Device Details

Device Overview

Name/Version: ClipGain - under your mouse 2.2
Author: Crampe  
Description: Live 11 is running great, but what about clip gain, transpose, un/warp and more directly from the clip in the timeline?

Nope, next time maybe... Or, you can use this device, ClipGain, oh yeah! MaxForLive is your friend, as always.

Just select the clip you want to adjust, press the key/midi you've mapped to the device, and a nice little window will pop-up right next to your mouse... that's the little pop-up window you're going to love.
Of course it also works in Session view.
The device works globally on the selected clip, so only one instance of the device is needed (save it with its mapping into your template set).

SINCE V1.5 YOU NOW ALSO HAVE SHORTCUTS TO QUICKLY ADD/REMOVE A USER-DEFINED AMOUNT OF DB AND SEMITONES TO THE SELECTED CLIP

You're probably gonna like this one very much.

Video demo at the product's page, or here:
https://youtu.be/8ujTsnKlDXg
https://youtu.be/aSBxwCnPIUA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSEYpFTFxZY

Video by Decap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUZpNu95LXs

Live 9 / Max 8 minimum (it should work in L8 too, but I didn't test).



Release notes:

v2.2:
- fixes an Undo issue
- floating window opening optimization
- Few colors tweaks to ensure compatibility with L12 Themes


v2.0:

- New GUI, thanks to ELPHNT, the one and only.

- Crop can crop audio clips too (as of L11.3.20)

- Added clip's Launch mode, Launch Legato, launch quantization, RAM mode, clip mute,  duplicate midi clip length.

- Everything has been collected into a single floating window

- Fixed the Rex/Pro warp mode selection bug

- Mira support. The device can now be controlled from any smartphone/tablet or even a browser on your computer


v1.7:
- New key/midi mappable shortcuts to select individual Warp Modes

v1.6:
- It wasn’t possible to select the ComplexPro Warp mode

v1.5:
- new "quick edit shortcuts" : key/midi mappable buttons used to increment/decrement the clip's gain/pitch by the chosen amount.

v1.4:
- reduced CPU usage by stoping mouse position tracking when floating window isn't displayed.
- warp mode selector was blocking Live's Undo history. It's also now shown as inactive (and can't be tweaked) when the selected clip is not warped.
- new "warp" button to un/warp from the Pitch window (for mouse only i.e not mappable)


v1.3:
- you can now change the Warp Mode (in the Pitch window). Audio clip only.
- new CROP button: can now crop midi clips (only)


v1.2.2:
- double-click (or delete key) the gain fader now resets it to 0dB, just like with any parameter in Live.
- you can't midi map the clip gain/transpose fader/knob anymore. This removes extra undo steps that were previously created by the device (and it's anyway better to midi map these directly from within Live).
- the un/warp button was blocking Live's undo history.
- some patch clean up (you might need to remap the buttons, sorry…)


v1.2.1:
- in L11beta, stretching an audio clip in Arrangement could be unresponsive "because" of ClipGain (because of M4L bug, actually).

KNOW ISSUE: un/warp blocks Live's undo history


v1.2:
- Gain and Pitch can now be opened together with a single shortcut
- new WARP button that un/warps the selected clip
- after a clip was unselected by clicking in an empty area, moving the fader/knob would still change the last clip's values. This is now fixed.
- colour tweaks

v1.1
- added new Pitch window for audio clip transposition
- gain and transpose are always observed so you don't need to close and re-open the windows for the values to be updated. It also means that you can keep the windows open all the time if you want.
 

Device Details

Tags effect, utility
Live Version Used: 9
Max Version Used: 8
Date Added: Nov 21 2020 16:44:26
Date Last Updated: Dec 01 2023 06:28:18
Device Type: audio_device
Download URL (report link) https://gum.co/wmAPD
License (more info): Commercial


Comments

Awesome, man!
Is it possible to also add a Pitch knob alongside Gain Slider to control pitch?

P.S. Love your BiP device, bought it long time ago and use it ever since. Thanks for your work

...yes incredible device. I second the pitch option idea.

Hey there!
I'm gonna add a transpose knob/fader in the next update.
I'd prefer having it on a second shortcut rather than in the same floating window as the current volume fader... but what's your opinion?

