Quick Tip: Ableton Live’s Auto Pan as a Chopper.

Posted May 21st, 2008 by Oliver Chesler
Filed Under: Ableton Live, plug-ins

When I record old analog synthesizers that do not have MIDI or CV control (like my Roland SH3) I often use a Chopper plug-in to make the synth sync rhythmically. An example where I did this is my song Sex Machine. The main driving bassline is actually the SH3 playing a solid note being chopped into 8th notes (audio sample below)

I recorded that song using Cubase SX3 which has a built-in plug-in called “Chopper”. But Ableton Live doesn’t have a dedicated Chopper plug-in. For Chopper duties in Live select the Auto Pan! If you want a triangle wave cutting your audio into 8th notes like in the Sex Machine audio sample below put Auto Pan on the track you want chopped, choose the Chopper preset and input these settings: Amount: 100%, Rate: 1/8, Phase: 0.00°, Shape: 100%

Sex Machine:

Of course there are many free and third party chopper, gate, trance freakout plug-ins you can also use. What’s your method?

Feed | Respond | Trackback

3 Responses to “Quick Tip: Ableton Live’s Auto Pan as a Chopper.”
  1. graham miller Says:
    May 21st, 2008 at 2:38 pm

    you can even use to auto pan to fake a pumping sidechain compression style effect by fooling around with a saw wave and the amount controls…

  2. dave Says:
    May 22nd, 2008 at 9:41 am

    hm i think beatrepeat does a nice job for this anyway. just set it to 1/4th bar or something, done.

  3. Jacksin Says:
    May 23rd, 2008 at 4:25 pm

    Thanks for the tip! Tried using this on a minimal track during the break down & moved 1/8 to 1/24 and it really sounded out there!

LEAVE A REPLY