by djnarrative | 19 Sep, 2014 | Reckorder Tutorials
Dummy clips in Ableton are hugely useful and can be open up a whole world of possibilities for performance and midi control. Here is a nice tutorial from the DSP Project showing how to trigger an envelope curve from one pad on the...
by djnarrative | 16 Dec, 2012 | The Reckorder Project
A few years back i found an awesome piece of software called Native Kontrol. It enables you to control ableton with a range of midi controllers and adds a whole host of really useful tools to your arsenal. The main reason for getting this £20 piece of software was so that i could play drum racks with my new launchpad, but that is one of many features, and they're all expertly described in these three short videos from Stray. It took me a good while to get used to them, and i had to make my own overlay for the ableton functions as theres so much you can do, but once i got my head around it, it made real improvements to my workflow and made it a lot more fun as i didnt have to use the mouse. The main things i turn to for it are mpc style triggering in clip mode, working with the scale mode, and step sequencer, and controlling ableton. I had to revisit it to refresh and one of the things that i didnt understand was the scale editor on the step sequencer. After playing around with it and a few support emails (Stray's support is awesome) i realised that the 40 or so scales arent replicated in step sequencer, but you can make a major or minor scale and then program your arpeggios within that scale, which has created really different styles compared to playing them in on the keys. It led me to investigate scales, keys, and the circle of fifths, which i'll stick in a seperate blog post. I highly...
by djnarrative | 8 Mar, 2011 | Reckorder Tutorials
I really like the launchpad as both a performance and compositional tool, and its proved really useful in djing and music workshops. However there are restrictions with it, so below are some of the useful links and solutions i've found along the way. In its normal form there is a great deal you can do with Launchpad. Basically the session page controls triggering of clips in session view. The user 1 page controls drum rack & is mappable, user 2 page is max for live plugs ins and whatever you want to map, and the mixer page is for ableton mixer. All the basic info is on the novation video tutorials so start with them if you havent already http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEhsEu3NnLM&feature=related In user mode we can learn any parameter to the launchpad, (Remember to turn on the remote button on the input and output of the launchpad in ableton preferences) and here's an example of mapping the ableton cross fader. The Launchpad outputs notes at maximum velocity which is a real shame, so here's a workaround for limiting note velocity on a launchpad -http://www.novationmusic.com/answerbase/en/article.php?id=540 The launchpad also doesn't light up in user mode 1, but it is possible by following this tutorial. You can get a lot more functionality out of the launchpad, by getting a 3rd party software. I've tried (and would recommend) two in particular. The first was midi katapult, which was about a tenner, and allows you to customise the launchpad in really useful ways. The main thing i found useful was being able to colour the pads, and once i'd got my head around the programming...
