I thought it would be easier to see a video of my Ableton set up in action.
Recording loops with Ableton Live from Jeremy Osborn on Vimeo.
Here is a more detailed description:
Using a Behringer FCB1010 and M-Audio Axiom with Ableton Live
My Ableton Live template setup
If this was helpful feel free to drop a donation, thank you!
19/06/2009 at 5:37 am Permalink
Testing 1,2,3. is my new favorite song!
Congrats. Great job with the video. Screen Cap, two camera angles, that’s some hard-core work there. Funny, I’ve been meaning to look into live looping set-ups and here you are, great timing. Thanks again.
K-Lo
21/06/2009 at 1:32 am Permalink
Thanks Kurt! I’m really glad it was helpful for you. I think Testing 123 might be our next hit! haha
24/06/2009 at 4:37 am Permalink
hi there, I am so grateful for you knowledge generosity as I find the tech of midi a bit daunting . In your tutorial video you start with a click track or is it just a click sounding sound from your keyboard that u looped?
The reason I ask is I want to make my loops without the click by just playing a riff and then hit a switch to start it looping and for any pre recorded track to just sync to that tempo, is this possible ala the looper in live 8?
Also you are manually assigning midi numbers to your FCB and then mapping them to commands in ableton, you can map any command number to any function in ableton so why bother assigning one in the fcb, or doesnt it have a midi number value assigned by default, sorry if this is a silly question but I dont quite know how they operate really. Thanks again for your generosity to people u dont know
24/06/2009 at 9:43 am Permalink
Hey Jayme! Thank you
. Yes I find MIDI quite daunting myself. I’ve just picked up a few things over the years but am still a bit mystified to the entire concept. I am playing to a click on the video, it’s just not in the mix. No you don’t have to play to a click, but you have to play to something rhythmic. Like that first keyboard part I laid down was perfectly sufficient to play to. In order for Ableton to grab the loop properly you need to be synced with it somehow. Now you could even just keep in time with it visually! Like on my template I have a click track, but you could reasonably just leave it muted and watch the volume go up and down on it and play to that rhythm.
And that’s not a silly question at all. I thought the exact same thing! I thought since Ableton can be mapped by anything then it should map to this, but the out of the box the FCB is sending electronic communication, it’s just not MIDI commands. At least nothing recognizable. So you do have to program it so that it will send signals that Ableton can read. Now that’s actually and advantage because this way you can decide which command numbers you want it to send. This is nice because I can send different commands than my Axiom, or even some of the same commands if I want it to perform the same functions.
Best of luck! If you have any other questions don’t hesitate to ask
11/11/2009 at 12:16 am Permalink
Hi Jeremy
Great site and info!
Can the FCB1010 be programmed to record and play one clip at a time?In other words can I play and record a chord progression(intro,chorus,bridge,ending) to improvise over?I want to be able to access any chord I want,back and forth.
Thanks
Anand.
12/11/2009 at 11:47 am Permalink
Thanks Anand! Yes you can certainly do all of that. The FCB footswitches you can make do whatever you want. Recently I reduced the number of looping tracks to 5 and use the top pedals on the FCB to now be able to scroll up or down or stop or play. So you can record an intro loop live, then play over it, then play a verse or chorus loop, then play over it, and then switch back and forth. Or you can just have prerecorded loops loaded up and just cue then as you need them.
23/02/2010 at 6:20 pm Permalink
Jeremy,
THANK YOU sooooo much for posting this invaluable info/tutorial!
I’m new to Ableton, and have been going nuts trying to figure this stuff out on my own. I’ve spend the last 4 hours testing your template on my setup and so far so good. I’m running Ableton Suite 8.1.1 on WinXP with an Edirol PCR-800, and so naturally had to change some midi mappings, but it was simple after learning from your work.
I might be wrong, but your solution seems to negate the usefulness of the new Looper in Live 8. What do you think?
I’d like to pick up a FCB1010, but before I put down any cash, I was wondering… Is the FCB1010 the best available or should I have a look at something else?
Once again….Thanks for sharing
24/02/2010 at 2:17 am Permalink
Thanks Cary! I really appreciate that. I don’t know about the looper in AL 8 because I’m still using AL 5
. No money for upgrades right now I’m afraid.
Regarding the FCB1010, I think it’s one of the best units out there for this and it just happens to be one of the cheapest too. It’s quite functional and a very sturdy construction. I did a decent amount of research before purchasing and it seems just as functional, if not more, than units twice it’s cost. I even noticed that Radiohead uses one. So there you go!
15/06/2010 at 2:57 pm Permalink
Jeremy,
i am a new fcb1010 and live user. i saw this tutorial and right away a question came to mind.
how is it that once you have recorded the loop in a clip on a record enabled track that the clip then goes into “play” mode instead of looping but staying in record mode? so far when i activate a clip on a record enabled track it’s little triangle is red and the clip is ready to receive new audio (or midi).
thanks in advance for the reply. i hope all is well. i am in austin so if you are ever up this way let me know. i would love to hear your band play.
Darren
15/06/2010 at 3:22 pm Permalink
Hey Darren! I think I understand what you’re asking, if not feel free to ask more questions. When an entire track is record-enabled then each cell of that track should have a little circle on the left (if they’re empty). The circle indicates the cells are ready to record. When you click on one of those circles it starts to populate that cell with what you’re live-recording and the circle becomes a red triangle while you’re recording the loop. When you’re done with what you’re recording you then click the same red triangle and it should then change the triangle to green and start looping. Does that answer your question?
15/06/2010 at 3:27 pm Permalink
Oh and I’ll let you know if we play Austin! My wife/bass player/cellist is due to give birth to our first child in about a month so we’ll be out of commission for a while
. I checked out your site and the steel drum stuff sounds cool! I’ll have to listen to it from home tonight. And thanks for the donation! That’s very kind.!
15/06/2010 at 11:33 pm Permalink
Thanks Jeremy,
well maybe all it took was for you to say what should happen… this is exactly what ableton is doing now. but yesterday when i was working and using my fcb1010 i had clips that were just staying in record mode when i hit them the second time. now what would cause that? i guess i need to poke around to make sure that the signals that the foot pedal is sending are kosher. i’ll let you know if i figure out something useful. let me know what you think of the tune i have up on the bicycle page. all the best with the growing family. thanks for your time,
dD
13/07/2010 at 3:33 pm Permalink
Hi, Nice Video!! i have a question, do you know how to program the fcb1010 with Amplitube? thanks for your time
13/07/2010 at 3:41 pm Permalink
Hello Esteban! Thank you very much. Unfortunately I can’t answer your question. If you can MIDI map to Amplitube then you should be able to. I haven’t used the program in years so I’m not sure. Best of luck!