Tutorial: Dummy clips for audio modulation

hoffman2k · Post by **hoffman2k** » Sat Jul 23, 2005 3:00 am

There are ways. But they either require patience or allot of storage.

The method that requires patiecnce:

Record your tweaks in arrangement view. And copy the envelopes.

The method that requires allot of storage:

Consolidate your tweak and drag it to the session view.

Neither are great workarounds. But Ableton cant ignore this issue much longer. At this point i could qoute several Ableton employees who would want this too. (probably all of them if you really dig)

@Zilch.

You can export them to use those tracks wherever you want. You can use them to DJ. Or you could use them for production methods, stored in a file.........
Or whatever.... Live is like a box of chocolates.

kinkajou · Post by **kinkajou** » Wed Sep 21, 2005 11:59 am

thank you for this hoffman!

...and bump!

cashman · Post by **cashman** » Thu May 04, 2006 9:43 pm

This is a great tip, but I'm having a lot of fun, but also little trouble using it.

I have grapsed the basic theory of it how it works, although, when I would like to have, e.g., a 1 bar filter sweep, the effect seems to have trouble starting in time and a beat (or so) is repeated after I have started the dummy clip with the filter parameters drawn in the dummy clip's envelope (dummy clip on 'Legato' setting).
I have also noticed a small (orange) dot above the waveform readout which, as far as I know, usually signifies a mapped command.
This means that I cannot use them for music that requires a rythmic beat, as it is interupted by the starting of the dummy clip. I don't know why, any ideas?

Thanks,
c

hoffman2k · Post by **hoffman2k** » Thu May 04, 2006 10:21 pm

You probably need to adjust the clip update rate in Live's preferences.

cashman · Post by **cashman** » Thu May 04, 2006 10:33 pm

hoffman2k wrote:You probably need to adjust the clip update rate in Live's preferences.

Thanks for the swift reply.

I tried that. It was set at 1/16th, so I increased the resolution to 1/32nd. I also changed the global quantisation to 'none'.
Unfortunately, neither seem to have made a difference.

I am at a loss.

<edit>
I have tried further to get this working right.
It seems to trigger 'on time' if a MIDI track is routed to the dummy clip track, but any audio I route for effects processing by a dummy clip track is triggered a little late.
</edit>

Soma · Post by **Soma** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 5:33 pm

Has anyone found a clever way of doing dummy clips for sample offset?
I just thought of it but am not infront of my DAW atm. Perhaps it's 1) impossible or 2) obvious :shrug:

hoffman2k · Post by **hoffman2k** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 6:23 pm

It's impossible. But you can virtually do the same thing with the beat repeater.

nobbystylus · Post by **nobbystylus** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 11:03 pm

can you use dummy clips to turn effects on and off (device on and off)?

Soma · Post by **Soma** » Wed Jun 07, 2006 4:21 am

hoffman2k wrote:It's impossible. But you can virtually do the same thing with the beat repeater.

How do you jump forward in a beat using the repeater?

3rdordertrauma · Post by **3rdordertrauma** » Fri Oct 06, 2006 10:27 am

starving student wrote:
Zilch wrote:[what we really need to be able to do is bring live recorded automation from the arrangement view into the session view so that clips could have more "natural" sounding automation. or is there a way to do this and i'm just not seeing it
I'd like to know the answer to this too

Maybe I don't understand exactly what you want... you saying like a "flatten" feature that copies all track based automation to the underlying clips? Then drop those clips in the session view? Would be cool...Logic does this.

For now copy and pasting automation over works for me.. or recording tweaks directly into the session view. Also the "replace sample" thing for audio clips is always cool to try out your tweaks over top other loops.

3rdordertrauma · Post by **3rdordertrauma** » Fri Oct 06, 2006 10:38 am

Soma wrote:Has anyone found a clever way of doing dummy clips for sample offset?
I just thought of it but am not infront of my DAW atm. Perhaps it's 1) impossible or 2) obvious :shrug:

Maybe everyone is doing this already...?

But I've been using "midi" dummy clips with midi CC tweaks on them routed to the IAC bus for automating things like "clip start" "effect on/off" "sends" and so on. This is nice cause it solves some of the issues with "audio dummies".

Just assign say "clip start" to what ever CC you wish (example #60). Then create new midi track and clip... and make a envelope automation for MIDI Ctrl - 60-(controller). Route this to the IAC bus.

Apologies if this is old news!

hoffman2k · Post by **hoffman2k** » Fri Oct 06, 2006 10:47 am

nobbystylus wrote:can you use dummy clips to turn effects on and off (device on and off)?

Yes. In live 6 you can.

Map a macro to a device on/off button and automate it.
You can do this in the clip you're working with. No need for dummy clips for this specific task.

hoffman2k · Post by **hoffman2k** » Fri Oct 06, 2006 10:50 am

3rdordertrauma wrote:
Soma wrote:Has anyone found a clever way of doing dummy clips for sample offset?
I just thought of it but am not infront of my DAW atm. Perhaps it's 1) impossible or 2) obvious :shrug:
Maybe everyone is doing this already...?

But I've been using "midi" dummy clips with midi CC tweaks on them routed to the IAC bus for automating things like "clip start" "effect on/off" "sends" and so on. This is nice cause it solves some of the issues with "audio dummies".

Just assign say "clip start" to what ever CC you wish (example #60). Then create new midi track and clip... and make a envelope automation for MIDI Ctrl - 60-(controller). Route this to the IAC bus.

Apologies if this is old news!

Same here.
I haven't found a reallysolid way to do a realtime beat offset beyond the capability's of beat repeat in Live.
I hope that Mattias from Ableton will design a beat repeat 2.0.

To do real-time beat offsets with recorded stuff, I also use a combination of MIDI plugins to do weird stuff.

3rdordertrauma · Post by **3rdordertrauma** » Fri Oct 06, 2006 12:25 pm

hoffman2k wrote: Same here.
I haven't found a reallysolid way to do a realtime beat offset beyond the capability's of beat repeat in Live.
I hope that Mattias from Ableton will design a beat repeat 2.0.

To do real-time beat offsets with recorded stuff, I also use a combination of MIDI plugins to do weird stuff.

Assigning "nudge << >>" and "start" to a midi controller knob is pretty cool for "realtime" beat offset. Maybe wouldn't maybe call it solid... but fun!

Would just be easier if midi clips allowed envelopes for the nudge << and >>.

nobbystylus · Post by **nobbystylus** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 1:28 am

This is cool... although i still don't know why this is a relative function... it should just be absolute like in the arrange page..

hoffman2k wrote:
nobbystylus wrote:can you use dummy clips to turn effects on and off (device on and off)?
Yes. In live 6 you can.

Map a macro to a device on/off button and automate it.
You can do this in the clip you're working with. No need for dummy clips for this specific task.