LOOP CONTROL

Josh Von · Post by **Josh Von** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 8:50 am

I know this has been raised a number of times - but if I had to choose one new improvement for Live 7 it would be these two related simple features

They are extremely useful for production techniques but for DJs that are trying to push the capabilities of live remixing they are about essential:

With a little bit of imagination you can see how powerful these two things would be if we had them to combine together on the fly ..

1. Select Loop Brace (focus)

The only way to currently grab the Loop Brace in Clip View is to touch it with the pointer. This means - even in practically mouseless setups - grabbing the mouse or trackball constantly is necessary to manipulate the loop.

This is awkward and severely limits the possibilities of loop and playback position on the fly. In any control scheme I have used or designed, when working with it for a while this ends up being one of the major annoyances

Why is this important? This is for remixing on the fly:

- We want to move the loop back or forward along the track while mixing with another record

- We want to halve and double the loop length to create rolls, quick turnarounds and other creative effects

- We want to combine this basic techniques over 2, 3, and 4 or more
tracks by flipping between them as we go

Ableton: we have tried every thing from autohotkeys to max/msp and psychic mind control. There is no workaround

Can you find a way to allow us to assign a hotkey or MIDI control to Select / Focus Loop Brace?

2. Set Instant Loop Length (1/2, 1, 2, 4, 8 bars)

CDJ 1000's allow you to set an instant 2, 4, 8 (?) bar loop from a given cue point on the fly.

This means you can wait for the right moment, then simply set a loop at that point and forget about it.

We cant -- to make a loop on the fly in Clip View, we have to set the in point ... then wait ... then set loop end before the next quantization point.

This is another feature gap that limits what we can do. It makes some basic mixing techniques clumsy and or impossible to do.

Simply adding keys to set the Loop on the fly to 1/2, 1, 2, 4, 8 bars would be huge. Can we get this?

These two features would give DJs the most 'bang for the buck' for live remixing ... Live Remixing is Live's strong point among alternative DJing
applications (your competition) and its features like this that would make it continue to stand out

.

dj superflat · Post by **dj superflat** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 5:50 pm

setting loop lengths as you suggest would be great, many live loopers have asked for same.

Idonotlikebroccoli · Post by **Idonotlikebroccoli** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 7:34 pm

These would be great improvements. I really hope v7 has been primarily focused on fixing issues like these

icedsushi · Post by **icedsushi** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 7:38 pm

This is kind of a workaround but it requires a special controller.

With Faderfox LV2 (for any selected clip) you can shift the entire loop bracket back and forth with a single endless encoder knob.

alien factory · Post by **alien factory** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 10:36 am

Dear Josh,

I just tried for 5 minutes and I can move the loop in a clip by any rotray midi controller and define loop length on the fly...

Just assign the encoder to the loop lenght numbers in clip vie and another to the start point, if you wanna have the loop start point moving with the start point of your clip, assign the same controller to the clip start point...

Thanks for your post anyway, I'm pretty new to live and always curious about midi controlling...

I gonna work on this and let you know what I can do else to fullfill your needs...

cu

stefan

Josh Von · Post by **Josh Von** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 10:55 am

alien factory wrote: Just assign the encoder to the loop lenght numbers in clip vie and another to the start point,

This is not the same as allowing a discrete digital input to the Clip that sets the loop length without fumbling

We tried to create an autohotkeys script that entered 'X, 0, 0' (where 'X' is 2, 4, 8 ) into the Length value cleanly

It was not reliable. Using an encoder to 'dial in' the number is even more unreliable ... have you tried it?

if you wanna have the loop start point moving with the start point of your clip, assign the same controller to the clip start point...

Again this is using an 'analog -- dial it in' approach to something that needs to be precise (one press) -- like a loop movement or half / double length move

You need to make these moves on the spot over multiple tracks .. dialing is not practical

Moving the loop using the arrow keys / arrow key functions makes the move a discreet (exact) even bar move to the left or right. Additionally CTRL-Arrow halves / doubles loop size

Both of these things cant be done with the same precision with a rotary encoder. The Loop Focus is the simplest and most effective way to gain control really

.

alien factory · Post by **alien factory** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 11:32 am

Hi Josh again,

You'r absolutely right for Point 2 of your first post...

My answer was concerning your Point 1, where you claimed about you could only move the loop with the mouse or a trackball...

