A better way to switch presets in Ableton Live - No chain selector [clyphx Ableton Live 11 tutorial]
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- Опубликовано: 3 июл 2024
- Using the Chain selector for preset switching means pre-loading all of your devices, which can be very taxing on your CPU. Luckily there are 2 alternative ways to get the same results without that drawback: automating your devices to only turn on when you're actually using them, and only ever loading up one preset at a time. This last solution in particular is the most simple and elegant but it requires a custom MIDI control surface, "clyphx", which you can download here:
github.com/ldrolez/clyphx-liv...
🎵 Dig the backing track? Find it here:
rossocorsarecords.bandcamp.co...
00:00 Chain Selector
01:33 The Problem
03:01 Solution 1: Automation
05:18 Solution 2: clyphx
06:26 Download & Install
07:38 Ableton Live Setup
08:22 clyphx Synthax
09:22 Preset Swap
10:40 Preset Select
12:11 Outro 
Видеоклипы
ALSO! something you may know already, but ableton will only use ONE core of your cpu per track. That means if you have many instruments inside the instrument rack as you did in your first example, you’re bound to run into cpu problems very quickly. A workaround i found for this is to separate each instrument or preset onto their own respective tracks and then use a chain selector on a blank track to send midi to whichever track has the instrument you want to use. Awesome video though! Love to see other solutions people come up with
That's very interesting! How would you go about this? What do you assign the chain selector to? Awesome solution - not for my specific scenario though: I'm on lite, meaning my tracks are counted and I need all my synths on one of them. Super curious to hear more about your solution though!
Super great solution i've been looking for many years! Thank you!
happy to hear that. Have fun with it!
The answer to my Ableton woes. thanks dude.
Exactly how I felt when I first find out about this 😁 Have fun!
@@TheNeonSyndicate Hey, another thing. I'm noticing the effects tails of previous presets aren't sustaining once I switch. Any way to aid that?
@@ATONE. Yes. Here's my approach: in my instrument rack - the one that's gonna be completely changed when I switch to another preset - I keep only my sound generator and, if needed, any tone-shaping effects that are specific to it: EQ, dynamics, saturation. My modulation effects (chours/phaser/flanger, delay, reverb) I keep outside of the rack. Those will always stay on my track, unscathed by any preset change. Now: their parameters will probably need to change depending on what preset I load. For that I write in the required automation directly into the clip that launches the corresponding preset. With this setup, you can safely switch to a new preset and any delay/reverb tails will decay naturally instead of being cut off. I guess if you have a third-party synth with its own, built-in FX, that could be a problem. But so long as you use FX that aren't part of your synth and therefore can be kept outside your rack and "shared" between presets, you should be good to go!
I’d prefer to map a macro to the on/off switch rather than using clips. Clip launch must be quantised if you don’t want your clip to lose beat sync, so not so great for performance imho.
Still, it’s nice to see some people pushing the envelope and showing us other options!
Thank you bro
to each their own ✌ I use this just to switch presets, so I simply set the clip launch quantization to "none" and I'm good to go.
dope shit man, very very useful. was using the rack method beforehand and one thing that really killed it for me was the project load time which would be huge when I had a synth track and a drum track both loaded with around 15 racks. it would take smth like 3 minutes or more and it was a totall buzz kill. thanks agaganiin.
That's exactly what' I'm talking about! So glad to hear it's doing the job for ya 👊
Awesome !! Will try this one and so many thanks to make it free
my pleasure. Let us know how it goes!
Definitly going to try this! Your content is amazing. Bought a lpd8 after seeing your Irig video. Works perfect! Thanks bro
Hey thanks! Happy to hear that! Let us know how this preset trick works out for ya
@@TheNeonSyndicate tried it out, works perfectly! (created 100 scenes to test the CPU, changing bank took maybe half second) no glitching, no cpu spikes or loads just amazing. Thank you for your amazing content, you made me love ableton even more. thanks bro
@@bart5559 So glad to hear that man! Yeah it's an amazing little trick. And there's so many more things you can do with clyphx... I'm integrating more and more of its commands into my live sets. Gonna make some more tutorials in the future as I figure things out
Thats great news. Cant wait! Do you know if ableton 12 wil be with phyton 3?
