So, I’m currently putting together a new live set, which will hopefully be based around the Akai Force.
I can load loops etc. on the Force and do basic project movement from Ableton OK, but getting to the real nitty-gritty is throwing up some quandries. Thoughts welcome.
If I generate my own clip loops entirely on Ableton, I can take advantage of plug-ins for effects etc. (delays and reverbs, with tails are a bit more difficult). Branch off a main Ableton project, turn most of the content into clip loops and transfer to the Force.
That’s the mechanism I’m currently using.
However, there are some downsides. Every clip I generate, needs warp turning off on the Force since it still suffers with the glitching at the beginning of clips with big transients (e.g. on kicks). Therefore, there’s an argument to take the source samples and load them into kits, and move MIDI clips across from Ableton for triggering. That’s kind-of OK, but I’d lose some of the processing I’d set up in Ableton. Also, Ableton’s drum racks aren’t as feature-rich for processing as say - Battery, which I use most of the time. Also, turning off warp, limits me to 1 BPM setting.
The clip/loop generation on Ableton feels like the right way forward, but then I have the conflicts mentioned above.
Also, on Ableton, I think I need to manually generate the audio loops for each midi clip individually. That’s do-able, but I’m aiming for a lot of loops, to give me a big pool to select from for performance.
Am I maybe missing a trick which would make life easier? Thanks for any tips!