Device Details

Device Overview

Name/Version: eb.Scrubber 1.5
Author: dataf1ow  
Description: 1.5 Update: Added Exclusive mode. When you trigger any of the tracks, the others stop.

1.4 update!!! Modified to work with 9.5 and the new Push 2 Hardware!!!!

The eb.Scrubber device leverages the new API calls we got in Live 9.2, most importantly the 'Scrub' Call. This allows us to jump around audio and midi clips freely, without ever getting out of sync. Scrubber dynamically grabs the playing clip in the assigned tracks and divides it up into 16 sections.

Now, imagine, seamless hardware control and feedback from two of Live's most popular controllers, Push, and Launchpad. Add some pattern recording and some stuttering, without ever losing any core functionality, and you have a powerful production and performance tool.

Check out the demo videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIB4cKBlNok

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVSenhHaaDk

Control Surfaces Supported:
PUSH
PUSH 2
LaunchPad
LaunchPad Pro
QuNeo
 

Device Details

Tags sequencer, glitch, hardware, push
Live Version Used: 9.5
Max Version Used: 7.0.6
Date Added: Jul 16 2015 15:05:58
Date Last Updated: Nov 23 2015 10:10:34
Device Type: midi_device
Download URL (report link) https://github.com/dataf1ow/eb.Scrubber
License (more info): AttributionNonCommercial


Comments

after days of refreshing... its finally here!
Thank you for sharing!

thank you!!!

Ah fantastic, almost MLR!! Thanks for posting this; on Windows 7 64 / Launchpad it seems erratic though... Lights are walking, button presses seems to do nothing. Maybe I have some other settings to think about ?

@AuralBee Hm, shouldn't be anything you need to do. Make sure you are in User 2 Mode? I haven't had a chance to test on Win 7, but I also haven't heard of any bugs in the windows version.

@dataf1ow Mmm, interesting, I was def. in user 2 mode, lights were marching, can change colors as well, but no dice with the button presses.
I'll do some more testing after the weekend & will let you know

launchpad mostly works for me. I don't think the stutter works though. I push the "lower" scene button and then one of the track position buttons but it doesn't retrigger while i hold it down.

@jeremywen: Does the lower scene launch button stay green after you press it? Are you holding the pad in the grid down? Any repro steps I could take? i.e. exactly how to get the behavior you describe.

@AuralBee: Yeah if you can give me EXACT repro steps that will help me troubleshoot. It's hard for me to fix a bug that I don't see. You may have to reselect the tracks, or play the clips again in Session Mode.

@dataf1ow here is a youtube video of me showing this issue - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a_0c1s63_o

normal mode works, then after switching to stutter mode by enabling the lower scene button, i hold down a button and nothing happens

am i doing it wrong?

Private video.

try again

Interesting. Once you turn the stuttering on, button presses no longer trigger, as well as not stuttering. I won't have time to look at this for a few days, unfortunately. Have you tried changing the quantization setting using the left three arrow buttons? That's the only thing I could think of as a potential quick fix.

Aha, using Launchpad, for me the patch only works when Launchpad is selected as the first control surface in preferences, good to know.

Oh really? The order shouldn't have anything to do with it, at least it doesn't on Mac. I'll take a look at this and see if I can figure out what's going on.

Thanks so much for the update, and workaround!

@dataf1ow Thank you for sharing the device, it seems very interesting. I use Launchpad, but unfortunately the buttons don't trigger anything.
The lights do their walk following the track's playhead, and the quantize buttons works, but the main buttons to "scrub" the clip don't do anything.
I have OSX 10.6.9, Ableton 9 and Max 6.1
I opened the device and tried to debug it: The messages from the buttons do their way through untill they become "call scrub x", but I don't know if the live.object is set correctly, because it doesn't react to that message. I think. Please help!

@Sindel

That sounds like you don't have the latest version of Live installed, 9.2. The scrub call wasn't made available until 9.2. Update to the alteset version of Live and Max, and let me know how it goes.

Fun! When I can get it to work as responsive as you show in the video...
I find that sometimes the playhead scrub moves only with the note-off message, or maybe its catching the next 16th note when quantization is on? Whatever it is, it felt a bit disconcerting. But in most cases I couldn't retrigger or move around the clip nearly as nimbly as you did. And sometimes it feels like I loose responsiveness to the clip altogether, maybe at a bar's launch resolution at best.
I wish I could articulate the grey area of my interaction with it a bit better for you; I just couldn't put my finger on what was loosing focus, what was loosing responsiveness...my timing is pretty good.
Also, could you remind me of the key combination for picking up on the downbeat with the other tracks? I couldn't see this behavior difference acknowledge on the patches interface while using a Push.
Cheers for making this! I hope I experience enough stability with it that I can soon incorporate it into my performance template...

