On Thu, October 9, 2008 12:09 pm, Sebastian Moors wrote:
> To be honest: I have no idea how Ableton Live works and what it is :)
> What is the "loop-based" approach of Ableton Live? I should try a demo
> version next week..
FWIW: Check out some YouTube demos, first.
We usually think of songs in terms of sections. E.g. Chorus, Verse,
Bridge, Intro, etc. Often, when we play a Verse... there's an already set
"phrase" or "loop" that we want to play under the Verse while we
mix-and-match whatever words or melody. I often take a similar approach
when programming patterns for H2.
Usually, we actually *play* these patterns instead of having some looping
device play the phrase... but what if you *could* trigger looping patterns
at will (and the software makes sure that everything is in-sync). That
would open up a lot of flexibility for real-time adjustment of a song --
not to mention ways to experiment.
So, in "Live" you have a set of loops (audio, MIDI) that you group
together in sort of a matrix.
| INTRO | VERSE | CHORUS | BRIDGE |
--------+--------+---------+--------+--------+
DRUMS1 | | | | |
DRUMS2 | | | | |
BASS | | | | |
GUITAR | | | | |
VOC 1 | | | | |
VOC 2 | | | | |
This is similar to the "Patterns" in hydrogen -- except that we only have
ONE instrument. Live calls this a "scene." Each block is a loop, and the
loop can be a MIDI loop (like an H2 pattern) or an audio loop.
While playing, I could trigger all the verse loops to start, and then (if
I want to) also trigger the DRUMS2/INTRO loop to play with it (just to see
how it sounds). Or, I could mix-and-match any of the loops I want.
This is similar to Hydrogen's patterns. Often, I'll layer 2 or 3 patterns
for a Verse, and 2 or 3 more for the Chorus, etc. If I could group them
into a sort of "scene," then I could possibly use a MIDI controller to
trigger them. Then, while in a live concert, if I want to repeat a
chorus, or vamp on an intro while ad-libbing something, or anything else
that inspires me -- it can be done easily on-stage. Otherwise, I'm
chained to the MIDI programming.
Going beyond programming drum patterns, since we have a sampler... we
could possibly allow the patterns to be audio loops. This doesn't seem
like a large leap. It's like using a really long sample and triggering it
at beat 1.
One obvious thing that you would need when integrating audio loops is beat
slicing and time stretching (to support changing tempos). There are a few
scatter FLOSS programs out there that attempt these -- but there's nothing
really *integrated* yet, so they have limited usefulness. Having such a
thing integrated into an application like Hydrogen is something people
really want/need. It's possible that we could even integrate that
existing code into H2.
However, if we go this route, I think having a proof-of-concept *without*
any sort of time stretching or beat slicing would be a good start. It
would be a known limitation: "If you use audio loops, you can not change
tempo in real time."
This is a far-off goal, and just an idea... but of all the Free audio
applications out there -- I think H2 probably comes the closest (in
interface and concepts) to being able to fill the need for an Ableton
Live-like application.
--
G a b r i e l M B e d d i n g f i e l d
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