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MIDI footswitch with Ableton Live


WILD FROG SHOT
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Hello!

I'm moving towards playing live with a guitar, looper (either hardware or software), and Ableton/launch key setup.

In short, I want to play all guitar loops live over midi drum and sampled synth loops using Ableton live.

I have a ditto x2 looper which I am pretty good with and I like how it operates. The problem I have is that it has no quantization, or midi in/out, so i'm totally reliant on getting the timing right with the midi loops once they're triggered. I can achieve this successfully about 3/4 of the time; but it's a risk i'd rather not take.

I have looked into quantizing hardware loopers such as the jamman, but this would appear to be just as risky as my current setup as I presumably still have to start and stop the loop/overdub bang on time, which is more of an issue than playing in time.

I have started experimenting with the Ableton software looper which seems like it would work, but I don't have a midi foot switch to control it. Most midi foot switches that I've seen seem to require some programming knowledge before they will be properly recognised and function correctly with the software, which i'm not too keen on. I have seen this [url="http://looptimus.com/"]http://looptimus.com/[/url], which I think would do the job, but it's pretty pricey and i'd need to import it from the US.

I'm interested to know if anyone else performs in this way and what your setup is, if you have any advice, or recommendations for midi foot switches that work well with Ableton.

Edited by WILD FROG SHOT
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I used to use the NI Rig Kontrol for this - was pretty easy to set up with stuff other than Guitar Rig if i remember rightly. Think they've been discontinued now, but might be worth checking the second hand market.

Then theres options like the nice but pricey SoftStep2 and the cheap and cheerful Behringer FCB1010. Not used either of these two, but MIDI learn in Live makes setting up any MIDI controller pretty easy to be honest.

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Have a look at [size=2][url="https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwir0IOt8YrTAhXEAsAKHcC6D2AQFggaMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.positivegrid.com%2Fbt4%2F&usg=AFQjCNGUXll8eiTGSm4xSsgD1Pa5tPD-cw&sig2=Q7j4ap1Ito9f-qYV8ETH1g"]BT-4 Bluetooth MIDI - Positive Grid[/url][size=3] or [/size][/size][url="https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=12&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwj6jdvm8YrTAhUVOsAKHQqXDTcQFgi0ATAL&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ikmultimedia.com%2Firigblueboard&usg=AFQjCNGBClUrmxRz1wYpRCBOi7o-asohQA&sig2=crfo3swV79MViW7tFrL-Pw&bvm=bv.151426398,d.ZGg"]IK Multimedia | iRig BlueBoard - Bluetooth MIDI pedalboard[/url]

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Thanks both for the suggestions.

I think the SoftStep2 looks good, as i think i'd be able to assign the bottom row to software looper operations i.e. record/overdub, play, stop, clear etc, then use the top row for triggering samples.

In my simple mind lots of switches in front of me is better than having to change between banks and remember which set of commands is on which bank.

Edited by WILD FROG SHOT
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