Ableton/Reaktor

["Mark Smart" <mwsmart@insightbb.com>]

Well, after much futzing and frustration, I finally got this setup working 
the
way I want. I like Ableton a lot, but I wanted a way to automate the steps 
with
a sequencer that could be advanced to the next step with just one pedal, 
like
what I did purely inside standalone Reaktor before.

So today I figured out how to make a Reaktor sequencer inside Ableton drive
Ableton's remote control using the MIDI loopback trick from this article:

http://www.keyboardmag.com/story.asp?sectioncode=32&storycode=12143

So you can do sequences of steps like this:

1. Play the drum loop from track 4 slot 1 only.

2. Continue playing tha0t drum loop while recording from the audio inputs 
into
track 1 slot 1 and track 2 slot 1.

3. Hit a crash cymbal, play a new drum loop from Track 4 slot 2, and begin
recording MIDI from the keyboard into Track 3 (a MIDI track with NI's B4 
organ)
slot 2.

4. Keep playing the second drum loop and play back the organ recording 
while
letting the guitar through the audio input for soloing.

..etc. Pretty cool.

Better than having the entire structure set in stone, because you can let 
each
step go on as long as you feel like.

I'm psyched, this will also make for a really cool Continuum demo at NAMM.

Mark Smart
http://www.marksmart.net/