@ffanatic: I write an article about doing that exact thing here http://www.basementhum.com/2008/01/ableton-live-poor-mans-groove-quantize.html

But i found out recently that Live only ‘notices’ the song tempo automation value at the start of every 16th, so there’s a limit to the resolution of the extracted groove (doublespeeding your song will help you get a more accurate capture of the groove).

Take a loop of a track whose groove you would like to emulate, and do the following:

1. Enable the clip to warp, and set your warp markers on each hit on the 16ths. If the track actually has a groove, you’ll notice that each hit is off a bit from the straight 16th grid when you initially import it, so make sure to move each warp marker to its respective hit (ie, un-groove the loop with your warp markers).

2. Once you’re loop is warped, copy it into the arrange window.

3. Once in the arrange window, you’ll notice that there is a new option that appears in the clip info pane. It’s a little button that says “slave”.

4. Click on the slave button, and you’ll notice that it changes to “master”. Also note that once this clip is set to master tempo, your tempo value displayed in the box in the upper left portion of the arrange window is grayed out, and has an automation envelope associated with it. When you play this loop now, you’ll see your tempo going sort of haywire, but that’s just live adjusting the tempo so that your stuff plays to your new groove.

5. Duplicate this “master tempo” loop along the duration of your track, and voila, you’ve basically just set up your groove template by automating master tempo changes to create your “groove”.

6. Make sure to mute, or turn off this track so that the audio doesn’t play throughout the song – it’s just meant to hold the groove.

Now, when you bring in audio clips, they should be warped to straight 16ths (and if they’re not, then you’ll have to warp them). Once they’re warped, go ahead, and A/B your stuff with the tempo loop on and off, and see if they match.

Hope this helps (and makes sense).

B

Back on topic, alot of the Chicago style wouldn’t be what it is without swing.

The RM1X got some crazy next level type swing settings, best swing I’ve ever felt at least. Too bad I sold mine otherwise I’d post sound examples.

Off topic, you gotta check out Bomes MIDI translator if you havent yet, and yes I think it works with MAC also. It will make your MIDI controller so much more powerful with Live, I’m not gonna get in depth but what this guy does in this vid is awesome, dont let the basic intro fool you, he gets tricky, the intro is kinda beginner level though. Heres the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ_2npOAXXA