@@bart5559 My dude I'm dying to know haha been asking myself that question since the news came out that 12 was on its way. Tried joining the beta program but I'm on Live Lite so I'm gonna have to wait for the official release - should be any day now though right? I have a feeling it'll work though, I actually think it was mentioned in a comment here or elsewhere that someone got it to work on a 12 beta so we should be good.
beautiful!
I'm honored, sir 🙏
you can also map "device on" to the chain selector. if you make the values right, then when you change synth the others will be off. I would use bigger values for this but it's pretty much nonproblemattc.
Could you please elaborate a bit? How do you map something to the chain selector?
you can first map the chain selector to macro and then map the macro to whatever midi you want. right click:)@@TheNeonSyndicate
@@surphase9238 That's smart. I never thought of that. 👏
That’s the way I do. But the option explained in the video is interesting as well :)
@@zenluiz Thanks! Yeah, it all depends on the context. In my case, I used to have a live project with many chains, and with the chain-selector method they would all be active at the same time unless I automated their on-off switches, which caused CPU problems, so clyphx works best for me. If you have a smaller amount of chains, the chain selector method might be just right.
More info than my ancient brain can absorb for now, so I’ll have to come back. Thanks.
Thanks for the feedback!
so good thank uou
my pleasure
Epic stuff! One question: what if in Vital, Pigments or whatever VST you are using, you want to map certain macro keys to your macro keyboard. When you switch your device, you would normally lose the mapping. Or can you map macros in the VSTs to the instrument rack macros and save that within the instrument rack preset, so when you load a new device/preset your way, the original mapping of the macros is kept the same?
You're right about that: any parameter of any plugin you put into your rack - and that includes any macro knobs it might have! - can be mapped to the rack's macros, and that mapping will be saved within your preset, so whenever you reload that, those mappings will load as well!
Amazing, currently working on setting all this up. Super cool to be able to use all your uniquely sounddesigned leads from a wide variety of plugins live in an super easy way!@@TheNeonSyndicate
@@Cyantist.Official Oh yeah. I originally started looking into this because I was frustrated with Vital not responding to Program Change messages. But as you say, this is even better - no matter the plugin, it can all be nicely wrapped together into a single device
Very helpful. I use Ableton Standard, and it isn't working for some reason. I'm wondering if you need Suite for this?
Thanks. I'm on Lite so it definitely should work on Standard! Could you give me some more details? For instance, are you trying this out on a MIDI or an audio track? Is the device you're trying to switch presets for currently selected on the track on which you're launching the clips?
@TheNeonSyndicate thanks for the quick response. It is midi. As for the track selection - yes, I believe so.
Thank you so much. I only seem to find an issue. I can only swap between devices that exist in the same Ableton folder (whether it's instrument rack, analog, etc). Is there any way to swap between instrument "categories" or folders?
You're right, it needs to be the same device type. The workaround? Use instrument racks and put your sound generators inside of them. For instance, you could have an "analog" rack, a "wavetable" rack etc.
Great video, i'm gonna use this technic for live performance, however is it possible to make a midi dummy(on another track) to swap the device on another midi tracks ? This way you could use a midi track group to load a device on the track you want ?
Thanks. I'd love for that to be possible myself, but I'm afraid that's not the case. Needs to be the same track.
This is possible, you just need to specify either the track number or track name before the command, followed by a forward slash. So it would look like this: [] 5/SWAP > or [] TrackName/SWAP PresetName.adg
This is lifesaving information! Quick question: If I get that SWAP command going for a bunch of instrument racks for a hunch of songs, can I set a midi PC value for each SWAP command? Like, [press midi controller A, trigger midi PC 12] get swap command to Synth Brass rack?
Glad it helped. This doesn't work with Program Change messages, as none of Live's devices accept those. If you are only ever using one specific third party software synthesizer however, and if that synth accepts PC messages, then you can use just those and skip this whole method completely. Now: if you would be fine with using CC messages instead of PC, then what you suggest would actually work just fine. You can use Live's internal mapping system and assign launching specific clips to your buttons on your hardware MIDI controller
Hey dude,
I've been playing around with this today and been running into some issues. I have my set set up as you show in the first example. I have 8 Midi tracks with Instrument racks embedded within them mapped to the chain selector. The switching is currently instantaneous for me at the moment with no glitches and hiccups but I'm nervous in the future I will run into issues.
