Seamless Patch Changes with Chain Selector in Ableton Live

[@allendunning2129]

Using Ableton's instrument racks and their chain selectors is a powerful and versatile tool for keys players and can also husband CPU usage, but you should mention that the quantization setting in the launch box should be set depending on when/how you want the chain selector to switch patches/instruments. For example if you want the instrument to change immediately upon "firing" your clip, then the quantization box in the launch window should be set to "none", otherwise the instrument(s) won't change until the global quantization setting in Ableton is met, eg 1 bar, quarter note, etc..

[@leonderprofi7269]

Thank you haha. I saw your comment exactly at the same time when i noticed this problem

[@hamiltonquintana8645]

New to ableton and I think this tutorial was heaven sent but I also noticed that right away. I am so glad your comment is right at the top hahaha Thank you.

[@chromosundrift]

Wow powerful and interesting point. Am I right in understanding that you can set the quantization on the clip to be immediate while still having a global quantization setting, say, for the bar?

[@david_pilkington_music]

Some good news is that Ableton Live 11 Intro now has 16 scenes available (instead of just 8). Thanks for the great tip.

[@dwpix]

Amazing! I am not a ‘believer’, but I do believe that expressing gratitude is noble. Thank you for this.

[@SundaySounds]

You’re welcome! Thanks for the kind comment, glad you found the video helpful.

[@AMusicHaven]

Thank you for sharing your precious resources with the church! I thought I have not maximize the use of Ableton Live, and I was right. This is a life changing game for my rig and for our worship team.

[@remedyofficialvlogs47]

Thank u david!!! Im watching this right now, looking for a way to layer sounds, and achieve seamless transitions between patches. U explained it so simple and precise its now 3am though and my wife wont let me set up my rig. I will definitely try this first thing in the morning. Thank u and God bless David and all of Sunday Sounds!! You are becoming my favorite channel. 😉😉😉

[@Thebema]

This! I was beating my head on how to accomplish this for a few days and this tutorial was precisely what I needed!

[@SundaySounds]

So glad it was helpful for you!

[@JebishMoses]

Thank you so much David. Had a disaster while using ableton with some unmuted tones during worship! Going to implement this now

[@deadlegend3427]

Really great tutorial and very well explained with most of the usage for why and how’s thank you 🙏

[@keysWithTej]

This tutorial was really helpful, thank you for sharing. It also works seamlessly in arranger view if you want to switch presets with background music playing, if you've recorded the scene changes to the linear sequencer, the switching happens automatically.

[@burtayzulaloglu9284]

Great tip! Don't forget to turn off other instruments in the chain that you aren't using everytime you go to a scene. Otherwise all turned on plugins / presets will eat up your cpu for no reason.

[@montenour]

Absolutely terrific, my friend. Thank you!

[@jesustaughtmekeys8466]

Yes I want to dump hung notes ! And here is a way to eliminate. Hallelujah the channel is a savior

[@joaobaptistabrandao]

that changed everything! Thank you so much!

[@unknownstranger8915]

Thank you brother for this tutorials. God bless you and i will use this tricks to play for the worship

[@DC-vj9op]

Wow, Wow, Wow! Fantastic👍😁🎶

[@LekannAJ]

THANK YOU! This video saved me so much stress!

[@cliffordWinder]

So much better than my current Ableton setup! Many thanks!

[@JD-nq8kh]

If your keyboard has knobs, you can also map a knob to a macro in the rack, and then map the macro to the chain selector

[@louislafontaine5984]

Or map the macro to an foot pedal.

[@JebishMoses]

Really Amazing! Sunday Sounds is really helping me with my transition into midi worship setup! God bless! Please post more videos for ableton!

[@SundaySounds]

So great! We will, make sure you've signed up for all the updates about new videos and subscribe! sundaysounds.com/updates

[@JebishMoses]

@@SundaySounds Yes! Already an insider 😊

[@ronnie4261]

This is amazing thank you!

[@SundaySounds]

You're welcome! Have a great day :)

[@thingsgotmessy]

Siiiick thaaaank you!!!

[@AmerikkkaGuitars]

Thanks I was able to use the sustain pedal to switch between 2 chains! Still kind of a pain to use for guitar players that need two hands to play a note, unlike piano that can still play with one hand while switching. I use the sustain pedal on a keystep. It toggles between 0 and 127. Also, if you use your sustain pedal on keyboard, you can get the logidy usb midi foot controller instead. You can program steps into the switch to change the chain selector. Can program one footswitch to toggle between different values. Haven't tried that yet but it should work.

