If you've ever worked in Ableton Live's arrangement view, then you know
how useful the loop brace is.
I could select a section of my song enable loop using command l press spacebar
and that song section is going to continue to loop until I stop it.
Now that's incredibly useful when you're in the studio producing or recording
and easy to correct maybe a missed drum hit or a chord that you got wrong
on guitar and you want to punch into that section record that small bit
and then punch out and leave the rest of the section untouched. But it's
not incredibly useful and a live performance setting where you want to
just repeat a song section. Hey this is Will dog Ableton Live certified
trainer founder from studio stage today I want to show you how to create
what I call a repeat track therapy tracks going to allow you to repeat
any section of your song at any time using one button on your midi controller
using a key on your keyboard. It's also going to allow you to repeat it
anytime in the section you don't have to wait till the last bar to enable
the repeat and repeat the section. And then finally you can have as many
loops and as many repeats as you want per song. So let's get started. All right.
In order to make this happen we're gonna use the icy driver. Now this is
the last part in our icy driver tutorial series. If you haven't set up
the icy driver yet you're not familiar with what it is. Then make sure
to check out the video below where I walk you through how to enable the
icy drivers you're using APC. I've linked to free options that you can
install on your windows P.C. that allow you to do the same exact thing
but if you're using a Mac we're gonna use the icy Java which is available
on every Mac for free to enable this to make this happen. Now in order
for this to work we need to enable the icy. We need to make sure our song
has locators. If you check out the song file I'm working with. You can
see all my locators here. I've just named them per song sections per the
sections and my song and I can really quick quickly get to them by double
clicking to start a section or I can click to a section previous.
Earlier in the song to jump back to it. So the downside to using locators own range
of view is as you go to drag your songs to build your set. They don't come
with your song file so that's why I use something called a markers track.
She could see the markers track that I have here and my file markers track
is going to save my song section information so I know exactly what each
section's name is. So I know exactly what part is what. And then I actually
have Ableton Live. Add locators for me automatically. Now if you've never
created a markers track before then make sure to check out the tutorial
of the link below. On how to create a markers track so you could save your
song sections to your file. Now with locators in my file and in this case
I have my locators named I typically don't do that. I typically just have
the name and the markers track and I just have a locator that would look
like this. That's normally what my file looks like. I just happen to have
these locators named because they're in the song file not in a set.
OK so we need to add a midi track. The shortcut to do that is command shifty
or control shifty if you're on a P.C. and then I'm going to rename my midi
track using the renamed shortcut commander or controller and we'll just
rename that repeat then what I want to do is create a midi clip.
That's a measure long so I'm going to just select this amount of space here and
then do command shift them or again control shift them if you're on a P.C.
that's going to create a mini clip. That's a measure long if you're on
live 10 you can double click to create a mini clip that's going to match
whatever measure length that you want. Or you could select your clip and
go to the create menu and do insert mini clip to add your mini clip.
Now with our clip added I need to add a mini note to that. All right so I'm
gonna choose D sharp minus two double click to create my clit and I'm just
gonna drag it to be the entire length of the clip. Now just personal preference.
I like it being the entire length of the clip. One measure one measure
so that when I look at the note and I look at the clip it looks like the
note fills the clip. You could see that up here. That just kind of gives
me a visual indication Okay. good everything's right.
That's just personal preference. So now if that no added I'm going to go to the
mini rulings or this track and I'm going to make sure to route this to
the icy driver and I'm gonna choose Channel 1. I could use any channel
I want. Just make sure it doesn't interfere with any other rulings you
have or any other midi controllers you have connected to your computer.
Now what I need to do to make this happen is a sign this repeat clip to
my previous locator button the previous locator button is up here right
below the ad locator. Or delete locator button. So when I click this it's
going to jump me back to the previous locator you can see I'm navigating
the song this way if I jump this way it's gonna jump me to the previous
or the next locator so I have previous and then I have next locators button
we want to sign it to the previous locator button. So what I'm gonna do
is do command and control them if I'm on a P.C. and you'd see everything
that's purple can be assigned to a MIDI controller or in this case a mini could.
