My APC40 Setup - Video Now Online!

[S4racen]

Hi guys,

My set up is on a mac with a padkontrol (running farmpad) an APC40 and bomes and lucifer vst....

Anyone else got a similar set-up?

So far i've remapped all of the scene launch buttons to either glitch the audio (like steven vankoffs video) or whilst shift is pressed to choose the launch quantization and then visually display with a lit button what state it's in....

The track selection buttons light up in sequence and allow beat mashing as they allow you to jump (as long as the button is held down) to each individual beat in a 2 bar sequence....

I have all 8 tracks summed to either a A or B track which contains all of my effects and some loopers, when pressing shift and track select one it fires a looper to record then play a 1 bar loop, 2 = 2 bar, 3 = 4 bar and 4 halves the loop.....

To show that the loopers are in action i've used the clip grid buttons, when recording a beat the pad flashes red and when recorded it stays solid red, when the beat is playing the button changes to green, as such you see how long the looper has recorded (up to the first two rows) and where in the loop it's currently playing... When you halve the loop the clip grid changes to represent the new size of the loop being played until eventually you are down to one rapidly flashing green/red button.......

Because this colouring may stop you seeing which clip is actively being played i've programmed it so that the clip stop button lights up oif there is a clip playing in that channel, pressing stop obviously still stops the clip but when shift is held down at the same time it plays the clip last played from the beginning (this is very useful when your trying to play other clips that aren't included in the same red box!)

Activator switches are now hard mapped to select the first rack in each channel, I'm using a rack per track that includes Tarekiths 4 knob eq along the bottom (the allen and Heath emulating one) knobs and then on knob one i've got the twister filter, phaser on two, fade to redux on three and a gain with a compressor so that it doesn't get out of control on 4.....

When when shift is pressed with an activator switch it reverts the controls in that track's rack back to their original state, eg. at full for the eq'ing controls at half for the twister filter controls and at zero for the phaser, fade to redux and gain controls.... This means at the start of a set i can quickly reset all controls back to zero and when playing can bring the track that's been filtered and eqed out of a mix back in bang on a beat.....

solo cue switches do as advertised but with shift pressed they select the clip playing in the track rather than the clip that's highlighted..... I currently split all my tracks up into sections and pre-prepare my loops but i'm sure someone else who plays whole tracks would be able to use this function to implement some in clip looping functionality....

Finally the Track arm buttons are mapped to light up when the track is routed into A or unlit if going to B, i've got A and B mapped to the crossfader as well as i find it hard to give up my old habits! I'm probably going to add a shift function to these buttons to be a quick stab on a send that's got a ping pong and distorting effect rack in it to get some crashes going in sync with the audio......

I've not really touched the buttons on the right hand side of the APC yet (bar the shift button) so has anyone else got any ideas for what i might use these for?

I'll try and record a little video later to show what i mean but for now i'm really missing a tape stop effect that i want to map to the stop all clips button!! Mac anyone???

Cheers
D

EDIT: Video now online!

http://www.vimeo.com/5893737

ps feedback always helps!

_________________

[S4racen]

Very Very Happy that my videos been picked up by Create Digital Music!

http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/0...comment-959085

Cheers
D

[S4racen]

Preset and template being sent out tommorrow to anyone that wants them, just pop along to the blog and leave me your email address....

The Studio Sessions

Cheers
D

[Chilly]

Good work man

[S4racen]

Email Sent!

Enjoy!

Cheers
D

[S4racen]

Hi All,

I've finished tidying up the preset that i used to create this set so thanks to everyone who donated and gave me feedback to motivate me carrying on with the template……

I’m just diving into Max4Live Beta testing and it’s blowing me away with what can be achieved and they haven’t even let us have a go at the APC object yet….. I can see it as finally turning LIVE into the got to DJ program it promised to be all those years ago….

As a result I’ve spent the last few days ironing out some bits on the APC40 template that I sent out…..

