Anyone use their Voyager alongside Ableton Live?

[Splashmash]

Hi.

I posted this on the Ableton forum but I was hoping someone here may use Ableton alongside their Moog and may be able to help me.

I’m currently hoping to add my Moog Voyager (I’m sure this probs will apply to any MIDI-enabled keyboard) to my club set. However I’m experiencing some dificulties.

I want to be able to record a loop live and then have it loop over and over.

This works like a dream if I record as audio (hit record then 4 bars later hit the play button to start it looping). But I want more!!!

I want to be able to record the loop as midi so that I can then tweak the synth parameters whilst it’s looping up (eg, tweak cutoff etc whilst looping up the midi notes pattern).

Here’s the problem:

I record a 4 bar loop and only touch the keys on the keyboard (no knob tweaks) with the intention that only note on/off gets recorded and no midi CCs. When I hit play to play back my newly recorded loop I turn off the record arm (or just the overwrite button) so that I can tweak without recording the tweaks. however, when my loops loop back to the beggining, all the parameters “jump” to their positions at the time of recording. I may be sweeping the filter cutoff down smoothly but then at the beginning of the loop, it will jump to the high cutoff seting I recorded at. Very annoying.

It is as if a “snaphsot” of current knob positions is recorded.

Even more strangely, a snapshot is only recorded of those parameters which ableton has “heard” being tweaked. Let me explain… If I add a new MIDI track and record a clip without having tweaked any parameters, no snapshot will have been recorded. If I then wiggle the cutoff and then record another clip it will record a snapshot but only of the cutoff position. Next if I wiggle res then record a clip it will record a snapshot of cutoff and res (as well as any note on/off information). The track doesn’t need to have been armed for it to “hear” a tweak and later create a snapshot of it. As long as the Midi track exists and the right MIDI input is selected it will “listen” for CCs and record a snapshot of these when recording.

Any idea how this can be fixed? Does it sound like it’s Ableton or my Moog being naughty?

Regards

Gareth

[monads]

@Splashmash

I want to be able to record the loop as midi so that I can then tweak the synth parameters whilst it’s looping up (eg, tweak cutoff etc whilst looping up the midi notes pattern).

Here’s the problem:

I record a 4 bar loop and only touch the keys on the keyboard (no knob tweaks) with the intention that only note on/off gets recorded and no midi CCs. When I hit play to play back my newly recorded loop I turn off the record arm (or just the overwrite button) so that I can tweak without recording the tweaks. however, when my loops loop back to the beggining, all the parameters “jump” to their positions at the time of recording. I may be sweeping the filter cutoff down smoothly but then at the beginning of the loop, it will jump to the high cutoff seting I recorded at. Very annoying.

It is as if a “snaphsot” of current knob positions is recorded.

This is correct. What I do is record that current knob position and drag it all the way to the beginning of the sequence. This way the current position is captured upon playback and when you get to that filter sweep all is smooth.

@Splashmash

Even more strangely, a snapshot is only recorded of those parameters which ableton has “heard” being tweaked. Let me explain… If I add a new MIDI track and record a clip without having tweaked any parameters, no snapshot will have been recorded. If I then wiggle the cutoff and then record another clip it will record a snapshot but only of the cutoff position. Next if I wiggle res then record a clip it will record a snapshot of cutoff and res (as well as any note on/off information). The track doesn’t need to have been armed for it to “hear” a tweak and later create a snapshot of it. As long as the Midi track exists and the right MIDI input is selected it will “listen” for CCs and record a snapshot of these when recording.

Any idea how this can be fixed? Does it sound like it’s Ableton or my Moog being naughty?

Regards

Not sure if I can help on this one. I’m using DP 4.6. I don’t understand why it would record cutoff information if you’re only tweaking the resonance in the same pass.

[suthnear]

It’s definitely live that’s doing this - the voyager has no capacity to remember the state of it’s controllers, nor does it send them unless you actually change them by tweaking. Does live give you some way of seeing recorded controller data?

[Splashmash]

Yes, live will let you see the recorded data.

In fact, I conducted this experiment with my Kenton control freak last night. It appears to show that it is indeed live that is causing this behaviour.

All of the following was carried out with record arm on and record overdub off.

I set up a fader on my Freak to control CC 11 on MIDI Channel 1.

A)Recorded one take where I moved the fader from top to bottom

Result: Red dot on CC 11 in envelope view and a sweep visible (from top to bottom)

B) Recorded another take without moving the fader

Result: CC data still recorded in the clip. A straight line at the bottom

C) Recorded take where moved fader from bottom to top

Result: Sweep visible from bottom to top (as expected)

D) Record another take without moving fader

Result: CC data recorded in clip. A straight line at the top

E) Moved fader to bottom WHILST NOT RECORDING. Then recorded a new take without moving fader

Result: CC data recorded in clip. A straight line at the TOP

So… it seems that when recording a clip, Ableton remembers the LAST RECORDED VALUE OF ALL PARAMETERS and this information is stored in the clip (instead of the preferable no CC data being recorded). If a fader is moved to a new position and THEN a new recording is made, the clip still shows the LAST RECORDED VALUE, and not it’s current position. This is the same behaviour observed with my Moog.

Thus, it seems that it is the ableton software remembering and recording parameter positions, and not my MIDI gear sending out “snapshots”.


As a final check…

F) Recorded a take whilst moving fader from bottom to middle

Result: Sweep visible from bottom to middle

G) Recorded another take without moving fader

Result: CC data recorded in clip. A straight line near the middle


Anyone on here using Live specificly who’s come up with a workaround. The best suggestion I’ve had so far (which was indeed a pretty good one but it would be nice to solve without using extra software_) is to use MidiOx to filter out all MIDI CCs (just allow note on/off through)