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idea for lfo's in abletone with reactor

Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2006 1:21 pm
by queglay
i've wanted to be able to assign lfo's in ableton for a while, that doesn't involve redrawing curves every time you want to tweak the frequency of an automation curve. maybe you can already do it since im new to ableton, but what do you think of this idea?

use reaktor to create a module with a midi out event that has the lfo assigned to it. That way you just tweek the frequency and amplitude through the plugin. you could even use a midi input event sent by a clip in ableton to sync it up or start the lfo.

is this doable?

not sure how id actually assign mapping in ableton though.

Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2006 7:33 pm
by Michael Hatsis
Dont really understand what your looking for but if you turn the phase of autopan to 0 or 360 you get a nice LFO -> Volume... then just assign some knobage - Good for Tremolo stuff

-Michael

Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2006 7:59 pm
by corygilbert
I think he just wants to use an LFO for any automation in ableton.
And yes, your idea can be done, although I've never thought of it. good work :D
Problem is that Ableton effects/ instruments only accept midi in terms of midi in on say operator, doesn't really work, BUT, if your on a mac you can set your iac driver, in your midi preferences, to be both an imput and output, then on a midi channel in live send to said iac bus, then on another channel with an instrument in it, receive from same iac driver, essentially you are creating an internal midi loop, and all of the cc automatable data for your clip, volume, pan, mod, and cc assigned paramaters can be modulated by this lfo. Problem is like I said, all the cool params in impulse, op, etc. aren't in the cc dropdown of the clips, this works great for reaktor ensembles where params are set to specific cc's. Although if you want to do that you could just through your lfo ensemble in front of it on the clip, or add it to the ensemble itself. Some paramaters have specific lfo's assigned to them, like in the auto filter, I like your idea though and the above could be totally wrong. Oh yeah and I think I heard that if your on Pc MidiYoke can help do the same thing as what I described about the iac.
good luck

Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2006 2:48 am
by queglay
thanks. im on a pc so ill have a look at that program. ill check out this midiyoke program and hopefully it will work! it will be so handy if it does.

been learning reaktor since yesterday but its so incredibly powerful im gonna spend the next few weeks reading up on it heavily.

Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2006 7:23 am
by jtpack
Have you seen this?
http://www.macrostructure.net/midilfo.htm

Made by a fellow Ableton user too.

jtpack

Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2006 7:59 am
by queglay
damn, i just finished getting mine working and then i find that. haha

thanks for that jt pack, it looks great but it doesn't have a sync feature. i want to look at programing a sync into mine.

so far i've managed to get everything working. im having 1 problem at the moment though. whilst i can send midi out info though a midi out/controller module, when i try to use a channel message out i get nothing. i obviously dont know how this whould be wired up.

the other annoying thing is i have to have it wired up to an audio out, when i shouldn't even need one.

its good to know that this will all be possible.

Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 3:24 am
by queglay
ahh, i've realised that it was because all the signals had to be monophonic. the plugin's working well now, except when i run it in ableton and not as a standalone the midi send commands don't seem to be recieved by ableton.

Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 6:26 am
by Johnisfaster
any chance you could share the reaktor you made?

Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2006 7:11 am
by queglay
oh yeah sure no problem. free for all to use. i've just got some more features to add and ill upload it.

my problem at the moment is i cant get the midi messages to send properly when its in plugin mode. if i go to the midi out options in reaktor plugin mode, all it says is 'plugin' and the options for midiyoke aren't there like in the standalone version. this might be because ableton isnt making it available, or the options set in reaktor just dont carry on to the plugin.

any ideas on what this might be?

Posted: Wed Jul 12, 2006 7:02 am
by queglay
well ive taken this as far as i can go. the plugin only works independently of the app, which is anoying, because any chance of using a sync function isn't possible. you have to run it in reaktor for the midi channels to send. if anyone can fix this, your awesome! i dont understand why ableton is preventing this from happening. if anyone from ableton support is reading this, and knows whats going on i'd be really greatful if you let me know.

http://opax.swin.edu.au/~4021673/lfoout05.ens

anyway here it is, have a play. if you can understand what i've done. its my first reaktor project so im sure i've done lots of stupid long winded things in there.

anyone whos got any advice on this thing or any changes they want to make can go for it!

remember you need reaktor 5 and midi yoke installed, and you have to configure the midi out channels in reaktor and the midi in's in ableton to work.

i hope someone else can take it to the next step, and hopefully in the next version of ableton you should be able to do this with any automatable parameter.

Posted: Wed Jul 12, 2006 7:23 am
by humeka
Hi Queglay.

I also use R5. have you been looking in the "automation" folder in your library ?
R5>Instruments>automation...
here you'll find 4 different kind of automated Lfo assignable to any controler of an ensemble.

hope it's what you've been searching for ;-)

Posted: Wed Jul 12, 2006 8:21 am
by Poster

Posted: Fri Jul 14, 2006 1:30 am
by queglay
oh sweet. you beat me to it. good on you though! i was never gonna get that thing working.