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By Brian Jackson
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Digidesign ReWire plug-in routes Live's outputs into Pro Tools. |
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Every job has its tools, and for this task, we’ll use a remarkable third-party application in conjunction with Pro Tools: Ableton Live. Billed as a music-production solution for composing, recording, remixing, and editing musical ideas, Live is especially suited to loop-based composition. You can drag audio or MIDI files into a Live session in real time, allowing you to improvise and try things out on the fly, DJ-style.
Live can be synced to Pro Tools using Propellerhead Software’s ReWire technology, which allows you to stream audio from one application to another, send MIDI in both directions, and synchronize transport between apps. And since a special lite version of Live comes bundled with every new Pro Tools LE and HD system, you might already own it.
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"Beat Detective analyzes an audio file — for example, a drum performance — and then allows you to generate tempo maps based on that file." |
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Beat Detective analyzes an audio file — for example, a drum performance — so you can generate tempo maps based on that file. A tempo map is essentially a plot of all the \ subtle tempo changes in a performance, presented in the form of markers, which are then used as references for MIDI tracks or other synced applications to follow.
Even good drummers will speed up and slow down as they play, so creating a consistent tempo map is not as straight forward as defining the tempo of the overall performance. Each drum hit needs to be mapped so that loops (or, for that matter, MIDI tracks) can be locked into the same groove.
Get the Groove Going
The best way to illustrate this process is to do it step by step. Open a new Pro Tools session and create or import a stereo drum performance. Make sure the Tempo ruler is displayed in the toolbar at the top of the screen (to select this ruler, go to Display/Ruler View Shows/Tempo) and set your session timeline to Bars|Beats.
First, let’s create the tempo map. Select a region of the audio file in the Edit window. Since most loops are two bars long, I recommend making your selection a multiple of two. Next, open Beat Detective from the Windows menu and select the radio button next to Bar|Beat Marker Generation.
Before Beat Detective will work, you must click the Capture Selection button and then the Analyze button on the right. You still won’t see anything happening in your region, but don’t worry — Beat Detective is waiting for you to set the Sensitivity so that it knows what level of detail to work at. For this example, let’s use High Emphasis set to Sub-Beats so we can get all the details and nuances that our drummer put into the performance. For some performances, it may work just as well to define the tempo map every quarter-note or so.
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Figure 1: Beat Detective in action dicing up a loop. Notice the corresponding changes in the Pro Tools Graphic Tempo editor. |
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ReWired and Ready
Let’s set up Live and Pro Tools to work in tandem via ReWire. There are a few different ways to work with ReWire audio streams. The easiest is to bring the audio in on an aux track. Create a new stereo aux input, insert the Ableton Live ReWire plug-in, and assign it to Mix L-Mix R. For this example, we’ll monitor all the tracks through Live’s master output. Alternately, you can create more aux tracks, insert more ReWire plugs, and then reroute each channel out of Live to the individual aux tracks. This is how you’ll probably want to do it when you’re ready to record your audio into Pro Tools.
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Next, let’s load some loops into Live. Open the File Browser on the left side of Live’s screen. (If you can’t see the browser, click on the black arrow icon to open it.) Navigate to the loops that came with your version of Live and drag a few sounds into the audio tracks. (See figure 2.) You can also audition sounds in the File Browser just by clicking on them — just make sure that your Cue output is set to a destination you can hear (for example, the master output).
One of the great things about Live is its ability to handle functions in "Play." You can add and subtract parts and work out arrangements without ever having to hit the stop button. To hear how loops sound against your Pro Tools drum performance, just select the region in the Pro Tools Edit window, make sure Loop Playback is enabled and start the Pro Tools transport, then return to the Live screen to audition loops. As you preview or drag clips into the slots, they will automatically sync to the tempo map you’ve already set up in Pro Tools.
One of the coolest editing and processing functions in Live is "Warp Mode," which enables you to make subtle changes to the timing of a loop — or more drastically, alter the entire nature of a performance. For example, you can adjust a loop’s groove to make it lock in better with the drums in your Pro Tools session. Obviously some results will be more musical than others, but it’s worth taking the time to experiment.
Recording with ReWire
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Ableton Live allows you to easily change the tempo and feel of a loop. |
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If you want to record each track from Live into its own track in Pro Tools, you have a little more routing work to do. It’s not difficult, but it takes a little time to set up. Instead of routing all of Live’s audio tracks to the master output and then into one aux, you can individually route each Live track into its own aux track in Pro Tools.
Here’s an example: Create and name three aux tracks in Pro Tools. Add a ReWire plug-in to each one and set each plug-in to a different stereo ReWire bus.
Next, in Live, change the outputs of each audio track to match the busses in Pro Tools: Go to the In/Out section of each track, and under "Audio To," choose ReWire. In the box below, choose the bus you want.
To finish the routing in Pro Tools, simply create and name three audio tracks to match the aux tracks, and route the outputs via the internal busses to the inputs of the audio tracks. Voila! Each audio track in Live now goes onto its own track in Pro Tools.
This is only one example of how Live and Pro Tools can be used together to take advantage of the strengths of both applications. Pro Tools and Live are both very deep applications, and the only way to master them is to spend some time with them. If you’re like me, finding the motivation to do so shouldn’t be an issue.
www.ableton.com
www.digidesign.com
Brian Jackson is an electronic musician with over eight years of Pro Tools experience under his belt. He teaches audio engineering at Touro College’s DMX program in New York City. Check out his website at www.form8.com