question about Live setup, switching from a part to the other on the fly and more

    Hello enlightened Access user community, I'm kinda new to the instrument, though I have quite a bit of experience with DAWs, plugin, synths and similar stuff. The TI series comes with the claim that the synth is just as practical as a plugin in a DAW, this imho isn't the case, but considering the quality of the sound engine I can well live with that in the studio.


    Setting up things for playing live is a bit different; as soon as I start Ableton, the Virus goes dead; I couldn't find a way to play any sound from it without starting Virus Control, and the software itself isn't the most practical thing in a live scenario. But I can live with that, just I wonder; is there a way to convince the virus keyboard to respond to the part which is active on the synth at the moment? I'd keep some parts playing midi clips, while others are kept ready for being played live, while the remaining midi clips and samples are playing along.
    I'd even be happy if I could just play the synth while it is receiving the tempo and a bit of midi from Ableton without using the plugin at all, but this too seems unfeasible.
    Can it be done? Does anyone have experience about an optimal configuration for using a Virus with Ableton in a live performance? Thank you very much :)

    Hi there, I'm not sure if this will sort out your requirements exactly but I'll explain to you how I go about playing my Virus Polar live with my metal band I play with. This will also be assuming you're using a Polar or Keyboard..


    I also use Ableton Live, I have up to 16 midi channels set up, and I set the input of each one to the Virus, I'm not at my studio at the moment so I'm recalling from memory but I think there's two Virus options, synth and midi or something like that (I think midi is the one you need to go for), you'll probably have to experiment to work out which unless you wait until I'm next at my studio, or someone else can jump in here and correct me? Anyways next you'll need to change the channels of each midi channel, to 1, 2, 3 and so on, and then you'll need to set the midi channels to send to the Virus, once again I think there's 2 options, I think this time it's synth you need to choose, and you'll also need to set the channels, 9 times out of 10 you'll find you'll be receiving and sending on the same channels. When you're playing the Polar or Keyboard and the Virus has part 1 selected, it's will send midi on channel 1, when it's in part 2 it will send midi on channel 2 etc etc. You can scroll through the parts easily using the "part" buttons to the right of the lcd screen, and this is how I quickly load up the sounds I'm playing on keys.


    I noticed you mentioned about having sequenced midi parts playing, I'd personally recommend against having live sequenced midi playing, unless you can justify it as this will just give your computer more work and a higher chance of failing live. The only live midi I tend to have is the main drum hit samples, everything else I have rendered as audio loops which I trigger with my APC40. I wish I knew how to make tutorial videos as this is something I feel I could do reasonably well. I hope the above makes sense and is of help!

    ohmsweetohm, it depends if you route your keyboard through your DAW or play with "local control" enabled. I usually route through the DAW and this way I can arm any number of MIDI tracks at any time so I can play single sounds or layers. But if you don't arm anything and use your Virus keyboard locally I think it plays the part selected by VC (or is it the part that is defined as the global channel? I can't recall).

    Thank you all very much, this was very useful. I decided not to use local control, but to map a series of buttons to the arm buttons of the various midi tracks so that I have something like an Alesis Ion :D I can play one or more parts at a time and edit one at a time, still having a global modwheel. Thank you again.