It helps to make an "input" track, and then have several "loop" tracks, all the loop tracks receive audio from the input and this way you can record loops into any one of your loop tracks from any one of your input sources - so an external mixer or summing all your inputs into one within ableton might be a good idea but playing with different routings can spark new ideas until you settle with one.

I actually got into Ableton Live in the first place to do live looping - a la Keller Williams, EOTO, etc.. and I went through dozens of configurations with hardware synths, drum pads, live drums with triggers to MIDI and pretty much had a full on looping rig before I really got deep into production - where as most people start producing tracks and then come up with a way to perform them live.

So my set now is a combination of 2 DJ decks, a 5 track Live PA deck, and the ability to route an external source into any of the 5 PA tracks. I drag wavs from the browser into the DJ decks, live sets with stems of my productions into the PA deck or loop on the fly without having to switch templates - so the possibilities are endless.

Like 80M85 said, "select next scene on launch" and "select clip on launch" are things that can either help or mess up your flow.

If you want to extend your mapping options definitely look into Clyphx. You can name name regular audio/midi clips with commands - for example, "arm track 1, mute track 2 and turn send A to 50%" all by launching a single clyphx clip.. it basically took max for live out of all of my sets because of what it can do and it's just a remote script.

Sorry about the rant but i hope it at least sparks some ideas..

No need to apologize for that rant. It's informative. Not to mention there is a download of useful scripts and a demo Live set.

I am all about improvisation and collective improv is the best but it is hard to find people with the talent AND drive to do it professionally
EOTO and Zilla come to mind as the select few with both
let's not forget the true pioneers of the 70's the Grateful Dead and Tangerine Dream

my jambient sets are completely improvised using a bunch of vsts and a novation sl37 (i have even better gear now) all within ableton
the drums were not improvised per say but were manipulated live using reaktor
you can find them here http://soundcloud.com/jackmazzotti
it is a little stressful to do all this solo trying to keep it interesting
my recommendation is to create special custom loops that cannot be created live in order to give yourself some breathing room (like picking the next synth patch and melody/chords/bass line to loop)
i always cue up my next idea in my headphones like a dj would his next track
when it's ready i will use eqs to mix it in
one of the greatest things about improv is you will come up with ideas that you would never do otherwise plus it's fun to live on the edge

i am making good headway on my live set. it'd be nice to share some info that i am picking up, and see what others are figuring out. it is a mammoth topic, i find myself thinking about it throughout the day.

after seeing jeremy ellis perform, i added drum pads back into my set. that is a great thing to be using off the bat. if i ever use a sample from an existing song, i have to hit it in rather than just press play.

i agree with jambient that you should have some content handy for when your hunting down new patches.

i have the apc40, but i find that it's really hard to find all the info on hacking it and the add-ons (like clyphx) all in one place. as if someone needs to write a book on this topic.

what's really driving me nuts lately is figuring out a good routing scheme for resampling (like tim exile).

ableton live is a fairly minimalist program compared to other audio apps in the past, but there's like 1000 different ways to put together a live set inside it. this flexibility makes it hard because you have so many options. back with hardware beatboxes and loopers, you pretty much had a clear path for how this is going to go down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8GFfVvE ... re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAA3PkWBHuY

http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?t=20174

You might find these interesting.

With Ableton: Often when jamming I'll change my soft-synth settings on the fly to create something more suited to the current song...and I'll record a midi clip for, lets say, a bassline. If I really like that bassline & its sound, and I want to use it at a later staeg for something else, one way to do it is to use Clyphx and the Snapshot function to save the settings of my 'BASS' scene. Then I just drag the midi clip with the snap shot settings on it further down the scene or onto my desktop.

When the music ends & I get home and want to use that bass sound again, I just load that midi clip into the 'BASS' scene, play the clip, and all the device setting are restored. I have various instrument scenes (BASS, PAD, SYNTH etc.) as a default template, so that if I do bring in a midi clip with Clyphx snapshot info on it, those devices are always available for Clyphx to affect.

To make it easier I've just made a simple Autohotkey script so that I just need to select an empty midi slot in a particular scene, hit the hot-key (which is winkey-Z), type a name for the clip into the pop-up box, and the snapshot clip is created.


I guess I've just found that when playing live, some really cool ideas come to mind - especially when playing off what other people are doing; and I like to save those ideas and use them later on without having to pause what I'm currently doing.

1 man electronic band?

+1....feckin awesome.

By this logic, Ableton is not minimalist (except in how you set the layout). I worked with Cubase, FL and Reason before Ableton showed up, so I'm wondering what you mean. Which of these is maximal compared to Live?

One note, considering Beardyman, the spaceman dude above and mrtunes statement, is that dedicated hardware has been filling this niche for years.