So my solution is for this purpose, in combination with a controller for global quantisation you can quickly move the loop in different sizes...

give it a try and sorry for my willingness to help...

cu

stefan

LyleUppingham · Post by **LyleUppingham** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 9:20 pm

I was having trouble with this too. I got an MPD24 and tried to setup all I could to get the mouse gone. As far as I have tried, It will still be needed.

In the meantime though, I have incorporated a Nostromo n52 gamepad. It has macro functions to it, so pressing one button simulated a chain of button presses on the keyboard. I have written all about it in previous posts.

Pretty much to do a half assed "Focus Brace" function, is the focus on the track thing you can do by going up to the tool bar on the top, and go View > Detail > Track or Clip. Whichever you want to make Ableton focus. Then with that I have made my MPD use some of the rotary knobs to place the braces within the track, made one to control the length of the brace (it doesnt jump to the 2,4,8,16,32.... beat length, but slides linear), and have a button to turn on the looping function.

Until Ableton makes a really easy function to use, I suggest everyone practice as hard as possble using the quick keys and self made shortcuts. Nobody has a god given skill at this kind of shit, everyone is going to have to work at it if this is what they want. With enough practice at it, you can man handle ableton to the extreme with just a mouse, I watch a video of a dude properlly mix in Tracktor 3 with just a mouse.

In the end, it all depends on how much effort you are willing to put into this.
Goodluck

guly · Post by **guly** » Wed Jul 23, 2008 8:06 pm

news here? i can get my midi to control loop start and so on but with a 1bar step (ie. when i move the knob with a length of 1-0-0 i get 2-0-0)

John Daminato · Post by **John Daminato** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 4:50 pm

I totally agree with this wish list but I think I have come up with an easier way to achieve this but maybe not, because it would be hard to do on the fly. But you don't have to do it on the fly and my way could be easier with less possibilities of catching the loop wrong.

Here is my idea
http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=95034

In the same ball park as yours, except what Im saying is, create the loop points in advance and use a midi controller to jump between those loop points. Or once you select the clip, it auto maps.

All live would have to do is add left and right nudge arrows to make loop brace jump around to loop points, then use a divide button of some sort. Like the cdjs but better.

jlgrimes · Post by **jlgrimes** » Thu Jul 24, 2008 9:54 pm

I wish for something like this as well. It would be nice if by using some sort of keybinding you could type in the loop length with a computer keyboard without resorting to mouse selection.

I have a different post about loop control but it is a different topic. One of my pet peeves with Live is that it default loop length is 1 bar, which is probably perfect for many people but for a person who constantly use 4 or 8 bar loops it gets annoying quick having to type in loop lengths. It is good I'm using templates though but I still run into the default 1 bar problem when I have to create a new loop.

But anyways better loop control is always welcome to me.

Eldon Tyrell · Post by **Eldon Tyrell** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 8:56 pm

+1 in favor of Josh's idea! Also, automatable Loop braces!

sanosdole · Post by **sanosdole** » Thu Feb 24, 2011 9:26 pm

I have found an extremly easy and free way to do this with my APC 40 without mouse/bome´s/m4l etc.

Just use ClyphX:

http://beatwise.proboards.com/index.cgi ... thread=716

Create a ClyphX Clip without quantization and map it to a midi button.
This way you´r able to control any loop on any track with just one midi-button (or key) press!

Debrecini · Post by **Debrecini** » Fri Apr 08, 2011 3:20 pm

Amazing solution sanosdole will try it as soon as its compatible with Live 8.2.2

Going back to the idea to do creative looping. There is an inherent problem with clip looping that ties in with this post.

Right now the clip loop length is limited to no smaller than 16th note length.

This really dampens any creative possibilities to do rapid 32nd note and 64th note roll effects and the likes.
I would like to see much smaller intervals being allowed for DJ style creative FX.

I have created a post in the feature request section regarding this found here:
http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=161958

+1 if you agree.

cmprvndncr · Post by **cmprvndncr** » Fri Dec 15, 2017 1:22 am

Idonotlikebroccoli wrote:These would be great improvements. I really hope v7 has been primarily focused on fixing issues like these

Yeah, me too, I really hope live 7 focuses on fixing things like improving looping control... Oh wait, we're about to get live 10, *I really hope live T E N focuses on fixing things like improving looping control...

Find a happy place.

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