[@louislafontaine5984]

An expression pedal (not a sustain) sends 0-127 values. Thus it would be possible to set more than only two positions in the chain. I like the idea to spead some instruments on all the range, other on their own keyboard range (KEY button)and also have some respond only to high velocities (VEL button). So KEY, VEL and CHAIN do a very powerful group.

[@MichaelMoore-nx5ue]

Very cool!! Thank you so much

[@chrisw1462]

Another method is to use External Instrument instances in the Instrument Rack to send MIDI to actual tracks.. via a helper. It requires either Max4Live or setting up a Virtual MIDI device - IAC MIDI on a Mac or LoopMIDI on PC - but it lets you set up tracks as you would normally, just changing the MIDI input to the MIDI device instance and channel you chose for it in the Rack. I do this because I find it easier to watch and adjust things on the tracks instead of the smaller meter and gain control in the Instrument Rack chain box.

[@PeacefulNotes93]

You finally solved my problem!!

[@felixfast4ward]

Very well done ! These patches are heaven sent !

[@mm18391]

Great video great channel!Love from hong kong❤️

[@mtbrogue88]

Great tutorial;.. THanks!!

[@louislafontaine5984]

Another option is to assign the chain selector position on Macro one, then MIDI map the Macro button to an expression pedal to free your hands.

[@JamesBermingham]

Brilliant demo👊

[@SundaySounds]

Thanks!

[@Migesteban]

Thank YOU !

[@tomscharre3171]

cool trick bro thanks a lot for this

[@elihernandez3571]

Hi, really great tutorial just one question. How do you make it to where when you switch midi clip it does it instantly, because on mine when I switch to a different midi clip (pressing the play button for the next preset) It does like a tempo 4 count in or something?

[@Sorokafoto]

Очень полезно и безумно понятно! Спасибо за хорошее и внятное объяснение

[@jasonvotaw5966]

Thank you!

[@SundaySounds]

You're welcome!

[@luzbel.averno]

Very good tutorial, my question comes because I work with arrangement view to compose a song and when I use some guitar VST that are playing an specific rythm like Sunburst playing americana A rythm and in the same track I want to change to americana B without creating another midi track I cannot do it, I always need to create a new MIDI track, so I would like to understand how to use the chain in arrangement mode to switch between americana A and B in the track. I mean, americana A for the verse, then change to americana B for the chorus and so on in the same track. Is it possible in arrangement mode?

[@chromosundrift]

Thanks very useful! Would it be possible to make this selection using macro controls rather than launching clips? Additionally could you confirm that unselected chains do not cost CPU once they've stopped playing? If they do still use CPU would it be possible to use the chain selector map to turn them off somehow? Thanks in advance.

[@sargamstudio6816]

Hi there, I use an M-Audio Oxygen 49 with Ableton Live 11. Do you have a tutorial for assigning C18 - C26 Buttons to select different vertical soundtracks in Ableton?

[@reymond595]

Can you assign master to a pc keyboard shortcut? its to hard to select the effects in performing live while using mouse ahahahha

[@MikkiYoMikki]

This is an awesome lesson to get us started but I've come to lots of doubts as I use 4 controller keyboards and 2 control pads... Oh... And a pedalboard to control sustain for both 88 keys with just 1 button. What I can't find is a way to assign sustain to one keyboard and no sustain to the other... As I say, I use the same pedal for both keyboards. In mainstage, it is seamlessly easy but I can't, for the life of me, find a way to do it in Ableton. Any ideas? Thanks in advance

[@scottyj737]

enjoying learning these things. by the way is your ring making your finger itch? you keep turning it lol

[@ViRiXDreamcore]

WOW this is very useful! And you can drag the clips into Session view for semi-live events where you want the key sound to change, but can't change it yourself, so you can set the change in advance.

[@chaussebenjamin]

Thanks for the awesome tutorial man! I was wondering if you had thought of a way to turn off the instrument below a certain noise floor once they are inactive (to preserve CPU) and turn them back on once selected. I am worried about the fact that every Instrument on a track remains active (and continues to use CPU) even when no midi is sent. Is there a way to set an audio gate as some sort of trigger that turns off instruments once it's volume falls below a certain threshold? It would then need to turn it back on once it gets re-selected. This way, you'd get the best of both worlds: seamless transitions + low cpu usage I tried using the Max4Live Envelope Follower CV in inverted mode but then, I don't have any way to re-enable the sound after it gets shut off. I'd need some sort of AND gate (ex: if sound is below threshold AND sound should be off THEN disable the instrument). Anyways, keep up the good work ;)

[@nathanfutrell7105]

This is fantastic! Does Sunday Sounds come with the chain selector function pre-programmed? So If the sustain pedal is pressed, it will sustain the previous sounds while switching to a new master scene or track? Also, just discovered Sunday Sounds and am purchasing first thing tomorrow! :)

[@SundaySounds]

Correct, Sunday Keys for Ableton is all pre-programmed :) The sustain pedal does work that way.

