Digital Larry
Friend of Leo's
I spent years with Cakewalk/SONAR and for whatever reason stopped being productive with it.
Then I spent a couple years trying to figure out Ableton Live, which I've now figured out at SOME level well enough to start dozens of tunes and finish the few that rise out of the murk.
I'd had ongoing trouble with my Beatstep Pro and Live, that is trying to sync the BSP to Ableton's clock but use the BSP to program patterns and melodies. Even though I have a Push 2 which allows sequencing from its pads, I really like the BSP's "randomize" feature, especially on drum patterns where it can mix things up a bit in a generally acceptable way to add some variation and interest as you go along.
What would happen was that I'd record one pattern and then the BSP would NOT trigger sounds in Live. The MIDI activity monitor would flash, but nothing would come into a channel, even with "all inputs, all channels" selected. If I power cycled the BSP then it would work again for a small period of time. I tried using Live's Max MIDI monitor but it absolutely refused to display what types of messages were coming in. When I hooked the BSP directly to MIDI-OX I could see that it was sending short sysex messages in addition to MIDI clock. I guess those are MMC? I went into the BSP settings to try to turn all that off but that thing is ferociously complex and I don't know whether it made any difference.
What seems to prevent this is to TURN OFF ALL SYNC INPUTS when using Live as the timing master. I think I figured I would leave some sync inputs on, in the event that I wanted to use them. I think that I found that Live, when trying to sync to external, kinda does a rubber-band thing until it settles down, which isn't all that great. Perhaps the BSP was in some sort of feedback loop, I really don't know.
Ok next issue was that Live was starting to take longer and longer to start up, even on an empty project. Last night I was getting ready to submit a ticket, as it was now going into permanent "not responding" mode upon startup. The intelligent solution finder actually called up some articles which hit the nail on the head. They suggested unplugging all USB devices, seeing if it helped, and then adding them back one by one.
I unplugged my USB 16-port hub, and all of a sudden the program opened in a reasonable ~15 seconds. However, the Behringer XR-18 audio interface was not active. This wasn't even on the USB hub, it's plugged directly into the PC on its own wire. I power cycled the box, which didn't help.
The X-Air mixer app seemed to be OK, but I went off to Behringer's site and updated the following:
- X-Air app
- XR-18 firmware
- XR-18 USB audio drivers
And it all seemed to help (knock on wood)!
That's all I got for today.
Then I spent a couple years trying to figure out Ableton Live, which I've now figured out at SOME level well enough to start dozens of tunes and finish the few that rise out of the murk.
I'd had ongoing trouble with my Beatstep Pro and Live, that is trying to sync the BSP to Ableton's clock but use the BSP to program patterns and melodies. Even though I have a Push 2 which allows sequencing from its pads, I really like the BSP's "randomize" feature, especially on drum patterns where it can mix things up a bit in a generally acceptable way to add some variation and interest as you go along.
What would happen was that I'd record one pattern and then the BSP would NOT trigger sounds in Live. The MIDI activity monitor would flash, but nothing would come into a channel, even with "all inputs, all channels" selected. If I power cycled the BSP then it would work again for a small period of time. I tried using Live's Max MIDI monitor but it absolutely refused to display what types of messages were coming in. When I hooked the BSP directly to MIDI-OX I could see that it was sending short sysex messages in addition to MIDI clock. I guess those are MMC? I went into the BSP settings to try to turn all that off but that thing is ferociously complex and I don't know whether it made any difference.
What seems to prevent this is to TURN OFF ALL SYNC INPUTS when using Live as the timing master. I think I figured I would leave some sync inputs on, in the event that I wanted to use them. I think that I found that Live, when trying to sync to external, kinda does a rubber-band thing until it settles down, which isn't all that great. Perhaps the BSP was in some sort of feedback loop, I really don't know.
Ok next issue was that Live was starting to take longer and longer to start up, even on an empty project. Last night I was getting ready to submit a ticket, as it was now going into permanent "not responding" mode upon startup. The intelligent solution finder actually called up some articles which hit the nail on the head. They suggested unplugging all USB devices, seeing if it helped, and then adding them back one by one.
I unplugged my USB 16-port hub, and all of a sudden the program opened in a reasonable ~15 seconds. However, the Behringer XR-18 audio interface was not active. This wasn't even on the USB hub, it's plugged directly into the PC on its own wire. I power cycled the box, which didn't help.
The X-Air mixer app seemed to be OK, but I went off to Behringer's site and updated the following:
- X-Air app
- XR-18 firmware
- XR-18 USB audio drivers
And it all seemed to help (knock on wood)!
That's all I got for today.
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