Ableton Looping Template: Overview

For years I have been jealous of musicians and artist that can just sit down and jam. Being a synth based musician it has never been easy to just turn up and start playing with others. When I first started there where not many computers used in music and most of the instruments and equipment was bulky and needed mains power. Something sadly missing from most jams round the campfire.

But in the last few years we are seeing more mobile options available to the synth player. Aside from the obvious mobility of a laptop and MIDI controllers, we are seeing more battery powered devices every year. And all the time we are also seeing a vast improvement in battery power and life.

So with this in mind I decided it was time to join in with the fun. I have worked with synths and other audio equipment other almost thirty five years, so I had a good idea of the ins and outs of the equipment involved.

So first a few things I wanted for my set up:

• Portable: Must be able to pack into something I can carry.
• Lightweight
• Battery powered: but can run on mains where available.
• Fast to set up and take down.
• No control should have two uses.

And the Ableton template should contain:

• Three instrument tracks for an Electric Piano, a Synth and a string based instrument
• A Drum track containing a mixture of kits
• A track with a Drum rack containing  hits.
• One basic audio track with effects for a microphone.
• Another audio track that is feed with a stereo input that can have effects added and mixed into main mix.
• The ability to add more audio tracks to take other musicians input e.g. guitar, vocals etc.
• To be able to lock tempo to an external audio input
• Able to add hardware synths e.g. Moog Werkstatt
• Hands free control of Looper devices
• Custom Lemur touch control template, with feedback from the Ableton template e.g. Looper state: record, overdub, play and stop. 

Equipment used:

• Novation Compact SL - MIDI controller
• Novation Mini Launchpad
• Akai APD8
• Behringer X-Air 18 Sound card

 I have previously tried the Ableton Push 1 but found although it had many options to control Live, I just did not enjoy using the pads to enter notes. I may not be a great keyboard player but it is what I am used to using and feel more comfortable playing a keyboard. So for this reason I went back to my old Novation Compact SL as my main controller.