MIDI clip triggering

Support
1

I am using Ableton to send MIDI note on/off to trigger clips and to send FX control info to Liberation and find it quite time consuming - is there an easier way to do this?

I also need to use Ableton to trigger lights via Lightkey at the same time which uses MIDI to trigger DMX. Is there a way I can do this with the Timeline feature or is that just for Liberation?

Thanks

2

Hi Mike,

I’m guessing you’re using the MIDI Send / Receive system for this?

If so, a much easier approach is usually to sync Liberation to Ableton using MIDI Clock, and then build your show directly in the Liberation timeline. That way you don’t need to map lots of MIDI notes just to trigger clips.

One thing to note though: the timeline doesn’t currently support live FX control, so you’d need to bake any effects into the clips themselves rather than triggering them separately via MIDI.

To answer your second question - there’s currently no straightforward way to send MIDI out of Liberation. However, you can control DMX devices directly from within Liberation itself.

It’s not fully documented yet, but there have been a few forum posts about it recently, so it’s worth having a search. There’s also an overview here:

Hope that helps!

Seb

3

Hi Seb,

Thanks for the reply. I have briefly played around with it using MIDI clock and it seems to work great so I will probably start using this now. Just a couple of questions if you don’t mind -

  1. I saw in a previous forum post you can duplicate clips by holding down ALT (I’m on a MacBook so I assume ‘option’), lassoing them and dragging them while holding down ALT. I can lasso them fine but I can’t get them to duplicate by dragging and holding down ALT. Is this a bug I should report? Ctl-C, Ctl-V etc would be so useful here.

  2. I will need to load timelines automatically as and when the songs start to play which may not be in the same order every time. Do I need to use timecode for this or can it be done with MIDI clock?

4

I think this may have been broken in one of the builds or is perhaps intermittent? It seems to work here at least in the latest build. Let me know if you can get it working (or reliably not-working so I can check).

It sure would!

The automatic timeline selection functionality is currently only possible with timecode and timeline start offsets. (You would usually put each track at a different hour in the timecode).

If you use MIDI Clock the timeline will always start at bar 0 so you would have to manually switch timeline for now. Sorry!

All the best,

Seb

5

Hi Seb,

I can confirm the ALT drag does not work. Is there another way to copy clips in the timeline and should I report this as a bug?

I am using M4 MacBook with 26.3.1 (25D2128)

Thanks!

6

Hi Mike,

Thanks for confirming that, it’s strange but I’m not seeing this issue here on any of my Macs in the latest builds, so it doesn’t look like a general bug at the moment.

Just to make sure I’m looking in the right place - are you doing this in the clip deck or the timeline? Also just to check - on Mac this is the Option key (sometimes labelled Alt), so make sure that’s the one you’re using.

If you can, a quick screen recording would be really helpful. That’ll let me see exactly what’s happening and whether there’s something subtle going on.

If we can reproduce it reliably then I’ll treat it as a bug and get it fixed.

Thanks,

Seb

7

Hi Seb,

I am doing this in the timeline. I can however confirm that alt dragging does indeed work fine in the clip deck. Is this not available in the timeline? If not how do you copy clip selections in the timeline from one section to another?

Thanks

8

It does work in the timeline but in older versions you may have to start dragging first and then press the ALT/OPTION key.

All the best,

Seb

9

I really cannot get this working at all. Clip deck no problem but whatever I try in the timeline window ALT + drag will not copy anything that has been highlighted. It just moves it and it is the same if I press ALT before dragging or after I start dragging!

If there is a special dragging or clicking technique for this I am missing please can you post a video when you have a chance?

I have tried v 1.0.0 and 1.0.3

10

Can you try 1.0.3 build 5? I think I did fix some stuff there recently. If you still have no luck I’ll record a video.

All the best

Seb

11

After a call with Mike (nice to meet you!) we have confirmed that OPTION/ALT drag does indeed copy in the clip deck and the timeline on Mike’s machine.

Liberation follows the standard Mac usage implemented in things like Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro where you can press OPTION / ALT at any time while you’re dragging to preview a copy, and as long as you still have that modifier key pressed when you let go, then you’ll get a copy.

So it can be confusing if you’re not used to that pattern, but at least it is working :blush:

Hope this helps!

Seb