Awesome. A second shortcut for a transpose knob would work fine. Just have the floating window a different color than the "clip gain".

Transpose is now available in v1.1

>I'd prefer having it on a second shortcut rather than in the same floating window as the current volume fader... but what's your opinion?
Personally I'd prefer having it on a same window.
Less things to map, less confusion, less shortcuts and more useful in cases when you need change Gain AND Pitch (happens some times).

Thanks a lot for the update!

hey 16x16,
I'll make it optional to have a single window for everything soon.

I really appreciate this handy device, but how come that the slider appears in the middle of my arrangement view and i can't move it anywhere and i'm not even able to recognize which audio track it belongs to? Maybe it's not a bug, probably the issue is just the lack of my knowledge how to use it.)

Hey Ancestralvision,
The fader appears at your current mouse position.

The idea is that: to change a clip's gain, no matter what, you always have to select if first in Arrangement/Session... So, the device looks at your mouse position, i.e over a clip, and opens up here so you don't have to go anywhere else to adjust your clip's gain/transpose.

The device works on the selected clip only, so it doesn't belong to any track. You can keep the device opened and select other clips to change their gain/transpose but the point of the device is to have a momentary quick access to what you need, not to have a global floating window open up at any time (it works, but it's not how I designed it, hence the non-ability to move it); select a clip > press you mapped key to open ClipGain > set your clip gain/transpose > press again your mapped key to close ClipGain's window.

Think of it like some kind of equivalent to Live's automation transform tool where you select an automation zone, right-click and then access to a list of pre-defined automation shapes. It works as contextual; ClipGain works this way.

Hey,
I love this plugin, it makes my life sooo much easier when editing vocals in particulare!
I was wondering if it's possible to auto-open the pitch window to change the cents directly. I know it's a small change but it would make sooo much sense for me.
Thanks a lot again for the idea,
Mauro.

Hi! I love your devices and this one is especially useful.
Still I've got two points if you could think about it:
I'd very much prefer to see if the clip is warped or not the same as GUI shows gain and pitch.
Second - more important one, is that in 1.2 version if I use Warp/Unwarp option, my whole history of undo changes is looped between undo/redo warped state of the clip.

Ahh this looks sooo cool - awesome of you to respond to request for Transpose! Been using Live since v2 - can't wait to try this.

Hey Hipox!
undo...grrrhh how did I miss this one! Thanks for letting me now, I'm fixing this asap, and sorry for the hassle.
Adding the Warp button to the pop-up window is already planned ;-)
stay tune!

This is dope, but I'm having issues with it.
Every time I select a midi track, I get a maxforlive Error dialog with this:

live.observer: Warping is only available for Audio Clips
live.object: get path: error calculating the path
.
Also, when using this plugin; I'm unable to properly resize MIDI clips; whan I click and drag a clip's end, and let go of the mouse button, It's still adjusting the clip length, I click several times until it eventually "lets go" of the clip.

These issues did not occur in the previous version of ClipGain.

Hey chrisfreeq:

- regarding the error dialog.
I guess you're having a Max windows poping-up by its own; this isn't coming from ClipGain but from another M4L device. I mean the message itself is coming from ClipGain (but it's really not a problem) but the unwanted Max log isn't.
It's often used to debug when patching and sometimes devs forget to deactivate it when publishing their device. I know it's the case with an older Granulator II version, but it could be coming from another one. Please let me know which over devices you're having in your default set so we can find which one it is and deactivate the Max log window.

Regarding resizing, it's a M4L bug and I've workaround it in ClipGain v1.2.1 so make sure you're using this one (you should have receive a Gumraod email with the device).

You can also write me directly by answering to the receipt email you got when you purchased the device. (I'm not getting notifications from maxforlive.com, I need to come and check so I somtimes miss comments)

Hey Crampe,

first of all, thank you for that great device. That's whats so amazing about m4l and people like you, it just makes ableton so much more professional and adds all these little features, that i missed for so long.

