Solo click to Vamp Into Song or Vamp Out of Song?

General
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UPDATE: SOLVED BELOW

Hello!

I’m working on consolidating my individual ableton song sets into a complete “song library” set. I’m looking at how I might be able to use this same “library” set each week instead of creating a unique, custom set for each week (I’m in a weekly worship context).

One thing I rely on is being able to vamp into a song or out of a song — playing a chord progression with the click while someone is speaking or praying, then seamlessly transitioning into the song. Same thing coming out of a song. When I create a custom session for a specific week, I typically have a 1-bar “click only” looped section before/after each song that needs it, set apart as its own “song” on the setlist in Ableset. However, the setlist will get pretty cluttered up if I’m using the “song library” set with a separate click item before and after every song on a set list of dozens of songs (click1, song1, click1, click2, song2, click2, click3…).

I’ve been expirimenting with using the “solo click” feature while looping a song section, but it seems like if I solo the click, then launch a song section (countoff or intro, for example) with the intention of looping that section until it’s time to start the song, the click un-solos itself as soon as I launch a section. The only way to solo the click is to launch, solo, then loop. Then when it’s time to start, it’s disable loop, then un-solo click. A little clunky.

I’ve also expirimented with a click-only section with the +SKIP tag and the +LOOP tag, hoping that the section would be skipped under normal circumstances but if launched directly, it would be looped. This doesn’t seem to work either.

Have you guys come across any creative solutions that would make each song to play beginning to end by default, but also allow for click-only sections at the beginning and/or end?

Thanks,

Andrew

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UPDATE: I solved my own issue by realizing my mistake! Leaving this post up in case it helps anyone else.

I went back and tried adding a 1-beat looping section called “CLICK IN” at the beginning of the song and added both the +SKIP and +LOOP tags to the section title. I’d forgotten to add section locators throughout the song to enable jumping around on the fly, which is why this wasn’t working before. As soon as I did this, my desired behavior fell into place.

Now, if I tap on the song title in the setlist, the song skips the “CLICK IN” section due to the +SKIP tag. But if I expand the song in the setlist and tap on the “CLICK IN” section directly, it starts looping due to the +LOOP tag, until I disable the loop.

I’ve now also added a “CLICK OUT” section with the +SKIP and +LOOP tags to the end of the song. Without any intervention from me, it will skip this section at the end of the song. But I’ve now added a a custom button on my Canvas with the OSC command /setlist/jumpToSection “CLICK OUT” so that if we want to keep grooving as we approach the end of the song, I can tap this and keep the click rolling. I plan to add this OSC command to a MIDI control button as well for easier access while playing an instrument.

And it keeps the setlist nice and tidy not having a separate click “song” for each actual song.

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Hey @gracebhm,

Really clean solution, and exactly the kind of thing the +SKIP / +LOOP combo is built for. Skipped-by-default but loopable-on-demand is a great way to keep a big library set tidy.

Two things you might find useful on top of it:

  • Section Count-In (Settings → Section Count-In) does something close to your “CLICK IN” automatically: when you select a section when playback is stopped, AbleSet drops the playhead 1/2/4 bars before it, solos the click for the pre-roll, then unsolos it the moment the section starts. It’s a fixed pre-roll rather than an open-ended vamp, so your loop approach still wins when you don’t know how long you’ll be holding — but for predictable count-offs it can save you a section. You can also see this in action in the official tutorial.

  • For your Canvas/MIDI “CLICK OUT” button, you can make it light up while it’s active so you get visual feedback mid-song. Enable Dynamic on its background color and use something like:

${osc("/setlist/activeSectionName") === "CLICK OUT" ? "green-600" : "green-900"}

And thanks for circling back to post the fix!
It really helps for the next person in the community hunting for the same thing :slightly_smiling_face:

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This worked like a charm, @agustinvolpe — thanks so much!

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