. I know that there were one or two hardware MIDI Delays produced during the 80's (Akai used to produce one) but that was during an era when people were actually trying to push the limits of MIDI. However, there's no MIDI Delay included in Live's MIDI Effects plugs, and I'm not aware of a 3rd party VST/AU. Is there one you know about?

The only caveats to a dedicated MIDI Delay are that it would need to have a delay time long enough to sample a decent phrase, and that it would have to play well inside Live (not as simple as you might think; I know there were sync several issues that Augustus Loop, for instance, had to work out when it was released, and it only deals with audio Looping). Otherwise, something like that might work if it had the proper feature set.

Please, let me know if you've got something in mind, and I'll be glad to give it a whirl.

Thanks annihilator.1!!!

--m.

[Machinate]

Hi mech,

you can build your own midi delay line inside Live using Note Length objects.

[corygilbert]

yep.

[mech]

you can build your own midi delay line inside Live using Note Length objects.

Thanks for the tip, Machinate and corygilbert!

I spent a bit of time playing around with the Note Length object, but it doesn't seem to do quite what I'm looking for (unless I'm overlooking something, which is *entirely* possible).

First, I can't seem to find a delay setting long enough to record several bars of material. I can get a bit more than a quarter-note by maxxing out most of the settings, but not by much. Also, when using the Note-Off setting in the Trigger box, the repeated note begins immediately once the original note's Note-Off message is received. What needs to happen instead is that a delay is inserted between the original note's Note-Off, and the repeat's Note-On.

Second, the Note Length object quantizes all the repeating notes to a specified length (well duh, that's what it was coded to do in the first place). Thus, if I set Length to 1/4 and play a half-note, whole-note, and three eighth-notes, all that comes out is five quarter-notes. An interesting effect, mind you, but I'd rather figure out how to record the phrase intact before finding new ways to mess it up.

Additionally, is it possible within Racks to split a line (like an A/B/Y box would), then feed one of the outs back into the beginning of the chain? That would greatly simplify some programming aspects.

Thanks again for the helpful hints!!! Let me know if anything else comes to mind, and I'll be happy to give it a whirl.

--m.

[hoffman2k]

I got a fairly simple idea..
A second MIDI track with a dummy clip that automates a velocity plugin.
You just route the midi to that track, turn monitor "on and add the needed automation.

You can have a few preset clips depending on how long the recording will be. (ie. an automation line for 1 bar loops, 2 bar loops,....)

[hoffman2k]

About note length and MIDI delay...
It's more a MIDI delay emulation rather then a real MIDI delay.
The outputted note has a fixed length. So it does not repeat exactly what you play.
That being said, you can do some really cool stuff with this current technique.
Multitap picth delays and stuff like that..

[friend_kami]

ive been trying to build something like this using the different midi plugins for quite a while, aswell.

anyone got a simple rack setup using this technique to share for educational purposes perhaps?

the ones ive done so far it just random crap, because i got bored of not getting to work like i wanted it, so i added random crap to it, so its now a midi crap destroyer thingy. perfect on drums, but not so much else. hah.

[annihilator.1]

Here is a preset for the Arpeggiator Midi Effect.

http://download.yousendit.com/4098D4A2783D12E8

It will do what you ask but only for a single note,if 2 or more notes are played it will arp

You might have tried already?

[mech]

I got a fairly simple idea..
A second MIDI track with a dummy clip that automates a velocity plugin.
You just route the midi to that track, turn monitor "on and add the needed automation.

You can have a few preset clips depending on how long the recording will be. (ie. an automation line for 1 bar loops, 2 bar loops,....)

Thanks hoffman2k. I had originally thought I might do something using clip automation, perhaps in conjunction with Follow Actions. However, I couldn't really crystallize my thoughts into any sort of workable solution.

I believe I might've been overthinking the problem, though. I've been hung up on how to loop the clip back to the beginning while progressively rescaling the velocity at the loop boundaries through each iteration. While your suggestion is straightforward and simple, it seems to make up in functionality what it lacks in elegance. In other words, if I don't mind keeping a collection of various automation clips, I think it may just work.

