Using buffers across channels in Ableton
I was very pleased when I found this out - A groove object on channel 2 can reference a buffer object on channel 1.
Is anyone else doing this? Are there any issues referencing buffers across tracks?
For instance, the groove object on channel 2 will show an error "no buffer~ loupe1", because it doesn't find the buffer in the device. But it seems to work fine when I send the groove object the message "set loupe1".
Are there any other technical considerations doing this? Should I feel confident preforming with this technique?
"Should I feel confident preforming with this technique?"
no.
because: you cannot predict the order of read / write, as the two exist in different threads. meaning: you might accidentally try to read a sample from the buffer with your groove~ or whatever, before it has been written by your record~ / poke~ whatever. for this reason i also use a global send / receive pair to notify the reading patcher when the buffer has finished writing.
as long as you are careful, these sort of things can work fine, also with global colls, etc...
Thanks so much for your help,
I am using the poke object with the buffer, to record live guitar and loop it.
Though it seems to work, the reading patcher still has an error, even if the buffer has already been written to (see pic)
I'm having intermittent Ableton crashes, (especially after editing patches), and wondering if the crashes are related to the error messages.
Do you also have error messages, when you open up the M4L device with your reading patcher?
i was wondering whether this would work myself but never tried it and now i'm going to. thought maybe i could record into a buffer on an audio track but reference it from a groove object on a midi track, so i could edit the sample using midi, but in the past when trying this i found it more stable just using send/receive objects from the midi device to the audio device to do such stuff. still gonna try this tho.
I put a "dummy" buffer in the playback patch, that the groove object can reference when first opening. This gets rid of the error "no buffer".
Ned, that's a good idea. I was using a max sequencer to run the groove object, but your idea would allow Ableton midi notes to run the sequence, which is pretty cool.