Mutliple loop/cue points within a clip

[Guest]

Really important for dj's...

A lot of music is “over produced” or has only a couple
of “intro bars” which makes normal mixing either
boring or difficult. Digital DJ software blows this
away by being able to loop an “intro bar”, drop it in
the mix, cut around with the fader, then turn the loop
off to play the rest of the song. Towards the end of a
song the loop can be hit again to give time and space
for the next mix.

So far with ableton I’ve found that you can set a
loop for an audio clip, but then not change it while
playing without effecting the position of the play
head, eg load a song, loop the first bar, drop into
the mix, turn off the loop and the audio stops, move
the loop and the play head moves.

[kent_sandvik]

Yes, Traktor (and I think similar DJ SW packages) have the option to set a loop point with arbitrary beats at a point, let it loop, and either jump to the next cue point or open up the loop and continue.

The technique of setting up a loop point in a song, mix together the two clips (songs) and then open up the loop point is very handy in DJ mixing environments. It would be nice if Live had the feature of opening up the loop mode and continue.
I'm doing experiments here just now with 4.0b12 (yes will upgrade to 4.0 final now!) and I have a loop going on in the session view, 4 beats in lenght, if I disable the Loop switch the sample stops... If I change the lenght the pointer moves to another location... I think one fix would be to not change thj pointer when changing the loop lenght, just let it continue and dragging up the length in loop mode will let the pointer continue beyond the initial lenght value. The next would be to have a mode where you switch off the loop and let the clip just continue instead of stopping, and if you want to stop the loop you use the normal way of stopping the loop --Kent

[kent_sandvik]

Hehehe, there's always a workaround in Live! I could get this working by
having the same clip in the same track, have a four beat loop in the first one, and select a longer loop in the exact same clip below. Then remember to set the quantization menu to for example four bars, and switch between the loops, from the short 4 beat one to the longer version. This mimics the Tractor DJ way of setting loop points and continue later in the mix.

It would be nice to have names for the loops, at least numbers, stored in the .asd file, so they are recollected back in a DJ session, though. --Kent

[Chris J]

I think one fix would be to not change the pointer when changing the loop lenght, just let it continue and dragging up the length in loop mode will let the pointer continue beyond the initial lenght value. The next would be to have a mode where you switch off the loop and let the clip just continue instead of stopping, and if you want to stop the loop you use the normal way of stopping the loop --Kent

oh yes ! that's music to my ears

[Chris J]

Hehehe, there's always a workaround in Live! I could get this working by
having the same clip in the same track, have a four beat loop in the first one, and select a longer loop in the exact same clip below. Then remember to set the quantization menu to for example four bars, and switch between the loops, from the short 4 beat one to the longer version. This mimics the Tractor DJ way of setting loop points and continue later in the mix.

It would be nice to have names for the loops, at least numbers, stored in the .asd file, so they are recollected back in a DJ session, though. --Kent

it is a workaround, but so impracticle when you have loads of tracks to load, you end up "mousing' all the time instead of playing

[rEalm]

This is definitely #1 on my wishlist, multiple loops would be so nice!

[podprod]

yes great comments..I have been requesting multiple loop points in the arrange window as well.
The ability to pre set points (more than 1) in the arrange window to loop.
regards
PODPROD

[HatHead]

Really important for dj's...

A lot of music is “over produced” or has only a couple
of “intro bars” which makes normal mixing either
boring or difficult. Digital DJ software blows this
away by being able to loop an “intro bar”, drop it in
the mix, cut around with the fader, then turn the loop
off to play the rest of the song. Towards the end of a
song the loop can be hit again to give time and space
for the next mix.

So far with ableton I’ve found that you can set a
loop for an audio clip, but then not change it while
playing without effecting the position of the play
head, eg load a song, loop the first bar, drop into
the mix, turn off the loop and the audio stops, move
the loop and the play head moves.

Hello - I hope all is well with everyone!

I am able accomplish this quite easily from the session view which allows me to launch any clip at any time, each clip governed by its respective trigger properties. I find that this is an even more powerful approach to spontaneous performance than assigning mulitple loop points for performing from within what I assume is the arrangement view?

In the arrangement view, everything underneath a loop point would active (unless deactivated, cross-faded out, etc). Firing an individual clip from the session view does not carry these considerations and allows to you fire any clip at any time, without effecting the play head position of the song. You can also add new clips and make new scenes on the fly with drag'n drop so it is also possible to record new clips and (re)use them on the fly. (Then all of your jamming is captured for you in the arrangement view so that you can edit it.)

One of the differences from a performance perspective is that the arrangement view gives you an excellent picture of where you are and what's coming up in one glance. With the session view approach, you have all of your balls in the air and you have to keep track of a lot of things in your head at once. (Depending upon how tricky you get of course).

When I first started with Live3 I was in the 'where is the multiple loop points?' camp but have shifted my mind from the arrangement view - which is a very pervasive music software interface/approach - to a brand new way of thinking about it: the arragement view has musical time along the x-axis while the session view is independant from 'time & space' as you put it.

Experiment with the session view. What you want to do is easy there - I do what you describe all the time: grab a 2 or 4 bar clip, such as an intro, and use it as a reprise (& then re/mix it into something else etc.) and often use a scene change when I want to stop one clip by another (i.e. reprise back into the tune)

[HatHead]

...but I am using multiple clips - i.e. one for the intro & one for the song. I don't mouse around at all though and use midi assignments to launch/control everything. The laptop is pretty much just a visual monitor for me.

Good luck!