Hrmmm, that also gets me to thinking. Live is occasionally criticized because without Feedback, it natively acts more as a "Phrase Sampler" than a "Looper". I'd imagine you could use the same trick to automate the Utility plug and fake a gradual fadeout effect too.

Now I just have to work on figuring out how to apply the technique to overdubbed lines....

About note length and MIDI delay...
It's more a MIDI delay emulation rather then a real MIDI delay.
The outputted note has a fixed length. So it does not repeat exactly what you play.
That being said, you can do some really cool stuff with this current technique.
Multitap picth delays and stuff like that..

Yeah, I can see where that can really be fun to play around with the possibilities. That's also one reason why I was delving into MIDI Looping as opposed to standard Audio Looping. There are all these other MIDI tricks that you can pull by taking the Loop over into the data range: easy transposition and Scale application on the fly, Velocity crossfades, re-channelling the repeats so that the Looped notes repeat as an entirely different patch, etc., etc....

I actually did finally find one real MIDI Delay plug: MIDIFripp from Nay-Seven. If its delay time were high enough, it might be really close to a good working unit. Unfortunately, it's PC-only, so I can't even try it out.

Otherwise, I might try kludging something together in Bidule when I get some time. As it turns out, I'm a real hack when it comes to using that program though.

Thanks again for the helpful suggestions, hoffman!!!

--m.

[mech]

Here is a preset for the Arpeggiator Midi Effect.

Kewl! I'll give it a shot annihilator. Thank you!!!

I thought I might have also seen a rack around someplace that splits multiple notes between different lines in the rack (although I hope my spotty memory isn't getting a Live rack mixed up with a Reaktor ensemble). If the Arpeggiator trick you've put together works well, it might be worth trying to combine both the techniques. You could really start to mess with the timing & harmonic structure if you could individually tweeze each of the notes within a chord in realtime.

I'll be happy to give it a whirl. And if I can make a minor tweak to turn it into a polyphonic rack, I'll post here too. Regardless, that should be fun for looping monophonic lines, and often that's all you need!

--m.

[friend_kami]

tried that with the arps before, not really doing it for me. ofcourse im guessing that i could dig deeper in it and make a rack out of several arps etc, but hey..

tried that midifripp thingy but yeah, couldnt get it to work. not sure why, ill keep testing later, just fired it up real quick to have a looksie.

[mech]

Update: Well, I've managed to pull together what may eventually turn into one working solution.

I didn't want to do it, but I finally fired up Plogue Bidule and hacked out my own MIDI Looper. I don't know why I've had a mental block against Bidule in the past, because this was a whole lot easier than I'd anticipated -- only about an hour of coding time, and suddenly the darn thing worked (much to my surprise). Routing the MIDI stream to Bidule from Ableton and back was a lot easier than I'd anticipated, as well.

Currently, I've put together two working versions. The first is just a simple "data in/data out/data out again & again". In the second, I've gotten a bit more complex and have given it the ability to split the repeats amongst three different paths or instruments, as well as incorporating a note transposer so one of the repeat streams can play at different pitches.

My biggest gripe so far is that you've still got to manually set the number of bars that you want to repeat (after all, at its heart, it's still just a long MIDI Delay). I'd much rather work it out so that you can begin recording, then just drop out of record mode when you finish a phrase and have the loop begin right then. And in addition, I'd also like to have it derive tempo from the loop length and send MIDI Clock, so that Live would then sync [sic] to the Looper. Looks like I've still got some work to do.

If anybody's interested, I'll post a link to the layouts when I'm reasonably confident they're not going to blow anything up. Right now they're still what I'd consider early alpha, but they seem to be working out better than I thought they would.

--m.

[friend_kami]

interested indeed, still havent got my head around bidule yet. still exploring what can be done with native ableton plugs and rack setups.

perhaps i should read this thread about bidule after all heh.