Skime - Skip Time in Arrangement View

(Skime will be free until the official release of Live 12.2)

Skime makes Live skip certain parts of the Arrangement during playback. This helps greatly while arranging a track or editing long audio files of live recordings to find those parts of a song you want to delete. To do this Skime uses the start and end times of all active Midi clips on its track. When playing the Arrangement Live will skip over all Midi clips as long as Skime is activated. Deactivated Midi clips are ignored.

For Editing Audio Recordings:

Skip parts of a live recorded jam that might be too long and listen to the compressed edit. Since you don't have to delete these parts it is easier and faster to try different editing versions and adjust them until they fit.

While Working on an Arrangement:

Skip parts to try out different durations for different parts on your track while composing

How to use Skime

Drop the device on a Midi track

Double click on the track in Arrangement view and create up to 40 clips anywhere. Skime automatically registers them. All clip content and the Loop mode are ignored. Only the clip edges are used by Skime.

Set the Play Head to the start of your song and hit Play. Live will skip from start to end of each clip.

Move, add, delete, drag the edges of the clips to your needs. The next time the Play Head reaches a clip it will skip time accordingly.

When you have decided which skipped parts you want to delete from your arrangement select the Midi clip and choose Edit > Cut Time ( Shift+Cmd+X)

Limitations with recording and exporting audio

Recording on another audio track in arrangement view works only in a limited way as the recording will stop at the first skip.

"File > Export Audio/Video" works but ignores the skipped parts.

IMPORTANT

Please understand that this device is not meant as a live performance tool but as an assistant for arrangement and editing work in the studio. Depending on your set-up there might be tiny glitches during play back. I never have any audible issues on a 2023 M3 MacBook but I cannot guarantee that for you. I am confident any glitches are tiny enough to be acceptable in the working situations this device is meant to operate (help you to decide which parts in Arrangement View to keep or delete).

If you experience drop-out try increasing the Buffer Size in Live.

You might see the DISK Overload Indicator light up briefly when a clip is skipped. This is expected and not a malfunction.

COMPATIBILITY

This device needs Max 9. It does not load when Max 8 is used inside Live. There are currently two ways to use Max 9 with Live 12:

* Join the Live 12.2 Public Beta program and download the latest beta which always includes the latest compatible Max 9 version.

* Download the latest Max 9 version from http://www.cycling74.com (no need to buy it if you already own Live 12 Suite or Live 12 Standard with a separate Max license). Then point Live 12.1.x to the Max 9 application via Settings > File & Folder > Max Application.

If these options sound confusing to you just wait until Live 12.2 will (soon) be officially released and Skime will just work.

After downloading the device

You can load Max For Live devices into Ableton Live from anywhere on your computer. We recommend to be more strict to avoid possible confusion:

• Add a folder to your User Library and call it "Max For Live Devices" (In Ableton Live go to the Browser, select the User Folder, right-click into the second column and select "New Folder")
• Inside this folder add another folder "Discrete Devices"
• Move "Skime.amxd" inside the "Discrete Devices" folder. (Drop it from the Finder onto the folder in the Live Browser.)

Why do this?

You might want to add "Skime.amxd" to a Template Live set. If your .amxd is not inside your User Library when saving a Live set as template the device will be copied into your User Library without notifying you creating confusion with duplicates.