Re: First Loop Sync

[Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com>]

Ableton Live is not very accurate when in the Sync Slave position  
because it applies a bit of rounding to the incoming tempo. That's  
why Augustus Loop has this setting "Rounding tempos for Live" that  
you should activate. On the rare occasions I loop with Augustus under  
Live I use to run two loopers in parallel and ususally they stay in  
sync well, one being the Sync Master for the host LIve as well as the  
other Augustus Loop looper. If I do a lot of REverse or changing of  
the Beat Devisor one looper might slip a quarter note or so but then  
I bring it back into the music by some Revers fiddling or simply kick  
Tap Record and redo the loops right on the spot.

There are two concepts of looping in Augustus. Either you keep the  
input all up and activate Freeze Loop when you don't want the loop to  
layer the incoming signal or you keep selected the Punch In and PUnch  
Out buttons to do all substituting Redord that is also quantized. Or  
you combine both methods.

In live you can set up MIDI Clips that send the commands into  
Augustus Loop and trig those MIDI Clips from external MIDI foot  
pedals. YOu can also assign the MIDI foot pedals directly to the  
Augustus' parameters or do a combination. Regard "having Live and  
Augustus Loop" as the starting point from where you may design your  
own looping system.

I think Live/Augustus is nice for music that gain from a loose timing  
and I find it very fun to play for a "glitchy and experimental  
sound", although I prefer the looper Mobius (unfortunately it runs  
under Windows, but now that's not a big problem for todays' intel  
Macs that can boot Win as well by the BootCamp utility). An improtant  
feature that i miss in all Mac loopers of today is the Next Loop and  
Previous Loop function. I like to work with five alternative loops on  
two, or more, parallel tracks and then jump between these loops to  
simultaneously build up and change up to five "song parts". To do  
that with Augustus or SooperLooper you need to open a new instance of  
the looper plug-in for every loop and that means almost as much  
fiddling on the computer as if you would use Max/msp, Bidule or PD  
construct a custom looper from scratch ;-))

You could read up on SooperLooper as well. Maybe that one suits your  
needs better? It can run many parallel loops in sync. But it cant act  
as the Sync Master for Live, but if you don't want to use any tempo  
dependent effects of Live's that shouldn't be a problem. Another  
host, that I like better, is Bidule. It can be used as a simple host  
but it also has all kind of building objects all the down to strict  
math for those who want to bild their own processing units. The  
reason I prefer Bidule rather than Max is that the interface is based  
on musical time (tempo, note duration etc) rather than absolute time  
(milliseconds).

per


On 20 aug 2007, at 01.34, jnd wrote:

> Hi
>
> Thanks again Per for your advices...i managed to establish  
> midiclock sync between Augustus and Live.
> But I could not achieve the goal of recording the following loops  
> in sync with the first one.
> What i am doing wrong?
> Can you explain me step by step? Idiot proof style....
> This is becoming frustrating....i always thought  that preparing a  
> live looping setup on ableton live....would be a more  
> straightfoward thing. But it seems almost impossible...
>
> Thanks again Peri for your help....and anyone else willing to share  
> the secret of how to live loop with ableton live.
>
> Ana
>
>
> On Aug 18, 2007, at 7:46 PM, Per Boysen wrote:
>
>> On 18 aug 2007, at 20.20, jnd wrote:
>>
>>> Hi again Per  ...
>>>
>>> Thanks...i downloaded the Augustus plug-in. But i can't follow  
>>> your instructions : / ... how do i set the plug-in to send his  
>>> tempo as a midiclock?
>>
>> 1. Open the plug-in's GUI.
>> 2. Click the "About/Register" button.
>> 3. Select the "MIDI output" box.
>> 4. Either save your host and launch Live again or delete the plug- 
>> in from the plug-in slot and open a new instance of it. This is  
>> for the change to take effect.
>>
>> Augustus Loop now opens a virtual MIDI Port that is named  
>> "Augustus Loop 1" by Ableton Live's MIDI/sync preferences. If you  
>> open a second plug-in, on another Live track, it will show up as  
>> "Augustus Loop 2". You should only use the first one as the Sync  
>> Master though, so be sure to activate the green Host Tempo button  
>> in the plug-in's GUI.
>>
>>> Greetings from Portugal
>>
>> Cool! I've been to Lisboa a couple of times and once lived four  
>> months on Kap Verde (former Portuguese colony and still very  
>> influenced, the vibe somewhere between Portugal and Africa)
>>
>> Greetings from Sweden
>>