When i set up your CLPHX device the graphic interface becomes glitchy on the switch over - the sound keeps running but I get the small watch coming on the screen. I think the issue is that I have long and complex FX chains instead of just one instance of a VST instrument.
I'd love to know your experience with longer fx chains?
As I recall reading, Ableton switches off plugins automatically when they have no signal running through them for a certain amount of time anyways - but I am not certain about this.
Peaceout
Hey so ultimately it all depends on your processing power I suppose. Longer FX chains with "heavier" devices might take a - to be fair, very short - time to load up. No need to be afraid of that little watch icon! Me personally, I don't even ever run into this issue because I prefer to keep only my sound-generating device (and possibly a handful FX that are very specific to that sound and I wouldn't need elsewhere) inside of the preset-swapping rack, while keeping those other FX that I know I'm gonna be using on most or all my patches outside of it: EQ, compression, modulation & spatial FX. For those, I automate their settings on the clip so that they match the preset that's being launched - If I'm gonna use those devices anyway, it doesn't make sense to re-load them with every preset swap, plus with spacial FX this method has the added advantage that your reverb and delay tails don't get cut off when swapping
One problem I have run into after trying this out, which is specific to my use case, is that it will only SWAP the currently selected track's device, and not multiple tracks at once, even if they are separately coded/named. I have 4 different synth tracks that I want to swap devices on at the same time with one scene launch, to set up for the beginning of a new song. This seems to be impossible with the SWAP function in ClyphX as it is a Global Action which operates only on the selected track. I've gone back to using a chain selector on each of the 4 tracks, with Mapr8 on a separate channel, using clip automation on the Mapr8 track to control the 4 separate chain selectors. I can then launch 1 clip and all 4 of my synth tracks are set to the next song's instruments correctly. If there is a way to do this with ClyphX please let me know - being able to specify the track and device that you want changed rather than a global action would be great.
Understood. I think there is. First of all, you need separate clips on each track. The trick is that instead of launching them all through launching their scene, you need to set up one of them to be your, let's call it, "master" clip, in such a way that whenever you launch such master clip, the other 3 "slave" clips are launched as well. There is a clyphX action for that, you just need to add it to the master clip after a semi-colon, like this: "[] SWAP Preset 1 ; 2/PLAY ; 3/PLAY ; 4/PLAY", where "Preset 1" is to be replaced by name of the preset you want to launch on your master track. This is assuming that you're using track 1 as your master and tracks 2, 3 and 4 for your slave clips, otherwise just change the numbers to reflect the actual track numbers you're using. Don't forget of course that you still need your "[] SWAP Preset whatever" syntax on your slave clips. Hope this makes sense!
Wow this is great! I already have clyphx so surely going to try. This should also work with an X-controls instead of X-clips.
Two questions though:
1) is there any lag in swapping presets? especially if it involves 3rd party plugins and perhaps many devices in the chain after that
2) one advantage of using the chain selector is that you can have multiple devices in parallel for the same chain selection. For example say that when the chain selector is on 0 I want synth A and synth B, while when the chain selector is on 1 I want synth A and synth C. Is something like this also possible with swaping presets?
1) gotta admit, I don't use any 3rd party plugins, so in my personal experience there's no lag except in the following scenario - and even there, the lag is really minimal, we're talking tens of milliseconds at most:
2) it surely is; just put all your synths in one instrument rack and swap the rack
Awesome tips and great video ! I have a question though, how can I use this solution for audio effects in audio track and not midi track ? Because with audio track I cannot create clips by double-click (sorry im new to session view, maybe it's obvious)
Thanks again !
Thanks. Yeah I think this has come up before, don't remember if this works with audio fx, too, but as far as creating clips, you can just drag in already existing ones from the "samples" on the left, double click and drag the gain slider down to 0!
@@TheNeonSyndicate Seems so easy I didn't even thought about it ! thanks a lot 😇
@@mattbonv Np. Let us know how it goes!
you do not have to turn off the synths, if you watch your CPU indicator there is no change when you added more synths, this is because they only play and use CPU if they are selected and playing notes... the chain selector is MEANT to allow for all of this by default.
