sound-check

Sound check

Everything in Live fails loudly except silence. A wrong note errors, a bad index errors, a missing file errors — but a track that makes no sound reports nothing at all. It writes clean, it places clean, it renders clean, and the only trace is a band that reads 0.0% in an analysis you might not run until the arrangement is finished.

So check before you build. Thirty seconds here saves rebuilding an arrangement.

When

• After loading instruments and writing the first session clips — before place_in_arrangement.
• After loading any drum rack, always.
• Whenever the user says something is missing, thin, or inaudible.
• Whenever a record_master band reads near zero where you expected content.

The check

1. Drum racks: read the pads, don't trust the map.

get_drum_map returns Live's standard mapping. get_drum_pads(track, device) returns what the loaded rack actually fills. They are not the same — factory kits routinely cover only 36–51, so the shaker at 70 is silence. Write only notes the rack lists; if you want 16th shakers and there is no shaker pad, use the closed hat at low velocity instead.

2. One measured pass over every track.

Fire nothing. Place a few bars, then:

measure_tracks(track_indices=[0,1,2,…], start_bar=<a bar where all of them play>, seconds=15)

One playback pass, ranked by peak, silent flagged under 0.02. Pass start_bar — without it you measure wherever the playhead sits, and a playhead parked outside the section reads 0.000 on every track, which looks exactly like a broken set.

3. Read the ranking as a mix, not just a checklist.

For four-on-the-floor: kick on top, bass under it, lead below that, then percussion, then pads. If the ranking is upside down you have found a mix problem before writing 176 bars over it.

A track reads silent — the decision tree

Never raise the fader first. Work down this list:

check	how	fix
Is there an instrument?	list_track_devices	MIDI track with only effects makes no sound
Is it a drum note that exists?	get_drum_pads	rewrite the pattern onto filled pads
Was a session clip ever fired?	—	back_to_arranger
Is the track muted, or another soloed?	get_song_status	unmute
Does the section actually contain the clip?	get_arrangement_clips	you measured the wrong bar
Is the filter shut?	list_device_parameters	see the cutoff floors in the hellyee skill
Genuinely quiet, not silent?	solo + record_master 4 bars	now a level problem — see below