Getting EZplayer pro set up in Ableton Live can be confusing at first, so I thought I’d write up a tutorial with some images.

For this tutorial I’ll be using Ableton 7.0.16.

First, open up Ableton, and open your plugins dialog. Scroll down to EZplayer and drag it into the device creation section, or create a new MIDI track to put it on.

Next, do the same for your Toontrack Plugin of choice, in this case, EZdrummer:

Now, we’ll set up the MIDI routing to tell EZdrummer to take its MIDI input from EZplayer Pro. Click on the pulldown under “MIDI from” select “EZplayer”.

Now do the same for the pulldown under “MIDI FROM“, selecting “EZplayer” from the pulldown. Finally, record enable this track.

Now jump back to the channel that you’ve got EZplayer Pro on. Open the EZplayer interface, and select the drummer you want to use from the pulldown next to the Velocity knob. I’ll select “EZdrummer” from the Toontrack menu:

Now I need to tell EZplayer what channel its going to send MIDI information to. Click the same pulldown you just used to select your drummer, and navigate to the MIDI output menu – select the channel you have EZdrummer on, in this case, channel 3:

Next, select a MIDI groove from your library of grooves and loops. You can drag some of them into EZplayer’s interface from here, or you can audition them using the quick audition player.

Finally, hit play in EZplayer; you’ll notice that EZdrummer is playing back the selected MIDI groove:

That’s it! I’ve included an Ableton Live set for quick reference or you can build this set yourself and save it as a template.

Happy drumming!

-Brian

by G.W. Childs IV

Every music application has some way of color coding regions, clips, tracks, etc. However, isn’t it interesting how you don’t see anyone using them, with exception of people, like myself, who create demos for music software?

Let me be the first to say that colors are not a silly thing to add to your tracks. It’s not childish, and it’s not meant to make things prettier. Color coding a clip, region, etc, can really help you quickly identify parts, which makes editing and arranging much easier.

For example: I can decide that any part colored red is a rhythm part. As I go back through my song, I can clearly see all of my rhythm parts and differentiate those parts from the green guitar parts.

Second example: I can color code all of the clips or regions green that are apart of my song intro, the chorus could be blue, the verse could be yellow. When I go back to edit my song, I can clearly see all of the parts that make up my song and can jump around accordingly.

Finally, one of my favorite things about the color feature is one of the most simple: Colors can mean whatever you want them to. You can set up a color coding system for the way that your brain works.

However, I wouldn’t get too complicated, occasionally, you may want to pass a song along to a friend to do some work on and if you can easily explain what the color coding means, he can follow your system and this helps the collaboration go even more smoothly. When he returns the song to you with his revisions, you’ll be able to clearly hear and ’see’ what he’s done.

Setting up the MC Control and MC Mix in Ableton Live is a relatively easy process, but there are a few things you can do to make it easy on yourself, so let’s talk about setting up these great pieces of gear on Ableton Live.

For this Tutorial, I’ll be using Ableton Live 8.0.9.

Firstly, make sure you’ve followed the instructions for setting up your Euphonix controllers in your studio, and that you’ve installed the the EUcontrol software on your Mac. You’ll know everything is set up and running when you see the Green EUcontrol logo in your Mac’s Taskbar:

Now, click the Apple menu, and open system preferences:

Click the Euphonix logo found in this pane to open the Euphonix preference pane.

Next, locate the Ableton Live application in your finder, and drag it into the Euphonix Preference pane:

Now, you want to select “Mackiecontrol” from the protocol section. This tells the EUcontrol software that you will use Mackiecontrol to control Ableton’s features.

Now, you want to make sure that all of your Euphonix controllers are setup in the “my surfaces” section of the EUcontrol settings pane. Select the green icon in your Mac taskbar, and click “EUcontrol settings“. In the pane you’re presented with, click each control surface you wish to use in Ableton, and click the “add” button. This will add the surface to the “My surfaces” section, and they’ll be ready to control Ableton.

Now, launch Ableton, and open the Preferences control panel by clicking the Live menu and then selecting Preferences.

Click the MIDI SYNC section. In this section, select “Mackiecontrol” from under the “Control Surface” column’s pulldown menu. In the Input column, select “Euphonix MIDI (Euphonix Port 1)”, and do the same for the output column, and then, under the “MIDI Ports” Column, select “ON” under the TRACK column. The SYNC and REMOTE controls need not be turned on.

You’re almost done. The MC Mix will now control volume and other features in your Live Set, and The MC Control will control Play/Stop/Record at this time, but you won’t be able to use the Jog wheel and faders. To do that, select “Mackiecontrol” from row 2 in the Control surface section in Ableton, and then select “Euphonix MIDI (Euphonix Port 2)” for the input and output sections.:

You’ll see the faders on your Euphonix hardware jump around a little bit. Finally, Select “ON” from under the second Mackiecontrol input listing under the “MIDI PORTS” column, as you did for Port 1.

You’re done! You can now use all your faders and controls to control Ableton. Have fun!

OBEDIA is pleased to have G.W. Childs creating video tutorials. He has been handling calls for OBEDIA so some of you have worked with him in the past. Now look for his expert tips for Propellerhead Reason and Ableton Live in our Tips and Techniques section.

G.W. is a sound designer, musician and author Beginning in the U.S. Army back in 1991, at the age of 18, G.W. began learning electronics, communications and then ultimately audio and video editing from the Department of Defense. Upon leaving the military G.W. went on to work for many exciting companies like LucasArts, Propellerheads, Cakewalk as an editor, sound designer and at times an actor.

G.W. has also penned exciting titles like “Creating Music and Sound for Video Games” and “Using Rewire: Skill Pack”, published the Cengage.

As a musician, G.W. is a founding member and keyboardist/songwriter/producer with the musical act “Soil & Eclipse” and is a contributing songwriter and keyboarding “Deathline International”. He’s also produced remixes for acts like “Gene Loves Jezebel”, “Razed in Black” and James Brown.

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Continuation of customizing the tempo and groove parameters of any piece of audio using warp in Ableton Live.

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Set up Ableton Live with your Audio interface and create/record to an audio track.

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