But i have some different issues here when trying to undo (cmd+z)
edits in the session. I'm only able to undo once, if i press again the clip gain of my last selected clip changes and won't change back if i hit cmd+shift+z. Don't know if anybody else experienced this bug or if it's just me but it would be awesome if could help me here, cause i really wanna use this device!
thanks in advance

Hey k4r33m
ClipGain does add a few extra undo steps when you tweak a clip's parameter from it, but then you just need to hit cmd+z once or twice more.
That's the kind of little annoyances that such M4L "workflow hacks" device can produce, but that's the price to pay I guess.

TL;DR hit cmd+(shift)z again if your last step isn't undone yet ;-)

New v1.2.2 update sent via Gumraod, check your spams !
No more extra undo steps!

Haha you?re perfect, thank you very much. That was fast!

Great Device Thanks !
A little suggestion: It would be great if we could scroll up and down with the mouse to increase/decrease the clip gain. ;)

Hey KillowGee,
unfortunately this is not doable, sorry :-(

First i want to say thank you for this great little device :)
About the last update: I can't seem to get that new CROP function to work.
Any explanation would be welcomed.
Thanks again!

Hey EyaaaiT
the Crop feature only works with MIDI clip.
Key/midi map the CROP button.
Now, if you modify the clip start/end and/or loop start/end points of a clip, press your new shortcut and it will crop the clip.
It works both in Arrangement and in the piano roll; in Arrangement you can also use the native cmd/ctrl+j to consolidate, that will give you the same result (but consolidate doesn't work in the piano roll, hence this CROP feature).

Can you maybe add the feature for Toggle or Momentary, so it only shows up when i hold the key (In momentary mode)? :)

Btw very nice products all of them

Hey Jarlen,

Unfortunately the (weird) way M4L interacts with keys and keymapping makes this impossible. Sorry.

some improvements:
-its not transparent enough to see the clip behind (especially short ones). maybe its better to make it more transparent or set it beside a clip (above, below.. etc)
-you have to press the same button again to hide it (and double click another clip to focus that). after you set your volume or pitch it would be cooler to just click in the playlist (or other clip) and the fader disappears/hides.
-the volume fader is too sensitive (i know hold shift makes it less sensitive but thats another extra step)
-the volume fader should only be set by dragging and not by clicking. makes it feel much more precise

this thing is freakin awesome! my only gripe is that with the new update on mac, there's a top bar to the gain and pitch popup like it's a new mac program. it's just a little off-putting. other than that, i use this thing and a bunch of your other devices all the time!

thanks for these :)

@ Sunbloom, can you send me a screenshot by email (simply answer to the gumroad receipt)
I don't have Big Sur so I'm not sure about what you're describing.

@ Teeha

- not transparent enough? I don't agree but that's totally subjective and depends on soo much user settings/preferences (your screen, the Live theme you're using, your sight [e.g I'm colourblind] etc...) , and I think you're the 1st one mentioning it but I could look at adding a user setting for this. Thanks for the idea!

- I can't do anything regarding the focus thing, sorry neither do I regarding how M4L deals with key mapping (which is already quite a nightmare when you're using it to add shortcuts to Live), sorry.

- using Shift is the only way to go...

- same here, that's how the GUI objects work, I can't do anything.

cheers!

Fantastic!!!!

Super Duper!!!!)

Hello, excellent device, a suggestion for the next version, it would be nice if the gain can be adjusted when you select 2 clips or more.

voila! great news thanks for the update!
just realised two things
when +-1dB gain is mapped to a key +1 works as it should be but -1 lowers vol -1.18dB down.
and also when pitch is mapped to a key and try to undo - it duplicates the amount. but when you keep pressing it will undo (:

Hello,
Thank you for this device.
When I right click to save as default, I do not see the save as default option in the drop down menu.

Is the only way to save the device with the Keymaps, to save it in the default Ableton template?


Best,
Nkektarios.

@Nkektarios
M4L devices don't have a "save as default" option. But the settings are saved by the Live Set, so yes, save it as part of your default template.
(of course, you'd need to set the device in your old sets, but I can't tdo anything about this)

i love this device! i saw someone else asked this but the main feature I would love is if I could affect the gain of multiple clips at once. thanks!

I still love this device and I put in in my default set and tell everyone about it. The only issue is that I use granulator a lot and when I use it the max window keeps popping up all the time and is super distracting and affects my mouse clicking, and I have to delete clipgain or granulator to fix the problem. Does anyone know a solution for this? Or is there a way a future update could somehow block that from happening? Even if I freeze granulator, the problem persists.

Yep, the fix is dead easy: update your Granulator to the latest version, it offers an option to bypass this automatic popup window ;-)

Hi,

First of all thank you for your great M4L devices! You make so many essential tools for me that have been great investments and create perfect workarounds for Ableton's shortcomings.

I have some suggestions regarding ClipGain which I use all the time.

1) GUI

I think the device would be even easier to use if the pop up window was twice as big or more. It's a little too small imo compared to the rest of the interface. And since it's what you're working on when you use the pop up window it would be great to have a bit more focus on it.

I would love if there was no colours in the interface, just transparent grey color. It's a small thing but often it's really ugly when the yellow and blue is mixed with the colours of the live set. Maybe just a light grey for volume and a slightly darker grey for the pitch section. It would make it look so much better I think.

Lastly, would it be possible to choose whether to see the warp modes when choosing 'All'? I never use it and it makes the GUI more cluttered.

2) USE

I don't know if it's possible but if the 'cent up' and 'cent down' could be mapped as well that would be spectacular! I would use that all the time when editing vocals and other recordings.

Also if it's possible to add a reset button for both gain and pitch I'd use that all the time too.

Lastly, and actually the biggest improvement imo would be if the scaling of 'volume up' and 'volume down' could be the same. Right now it's +1 db upwards (which is perfect) but something like an exponentially increasing value the further you lower the volume downwards. It's unintuitive that it doesn't act the same up and down and means I'm often not getting the results I'm looking for.

Hope these suggestions find you well, and again thank you for your work. It makes Ableton a better DAW!

Best,

Esben

Great little plugin, I use it all the time now. Thanks so much!

One issue I noticed, sometimes if the clip warp mode is set to Complex Pro, it shows REX in the popup. Event hough it still shows Complex Pro in the Clip info Section. So, it doesn't affect anything, just shows the wrong Info. Even if I change it back to Complex Pro in the pop up, it usually goes back to showing REX if you close and open the popup. It's weird, because they are WAV files, not even REX files.

How can I move the floating window to a different position?

@mhj
the window appears at your current mouse position.

@TcTT
yeah, that's just a GUI bug, nothing to worry about, and it'll be fixed in the next update ;-)


@Crampe, thanks. Do we receive an email when there's an update or should I just check in every so often?

@TcTT,
don't worry, you'll get an email ;-)

It's a really great device. Thank you.

I would just add 2 other shortcuts: One to reset the gain to 0dB, and another to reset the pitch to 0st.

It would be great if you could adjust the volume of multiple selected clips instead of just one!

Is there a way to the change the semitone range to 1 instead of the current (seemingly) limit of 7?

@jinci: I don't fully understand, could you be more precise?
@iopapadopoulos: unfortunately M4L doesn't offer this option atm...
@Kilowlee: excellent ideas!

The plugin allows me to map keyboard shortcuts to control the pitch up or down in incremental steps. The lowest step it allows me to select is 7 semitones. Is there a way to make it so pressing a key (mapped to pitch up or down) changes the pitch to just 1 semitone?

@jinci
You can edit the value down to 1st.
I just checked and it looks like you need to drag the number box with some more "force" than expected because otherwise it would get "stuck" at 7...
Not sure why it's happening, that's weird, but if you go up and down a couple times it'll work (or edit the dB number box and go back to the st one).
I'll have a look at this, no idea when it's started to happen.

Hey man, I really love this device, especially useful for micro edits and lead programming :)

Is it possible to make it that it can edit the volume of multiple clips simultaneously? It would be good to have a multi selection and bring them down by the same amount of dB, not to the same gain but scaled if that makes sense.

Thanks for making this great time saving device :)

@Waldkind
As mentioned several times in the comments here, unfortunately M4L doesn't allow editing several clips simultaneously...

Would it be possible to make this so it also works with midi - transposing all the midi in the selected clip. And gain adjusting the relative velocity of all the notes in the clip.

The reason for having it in the same device might be that there is a universal hotkey for essentially doing the same thing for all clips. If I hit the hotkey on a midi clip as it is now nothing happens for instance because it's not audio. Perhaps the Gain could switch to saying Vel or velocity for a visual difference or having a different color.

If you made this you could maybe call it "Clip gain pro" or "Clip gain + midi".

Thanks for listening and thanks for your excellent work regardless.

Love the current device. The above is simply another device i would love to buy. THanks

@gsirvine
thx for the suggestions
It's definitely not on my TODO list for ClipGain, but I'm taking notes.

agree with what tahee said, a simple settings menu with the ability to resize, pick colors, and transparency levels.

Loving this device.

Adding a shortcut for Legato in the MIDI editor would be an amazing addition if it's possible?

@Prizzle9
Yeah, I'd love to know, but M4L doesn't have access to this unfortunately.

Hey, when going negative with the shortcut in the decibels, it goes to -1.18, then -2.60 etc. instead of -1, -2...
Thank you for the device

@Breadeating
I know, but atm I can't do anything about it. This is due to the unconventional way Ableton scaled the clips' gain fader. They're aware of this - they actually gave me this explanation - and they might or might not "fix" this in the future.

I work on the Ableton version 11.2.6
None of the popups (Gain, Volume, All) are showing up for me.
Has anyone encountered a similar problem?

@AndrewBright
are you on OSX? Using Live in fullscreen?

@Crampe

Bro, thanks for the feedback, but the problem was different: the plugin does not work when the audio engine of the program is off.
That is, when none of your audio interfaces is selected in the options, the volume and pitch windows will not be shown.

thx for the heads up @AndrewBright
Pretty sure I can't do anything about it and that it's Ableton's side... fortunately there's no reason for not using any audio interface with a DAW so I'm pretty sure this is actually not a real issue ;-)

@Crampe
Great plugin! I have one minor nitpick. When I click on your gain slider it instantly jumps to exactly where I clicked, which can be annoying if you want to do small adjustments. Abletons gain slider doesn't do that, it stays where it is, as long as I click somewhere within the little triangle, and only moves when I actually drag the mouse.
Could you make this work?

@lazlow
It's exactly the same behaviour as the clip gain slider in Live here... (and btw, I can't do anything about it, that's how those GUI are designed)
Which Live version are you using?

@Crampe
Hmm that's odd... I'm using Live Version 11.2.7 on Windows, definitely doesn't work like the Ableton slider for me.

@lazlow Interesting! I don't have any Windows machine to test... but I'd be surprised such a different behaviour would exist between the two OS, that sounds like a serious UX inconsistency!

@Crampe
I however don't have a Mac machine to test :D Maybe some future Ableton update will fix this accidently? Don't know what else to try

@lazlow
as a workaround you can use the dB value at the bottom instead, if you slide up/down from here you won't get any jump.

hey man! i really like your clipgain device. it's a game changer for sure. anyway it would be great to add an ability of editing tempo of a sample in pitch section near with warping. is it possible? thank you for your work!

p.s.
what is rex mode in warp section? ty

@sxxker
That's beyond the scope of the device I'm afraid, sorry!

REX is an old file format. The REX warp option actually appears in Live too, but only when such a file is selected. I decided to keep it in my device in case someone uses this type of file ;-)

@crampe
Also tell me pls is it possible to make pitch shifting of more than one selected audio clip? I do lots of layering especially with tonal characteristics so it will be really cool to have the ability mentioned above. Thank u!

@crampe
Thanks for the workaround, that's a good solution, appreciate it!

One more question that just came up. When I use arrow up/down on the pitch tool of CG it used to adjust the fine tuning by default. Now I must have done something that made it switch to change the semitones per default with the arrow keys. I thought maybe it just remembers the last thing you changed (cents or semitones) but now I can't change it back, I always have to click on the fine tune box.
Could you shed some light on this?

I think I've read all there is to read about the MIDI 'Crop' function but I still can't get it to do anything. I wonder if you'd provide a step-by-step example of how to use it, along with the expected results?

Cheers

Hello,

The device works well but the m4l console just show up every time I click on a midi clip! And it's really unpleasant because it made get out of ableton every time.

