Ableton Live may have “Live” in the name, but just as with any musical equipment, getting it ready for a show often involves elaborate configuration to make reliable control a reality. Over its decade-long life, Live has been tweaked, adjusted, and cajoled into road-ready digital rigs. With Max for Live a kind of software developer kit for Live users, that has led some users to share their configurations. I’ve been watching Darren Cowley iterate his own Isotonik setup, a combination of hardware control, software template, and custom Max for Live devices, for some time now. That rig has finally matured to the point that he’s ready to share. Get ready for some hard-core Ableton geekery – though it might just be your next live Live setup.

Isotonik couples on-screen virtual devices with the physical controls of the APC40, but going beyond the default configuration from Akai and Ableton. Like a dashboard for your Live set, the software/hardware combo consolidates controls for cueing up and activating tracks, launching and looping scenes, slicing up beats, and adding audio effects. (Glitch, anyone?) Sure, you could do these things without Isotonik, but by bringing together rapid assignment of effects and navigation between tracks, the software becomes a kind of cheat – in a good way.

In fact, it’s compelling enough as a story that I think it’s worth reading even if you don’t use Live, the APC, or Max for Live.

A new release was just updated today with fewer objects and greater performance. And in addition to the template, the package includes some really fantastic effects, themselves worth the price of entry.

The price is a scant GBP £14.99, with an extraordinary amount of software included. Full details, documentation, and download link at Darren’s site:
http://thestudiosessions.co.uk/

For my own part, I’ve found myself getting a bit existential when thinking about this problem. Which makes more sense, musically: adding a layer atop something like Live to gain rapid access to features, or simply building from scratch (in environments like Max, Pd, SuperCollider, and the lot), in order to put together only those building blocks you need? The former is more complex and the latter potentially more reliable, though I always find that finding simpler solutions often involves more work, not less (especially if the words “from scratch” come into play). There’s no right answer to these questions, though; only an answer for you. So I think it’s well worth having a look at how Darren has approached this. You might just find the result is exactly what you need, and even if not, it provides some serious insight into the workflow of making Ableton Live, Max for Live, and the APC40 come together for real use.

Isontonik Template – Demonstration from Darren E Cowley on Vimeo.

I asked Darren to share his thoughts about the background of the project, how he put it together, and how he uses the result.

I managed to persuade [retailer] DV247 to let me buy their shop demo APC40 and by the end of the second I was frustrated with what I couldn’t do…. Having a DJ background I missed being able to tweak the bass’s across all the tracks at the same time but hardmapping these controls lost me the ability to use what the APC was designed for with it’s blue hand control of racks….

Pretty quickly I found myself using the excellent [MIDI software utility] bome’s midi translator to remap controls to solve this problem, one problem solved I found I enjoyed the challenge more than playing the music and so I set about creating a second mode of control based more on my playing style with CDJ’s. At the same time the nativeKONTROL series came out so I decided to share my template with anyone who already had a copy of Bomes….

With the announcement of Max4Live I started to get interested and when the invite to the beta landed on email I was made up, sadly after a month of testing I still didn’t have a stable version and so in release day I shelled out like many others for what appeared an unproven piece of software that had the promise of greatness…

I quickly set about creating a device that would give me control over the macros in the first rack giving back that DJ mixer style control, one of the first devices to be uploaded onto max4live.com I got some excellent feedback and made some new contacts who prompted me to keep developing. Many brick walls were hit and thanks to people like Mike Chenetz of max4live.info and Andrew Pask of Cycling I managed to get my head around some of the undocumented control_surfaces functions….

A two week break on a beach in Thailand with a pad and an ipod gave me the opportunity to sketch out how I saw the controls would work, deciding on the scene launch buttons as my scene choosers….

Pretty soon I had worked out how to make five different scenes of controls for the clip stop buttons, 8 others for the Activate/Cue Solo/Rec Arm Buttons…. Reset functionality for my macros and a slave version of the master device to reduce the overall size of the device.

I wanted a simple scene that enabled the standard functionality with a slight twist, the clip stop buttons should light up if a clip was playing in a track and I should be able to launch the highlighted clip, play it again or play the clip below whilst still having the red-box control….

Next came a scene that could give me some semblance of Traktor like looping control, and then I wanted to be able to activate a 2 bar loop on a clip even if it wasn’t in focus….

