RE: Mobius Inside Ableton

[Jeff Larson <jeff.larson@sailpoint.com>]

> I would like to add another capability: running Mobius inside Ableton
> and using it to overdub guitar parts. I like to do this on Stolen
> Moments by Oliver Nelson. I was playing with it a bit, and it seems
> like when I hit Next Loop, it immediately switches and starts
> recording the next loop rather than waiting till the beginning of the
> next bar. I have Synch Mode set to "Host Beat", and Mobius is properly
> waiting till the beginning of a bar to start recording. The Next Loop
> function, however, does not wait for the next bar. Is there a way to
> get it to do this?

The timing of loop switches is governed by the Switch Quantize
parameter in the Preset dialog under the Switch tab.  Common settings
are Loop, Cycle, and Subcycle.  These switch points are based on even
divisions of the loop and do not necessarily match what the host
thinks the "bar" is.  Usually a bar corresponds to either a Cycle or
Subcycle depending on how the loop was recorded and modified after
recording.  For example, if you're playing 4/4 go to the
Synchronization tab and enter 4 in the Record Beats/Bar parameter.  As
you record Mobius will count beats being sent by the host and generate
a new cycle every 4 beats.  With Switch Quantize set to Cycle you
should switch very close to a host bar.

I'm curious about how this works out.  There is always a slight amount
of drift between Mobius and the host that tends to balance out over
time but at any given cycle you may not be exactly on a host bar.  If
you're early, it will wait a few milliseconds until the bar is reached
which isn't so bad, but if you're late it may wait the remainder of
the bar which is bad.

It would be more reliable to use Time Copy mode to switch the loop and
instantly give it an empty loop the same size as the source loop, and
set Time Copy Mode to Overdub so you're immediately overdubbing.  The
downside is that the copy has to be the same size as the previous
loop, which for building sections is probably not what you want.

Using scripts you can wait for exact host beat/bar boundaries so
that may be better for you, but scripts are relatively complicated
to develop.  If you need to go there let's move the dialog over
to the Mobius Yahoo group.

Regards,
Jeff