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Is this possible, and is anyone doing it at the moment who could share their experiences?

I was using it awhile back for live looping with real instrumentation. And I've mic'd up drums and stuff for friends and recorded demos for them doing multiple tracking. It's definitely not geared towards that kind of thing, but by no means is it more difficult than anything else IMO

It is possible... But ableton doesn't have a comp feature!
And comping really is a great advantage for multitracking... But if you don't think you will need that, ableton is as good as every other daw! (Maybe a little better, because warping is a usefull tool. And nobody beats ableton on that front!)

Hi,
I use Ableton to multitrack what I play with my hardware set: MPC1000, MiniBrute, Arturia Origin and an MFB Tanzbär.

I have everything grouped into 8 tracks(kick, snare, hihats&perc, bass/sub and two extra synth channels and two samples/sfx/vox channels) that I input in a Mackie Onyx 820i mixer, which is also a firewire sound card. This way I can separately record each of the channels. Then I can mixdown the stems in Ableton.

The only downside is that I can't record the hardware send/return effects I have so I have to reapply effects in Ableton...

How do you intend to do this Wub? I know you're building a hardware setup, right? If you want to record your jams/reheasals and have your separate stems, this is the way to do it...

It's easy to setup and a lot of fun, and you also get to learn the basics about recording and noise reduction/removal

That's exactly what I'm looking to do, yes

Send/return on the effects shouldn't be too much of an issue, I haven't quite figured where to fit the outboard EFX units I have into the build anyway.


What are you using for the master MIDI signal in the above, the Tanzbar?

ableton's perfectly fine as a recorder. It's not my ideal-- the whole warping thing means that weird, unintended edits can happen very easily- but those mistakes can be avoided and fixed.

I just get aggy that they happen at all

ProTools is stil the go-to audio recording system, but really logic/cubase/reaper and ableton can all do the same basic audio stuff.

W/ ableton, you do have an interesting artillery to mess w/ tempo, pitch, etc after-the-fact.

Silly question, but if what I'm recording in is MIDI sync'd then why would I need to warp?

wub wrote:Silly question, but if what I'm recording in is MIDI sync'd then why would I need to warp?

Ive not used Ableton to multitrack record, but I ran into latency issues in FL Studio where things were slightly out of time even though I had all the devices synced through MIDI. If Im not mistaken, which I could be, it is an issue with the recording device and DAW not being able to process the data quickly (?) enough. I just ended up nudging things around on the time line, wasnt a huge deal.

I dont know if it would help matters, but you may want to look into a MIDI thru box like one from MIDI solutions. That would at least cut down on MIDI latency you get chaining multiple devices. Wont help your DAW/interface.

I'm syncing everything from the MPC, it's my main sequencer and as it has 2 MIDI in and 2 outs it's enough to drive everybody else.
And I also have small tempo fluctuations in the audio I record in Live...it sometimes is a little off...I guess due to the MPC's MIDI clock which isn't really perfect...it's not really noticeable though, and if needed, yeah, you can warp everything by hand(esp. if you want to combine tracks from different takes).
I kinda like small variations in tempo(as long as all channels fluctuate the same, so they stay in sync with each other) as it gives a "live" sorta feel
Wub, if you multitrack with a soundcard(like in not a mixer/soundcard), you can either setup some I/Os as send returns for effects(if you have enough I/Os that is) or you could directly setup some effects in Live...

Kappa wrote:Wub, if you multitrack with a soundcard(like in not a mixer/soundcard), you can either setup some I/Os as send returns for effects(if you have
enough I/Os that is) or you could directly setup some effects in Live...

This is all early days, but I will take this under advice

wub wrote:Silly question, but if what I'm recording in is MIDI sync'd then why would I need to warp?

If everything is synced you won't need warping... But if you are recording real instruments, vocals or percussion: Warping could save you a lot of trouble/takes.

societyloser1 wrote:

wub wrote:Silly question, but if what I'm recording in is MIDI sync'd then why would I need to warp?

If everything is synced you won't need warping... But if you are recording real instruments, vocals or percussion: Warping could save you a lot of trouble/takes.

Fair point...if I do ever get to that stage, it'll be a while off

fragments wrote:Ive not used Ableton to multitrack record, but I ran into latency issues in FL Studio where things were slightly out of time even though I had all the devices synced through MIDI. If Im not mistaken, which I could be, it is an issue with the recording device and DAW not being able to process the data quickly (?) enough. I just ended up nudging things around on the time line, wasnt a huge deal.

I dont know if it would help matters, but you may want to look into a MIDI thru box like one from MIDI solutions. That would at least cut down on MIDI latency you get chaining multiple devices. Wont help your DAW/interface.

I wouldn't dare use my current FL machine for this kind of work then, might be time for a new machine altogether to be the heart of this proposed rig

Im not really an expert, wub. I was using a fairly good interface MOTU 828mkii. Probably on FL 9 or 10 at the time. Dont know what the problem was. I ended up changing my hardware work flow quite a bit since then. It wasnt a major issue, as I said, I just ended up nudging things around and it worked out fine.

Gain staging to reduce noise along the way was a bigger issue for me depending on the piece of hardware (ESX was a bitch to get a good recording off of).

I would recommend some decent, transparent pre amps. I recently started recording synth patches, one shots etc through my pre amps instead of the line level inputs. Noticeably crisper sound more "present" sound.

I am pretty sure it wasnt a MIDI issue.

I've had similar issues with getting a decent signal out of my ER-1

wub wrote:I've had similar issues with getting a decent signal out of my ER-1

A bit of a captain obvious comment, but I found the less tracks I recorded from my Electribe, the better mix I could get in the end. If recorded all sounds invidiually off my ESX things became unmixable for my skill level at the time. There is a noise lowering mod for the ESX/EMX dunno about any others in the series. Probably costs as much as the ER-1 though.

My best advice is to just embrace the lo fi. I tried noise gates and EQing, but only got mixed results. Waves has a pretty stellar noise reduction/cleaning VST, but for the price you might as well buy a less noisy groovebox.

I also ended up avoid the on board FX.

Not sure how much longer the ER-1 is going to be a mainstay now I've got the 707, TBH.

wub wrote:Silly question, but if what I'm recording in is MIDI sync'd then why would I need to warp?

you wouldn't--but ableton defaults to putting in warp markers in recorded material. Ergo...

Sharmaji wrote:

wub wrote:Silly question, but if what I'm recording in is MIDI sync'd then why would I need to warp?

you wouldn't--but ableton defaults to putting in warp markers in recorded material. Ergo...

Is there a way to turn off that feature?

(or am I misunderstanding the point of warp markers?)

wub wrote:

Sharmaji wrote:

wub wrote:Silly question, but if what I'm recording in is MIDI sync'd then why would I need to warp?

you wouldn't--but ableton defaults to putting in warp markers in recorded material. Ergo...

Is there a way to turn off that feature?

(or am I misunderstanding the point of warp markers?)

Do not turn the warp markers off... Ableton puts a warp marker in the beginning of your recording!
The purpose of these warp markers is that Ableton knows what tempo your recording or loop is in... So if you want to change tempo, Ableton can handle it like a boss. if you put them off Ableton doesn't give a tempo to the audio recording, and the recording will not be affected by tempo changes.

No purpose in turning them off, only advantages in keeping them on.

Yes, you can turn them off in the preferences menu under the record tab.