Hey Braduro,

You can switch to global mode by hitting the 'Undo' button on the Push. This is in the readme accessible from the 'READ' button on the device's UI.

As for the lack of responsiveness, that might have to do with your particular setup.
What's your buffer size and latency?
What soundcard are you using? What is your OS?

As you can see in the video, the patch itself is quite responsive, and I am able to trigger things quickly and accurately. It might be some particular settings you need to tweak.

Hi Dataf1ow, good to hear from you
Yeah, I wish I could point to those things, but my clip launch resolution, my buffer size and resulting latency are well below 10ms if not measured in samples. I do plenty of live performance moves that are timing and syncopation critical.

When it falls off it's responsiveness it really feels like the control is on the 1-bar level for some reason, or that the scrub location is dependent on the note-off location of a track with a note length device stuck on it. I just can't describe or isolate it, it's just too weird.

The only thing I can think of is that I've assembled some python adaptations that send clip launch with some velocity sensitivity on the PUSH for example, and allow velocity values on the drum rack step sequencer. But that's just a wild guess.

If it seems that it is quantized to the bar, there are a few things we can do to try and isolate the issue in your setup.
Remove ALL devices/python scripts that might interfere with clip quantization. Just use this device and a few audio clips.
There is some weirdness that can happen if your start marker doesn't start at the beginning of the clip. Make sure that the start marker is at the beginning of the clip. If this isn't the case, some of the math in the device gets a little confused. This is in the works for a fix, but for the time being, you'll need to have the start marker at the beginning of the clip.

I hope this helps uncover the responsiveness issue!

So stoked if we can get this to work. I noticed that the launchpad and push work pretty well if all the clips are turned onto ram mode. But is there a way to make it so when you hit the "init" button in ebscrubber, all clips are converted to ram mode? That would make it so easy for all of us live loopers to finally get a mlr app working with Live clips.

Did you design ebscrubber to automatically be in ram mode?

I also thought that with the new live 9.2 release you could toggle ram mode from m4l?

In fact my life would be complete if someone could build a "turn all clips ram mode on" max patch that i could trigger via a midi mapping. That would be awesome.

The device was initially designed to turn RAM mode ON for any audio clip playing in a track, and then remove it from RAM mode when it is not playing. If you put every clip in RAM mode you could run into problems with memory, if the clip isn't in RAM mode, scrubbing doesn't work.

This seems to be broken right now and I am working on a fix as we speak.

Should be fixed! I think I did it in a cleaner way this time, so maybe that will solve some responsiveness issues!

Hmmm the latest version 1.1 isn't working at all with either my launchpad or my push.

Working fine on both pieces of hardware over here.
What do you mean it isn't working at all? I'll need some more info than that if I need to fix a bug.

LEDs not working?
Clip chopping not working at all, or not as expected?
Etc. etc.

Sorry for being vague. The latest one you just finished up is working really well on both the push and the launchpad. Thanks so much for putting this together Ive been wanting an MLR for live clips forever. If you can fix this last glitch i can finally have the live looping setup ive been dreaming of!

The trouble is Live crashes if you try to record audio into a track that eb scrubber is currently controlling. Do you want me to send you the crash report? thanks again!

Thanks for clearing up the behavior. No need for the crash report, I was able to reproduce the issue. If you try to set a clip's RAM mode to on while it is recording you will get a crash. I added a check that only sets RAM mode for playing clips if they aren't recording. I think you should be good to go now!

Let me know if it's fixed on your end.

Works like a charm. Ill be sure to send a video of a performance at some point when i get the time to set this all up. Thanks again!!!!

Awesome! Thanks for brining that bug to my attention (and the Ram mode thing that caused the bug;)).
I would definitely like to see anything you can come up with using the device!

Hi,
Thanks for creating this plugin.
When i press the shift button, the tracks don't sync the playhead.
Not sure if its something I'm doing wrong.

Oh yea, and what is User 2 mode? I press Shift + User once, no playhead, press it again i get the playhead.
Using Push btw.

Ah figured it out. Press the Undo button, then the playheads sync;)

User 2 is on LP, shhhhhh ok .....i should read more thoroughly:)

User 2 is on LP, shhhhhh ok .....i should read more thoroughly:)

Are 2 Scrubbers possible?

Wow, really blowing up the comments here ;)

You can't use more than one instance of the device per control surface. I am working on a new version that allows you to assign multiple tracks to each row of the scrubber device.

A page refresh resulted in reposts;) What can i do. Any way to delete comments?
I did actually try throwing two instances onto the control surface. It kind of worked.
Would it not be possible to add more rows to the Scrubber, then on Push assign the arrow keys to scroll down to your desired track?
Either way, would be nice to be able to access more than 4 tracks at a time.

