Blocs Groove - Ableton Live sax looping on a Hackintosh

Janosax

I’ve started making sax looping on the laptop, and it’s a Lenovo T440P Mojave Hackintosh with i7 4702MQ, 8 go ram (I will upgrade to 16 Go soon), three drives (two SSDS for dual boot W10/Mojave and a HDD).

This setup is ultra stable, not a single Mojave or Ableton Live crash since I use it.

Latency is much lower than on iOS, I can go as low as 32 samples with stable audio via iRig Pro IO and core audio.

I can use Blueboard and Midifire (wasn't possible with W10), using Bluetooth IOGear USB dongle.

The laptop fan is quiet and the CPU runs really cool (around 60/65°C with my looping projects).

Using Ableton is also very beneficial for me with better pitching effects than on iOS, midi quantization in live setup, more ressources and better CPU management for a whole songs set with racks and dummy clips, huge virtual midi routing capabilities, etc...

What I loose is of course mobility and immediacy, so I still use iOS for production...

Sax tenor is pitched in real-time, all looping and playing recorded in one pass, using IRig BlueBoard control with MidiFire MacOS. Instrumental loops are from Blocs Wave iOS. Audio is recorded with IRig pro IO and Viga Music Tools Intramic. Sax tenor is a Gear4Music TS-100G with Lebayle LRII metal mouthpiece, Vandoren Optimum ligature, and Legere Signature 2.25 synthetic reed.

AndyPlankton

A nice setup, and glad to see you cannot survivee without some iOS in there...blocs

Hope you've got that MIDIfire patch saved somewhere, that looks complicated , and what have you done to those Blueboard buttons ?

Janosax

@AndyPlankton MidiFire allows for multiple taps with individual BlueBoard buttons. Some elements allow for midi note to CC conversion with or without ramp up/down (for delays etc), others for round robin for effects selection. I’ve saved the scenes in lot of places Buttons on BB are added for better control with foot, I can feel them better. This BlueBoard/MidiFire combo is what I’ve used on iOS too since a while now.

As I said, what is missing here is still mobility and immediacy. Ableton is a nice production tool, but I need that big 14 inches 2 kg heavy laptop and Nanokeystudio to create on that setup. Touchable Pro is nice but I still need a mouse for VST and AU. So Ableton is more for live looping and iOS still has its use for production, even if I’m a bit tired of all workarounds needed for my productions. Waiting for NS2 audio tracks, then will certainly get an iPad mini 5 ...

[Deleted User]

@Janosax said:
As I said, what is missing here is still mobility and immediacy. Ableton is a nice production tool, but I need that big 14 inches 2 kg heavy laptop and Nanokeystudio to create on that setup. Touchable Pro is nice but I still need a mouse for VST and AU. So Ableton is more for live looping and iOS still has its use for production, even if I’m a bit tired of all workarounds needed for my productions. Waiting for NS2 audio tracks, then will certainly get an iPad mini 5 ...

I'm curious about your workflow since I find myself the opposite using Ableton on studio and iOS more suited for live looping... Did you consider using Launchpad app in junction with GTL or LoopyHd?

Janosax

@TheDubbyLabby

What I like for music production with iOS is immediacy, mobility and total lack of wires. I like to produce everywhere easily.
The main issue for me being all those workarounds for building something equivalent to what is doable on a laptop, this is lot of tedious work.

Grouptheloop/AUM is very powerful for looping, but there is no efficient way to loop both audio and quantized midi on iOS (with synced songs sections) at very low latency settings without audio dropouts. Also you must be very low on effects counts at say 128 buffers which is minimum value I need for audio software monitoring. And there is also some issues when you need lot of effects on multiple songs for a stage setup.

Ableton on the other hand has effects and instruments racks with perfect CPU management when you use dummy clips which allow to put not used devices in standby mode when no audio/midi is routed though them. With 8 songs for example I can have 4x8 effects chains for my sax in the racks and still use only 12/15% CPU.
Also, I can use my NanoKEYstudio and loop midi parts easily with midi quantize in parallel to my sax playing. I can use real-time sax audio to midi, I can use lot of effects on loops and follow actions for added life, all of this at 32 samples latency. And some pitching effects are much much better on that platform.

I’ve elaborated my own Ableton setup using dummy clips and virtual midi routing, and I don’t feel limited, my loopers devices now follow my song scenes if I need them to, just like GTL.

Music production on Ableton is so nice too, no workarounds needed. But this is much more hardware that an iPad or iPhone (I don’t like to produce on a desk or table). This is the only true issue, with lack of touchscreen. Ableton is not really touch friendly.

I try to merge both platforms too, and this is another Hackintosh advantage as IDAM works here perfectly (bye bye Studiomux). Only Airdrop don’t work (I use a BT dongle), so I use AudioShare WiFi sharing.

Very advanced things can be done regarding looping with Ableton, Binkbeats gives lot of inspiration too (he shares a nice and powerful M4L Bink Looper device on his website):

[Deleted User]

I see... Midi looping is the point I missed!

Yup for me most of these issues aren't at all due I mainly work with audio but I can understand your point. Also I prefer to use external fx units (or dedicated iPhone/iPad for that let's say with LiveFx or similar if these are old iPads or turnado-like and AUM small AUv3 chains if these are newer or iPhones). Time to time I look into old MC909/808 and arrangers for that midi side and recently I get a Fujitsu core i5 tablet that I want to try with Ableton/Traktor (now I'm wondering also Bitwig mmmm). I also found a workaround to use Rc505 as hardware emulation of GTL/Ableton Scene mode (only audio) so I can use my iPhone now for other tasks like those fx... but I will read once again all your description to get some inspiration for my new acquisition (that Fujitsu).

My live set is focused on simplicity so I could go just with backing tracks but I understand that's not the most common and accepted option. It's just I focus more in the music than the flexibility or options in my performances and experience taught me to be conservative about CPU demands on any device...

Thanks a lot for sharing your thought my friend