Vocal manipulation with Ableton Simplers.

Posted August 8th, 2008 by Oliver Chesler
Filed Under: Ableton Live, plug-ins, sounds, video


Vocal manipulation with Ableton Simplers. from wiretotheear on Vimeo.

There are thousands of ways to mangle audio in weird and wild sound. Here’s a screencast of a trick I sometimes put to work. Here is the end result (4 samples are loaded in this player):

Here is the original sample I used:

The technique uses multiple Ableton Simplers in a Device Group. If your an Ableton wizard you will know this stuff  but if your not a regular user of Simpler and Macros you will learn something.

Sample credit: Incarnadine

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11 Responses to “Vocal manipulation with Ableton Simplers.”
  1. Nik Says:
    August 8th, 2008 at 1:20 am

    Thanks, Oliver, wonderful tutorial!

    Btw, loading samples into Sampler opens up further sound design possibilities.

  2. Nak Says:
    August 8th, 2008 at 5:39 am

    nice tnx!
    …but take it easy with those mousecliks :)

  3. Oliver Chesler Says:
    August 8th, 2008 at 6:38 am

    Click click! Growing up my father used get pissed at me for pushing buttons on the clicker non-stop.

  4. Jacksin Says:
    August 8th, 2008 at 8:15 am

    Click click! Cool demo but rather depressing with all the “death” playback. Thanks though!

  5. Yasha Says:
    August 10th, 2008 at 11:32 am

    Thank you very much! Very inspirational!

    Actually, this inspired me to try the “tip & trick” on the puremagnetik site for using the Live 7 “slice to new midi track” feature to chop up a vocal sample. I recorded myself reading a short passage with a pause between word (to make it easier to identify individual words) and then set a warp marker at the start of each word. Next, I sliced to a new midi track with the setting “Create one slice per warp marker”. This filled up a drum rack with all the individual words, which gives me a lot to work with.

  6. Create Digital Music » Ableton Live Rack Tutorials: Slicing and Drum Racks, Vocal Slicing with Simpler Racks Says:
    August 11th, 2008 at 9:40 am

    [...] Chesler of the currently on-fire wire to the ear shares this tutorial using Live’s Device Groups and built-in Simpler. Basically, the idea is to rack Simplers together so you have easy access to different slices. [...]

  7. hector Says:
    August 11th, 2008 at 11:28 am

    GReat stuff, thanks for this tutorial

    Cheers from Argentina

    Hector Lopez

  8. Adrian L. Says:
    October 16th, 2008 at 7:02 pm

    Hi Oliver, thanks for the tutorial. I was trying to do this in both simpler AND sampler… but I couldn’t get the samples to play back for me! Could you help? Thank you.

  9. Oliver Chesler Says:
    October 16th, 2008 at 11:56 pm

    Sure Adrian… what exactly are you have trouble with?

  10. DJ Chima Says:
    October 17th, 2008 at 5:56 am

    How do you get such a good bottom end in your mouse click? Are you using a HP filter and some Tube OD?

    JK, great tip, gotta try it out!

  11. Miraja Says:
    October 21st, 2008 at 11:12 am

    You just made my day. Thank you.