[@isabellebernatchez1]

@@SundaySounds if the sustain pedal is programmed for this, you can't use your pedal for realy for the sustain using? How can it be used for both? Where in Ableton do you midi map the sustain pedal? Note that my keyboard can take one sustain pedal.

[@Johnsonbariya144]

Can u help me to assign Ableton Live tracks in novation midi keyboard for live performance?

[@brandonanderson9262]

Will this work with an audio channel? For example have a few presets of helix native that will switch between scenes. Was trying gig performer -"and that works great for that scenario but don't want to pay an extra $200 when I've already bought ableton.

[@karlmaamary8181]

Is there a way to midi map the chain selector to a switch pedal so everytime i hit the pedal the chain selector will move to the next position(if i am for example at position 1 and I hit the pedal the chain selector will move to position 2).

[@SundaySounds]

I know you can map one of the macro knobs in Ableton Live to the Chain Selector so as you turn the knob it will change instruments, you might try to see how it would respond if you assigned a button to that macro knob

[@karlmaamary8181]

@@SundaySounds okayy thank you will give it a try

[@R2ROrancid]

@@karlmaamary8181 Karl I found that you can do it if you set the whole set of a song in the right corner of the master output, where you name each scene for each of your songs. If you want, DM me @arttuamaro on IG or Twitter, or on -FB-(dot)com/R2amaro I'm willing to share it and also exchange some tips/questions regarding Ableton

[@powelldavid]

Thank you! How can I build a set list?

[@rodgerwebb1]

Is there anyway to get back to how it orginally came? When I try to open new live set my only option is to delete the set then I have to start all over . This is an absolute nightmare.

[@leonderprofi7269]

Dude! I dont know why, but my envelope section looks totaly different and cant find my instrument rack in the list!!

[@phenix2620]

Génial.......

[@pianodecrabdriver7977]

For us indians namo kantroller available on Amazon can you perform without nano kantroller in the church?

[@stanleyrichardslanka2750]

Ok but how do i add an audio effect like reverb to a single patch

[@Worship4LifeGuitar]

Can you guys do this for Logic Pro?

[@famenontsoaramananarivo4271]

Thank you a lot! Can I do the same with the arrangement view?

[@emildobranszky3656]

Is it possible to automat ehotswap?

[@fingerfreak]

Is there a way to control the Chain Selector via Program Change or Control Change? My goal is to switch patch seamlessly from Organ to Piano. While I'm able to achieve that by following your tutorial and clicking on the screen to switch sounds, I rather do it by using a pedal. Thanks

[@SundaySounds]

Hi, if you'd like further help with this, feel free to reach out to us directly: sundaysounds.com/contact

[@fingerfreak]

@@SundaySounds Hi, I already emailed you.

[@louislafontaine5984]

An expression pedal (not a sustain) sends 0-127 values. Thus it would be possible to set more than only two positions in the chain. I like the idea to spead some instruments on all the range, other on their own keyboard range (KEY button)and also have some respond only to high velocities (VEL button). So KEY, VEL and CHAIN do a very powerful group. Also the Chain zone allows to ser a fade in and fade out. You just have to pull the side of the 🟦 the drag the tiny line above the square to creat the fade. Do this for your piano and organ in contrary fades. You expression pedal will gives you a gradual fade between your two (or more) sounds.

[@victormontepeque9405]

Can the next tutorial be “How to drone a patch in Ableton.”

[@isa_munoz]

How are you! I invented a drone pad, doing it like this: instrument rack, I add the pads and put a midi effect “chord” 1st 5th and 8th, just to press a key hahaha And so that it stays in drone mode, in the midi channel I leave it in auto, I assign the record buttons and silence to a controller, when pressing that button, it silences all the channels except the drone pad, I play some piano key, I hold the Sustain pedal and immediately press the button of the assigned controller and so it is in drone mode I hope I helped a little, regards!!!

[@Keysworship]

Thank you for this video. And one more question, How do I make a smooth transition on the master channel, (so that the line change is smooth) ?

[@petrus7977]

I managed to create the clips and draw the envelopes numerically, but when triggering the clips they just hang there twinkling as if waiting to play... only they dont ever actually play so they dont trigger the number

[@maegjohncareeon639]

Can I Split Voices in Ableton Live?