Inspired by the monome performance videos I spent ages trying to work out how to mimic the effect with the 8 clip stop buttons spending ages working with the playing_position function to not find a satisfactory result, then a fantastic how to video from Mike Chenetz led me to look into the chucker object and quickly I had a running metronome that could play back a slice of the last two bars of audio much like Clist’s beatlookup, that I could change the size of the slice with a twist of the Cue Volume knob…

The original Keymasher Tim Exile had just released the Finger and a guy called GBSR on the Controllerism forum had just posted a similar effect using an impressive routing system using Abletons sends, given Max4live control over the Live API I created the ability to punch audio to a return track and then send that return track to another chaining effects….

When playing I find I normally use the vanilla/standard scene but then jump into a different scene mid track to add some variation to what I’m playing, with the addition of the ability to control all 8 sends on each track with the track control, a smart knob per track that can handle 8 different effects and finally a Looper controlled from the APC40′s transport buttons

I’m probably at the point of Ableton not being able to cope much more, with each update from Ableton and Cycling 74 the whole setup has become more and more stable and I predict even bigger things when they’ve completed their “Quality” drive….

Thanks, Darren.

Trying this tool out? Got your own rig for Max for Live – or other software – that you’d like to share? I’d love to hear your feedback. You know where to find us.

Having full control of a complete mix and session from your MIDI keyboard – without having to move your hands to the mouse or shift your focus to your computer screen – can be an addictive, if elusive feeling. Here’s a look at one way to accomplish that objective using the new Axiom Pro keyboards from M-Audio and CDM reader favorite Ableton Live, thanks to a first-look video provided to CDM first.

We’ve seen efforts to make this happen before, notably including the Korg Kontrol keyboard series working together with Propellerhead Reason and Novation’s Automap with software like Ableton Live. M-Audio’s Axiom Pro line has a new twist on the idea with what Avid calls “HyperControl.” Several details make HyperControl unique. For one, it doesn’t require any intervening software or drivers; the keyboard is USB class-compliant and plug-and-play, and you don’t have an additional software layer as with Automap. Also, the Axiom Pro is natively capable of sending keyboard commands, and even has a numeric keypad on the front panel of the unit. But most importantly, the Axiom Pro has its own workflow for different editing and performance functions. My suspicion is whether you love or hate HyperControl will probably hinge on how you adapt this feature.

Avid has been kind enough to give CDM an exclusive scoop on an extensive video they produced walking you through the process of setting up HyperControl with Ableton Live, step by step. Now, normally many of the videos from hardware makers make me cringe. John here has done a really terrific job, however. It’s really a tutorial and not a sales pitch, and while I’m a fan of writing and reading, this would be really confusing without the video.

Much of the working method focuses here on controlling the whole session rather than performance parameters. If that doesn’t appeal to you, skip to about seven minutes in for a discussion of “Device Mode,” which is when you finally map those eight encoders to the eight macro parameters for Device Racks so you can tweak your live synth sound. What’s nice here, though, is that you could couple that technique with the tips on recording clips, so you can play, record those clips, play back lips, and tweak all at once, one-man-band/one-woman-band style.

Have a look at the video, and let me know what else you might like to know. What isn’t covered? What other ways might you want to use a keyboard-and-software rig like this?

And don’t worry, while this week is becoming Controller Week (like shark week for MIDI nuts?), it doesn’t have to be The Ableton Live 24 Hour News Network. HyperControl also supports other software, including Avid’s own Pro Tools. Apple just released support in Logic Studio 9 and MainStage which I’m researching now. And while HyperControl is a slick moniker, I’m also researching more conventional control methods, which can even support Linux thanks to the fact that the hardware (unlike Novation’s) is class-compliant. So let us know your priorities in comments, and I’ll see if we can make them happen.

Axiom Family at M-Audio (now Avid

I Want My CDM TV

We’ll be putting more videos onto CDM TV very soon, and now you can subscribe to videos easily via iTunes, Miro, and RSS. Transcoding is fixed, too, so you can load up this video on your iPhone / iPod touch and balance it on the end of the Axiom Pro while you practice these techniques, if you like!