So what I'm gonna do is just jump back in my song a little bit. You just
need to go a little before when your clip hits. OK I'm going to play it
and then I'm going to click the previous locator button and you'll see
that that's mapped to that clip. I'm going to press pause command him to
get out of there. So now if I press play. Then you're going to see this hits
It's gonna jump me to the previous locator which is just going to keep
looping that over and over. Now how do we practically put this into play.
What I'm going to do is I'm going to take this clip and I'm going to add
this clip to the last measure of every single one of my song sections.
The fastest way to do this that I found unless you already have your your
repeat clips saved over in your browser which I don't right now I'm going
to press minus to zoom out then I'm going to click on this clip and hold
all option. This is one of my favorite tricks and when I do I'll option
and drag it duplicates that clip. So what I'm gonna do is just really quickly
drag and I'm going to add this to the end. Again the last measure of every
song one of my song sections only takes about 10 20 seconds to do this
but you do it one time it's saved with your song and it gives you the ability
to repeat any one of your song sections at any time. So let me go.
Let's go to Section 8 here and I'll show exactly how this works. Well let
it play. You'll see once we get to that last measure right we jump back
and we repeat Perfect right. That's exactly what we want to happen now.
That's really useful. That's really great. But we probably don't want to
repeat every single song section every time. So how do we enable and disable this
This is where we use key mapping or mini mapping again. But instead of
mapping to previous locator as we did before it we're going to map this
to the on off for a repeat track. So I'm going to command K again or control
K for on a P.C. and I'm gonna press R for repeat. That's really easy for
me to remember. Okay so now I'm gonna click on that on off again and I'm
going to press just this button on my maybe controller so now I can control
the repeat on off from my midi controller when I hit command him to get
out of that. Now by default I want the default state of this track I want
it to be turned off so I'm going to leave it turned off right now and I'm
gonna play that song Section 8 again and let's listen in your ear it's
just going to move right into Section B.
All right. Perfect. Everything's great.
I could press spacebar to stop my song. Now let's go back.
Let's do that again. This time I'm going to press the button that I mapped
on my mini controller. You could see that enables my repeat track.
You get one button. All I'm thinking is Do I want to repeat this and it automatically
repeats if I want to close that down so it doesn't repeat again. I could
press that button again to disable the repeat.
Now the beauty of this again is I have this set for every single song Section One.
The other thing is I could be anywhere in the section right press.
It's not going to happen immediately and all I'm thinking about is just
asking myself one question. Do I run a repeat the section I'm currently playing.
I don't have to think OK I want to repeat this which versus this let me
find the verse on my midi controller. I just really simply think do I want
to repeat the section I'm on. If so I press that button any time in the
section right. The one thing I just have to be aware of. I have to enable
it before the last measure of my song section. That's the only kind of
caveat to that. Now the other thing again because we have this set to every
single song section. We could go anywhere in our song. Let's go back let's
to say what for singing.
Let's go back to this drumming section that we started this tutorial talking
about using a loop race going to enable this using my mini controller.
You're going to see it's going to jump back again. Again I can disable
it now and if I jump ahead in the song it's going to play straight through
that and go right into Section A. Again hands off and I don't have to think
about it.
So use it. I see driver is one of my favorite ways to create a very hands
off simplified ableton live tracks experience. So we've talked about in
all these tutorials creating a stop track creating a pause and go to next
track creating a repeat track. And the goal with all this is to make it
hands off and simple you don't need tons of computers and a big rig and
someone Manning just tracks to have flexibility and freedom. You could
do all that using a free utility format called the ISC driver are using
one of the free alternatives for Windows P. C format your song and you
have tons of flexibility. Now
Now if you want to learn even more about how to perform on stage with able
to live in a way that's efficient stable and flexible then head to from
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for lighting all sorts of crazy things. But if you're in a band and you
want to learn how to expand your skill set as a drummer as a guitar players
and music director or if you're in a band you want to learn how to take
your performance to the next level. Then again headed from Studio Stage
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