[@jessybienunida8947]

Hello David, I'm Jessy from Philippines may I know how to have a mod control using ableton, because my Piano that I using had no mod control, God Bless your team 💕

[@louislafontaine5984]

Buy a Midi controller. It’s cheap and has nothing inside except buttons and slider. You can assign any button or slider to about anything inside Ableton Live. Ex: Akai Midimix or Worlde easycontrol 9.

[@rrigs8075]

Hi just had a look at this - very useful video - will it work with Ableton 11? Had a very quick go and wasn't working?

[@AkarionFarm]

Did you ever get this figured out? I am new to Sunday Keys and Ableton, and am having trouble finding the envelope. I was able to set up once and I think I found the envelope part , but now I'm trying to do it again and it doesn't seem to work.....I guess I didn't save my previous work either :(

[@fahimdawer]

But will this work for third party plugins....i dont think so

[@leonderprofi7269]

I love you

[@swarafusionband420]

Hi.. How to use One Instance of Kontakt with Multi Instruments in Chain Selector ?

[@stevebenitez5402]

Me going through this for metal

[@rodgerwebb1]

I followed the instructions however now when I go to record on my Apc40 nothing happens? When I change patches some knobs on the presets that I'm not useing move on there own. So when I select a patch it sounds super weird?

[@frankconstantine6218]

Hello. Nice video. I have a question if you can. I use Ableton for very simple things. I record piano pieces for my students. I don’t use it to perform live. Here’s my question. I want to record a piece that’s 32 measures long. But I want bells for the first 8 bars and the last 8 bars. The rest is grand piano. This is for a recording. Is there any way to do this?

[@SundaySounds]

Hi, you could try recording the bells on one track, and piano on a separate track in Ableton.

[@ptworship]

Hi david and all, How to record with this kind of set up (chain selector) in ableton? I tried to arm all the tracks with record button, and then tried to press global record button and playing but it doesnt record anything. Please kindly help or advise any ideas. Thanks before

[@SundaySounds]

Hi, if you are using Sunday Keys we have a tutorial on the Sunday Keys Resource Page to show you how to do it.

[@yoemichelp_yoe]

hello david. I am still deciding what secundary control I will be using that is similar to the Korg Nano Controller. I am wondering which controller is the one you have on the table directly above the nono crontroller? Thank you

[@SundaySounds]

For most cases we would recommend the Korg nanoKontrol2, that controller on the desk is the Icon Platform X.

[@marianofernandezcalabro287]

but, if i want to change from scene 1 to scene 2 with ONE midi key is that posible ? beacause im doing that in 2 step, hit the key DOWN to posisionate in scene 2 and then hit the key play, i need one move at live ! thanks

[@isaacaustin8058]

If I am using Sunday Keys for Abelton, what if I want say 4 synth sounds for a song. Would it mess up the chain link if I put a Sunday Keys synth sound in Midi Track 1?

[@drummerbishwanth]

If you don't mind I just wanted this one to be clarified. Actually I have two midi track one with sd3 vst and another one with multiple drum rack in an instrument rack. In the 1st instrument drum rack.. Notes C#1 & D1 has chimes samples and C2 has a Tamb Loop. And in the 2nd midi track, I am using the SD3 instrument rack, where I have created multiple instances of the SD3 instrument to omit C#1, D1 & C2 for samples and loops to be triggered in the 1st Drum rack. Rest all the other midi notes will be triggered by the sd3. My question is, is this the way to do it or some other method to achieve what i wanted? Because the way I did will create multiple instances of sd3 vst (i.e 3 in my case) and this affects my cpu usage. and moreover this is for one song. Some other songs have samples and loops placed in different notes in drum rack. Earlier I used the mainstage for this where I can assign the drum pad to trigger which vst midi note needs to be played and it was working fine. But mainstage is not stable with loops. I am getting a slight delay with the playback plugin while triggering the loops. Please help me with this. Thanks.

[@AndreGMendes]

Looking at your mixer on the left, what's the model?

[@SundaySounds]

Platform X midi controller by iCon

[@chichaaronmex]

Amazing tutorial, i was able to setup chain selector and it works flawlessly. The issue for me is i like to build live loops, since the clips is used to trigger the chain selector and the monitoring is set to IN how would you loop you selected synth with rerouting to another clips slop? Is there a way to simply trigger the clip to both initiate the chain selector and begin recording the loop?

[@SundaySounds]

Hi, if you aren't able to sort that out, feel free to send us an email and we can help: sundaysounds.com/contact

[@zhaoxie8928]

Sir can i use 2 keyboards in ableton live..? 1 keyboard is piano sounds and and 2nd keyboard is for synth??

[@louislafontaine5984]

Follow his tutorial and instead place as many instruments you like.