Subscribe to CDM TV with iTunes
Subscribe to CDM TV with RSS
Subscribe to CDM TV with Miro

Still a little thinner than we’d like, but expect this channel to heat up for the …um, fall season.

The KORG nanoSERIES has a rabid following among many Ableton Live users, and with good reason. The nanoPAD and nanoKONTROL street for about US$60, provide basic knobs + faders + transport (KONTROL) and pads and X/Y control (PAD), plus a fully-featured, cross-platform editor, but still fit in a backpack. They’re small enough to use in coach on an airplane.

Having to open Live templates, however, just to get the mappings you want is a big pain. So, instead I’ve created a basic set of MIDI Remote Scripts and Kontrol Editor templates for Mac and Windows, Live 6.x and later, and wanted to share them with you.

If you’re Windows-based and a big fan of the nano, I will say that I recommend you use something else altogether – the brilliant nativeKontrol. It’s a hell of a lot more sophisticated, gives you more control, and still requires no template:
nanoLive

Of course, there are some advantages to my (otherwise inferior) humble solution. It’s free, it works on Mac, it’s completely editable, and much of the idea was to provide an easy way of learning about MIDI Remote Scripting. (Check out the tutorial below.) Now, knowing CDM readers, I imagine someone out there can improve what I’ve done, so feel free to modify it and please send us a copy of what you’ve created!

korgnano_live.zip [Cross-platform archive; will update with a fancier release later on once I've gotten some feedback]

Ableton Live MIDI Remote Scripting How To: Custom Korg nanoSERIES Control

And, of course, read all the instructions…

Install instructions:

1. For full control, upload the templates to your Korg nanoSeries using the Kontrol Editor, via the Communication menu. (See your manual for more.)

2. Place the proper folder(s) in your User Remote Scripts folder, inside your user preferences folder (NOT the Live program folder). That’s something like (Windows Vista/7):

[Windows boot drive] > Users > [username[ > AppData > Roaming > Ableton > Live [version] > Preferences > User Remote Scripts

or (Mac OS)

[boot drive] > [Library folder] > Preferences > Ableton > Live [version] > User Remote Scripts

3. Start Ableton Live 6.x or later (restart if it was already running)

4. Select the device. Choose Preferences > MIDI/Sync, select Control Surface in the first column (nanoPAD or nanoKONTROL), and then its Input and Output ports. Finally, enable the Control Surface Input for Track and Remote. Note that you can have more than one control surface, so if you’ve got both nano’s plugged into a hub, set them both up!

Usage instructions

nanoKONTROL Scene 1 is for device control. The buttons act as triggers for pads in drum devices, and the faders control the eight Macro encoders in any selected Rack. You’re free to assign the scene 1 knobs to whatever you like.

Scenes 2-3 control tracks: the top button record arms tracks, leaving the button button free for whatever you like (mute, enable/disable). The faders control level on tracks 1-8, and knobs control the first send for each track.

Scene 4 is basically unassigned and ready for custom assignments.

Across all scenes, fader 9 is the master level. Transport buttons are automatically mapped and will work as expected.

Because there are so many controls free, I’ve created a sample template that pre-maps some parameters. In case you prefer to work that way, that template can get you started.

nanoPAD: The nano is much simpler, but I’ve set up the X/Y pad to dynamically trigger the first two parameters in a rack, making this much more fun to use with a Drum Rack. I like having access to all 8 Macros, so I’ve spread them across the four scenes. The pads will dynamically map to the first 16 pads, with 1-12 on scene 1 and 13-16 on the top of scene 2. There was some trickery to allow you to map these pads more or less as you see them in the software, beyond those first 16. I’ve provided alternative versions that allow easier continuous melodic control or keep CC 1 + 2 consistent across all four scenes.

(I didn’t say that very well, so if anyone’s feeling really motivated and wants to do a quick post or video of this or even modify them and make them better, feel free!)

To avoid accidentally triggering parameters with the X/Y pad, you can either turn flam/roll mode on all the time, or make sure instruments you want to play are added to racks first.

For more detailed instructions on Live setup and how MIDI Remote Scripts work, please see the separate tutorial!

Scripts for KORG nanoSERIES and Ableton Live by Create Digital Music is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

Want to help motivate me to do more stuff like this? (I and others on Planet CDM really will — open to non-KORG, non-Ableton requests!)