Believe me: I had a set like that with several presets. Could not use my pitch-bend or modulation wheel, as all of a sudden I'd get CPU spikes and the audio would start to crackle as if I had too short a buffer. Doesn't happen when either turning synths off or using this method.
Hey man thanks for the video, and glad you are using Vital. Regarding Vital, do you notice MIDI notes hanging when using the chain approach?
Hmm, been a long while since I last used Vital and the chain approach. That being said, I don't remember any particular problem in that regard. I think the chance for hanging notes is there if you keep holding a note and switch preset with the chain method while doing so. If you just remember to let go of the note while switching, you should be good!
@@TheNeonSyndicate i rely heavily on a sustain pedal, maybe that could have an impact?
@@frankkeys92 That very much sounds like your culprit right there. What your sustain pedal does is it sends out MIDI CC64, which in turn prevents your controller from sending a Note Off message even if you release your finger from the key until you let go of the pedal. So if you keep it pressed while changing preset that might be the issue right there!
4:50 you could also group your instruments and fx together and then automate the on/off button of the group instead of every single fx as you show here. This should have the same gains in CPU reduction.
Haven't tested this properly so can't speak for that, but even so: if you have multiple of those fx chains, you still have to automate multiple parameters. Maybe you have 16 of those - that's still16 parameters to automate, which is better than 16 x however many individual fx are inside there, but still
Just use macro. Same as chain, but you can turn instrument on/off.
You mean assign one macro to turn on a chain and off all others?
Isn't the solution to the problem you describe around 5:00 simply to group the instrument+FX chain into a new, nested Instrument Rack and automate the Device On/Off button on that instead? Or does turning off an Instrument Rack not actually turn off the devices inside it?
I see what you mean, but picture this. You have 16 different effect chains with a sound-generating device + various effects in each. Sure, you could group each chain as an instrument rack so that you "just" have to automate each chain's on/off button as opposed to each individual device's. But that still means automating 16 different parameters on every single one of your 16 clips (so 16 * 16 = 256!) - that's a lot of automation you have to write in, plus you'd have to repeat the whole process for every new project you make. So yes, while that would undoubtedly be an improvement in terms of raw numbers, it still wouldn't be a viable solution IMHO
Hi, in ableton you have default values for each parameter. If your default value is "device off" you don't have to write an automation for it to be off in every clip. You only need an automation when you want the device to be on. To set a default value, simply click the value the way you want it to be by default without automating it. In you exemple then there should be 16 automation and not 256 as you say. But... I admit your solution sounds really nice 😅. I will have a try. One question : how can you modify an existing preset ?
@@sdxlamnx You're right about that - my bad. About your question, could you elaborate a bit? What do you mean exactly?
@@TheNeonSyndicate I am not used with using presets. I remember that it is possible to save an instrument as a new user preset. But is it possible to save again modifications on an existing preset without creating and naming a new one ? I will try next time I open ableton
@@sdxlamnx Ah ok gotcha. Yeah, for sure! When you save your changes, there's a dialog that asks you if you want to overwrite your preset or create a new one. So you get to choose
Unfortunately does not work with clyphx pro..
Not sure if both versions likes to be combined.
never tried the pro version. Sounds to me you're right, you should only install one version and go with it
I did everything with Clyphx but i hit play and nothing happens. I have clyphx in the midi preferences but no SWAP happens and no rack come in.
Did you put the [ ad ] brackets at the beginning of the clip?
So the use case for this is just live performance? Or is there a way to make use of this in recording and tracking too?
Sure thing. The world is your oyster! If you want to use it in arrangement view instead of session view, all you gotta do is create markers instead of clips and rename them correctly. As soon as the playhead goes past the marker, it triggers the action.
@@TheNeonSyndicate But how can we change preset with keyswitch and record it ? still stuck there .
If we make the marker , everything need to be intime . Keyswitch and record in realtime is better for jamming .
@@minhthanhnguyen8239 If you want to record your live performance, you need to dedicate one track to that. Set its input so that all other tracks feed into it, record-arm it, start recording, then start your live performance with the clips
this is freaking excellent as I believe that program change is not working with VST3 plugins, ffs Ableton :s
Thanks! They implemented program changes, you can automate them in clips. Some manufacturers, however, did not in their software, notably Vital 🥴
@@TheNeonSyndicate Program changes work only with VST2. Ableton for some reason refuses to support program changes with VST3!