A number of you wanted the beatmashing functions but weren’t (understandably) willing to shell out on a VST that appears discontinued. As a result I’ve resurrected a modified version of BeatLookup (created by Chris List for Reaktor). My version has up to 8 beatjump points which are quantized on their triggering which makes the sound much cleaner, I’ve mapped 4 of these to the first 4 track select buttons as I found 8 was a bit overkill (although if you wanted to make use of all 8 just get in touch and I’ll talk you through adding the other clips needed).

For the second four (5-8) track select buttons I’ve created four separate midi tracks, unfold the Left Group and you’ll see them titled with the functions I’m using, how it works is on the press of the button it will launch the midi clip in slot two which has a message drawn within it to make Beatlookup act, on the note off or release of the pad it translates this in bomes to be a note on message that triggers the clip in the first slot that is designed to turn the effect off……

You’ll notice below I’ve added in three extra pairs that can be used to replace the choice of four that I’ve made….. 5 triggers an instant reverse, 6 pitches the sound down, 7 pitches the sound up whilst 8 is a turntable stop…..

I don’t know whether the .ens file for reactor will actually ship with the Ableton template so I’ll provide a link for the ensemble separately, you made need to go into the Beatlookup track and click the spanner to open the VST and then navigate to load the Studio 2009.ens file for which the link you’ll find below…..

To replace the stuttering function of Lucifer I’ve included a track called Stutters, this works by dummy clips controlling a bank of beatrepeats, there’s some translating that allows you to move between the stutters and let go of the scene launch buttons and not have the effect that’s currently playing stop, otherwise like the Beatlookup functionality these work on a gate basis so that the effect only plays when you hold down the Scene Launch button…..

I’ve then mapped in the pan banks knob 5 to emulate the Hyper effect of Lucifer (I think it’s a pretty good replica) knob 6 is a Gating function that’s synchronised with the stuttering to shorten the effect to s stabbing type sound, knob 7 is a standard pitch function so you can manually pitch the repeats down whilst knob 8 is the beatrepeats pitch decay knob…..

Knob 1 isn’t mapped to anything so suggestions welcome!!!

I’ve then added three tracks and grouped them entitled APC Sends….. Still haven’t spent much time on the racks or devices within these as the APC currently can’t navigate easily to these to change the effects, I’m thinking that the perennial favourite superluper 2 will end up in one of these with a set of ping pong type affairs in another with the third bank being a reverb type effect….. Again if you’ve got some favourites that you use send them back and I’ll add them in!!

I’ve left a set of clips in to muck about a bit with and as you can see a fair few Acapellas, I’m always on the lookout for new ones so if you feel like sharing let me know…..

To get the dummy clips (now on the right channel only) to play at dry simply press the stop all clips button!! I haven’t mapped the play of the dummy clips to anything but I was thinking to map the left bank button to play them and maybe the left bank button to play them but on a gating basis, it wouldn’t take much work but you’d lose the ability to move the red box in any direction but up and down…. I’ll do it for my setup but would it impact on the way you work???

So the final update is…. THE LOOPER!!

I got fed up with large sets crashing because it wouldn’t support four loopers! As a result I’ve removed all but one and added a midi loopback function that ties the metronome in with the record and play functions of the looper, this time shift and one is a one bar loop, shift and 2 = 2 bar loop and shift and 4 is a four bar,….. shift and track select 3 halves the loop and as before the lights on the clip launch buttons update to give a visual display of where you are in the loop…. As the loops get smaller I decided to expand the size of the visual feedback so that when the size of the loop goes below one bar you can still see where you are as each button becomes half a beat then a quarter and so on……

To get a copy of the Ableton Set, the Reaktor Ensemble and the Bomes Preset (you'll need version 1.7 to make it work and that's not the trial version!) simply leave me a comment on any of the posts at my blog thestudiosessions.co.uk

Anyways hope your all good and look forward to your feedback on this new set……..

Cheers
D

[Chilly]

Again...awesome stuff man!

[S4racen]

Cheers Man!

I've added a new video to vimeo.com/studiosessions that shows it all in operation...

I've also created a channel on Vimeo dedicated to the APC40, as yet it's seems wholly dedicated to Ableton which i'm sure the traktor users of this community would like to see addressed, simply post the links below and i'll add them in!!

Cheers
D