Randomizing Effect Rack

Hi,

I'm a drummer and I have some Ableton Live experience, but I'm not particularly tech savvy. I also have no experience using your software.

I'm trying to incorporate my MIDI pad into my Ableton performance and I've run into a problem.
I set up the drum pad using a Drum Rack. I prepared a bunch of effects and I want a different one to effect the sound each time the pad is being played. The drum pad is sending MIDI notes to Ableton.

I set up an effect rack so that I can use the chain selector to select different effects. The problem is, that I want the chain selector to move itself randomly so that the chain selector doesn't have to be controlled manually.

Now Steven was amazing and sent me a file that does what I want it to do, but unfortunately I'm having a couple of issues which I hope can be resolved.

1. Often (about 33% of the time) the initial sound goes through more than one chain. I'd like it to go through one chain only.

2. Sounds are often repeated, sometimes as much as 3 times. Ideally I’d want no repeating.

1. I tried mapping to a different CC but the problem #1 still remains. Even if I only use one mapping in a test set this still happens.

Thank you and best regards
Kevin

Hi,

I'm not an Ableton Live expert, but if you post your Ableton Live Set, maybe I can help.

My guess is that is more to do with Ableton Live than with Bome MIDI Translator and how you have your effect chain set up and perhaps the MIDI channels. 

The way the Bome Project is set up is that notes (drum sounds) are going to MIDI CH-1 on Bome MIDI Virtual Port 1. Maybe if you have effects on different channels, you will need to send notes to each effect to a different MIDI channel and set up Ableton Live to just look for the drum sounds on that channel. So essentially in addition to altering the CC for the effect, you are altering the channel of the performance so that each note goes to a different MIDI channel. Then set each of the tracks only look at the channel for the effect you want for that note.

Currently the CC alteration is set up to always go to MIDI CH 1 on Bome MIDI virtual port 2. Just like performance data, if the effect CC is on a different port or MIDI channel, you should set up that effect to only look at that port/channel.

This is really mostly Ableton Live type of stuff so if you know how it works in Ableton Live (and I don't), then we could probably figure out what port and channel to send various notes and CC data with MT Pro.

Have you discusse how you want to set this up with Ableton?  Maybe they can advise you on what the Ableton configuratino should look like and we can figure out if we need to manipulate the data and CC informatino external to Ableton Live. In many cases, they have ways to set this up within Ableton Live itself.

 

Or maybe some savvy Ableton Live users out there that work with Bome have done similar things and can help.

 

Steve Caldwell
Bome Q and A Moderator and
Independent Bome Consultant/Specialist
bome@sniz.biz

Hi Steve, thank you for your reply.

Right now I am only using 1 MIDI channel. I'll try contacting Ableton, but I'm including my set anyway so maybe somebody figures it out.

Best regards
Kevin

1. Often (about 33% of the time) the initial sound goes through more than one chain. I’d like it to go through one chain only.

2. Sounds are often repeated, sometimes as much as 3 times. Ideally I’d want no repeating.

1. I tried mapping to a different CC but the problem #1 still remains. Even if I only use one mapping in a test set this still happens.

Questions/Comments Below

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Are you using only 1 track for all your input and then an effects chain on that track or are you using multiple tracks, each with their own effects chain?

Anything coming into an effects chain on a given track will either go through the chain (serial or parallel) unless you have some things early in the effects chain, filtering certain things from going through.

If you are using multiple tracks for each effects chain, any enabled track with the your drum machine on MIDI CH1 will pass things through it\'s effects chain for each of those tracks. I don\'t think you can \"conditionally\" enable and disable an effect. The CC you designed to change the effect will affect any control in the chain that uses the CC and for any incoming sound.

I\'m kind of thinking, you might instead of altering the CC for each note it, you should randomly use alternate MIDI channels for each note and then have several  tracks in Ableton Live with their own effects chain already pre set and then assign each track to a different MIDI channel.

I think any CC assignments you make in Ableton Live are Global in nature but maybe Max for Live can fix this.  I think with a MIDI remote script, you can track \"device\" parameters with the currently selected device using the same CC# but not sure you can assign CC #s that way outside of MIDI remote scripts.

Take most of what I say here with a grain of salt because as I say, I\'m not Ableton Live expert. I just played with a few parameters after your last post because I was curious.   Probably best to post you question on the Ableton Live forum describing what you are trying to do (maybe without MT Pro) and see if there is an \"Ableton Way\" to do it.

My guess is sooner or later, you will come back to Bome for part of the solution anyway.

Steve Caldwell
Bome Q and A Moderator and
Independent Bome Consultant/Specialist
bome@sniz.biz