Ableton Live 11 lite Pyramid Workflows

[calem]

Hi,
I am just starting to incorporate Ableton into my Pyramid based work flow.

Any Ableton Pyramid users have tips and fun ways of using the 2 together?! I see some posts from 2019 and a couple more recent but just looking for some new

setup ideas / sampling pyramid workflows/ recording methods / triggering/ latency/ etc. etc. any thoughts really on the experience and ways to experiment or limit the experience. I am super interested in live improvisation techniques.

Pyramid is still my main creative palette/ go to but I would really like to team it up with some software ideas with Ableton. I have a kmix audio interface to lean on for my hardware hookups + ableton interfacing.

[thetechnobear]

Ive played with this quite a bit over the years…

at one point I was using Push 2 w/Live + Pyramid …
mainly what Id do is create sequences on the Pyramid for hardware, and then use live to audio record them in clips - so basically a complex looper

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you’ll find lots of comments on sync ‘issues’ , frankly, this is common as soon as you start integrating hardware and software.

the ‘solution’ (with hardware, things like multi clock) is all to do with using things like clock delays, track delays and delay compensation - unfortunately, this is not the simplest of things to get right, and requires quite a bit of thought - unfortunately, this means most YouTube videos I see on this (even by my favourite YouTubers) are either wrong, or misleading !
the best bet is to go thru the ableton help , and just take it slowly and figure it out yourself.

sorry, I can’t describe it all either, as its all a bit interconnected… so would take a lot to walk thru, and frankly, thats what the ableton help does .

generally, it’s best to use Ableton as the Master Clock.

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honestly, I don’t do this very often now (partly because I now have an octatrack).

so what I tend to now use ableton for is simply :
a) software instruments - u-he plugins mainly, also pianoteq

b) FX - I love Valhalla reverbs!

c) recording multitrack

I really don’t care about the sync (beyond tempo), so the above things are generally not an issue…
and if im multi-tracking, if there are sync issues, I can correct afterwards.

all that said, what I play , is not that sync critical… I know others have a lot more frustration in this area.
(as I said, not really pyramid specific I don’t think )

[calem]

Thanks for your thoughts.I just looked at the software pianoteq/valhalla/u-he.

I will take your ableton advice and resist the dog chasing their tail on the internet with tenpo sync questions! sounds exhaustive…

And in someways I think it might mostly fall into multi track recording and software instruments for me also.
Ableton 11 light comes with a tempo follow for the project assignable to any incoming track which interests me for live playing…and other features I feel I can experiment with free of charge as I have the computer and then potentially branch out to hardware(money) functionality in future - or maybe I will luv the ableton process and move to push 2.

I am very interested to hear that Octatrak has potential to unbalance equation in this way.

[calem]

I was able to play the grand piano instrument native to ableton with my midi controller (alesis q88 piano) so that I could record directly from the pyramid and add effects from the pyramid and build a song and then simply hit record in ableton when i was ready to play a live muting of tracks and patterns etc…

but now I can only either play with the q88 or the pyramid separately i cant get the pyramid to register the q88 midi controller at all…

I tried going direct to my 2 usb ports on computer and using a powered thunderbolt usb hub and neither worked and

I also read the ableton manual.

Anyone here have any ideas - sorry if i am being dense in this one!!

thanks

[thetechnobear]

to be honest, Im not quite sure what you are trying to achieve and have set up…

(unfortunately, to get to the bottom of these things details are important)

so I can give some observations only

you don’t need to list either pyramid or q88 as a control surface, id set these to none
though, this won’t cause an issues, since you have the script set to NONE anyway.

apart from that ableton setup looks ok (as far as I can see)
with ALL Ins set on track, both should work (I routinely use multiple input sources)

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do you have the Q88 din out → pyramid din IN?

if so you are going to have to be careful that midi does not flow from the Q88 both via usb and via pyramid, this will cause issues.
e.g. q88 (usb) → live , q88 (din)->pyramid → live

if you want to use q88->pyramid->live, which I guess is the case, then you should set the Live track to just take input from the pyramid.
this way, you’ll get the q88 midi data via the pyramid , or the recorded pyramid data…
(so you will still be able to play LIVE from your q88, just it’ll be going via the pyramid)

… this is I would say the ‘normal’ way to use the pyramid/controller in such a setup.

(if you always have the pyramid turned on when using live, then you could even disable the Q88 midi in live)

if the Q88 is not sending midi over its midi din output - then you need to check the Q88 manual, as there is probably some setting on the Q88 that determines how midi is routed to usb and its midi din out.

… sorry, thats about as much as I can say, as its not entirely clear what issue you are having, and how reality and expectation mismatch

[calem]

Thanks so so much for your thougths and time. I keep trying to make my posts more clear

I had forgotten I had a din cable going to pyramid from the q88 previously! Once that was plugged in I was able to play live through the pyramid to the software instrument in ableton and use pyramids effects and work flow again.

I had assumed that the same functionality would occur without the din cables and simply over usb…

Thanks again!

[thetechnobear]

@calem

I had assumed that the same functionality would occur without the din cables and simply over usb…

it could, but you would need to get Live to route the midi back to the pyramid (via a separate midi track)

(and be careful to not, again, get duplicate messages… by NOT using “All Ins” on tracks)