dawman wrote: ↑Thu Aug 22, 2019 4:27 pm
Borg can you get your TL to loop in Time without missing a beat?
I’m using mine as you described but it seems awkward, but it’s possibly because Ive got it coming off of a MIDI Solutions Router.
I’ll hook up to it directly and try again.
As mentioned before, when doing solo guitar ambient, I just use the switches on the TL and rely on my own crooked timing, but when playing along sequenced material, I use the next setup:
This is all done from the midi controller for clarity, you can still use the switches on the TL together with the midi signals.
I set up several clips on a midi track in Ableton Live, one for each looper function of the TimeLine (rec/dub, play, stop, rev, oct, undo, redo) and draw in one note per clip (look up which note does what in the manual, you can use CCs too). So when clip 1 is fired, the TL will start recording, when clip 2 is fired, well, the TL goes from rec to play, ...
I assign these clips to my midi foot controller.
If you know Ableton, you'll understand that when firing a clip, it will start playing according to your quantization settings. I usually set this to 1bar (or 1/4th). So, when I press the button assigned to my 'rec clip' on the foot controller, the 'rec clip' starts playing in time with the sequence, and that should trigger the TL to record. When you're phrase ends, you press the rec or play button to close the loop. This will of course follow the synchronization you set up (normally clips will follow the global Q, but you can give each clip its own launch Q).
Important!!!:
In the above 'normal situation' example, all clips are short, non looping clips (with just one function per clip/button), for obvious reasons (in normal situations you want the command to be sent just once). You can set up your clips in various ways, of course. Some examples:
A non looping four bar clip with note 0 on the first beat of bar 1, and note 2 and 14 on the first beat of bar 3, will start recording when the clip fires, and in time with your sequence, will end the recording after two bars, put the looper in play mode and immediately reverses the loop.
A looping eight bar clip, note 0 on 1.1.1, note 2 on 5.1.1 will start recording when fired, goes into play mode after four bars, and goes into overdub mode when it gets back at 1.1.1, goes out of overdub at 5.1.1 and so on until the clip is stopped.
Set up another, lets say, one bar clip, with note 2 put on every beat. If you fire this clip, the TL will restart the loop on every quarter note.
Duplicate this clip, and double its length. So you have a 2bar clip with 8 quarter notes. Now set this up that it starts on 1.1.1 but only loops the second bar. Put one note 16 at the begin of the clip (so it won't be triggered again when the clip loops the second bar) and you'll get the quarter notes, but with the half speed sound.
Or something easy: Do your recording the usual way with the TL switches, send note 2 from whatever source to the TL and it will play the loop from the beginning.
Lots of possibilities to set up your clips... If your playing along a finished song, you can even map out the entire track with lots of trickery (not that I have tried, but possible for sure. It will become tricky when reversing and going in and out of half/full speed).
You need some kind of sequencer of course for this workflow.
What's awkward Jimmy? I guess every midi stream has a bit of latency, but I haven't noticed anything odd. Whatever latency is being introduced when starting a recording, will be practically the same when going into the loop, so that evens out. And if there is a tiny discrepancy (maybe 1 or 2 ms) it will be far better than my lousy timing. Such an issue can be tackled by placing the 'play note' on every spot you want the loop to restart.
For convenience, I'll put the notes here (like I said, you can also use CCs, look 'm up)
Record note 0, velocity > 0
Play note 2, velocity > 0
Stop note 4, velocity > 0
Reverse (toggle) note 14, velocity > 0
Full/Half Speed (toggle) note 16, velocity > 0
Pre/Post (toggle) note 17, velocity > 0
Undo (to initial loop) note 7, velocity > 0
Redo note 9, velocity > 0
Reverse (absolute) note 103, velocity = 127
Forward (absolute) note 103, velocity = 0
Half Speed (absolute) note 104, velocity = 127
Full Speed (absolute) note 104, velocity = 0
If you're into Bob Ross... A guy that could have been Bob's brother has this youtube channel Chords of Orion. Guitar oriented, but all about looping. Covers lots of devices, like Volante and TL. Funny as hell when stoned...