I was more referring to the fact that you posted 6 one liners, documenting your trouble shooting ;).

It won't work with two instances, the control surface won't know which one to communicate with, so it will communicate with both.
It would definitely be possible to add more rows. I'd have to take a look and see how tough it would be. Likely not a trivial thing to get all of the LED handling in order.

@dataf1ow
Cool, thanks for keeping this alive.
Works nicely on Push 2 (although it seems I can not switch out of Scrubber mode, should be the undo button right?)

What I was wondering: would it be possible to add an option to access four clips in one track ? This would approximate mlr functionality even more.
Naturally, only one clip at a time can be playing in this scenario, the fun part is that you can skip fast between the four clips while always choking the previous one, accessing various playhead positions. Hope I am clear explaining this :-)

It's the same key combo to get out of scrubber mode. Hold the select button, and the USER button will flash. Hit that to exit the mode.

Accessing four clips in one track, would require a bit of a redesign to implement. The device is meant to folow along as you move through a set, so I never though to map to discreet clips.

HOWEVER, I added a mode that makes the tracks exclusive. Just throw your clips into four adjacent tracks, throw exclusive mode on, and it should simulate what you were describing.

If this solution doesn't work for you, let me know, and I'll consider adding the clip behavior.

Awesome & maybe even better!! Works like a charm, thanks!!

any way to implement this to be able to use a standard MIDI keyboard as a control surface? video looks awesome...would love to be able to "play" the clip like that via keys ;]

Yeah, there's definitely a way to do that. Shouldn't take too long either. It's on the list for new features.

Congratulations for your excellent work! Do you think that a reverse button is possible?

Congratulations for your excellent work! Do you think that a reverse button is possible?

Unfortunately, that is not possible. You can't access the reverse button on a clip through MIDI or the API.

congrats on an amazing device! i am using a quneo, are all the functions the same? and the led diplays?
I;ve noticed some anomalies
the first loop led will turn of the 4th loop led...
there is also no differentiation in the LEDS for modes of sequencing.
just wondering if i'm missing something before i dive in and have a poke around...
cheers


Really wish you would add a 1/8th note quantize feature. I showed my friends this and they really liked the concept but they aren't percussionists and sometimes have trouble staying in time at that high of res.

I did also try and earlier version of this device on 9.5. I'll be trying the newest one soon :)

Thanks dataf1ow, great work, fun device :)

Some issues/questions for me, working on Ableton Suite 9.6 with a Launchpad Pro:

1. It's not possible to insert v1.5 on any track. v1.4 works.
2. The device changes the global quantization of my Ableton Set. Is this intended or necessary for the device?
3. As mentioned before, a 1/8th quantization would be helpful.

4. I wonder if you can find a way, to keep the clips running on their normal play positions, so that the scrubbing doesn't restart the clip on the triggered position. Might be in conflict with the "scrub" feature maybe?

Thanks for sharing! I'm hoping for improvements :)

1/8th is too slow for anything that I would want to use this for, but I'll get it in there.

As for the other stuff:

I haven't tested this on 9.6 so I will take a look at 1.5 and see what the deal is.
It needs to change the global quantization momentarily. The scrub call obeys that quantization, so if it is set at a bar, the device won't function properly.

4. Because that defeats the purpose of the device? I'm not sure what you mean about keeping them running at the normal play position. The device purposely triggers from different positions. Please clarify.

Thanks for your reply!
Indeed it would defeat it's purpose and be more like a slicer... so don't bother about that :)

Amazing! Thank you!

Thank you. This is a handy performance tool.

Id' love to try this out, but like phranky I can't get it to insert on a track ... version 1.4 or 1.5. Live 9.6.2 on Windows 10.

Working fine for me on 9.6.2. It is a MIDI device, so it needs to be on a MIDI track.

Thanks a lot for this device, it's been a while that I found something so useful for max4life! I'm trying to get it to work on 9.6.2 on the push but my scene buttons keep functioning as scene triggers so there's no way to access the record or stutter mode. Any idea what is going wrong?

Anyways cheers for putting in the time and effort

I only have my Push 2 with me, but I'll take a look and see what I can find. I'll get ahold of my Push 1 tonight and figure out for sure what's going on.

Push 2 works fine, so I'll need to wait to check it out, but it in the meantime could you right click on the device title bar, and select 'show max window' and let me know if any errors pop up?

Everything looks good on my end. As I mentioned, I'll need the max window, and any errors, and your OS.

thanks for the check.