@@WebHamster-tf5ro You sure? Man, that sucks. I'm 100% stock so cannot test this
@@TheNeonSyndicate yes, unfortunately I',m sure. Program changes weren't part of the initial VST3 specification. When Steinberg added it later, Ableton didn't update their VST3 implementation
@@WebHamster-tf5ro Damn, that's unfortunate. Maybe they fixed this in 12?
hey there :) i was trying to set it up, however, i think i ran into an issue, what if i have two midi track (Track 1 Piano sounds only, Track 2 Pad), if i use this SWAP it only changes the 1st track
Hey, so the whole purpose of this is having all your sounds on 1 track and swapping through them. Exploding them across 2 or more tracks kind of defies the purpose here. May I ask why that particular setup?
@@TheNeonSyndicateoh okay that's what i figure, i'm just thinking, for example if i want to combine the Piano and a Pad sound, how am i able to adjust the volume for each sound independently? (just like the chain selector method concept)
Ah ok, gotcha. Makes sense! Here's what you can do: you wanna take your piano sound and your pad sound and group them together into an instrument rack. That instrument rack you then want to name something sensible and save as a preset. That way you can trigger it with the SWAP command. Inside of your new rack you can then pan the piano and the pad sound separately, you can mess with their volumes, process them individually with different effects etc. @@mjtejero
@@TheNeonSyndicate okay got you! Makes sense! Thank you very much for this wonderful tutorial 😀🥰
Hey my pleasure. Have fun! @@mjtejero
One problem i am facing with the device on and off technique is when i play one instrument and move to the another then again if i move back again to the previous instrument, the the previous instrument plays the sustained notes what i played earlier. Is there any way to stop the sustained notes of previously played instruments???
Please help me in this
Sounds like an issue with your MIDI controller. Have you tried not playing any notes when switching?
@@TheNeonSyndicate thanks for your reply
I was holding a chord while switching to the another instrument. Now i took off my hands from the controller and switch back to the previous patch, and it sustains the chord which i hold during the patch change… please help in fixing this
@@calebdany5085 Ok, have you tried stopping while switching? Like literally take your hands off the keys, switching, then start playing again?
@@TheNeonSyndicate yes of course i did. In such case i didn’t get any issues. Also i tried the same using chain selector method, that works fine but cpu usage increases but on using device on and off method i am facing this issue
@@TheNeonSyndicate the exact problem is the notes, which i am holding during the patch change is preserved and when i come back it continues the preserved notes without playing, and if i press the same keys which i hold during the patch change then it stops playing.
Is there a way to do this same thing but with audio tracks? You can't name the clips and therefore can't utilize the clyphx actions on an audio track.
You can name the clips, but I've just experimented and it doesn't seem to be working with audio tracks
Actually, disregard this. Try the following: choose an audio clip from Live's library; put it on an audio track; rename it "[TEST] METRO"; launch it. It will toggle the metronome on and off. So audio clips on audio tracks work!
@@TheNeonSyndicate We may have to disregard the disregard lol. When I put a clip into the audio track, it automatically converts it back to an instrument track, so back at square one. Don't think we can do it with audio tracks 😬
@@cameronj.2375 Wait, so you were talking about putting an instrument rack onto an audio track? Yeah, that's not gonna work, those are for MIDI only. May I ask at this point, since you're gonna be using an instrument rack anyway, why would you even want to use an audio track for this?
@@TheNeonSyndicate Ah I should've been more clear. I'm trying to use an audio effect rack instead of an instrument rack. I want to be able to have different effects for a DI guitar for each rack and be able to switch them (and save processing power)
Can i use this method for kontakt instruments?
You could, but I would advise against it: those are usually huge sample libraries, so it's best to just load them all once when you open your project and assign each instrument within Kontakt to a different MIDI channel
Thanks for reply.😊
That means I have to route kontakt in Ableton? Am I right?
@@abhijitdas7608 If you want to have each library's output sit on its own track, yes. That'd be your ideal scenario when mixing. But if you're just playing live, it's not necessary imho. Every library will be output on the same one track
Thank you once again😊
@@abhijitdas7608 pleasure. Have fun!
