User Manual

CHAPTER 17. INSTRUMENT, DRUM AND EFFECT RACKS 231
The Macro Controls are a bank of eight knobs, each capable of addressing any number of
parameters from any devices in a Rack. How you use them is up to you  whether it be
for convenience, by making an important device parameter more accessible; for dening
exotic, multi-parameter morphs of rhythm and timbre; or for constructing a mega-synth,
and hiding it away behind a single customized interface. See Using the Macro Controls for
a detailed explanation of how to do this.
For the greatest degree of expression, try MIDI-mapping the Macro Controls to an external
control surface.
17.2 Creating Racks
Four Rack variants cover the range of Live's devices: Instrument Racks, Drum Racks, Audio
Effect Racks and MIDI Effect Racks. Just as with track types, each kind of Rack has rules
regarding the devices it contains:
 MIDI Effect Racks contain only MIDI effects, and can only be placed in MIDI tracks.
 Audio Effect Racks contain only audio effects, and can be placed in audio tracks.
They can also be placed in MIDI tracks, as long as they are downstream from an
instrument.
 Instrument Racks contain instruments, but can additionally contain both MIDI and
audio effects. In this case, all MIDI effects have to be at the beginning of the Instrument
Rack's device chain, followed by an instrument, and then any audio effects.
 Drum Racks are similar to Instrument Racks; they can contain instruments as well as
MIDI and audio effects and their devices must be ordered according to the same signal
ow rules. Drum Racks can also contain up to six return chains of audio effects, with
independent send levels for each chain in the main Rack.
There are different ways to create Racks. A new, empty Rack can be created by dragging a
generic Rack preset (Audio Effect Rack, for example) from the Device Browser into a track.
Devices can then be dropped directly into the Rack's Chain List or Devices view, which are
introduced in the next section.
If a track already has one or more devices that you would like to group into a Rack, then
simply select the title bars of those devices in the Track View, and (PC) /
Ctrl
(Mac)