Music Lesson Recap: Setting Up Your VST in Live

Okay, so the last thing that we're going to give a little bit of consideration to now that we've built this device is to look back inside Live. It's not a massively complicated device, but it has hugely increased the usability of this VST plug-in.

Saving Your Setup

What would be nice to do is to be able to recall this at any time and use it in our other projects. To do that:

1. Click on the instrument rack.
2. Right-click to rename it and give it a meaningful name.

Naming Convention

I have a standard naming system that I use for labeling all of the devices that I create:

• Prefix: I start with a double zero (00).

  • Reason: When using Push, any device I created with this prefix will appear at the top of the list in my browser.

• Meaningful Name: Describe the device or the type of sound it produces.

  • In this case, I'll call it Drummerzon MPD32 setup.

• Suffix: I add a unique identifier (mxb).

  • The letters MXB don't occur frequently in any files on my computer, so it acts as a filter.

Saving the Device

After naming, I hit enter and click on the save button. This action prompts the user library and allows me to save that particular device there.

Utilizing the MXB Identifier

Now, why is the suffix important? If I use Live's browser technology and the key command (Command + F) to open up my browser and search for all files, I can type in MXB. What you'll see is that everything appearing in this search window consists of content that I've created myself. All devices, sounds, clips, and samples with the MXB suffix will show up, providing a quick way to filter my user content.

Workflow Improvement with Push

Using the double zero prefix also aids in navigating the Push browser:

• When adding a new MIDI track, I can go to my sounds.
• In the first category with created content, all top hits starting with double zero are my devices.

This organization means I don't have to sift through pages of devices listed in the Push window, allowing my creations to come up first.

Summary of Our Journey

To quickly recap what we've accomplished:

• Connected an external MIDI controller to Ableton Live.
• Selected a VST device that we wanted greater control over.
• Utilized the configuration tool to:
  • Assign parameters within that VST to the configuration panel.
  • Use mapping mode to map specific controls on the external device to those parameters.

As a result, this has opened up a much more musical and intuitive way for us to interact with that software, and hopefully, it has made the experience a lot more fun.