Nice video tho! But try once to do it with 25 tracks worship project and launch whole scene for the general launch at the right side and A different cell is selected from the instrument rack track please
My man, I wanna help but Ima have to ask you to say that again and explain in more detail as I have no idea what you just said 🙏
@@TheNeonSyndicate i want to say, If you have more than one track for example drums percussions bass guitars pads and a track that we have our instrument rack that we want to change presets, and you launch them all together from a launch scene button, and you have selected a different clip from the instrument rack or a midi channel that you are typing the commands, automatically, it’s going to add a new track with the saved presets that your command says,and not only one time, but every time you push the swap command, and you don’t have Chosen the clip that you typed the command, it’s gonna add new tracks with the preset that you give the command. Maybe there’s a way to do it, but I didn’t find it
@@Metaxasofc That sounds very weird - this syntax says nothing about creating new tracks, so I don't see why or how that would happen. Are you sure there's nothing else going on?
@@TheNeonSyndicate I am trying to find your email to send you a short video or a contact social media
@@Metaxasofc sure, you can find it on my channel page, just click where it says "synthwave/chillwave"
But... what about plugins? As i see, this only works with ableton instruments
It says on the manual this only works with Live's native devices. I've tested this, and it only seems to work with instruments, not audio effects. But if you have a third party synth, you can wrap it in an instrument rack and save that rack as a preset which you can then recall with this method
Now swap is working but the name of the instrument no
i solved, i put SWAP before the name of the instrument. Thank you so much for the tutorial and sorry about my many questions. I think it is a good solution but if you have a heavy kontakt instrument is not that good because you need to wait until it is upload.
Hey my pleasure. Glad to hear you managed to get it to work. Yeah Kontakt is super heavy. Then again, it's a multitimbral sampler so you can load up all your libraries there and idk assign them to different MIDI channels and swap your presets like that. This method is I think more for synthesizers or samplers which are a little more manageable in size@@pablovillegas2494
Unfortunately this doesn't work anymore in Live 12. Hopefully Ableton will fix this soon.
I'm on 12, works like a charm, you sure you did everything correctly?
@@TheNeonSyndicate That's really strange. Even Isotonik have let me know 'SWAP' doesn't work anymore with Live 12.
@@WebHamster-tf5ro Could it be that you're trying to swap between presets on that third party plugin? Have you tried wrapping it in a rack?
@@TheNeonSyndicate I am using a rack. It works fine in Live 11, just not in 12. Does it work for you in 12? I'm surprised because Isotonik have let me know that it broke in Live 12 (and that they can't fix it without Ableton's help)
@@WebHamster-tf5ro Working for me in 12. Then again, I'm using only stock plugins
Ableton does not save information that there is a vital vst or any 3rd party inside the .ADG and then your racks will turn into a pumpkin after windows reinstall or share 3rd party vst racks😥
You sure about this? I can load my racks with 3rd party plugins just fine so I'd imagine if I shared those racks with someone else who had those same 3rd party plugins installed it should work 🤔
@@TheNeonSyndicate yes, you are right. but the problem appears when there are more presets and plugins, and after reinstalling Windows you don’t remember what plugins you had and what the racks looked like. if the racks are complex, you won’t notice the loss, and ADG simply doesn’t notify you of what was inside. it will open an empty ADG
@@TheNeonSyndicate signing ADG which dlls were used is very tedious if there are really crazy things there, and using als and alc every time is a little stupid and completely defeats the meaning for ADG and third-party vst. ALS with with a nearby render file is the best option for me so far, because ALC preview does not save levels and stretch settings + you can only save one sample from a playlist.. pretty stupid too.
@@qqwwew1 Well listen, in theory so long as you reinstall all your plugins, you should be golden though, right? And if you don't reinstall any specific plugin, that that's probably because you don't need it any longer, right? In my case I think I remember having a rack with a plugin I no longer had on my hard drive, and I would get an error message but the rack would otherwise be exactly as I had saved it
@@qqwwew1 Well listen. Whatever works for you, more power to you!
I use Windows
That shouldn't make a difference, the issue has to be somewhere else down the line!
Are you kidding?
This is clear as mud…
Sorry to hear that. Happy to help if you could elaborate on which parts exactly you didn't understand!
Should we really take a persons advice with two Third party plugins…..
To be perfectly honest with you, things have changed a little since publishing this. I now have 0 third party plugins