[@KateMatiew]

Thank you for your video!! I have one issue though. I have three Keyscape patches loaded in using chain selector, and one of them is with pedal noise. However, when I switch clips to a different value , pedal noise still keeps going from another patch, but I turned off pedal noise anywhere else. How can this be? I’m really frustrated, cause I don’t want every sound to have pedal noise in it, but only one or two specific ones.

[@SundaySounds]

If you're still having trouble with this feel free to reach out to us here: sundaysounds.com/contact

[@alexclusivity.]

how do you get the midi clip play button to stay on?

[@isaqueportilho3001]

Cool! Had just one problem.. when I set Monitor to "in" i can't colour the patches, they stay grey

[@michael_tankersley]

From what I've found, you still need to arm the tracks to color code everything :)

[@phobophob]

good stuff. :)

[@adamofthecosmos]

As a guitarist, could you use the same concept to toggle between guitar tones on an audio track with a midi foot pedal?

[@MrRyancangri]

Yes you can. It works for both vsts and effects.

[@DarnelNeel]

Bro How can I get those free sundy keys free piano patch for worship ?

[@SundaySounds]

Hi, if you sign up for our newsletter here you'll be able to download all the free patches: sundaysounds.com/updates

[@jamesoctura693]

how do you record on the fly to the arrangement view? when i press the record, the arrangment view is showing grayed clip for the instrument rack.

[@SundaySounds]

Are you doing this in Sunday Keys for Ableton or a different set?

[@Jonathan.R.Pereira]

For some reason, after duplicating the track, and setting up a Grand Piano and Pad in a row, it doesn't play both.

[@puturro]

cool! Can we use a single pad or pedal to move down or up? does Ableton give you something like that to program a sequence hitting just one thing?

[@hastyscorpion]

Yes any midi controller button mapped to the next scene button will do the trick

[@louislafontaine5984]

Yes you can have an event trigger another event. I don’t know how but I once saw a KZbin video about that.

[@lifescansdarkly]

Do you find that CPU usage is affected by keeping all these instruments active simultaneously, or does the CPU only jump once you start playing them? I'm just worried that running multiple instances of a beefier VST (say, Diva or Omnisphere) might stack up on the CPU and make the project unstable.

[@makstr1861]

You can also map the on/off of the vst chain to the chain selector, and putting the value of the chain selector of the patch, so when you select the patch 1, the vst chain of patch 1 turns on, and when you select chain 2, the vst chain of patch 2 turns on and the one of patch 1 turns off, etc.. so finaly you have only the vst "on" when you select his chain (but you loose the possibility to keep the sound playing after changing the chain)

[@luminaeventos9419]

I have a very specific issue I wanna learn about Ableton... it´s about program change on an AUDIO track, meanbing changing a preset on and vst hosted on an audio track... I need to change presets on this track automatically. Is that possible ?? Thanks !!

[@SundaySounds]

Hi Lumina, if you have an effect on an audio track that can use program change to change presets, then you could create a midi track and have it send a PC message. Here is a tutorial on this: help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/articles/209070489-How-to-send-Program-Change-messages-from-Live

[@swarafusionband420]

Is it possible to add FX to midi clips like Reverb, Delay, Phaser, chorus, Eq etc ?

[@SundaySounds]

Sure is, you'd just need to figure out the specific automations needed yourself and add them into clips.

[@niellseen]

😊👍❤️

[@austinpillsbury3626]

It didnt work for me sadly. I couldn't get audio to come out when I selected the clips. I followed each step but I must be doing something wrong.

[@SundaySounds]

Did you have your audio working correctly before setting this up?

[@austinpillsbury3626]

@@SundaySounds thank you for the reply! In the chain I didn’t assign the patches properly. I found my error though and it worked great! I was able to change patches during service perfectly. Thank you for the awesome vid!

[@drtolgaege]

is it possible for Logic Pro (changing patch)??

[@sgib199]

Logic Pro doesn't have this kind of functionality...have you tried using MainStage?

[@drtolgaege]

@@sgib199 yes. However it is cpu hungry

[@sgib199]

@@drtolgaege It isn't so bad if you are doing a lot of sampler based patches. But I've been having reliability problems with MainStage when there are a lot of backing stems in the set...so I'm moving over to Ableton for reliability reasons. Gig Performer might be worth looking at. They claim to be light on the CPU. I didn't go that direction because I already own Ableton and on a tight deadline.

[@rindfleischetikettierungsu6654]

It doesn´t works with external instrument :´(

[@SundaySounds]

Hi, what do you mean by not working with an external instrument? If you need help, feel free to reach out! sundaysounds.com/contact

[@MrRyancangri]

Two people gave up.