Round Robin with Ableton Live's Sampler

When you program instruments using Live's Sampler you often have the problem that the groove or melody you have sounds too static. You can overcome this by using different velocities of a sample or using a technique called Round Robin, where there a different versions of the same sample which change every note.

Set up Ableton Live 8 to perform live using just one button/footswitch

Imagine yourself as a solo performer or part of a band, where you use Ableton Live just like a workstation. Where you have a song consisting of different parts. Where you want to switch from a rhodes in the verse to a synth in the chorus -  both played with the same keyboard. And you don't have to have multiple tracks for this, so you are light on the CPU. But best of all you can do this with a single button or even better a footswitch.

How to chop a loop in Reason 6 or Record Duo and use it in Kong

Today I'll show how to chop up a loop in Propellerheads Reason 6 or Record Reason Duo and use it instantly in Kong.

Akai MPK mini and Ableton Live

Lately I got myself an Akai MPK mini. I had an Akai LPK25 as well as a Korg nanoKONTROL (first generation). Both units were great, but I thought on the road one single device, which blocks only one USB-slot, would be more convenient.

But there wasn't a User Remote Script in Ableton Live for the Akai MPK mini provided with the device. I found one created by Matthew Adams which he generously shared on the Ableton Forum. I thought it was great, but didn't use the full potential of the MPK mini. So I decided to expand Matt's script.

Automate "Slice to Midi" in Ableton Live

The convenient function "Slice to Midi" isn't mapped to a hotkey in Ableton Live, you have to right click and select the appropriate menu item in the context menu.

Now, I did a quick hack with Autohotkey (sorry, Windows only [There seems to exist a port of Autohotkey. I couldn't test it but look here]) to reduce the necessary user action to a single keystroke.

UPDATE: New version checks if the Live window is active, before the command is executed.

Beat juggling with follow actions in Ableton Live

Inspired by a question I answered on the Ableton forum, this entry will show you how to create a template for beat juggling in Ableton Live, which comes handy if you use a controller like Novation's Launchpad or the APC 20/40 from Akai.

Let the attack begin!

So I'm going to start this blog after all.

I'm planning to do some tips, tricks and tutorials on Ableton Live, Propellerheads Reason and  music making in general. But maybe I'll torture you with travel pictures or recipes too. We'll see.

Now I hope you have some fun or find something interesting on these pages. Please let me know in the comments.

Cheers, mothergarage