Theater-style GO behavior

Feature Requests
1

Hi - I’m investigating using Ableset for programming musicals. In this setting, Ableton is always triggered by someone in the pit using a single GO button or footswitch from the start of the show to the end. So the same button will start a song (or section of a song) as well as cue out of vamps and do a quantized jump to the beginning of the next section.

Right now I don’t see a way to duplicate this behavior in Ableset, unless I’m missing something.

Thanks! Very impressive software.

2

Hey @DHaynes, welcome to the forum!

You might be able to achieve this functionality using a Custom OSC mapping. For example, the OSC command /setlist/playCuedSong; /loop/escape will jump to the next song when the end of a song is reached, start playback when the playhead is located at the beginning of a song, and escape a loop when one is currently active:

CleanShot 2024-10-04 at 22.46.17@2x
CleanShot 2024-10-04 at 22.46.17@2x1678×106 12.3 KB

Let me know if this works for your use case!

3

I had considered and tested that and it almost works. The use case where it fails is if there is a Song that begins with a vamp (which is not uncommon). In that case it will play for a single bar/quantize length and then jump to the vamp exit. Maybe there could be a specific OSC for a “Theater GO” that would only try to escape a loop if playback is currently active?

4

An update to this - I got the behavior to work the way I want with a custom M4L device that triggers different midi notes through the IAC Bus depending on if playback is active. Would still love to have it work natively, though :slight_smile:

5

I’m looking for exactly this behaviour. I want to move through the live show with only one footswitch. One of the songs start with a +LOOP, so I’m running into the same issue, where it in this scenario will skip the loop.

I’ll look into solving it with M4L, or would you mind sharing your solution?

6

I managed to get a M4L-device working, which was a great intro project to learn some Max.

I set it up to control the native play and loop, could there be any downside of this instead of controlling via Ableset?

7

Hey @DHaynes and @jpl,

I just released AbleSet 2.8.0-beta.2 which includes a “Go Button” mapping that should cover all cases:

  • When stopped at the end of a song, jumps to the next song.
  • When stopped at the beginning of a song, starts playback.
  • When playing in a loop, escapes the loop.
  • When playing while a song or section is queued, instantly jumps to it.

Let me know what you think! :slight_smile: