Month: April 2026

Hi everyone, I’m looking for

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for advice from people who use Ableton Live in demanding live performance setups.

I run a 2-hour concert fully synced to click/tempo. I play live on a single MIDI track that contains one large Instrument Rack. Inside that rack, I have around 200 VST instruments (Serum, Kontakt, Analog Lab, Pigments, etc.). During the show, these plugins are automatically enabled and disabled via automation depending on the song sections.

Important detail: I never switch between single instruments. My sounds are always layered. At any moment, any combination of plugins can be active together (for example: plugin 1 alone, then plugins 3 and 10 together, then plugin 7 alone, then plugins 7 and 5 together, etc.). Because of that, using the chain selector is not practical — the combinations are too dynamic.

While all this is happening, I’m playing very complex piano parts live, with extremely frequent sustain pedal usage (CC64 constantly switching on and off).

The issue I encounter is the following:

Sometimes a plugin gets disabled while it still thinks the sustain pedal is on (because it never received CC64 = 0 before being turned off). Later in the show, when that plugin gets re-enabled, it can come back with stuck sustain or notes from much earlier in the performance.

This can create very problematic situations on stage.

I cannot reliably time plugin disable events with pedal releases, because my playing is highly dynamic and unpredictable, and everything is automated during the show.

I’m trying to find a reliable solution that does not fundamentally change my workflow.

One idea I’m exploring is a small Max for Live device that would:

temporarily block incoming MIDI
send CC64 = 0 (sustain off)
send All Notes Off
wait a few milliseconds
then allow the plugin to be safely disabled
But I’m very open to other approaches.

Has anyone dealt with a similar issue in a live performance context?

Any suggestions or best practices would be greatly appreciated.

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