Messages on the console:
live.object: Gain is only available for Audio Clips
live.observer: Gain is only available for Audio Clips


@Wodd
You have an instance of Granulator in your live set, right?
Make sure to update it to the latest version, they added an option to stop this Max Console window from poping up, this is a developer tool, this was left there by error.
As for the "errors", they have absolutely no impact.

@Audioguy
the midi crop feature only works in the detailed clip view/piano roll.
Let's say you selected a part of your midi clip (in the piano roll) and pressed cmd+L to loop this area, and you don't need to content outside of the loop brackets: that's where you'd use ClipGain's Crop button.

@lazlow:
I didn't change anything in this area, so I have no clue... Are you sure about this?

@crampe

Perfect thank you!

thank you so much for creating this! you have given me back hours of my life i otherwise would have lost

it would be really cool if you could edit the warp parameters in the window (eg. grain size and flux for the texture warp mode) in addition to gain and pitch.

thanks again!

@Yem
You've no idea how much I'd love this too!
But unfortunately these parameters aren't accessible by M4L atm...

There seems to be compatibility display issues with Ableton 11.3.2
The floating windows for gain and pitch cannot be moved.

@Nasca
This by design and nothing changed recently.

As per the User Guide:
"Select an audio clip, press the key(s) you?ve mapped. This will pop-up a window, UNDER YOUR MOUSE, with the clip?s gain/transpose fader/knob etc... "

I ran into a problem with the Gain control. I set the value to 0.5 dB. When I boost the number goes up by 0.5, when I attenuate the number goes down by a random value instead of a multiple of 0.5. Does anyone solve a similar situation?

@Symptom
This is because of the very unusual way the clip fader in Live is scaled, so when it goes below 0 the numbers aren't correct anymore.
Ableton is aware of this, but this is that way for so long that I'm not sure if they will change it anytime soon.

@Crampe
Too bad, but thanks for the reply!

hi crampe, thanks for making this! I have only one issue, is it possible to select multiple clips in one channel and change them at once? somehow when I try to do that the floating windows parameters don't react anymore and when I reopen the window with my shortcut it has reset.

@giwdul

As mentioned several times in the comments here, unfortunately M4L doesn't allow editing several clips simultaneously...

@Crampe Oh no, I am sorry, I really tried to read the comments haha. thanks for clarifying and I think consolidating more is a good thing to do anyways :) amazing device. all the best!

In both v2.0 and v2.2, I can't recall the floating window via keyboard shortcut, only via MIDI. Does anyone have the same problem?

Update: I had a deeper problem with Live 11 and after performing a factory reset, Floating Window is now working fine... Over and out :)

This is a wonderful tool I just bought, it's going to help me mix much faster, thank you! Would it be possible to add or to make a similar tool for panning? it's a pain to automate panning per clip.

@Senbie
Panning is not a clip but a track property, so it has to be automated at the track level (or with a Utility), there's no way around it.
My Futility v4 device has a floating mixer window though, it exposes the currently selected track's mixer, so you can set your panning from it (it's not made to create automations, though).

Just purchased but weird thing is my floating box Gain and Pitch font is white and boxes under Pitch wheel are white rectangles with no text so I cant see how many semitones I'm adjusting by, is this normal? also any plans to update interface to be able to match your Ableton Theme colors?

@BabyTroy
Someone experienced this recently, and the reason was they were using a custom Theme. Is this your case?

I recall "Loop" working on midi clips in version 2.0, is that right? Since updating to 2.2, the loop button only works for audio clips. Is it possible to have the loop button work for midi clips too?

Boss, the floating window is not showing up for me :( I'm running Ableton Live 11 Suite on Monterey 12.6 with Apple M1 Max. The other parameters work when mapped to keys, but the floating window does not appear

@notteinfinita
Are you using Live fullscreen? If yes, right-click the Live icon in the Finder, and make sure it isn't set to a specific Dekstop/Space, i.e make sure it's set to "None".

I can only set the desktop/space option when I have more than 1 desktop open, but even when I do that and set it to None, the floating window is still not appearing (full screen mode and normal mode)

@noteinfinita
Can you email me, it'll be easier to investigate. If you answer to your Gumroad receipt it should get to me.

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