VST Plugin Recording in Ableton Live 8 [Extreme Noob]

[Mullaha]

I'm not sure if this works as I'm on my phone but you could make a new audio track, select the input as the output of your soundcard(so it picks up whatever sound is being played through the soundcard) turn off monitoring to avoid feedback and press record?

Give that a go?

Best of luck,
Mul

Sent from my GT-I5500 using Tapatalk

[djchozen91]

I tried doing that and it either doesn't work or i did it wrong. It feels like this is a fairly simple problem that i'm over-analyzing because I'm a complete noob. I want live to record the audio out of the plugin instead of recording the midi inputs and then playing them out of the plugin.

[fistikuffs]

Originally Posted by djchozen91

I tried doing that and it either doesn't work or i did it wrong. It feels like this is a fairly simple problem that i'm over-analyzing because I'm a complete noob. I want live to record the audio out of the plugin instead of recording the midi inputs and then playing them out of the plugin.

Create a new audio track and set it's input to the midi track you want to record and arm the audio track, that should do it for you. If you're recording/performing the midi input at the same time make sure you CTRL click the arm button on both tracks.

[djchozen91]

Originally Posted by fistikuffs

Create a new audio track and set it's input to the midi track you want to record and arm the audio track, that should do it for you. If you're recording/performing the midi input at the same time make sure you CTRL click the arm button on both tracks.

Thanks so much. That's exactly what i want. Is this normal procedure for recording virtual synths?

[mattsearles]

Ok.. let me try and explain

First of all you may or may not want to record your tweaking of the synth.. that synth's audio output.. you might want to just record the movement of the parameters you're tweaking.

If I understand that problem correctly.. the problem is you're in session view.. trying to record that automation into the clip.. and unfortunately.. it's a weakness of Ableton 8 that stuff doesn't get recorded into a clip.. but it can be recorded into the arrangement view... and edited.

Also.. to help you out... the tweaking of parameters of a synth.. what the synth will be record is not midi.. but the automation data.

Now for some synths.. there's a MIDI learn.. so maybe you have some kind of controller.. you right click on the parameter you want to tweak and.. and if the synth has a midi learn it's method of assigning midi to.. err I think you might say parameter to it... then if you move the knob on your controller.. that knob will now control that parameter.

The MIDI standard is.. more complex and deep then what folks normally utilize.. but if you were to get into orchestration.. you'd want to get deeper into the MIDI standard...

Basically.. there's a whole lot of what's called "realtime continuous data" stuff.. in the MIDI standard.. that you can be used to control whatever parameter you wish.

Now.. in the standard there's actually certain things that are.. by default supposed to control certain types of parameters of a virtual (or otherwise) instrument.. but developers don't usually implement this stuff.

In any event.. you can record this kind of midi into a clip in the session view.

The good news is that Live 9 should fix this issue of recording into the clip.

Now.. you don't have to send audio through your interface to record stuff.. and you wouldn't want to do this as this will degrade the audio and introduce you to issues with latency and... just a lot of pain.

However if you look at an audio tracks ins.. you'll find that it has an input option for every channel you have in Ableton, as well as a "resample" option. The resample will record everything as it comes out of the master channel.

Now the only problem is.. I'm not 100% sure that everything I'm telling you is 100% true.. cause there's a few things I'm fuzzy on in there..

What I will say is now would be a great time to go get some training...

check out the all you can eat options at macProVideo.com - Streaming Tutorial-Videos & HD Training Downloads for Audio, Graphics, & Video Editing Software as well as Learn Pro Tools, Logic Pro, Ableton Live and more - Training and Tutorial Videos and also check out Tom Cosom Tom Cosm who's really awesome... Lynda.com has some Ableton video's to.. but last I checked Lynda.com didn't have stuff that really went too deep into audio stuff.

But these sites will walk you through all the basics of music production and how to use ableton.. and a whole lot more.. they're really great resources.

[fistikuffs]

Originally Posted by djchozen91

Thanks so much. That's exactly what i want. Is this normal procedure for recording virtual synths?

No problem.

The method I gave you is recording the audio output of the synth, including any parameter changes you make during the performance, so if that's what you need to do that's the method I would use. But as mattsearles said, if your in session view you won't be recording any automation or parameter changes on the midi track, just the audio output of those changes. If you need to do that use the arrangement view and arm the track(s) you want to record.

But if you just want to record the actual audio output of the vsti performance in either view then just follow my first post. That works best for me