I get loads of "live.object - get: no valid object set"

Then some "Live API is not initialized, use live.thisdevice to determine when initialization is complete"

Afterwards some call send value's
Then one "live. - cakk release_control id 0: no valid object set

And again some "live.object - get: no valid object set"

followed by :
different call's : "call send_value 7 2 23"
That return errors with the notion that no valid object is set.

Finally the "live.object - get: no valid object set" keep going

Also there are a few: "live.object - call set_light 5: no valid object set"

I have a windows 7 64 bit OS

hi again,

I still can't get this to work with Windows 10, Live 9.6.2 64bit, Push 2, Max 7.2.3

If I drag the device into my library it is not showing up in Live's browser even though I can see it is in the correct folder in Windows Explorer (Documents\Ableton\User Library\Presets\MIDI Effects\Max MIDI Effect\Imported).

Attempting to drag the device directly onto a midi track from Windows Explorer I get the 'no entry' symbol as if I was trying to drag a midi effect onto an audio track.

Double clicking the amxd file directly from Windows Explorer also does nothing.

Are you on Mac or Windows PC dataf1ow? Has this device been tested with Live 9.6.2 (64 bit) on Windows 10?

I appreciate any help you can offer. Would really love to get this working.

Don't suppose anyone has managed to get this to work with a Launchpad MK2 have they?

@Stew, I am on a mac, so I can't test at all for Windows unfortunately. It hasn't really been 'Tested' at all, I made it for my own personal use, and thought it was interesting enough to share. I would love for you to use the device, but if I can't reproduce the problem, I can't fix it. There shouldn't be anything in the device preventing you from using it on Windows though. No externals etc. It sounds like a bad download/file issue to me, if you can't even get the file to open in Live.

How did you download the file?
Have you tried downloading with a different browser?
Which version have you tried? All of them?

@tigermendoze - I don't have access to a Mk2, so I didn't implement that. I bet i's really similar to the LP1 script, so it would probably be a quick addition, I just don't want to do it blind.

Hey, so I assume there's nothing I can do to try to fix this with the errors I posted? Or did I misunderstand what you requested?

Thanks!

Evan, my apologies man ... looks like the problem was me all along.

Following your suggestion I tried downloading again (downloaded the whole zip this time) and v1.5 is now working! Sorry for testing your patience.

One thing, and it may be user error, but I don't seem to be able to get the sequencer recording unless I have the repeat function turned on. Is that the correct behaviour or should it also work in the non-repeat trigger mode too?

ha ha ... and again .... User error!

Obviously not quite undestanding how the combinations of length & seq length work in terms of the seq recorder ... but I do have it working in both normal trigger mode and repeat trigger mode.

Ok ... less bothering the developer and more playing ;-)

btw, thanks for this, it really is a blast!

Hi,
any Idea if the device will work with Push 2 and Ableton 9.6 on Mac OS X ?
Cant get it to work.
My User Mode on Push displays nothing, if the device is loaded.

Hello dataf1ow and thank you for the device giving me a mad desire to try ...I use 2 push, is it possible to have a short video with the 2 push? Thank you in advance

Sorry for missing all these comments!

@FlaMusic - it works with Push 2 on Live 9.5 and up on Mac OSX without issue. You need to hold the 'Select' key, and the Uset button will begin flashing. Press the User button to enter Scrub mode. Pressing the User button alone will take you to normal User Mode.

@Modulor1 - the device works with Push 2 in exactly the same way as Push 1. You shouldn't have any issues.

Seems not to work with Push 2 and ableton 9.7 on MAc OSX
When holding the select button, the user button will not start flashing.
Cant enter the scrubber mode

Definitely works on 9.7 on Mac. I just downloaded the device, and it worked straight away. Make sure you have Push2 selected and active in your control surfaces in your MIDI preferences. Try hitting the INIT button. Check for any errors in the Max Window (right-click, show Max Window).

Thx.
Checked my Max Version.
There was a new one, know it works fine.
Can i also scrub midi tracks, or audio only ?

will the scrubber tool perform as good as a monome ?
Integration in ableton is much better with the SB.
But i have the feeling the Monome performance is a bit tighter ?

Depends what app you're running on the monome, you'd have to let me know what you're comparing the 'performance' to. It does work through the API, so there is some timing inconsistencies due to that. I have tried to minimize it the best I can.

Oh, you can use this on MIDI tracks as well.

Good day! Is it work with Ableton 10 on win? Could you advice how to set up this amazing stuff?

I got it work with live 10. Will try! Thank's a lot! It is absolutely amazing!

I have tested it on live 10 & push 2 on the win 7. Eb.Scrubber switches global quantization to the different values if i use repeatings, so user should control this factor to avoid surprises during the performance.
Also, in my case, shift button didn't work.

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