This is the biggest timesaver I’ve discovered so far when it comes to making tracks in Live.
Are you ever frustrated when building drum racks, and setting the same value for every sample in the rack? I know I was. I used to have all of my drum samples at 70% velocity, and -18 dB volume. This meant changing two parameters on every sample.
Eventually I found I could just make one sample, set its values, duplicate it (hold down alt and click and drag the sample to another spot), and then drop another sample into that slot — as long as the new sample is dropped onto the waveform, it doesn’t reset the volume & velocity values.
What about effect rack building, when you have several chains of effects in the same rack, and you want to map all of them at the same time? If I were to build a delay rack with multiple types of grain delay in each chain, I would still want to control Dry/Wet of each chain from a single Macro. I can do it manually, by mapping each Grain Delay’s “Dry/Wet” parameter to the same macro, but that takes forever!
This Options.txt hack makes things so much easier!
Here’s how to set it up:
- Create a new text file with your favorite text editor.
- Write this in it, verbatim: -EnableMapToSiblings=1
- Save it in /User/Library/Preferences/Ableton/Live 8.x.x/ (on a Mac) or C:/Documents and Settings/yourusername/Application Data/Ableton/Live/Preferences (on Windows)
- Open Live and map things to siblings!
Copy value to siblings
In a drum rack or effect chain, find a value you want to copy to the rack’s siblings and right click on it and select “Copy Value to Siblings”:
Instantly, the value is copied to all the other Operators in the rack:
Map to siblings
If you are mapping a parameter to a rack’s macro, you can easily copy that mapping to all siblings. Simply map one of the parameters:
Right click on it, and select map to siblings:
And presto! all the other siblings’ volume parameters are mapped:
This is an amazing timesaver! Stop repeating your actions and straining your wrists and write an Options.txt file right now!
This is nice
This is amazing, I LOVE this hack! You have given me part of my life back :)
this is great, only issue I am having is getting the map to children to work on the windows 7, the option doesn’t show up, but the copy value works a treat.
one tip for PC users, the AppData is a hidden file by default so you need to go into control panel / folder options / and enable the show hidden files and folders function. I also recommend setting it back to hidden when finished.
On Windows 7, try naming the file “Options” i.e., without manually inserting the .txt extension.
And I don’t even think you need the “=1″ at the end of the line, though it still works with it. The “=x” additions are for when additional data is required to make the option work, as in some of the examples on the Options.txt Ableton help page.
This option and many others are stated here: https://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=177825
Credit where credit’s due.
there is also a way to set the default settings on your simpler when you drag samples into the drum rack. set up a simpler with the settings you want and save the preset to your live library/defaults/dropping samples/on drum rack/ —– this saves me so much effort becasue I always hated changing the velocity, volume and release times every time I dropped a sample into the drum rack.
Great tip. Although for some reason on my MBP I don’t have this folder in my directory.
It should be /User/Library/Preferences/Ableton/Live 8.x.x/
But I have
/User/Library/ and that’s it. I don’t have a “Preferences” folder here. Very strange…any suggestions?
It is actually /Users/[username]/Library/Preferences/Ableton/Live 8.x.x — you may be looking in the Shared Library, which has no Preferences folder by default.
Thanks for the reply you were right I was looking in the shared folder. But after following your advice I’m afraid the folder is still not there.
My exact path reads:-
/Users/[username]/ then I have the usual suspects (music, movies, photos, etc) but no “Library” folder.
I checked if I was the admin for the computer and I am so I should be able to see all these files/folders right?
I should also point out that I’m using Live 8.3 and as it was working without fail, I have deleted all previous versions of the software. Should this effect my not having the folder anyway?
This is an amazing little tip but on my MBP with Live 8.3 the copy value to siblings works great, but no ‘Map to all siblings’ option there when I right click.
Hmmm. Strange. Do you have previous version of Live (8.2.6) that it’s working with?
Problem solved. Turns out the folder was there but it was hidden.
Thanks again.
Hey Collin,what do you mean that your folder was hidden?I am experiencing the exact same issue here and just can find the damned thing…..Help me out please!!
Actually found that only the copy value to siblings works setting works if the Options is a .rtf file. Changed to .txt and now all map to siblings workings. Such a great fix.
@Chaba Sometimes on a Mac folders are hidden to prevent accidents. If you go to the link below and follow the steps it should be no problem:-
http://www.mikesel.info/show-hidden-files-mac-os-x-10-7-lion/
ps Without knowing your knowledge level of computers I would advice taking it slow and make sure you understand everything at each step. Although, It is a very simple procedure. Good luck!
Cool hack! I wish Ableton would publish more of the settings that are available in Options.txt.
Looks like Ableton has disabled MapToSiblings.
Here’s what the folks at Ableton forum say:
“it was actually there in an early alpha of Live 8, but they removed it because there were a few problems with it and from memory it was not consistent and didn’t always work as behaved, which I think they felt could potentially cause a lot of confusion. I didn’t know they had even brought it back in options.txt”
They disabled it a long time ago, that’s why you have to enable it manually in options.txt
This is awesome! Wish I found this sooner!