wire to the ear

Ableton Live - Uses for White Noise from Andreas Wetterberg on Vimeo.

Andreas Wetterberg from The Covert Operators is always sharing wicked Ableton Live tricks. In the video above he shows you how to mangle white noise into something useful.

White noise is both annoying and useful. Here’s why. - Andreas Wetterberg

Watch how he maps the keyboard to the Note Value on the Ableton Resonator plug-in. Good one! Later he tosses together White Noise, Auto Filter, Compressor, Phaser and Autopan into a stew and comes out with some nice scratch effects.

By the way if your looking for a place to grab some white noise don’t forget my post, “Simply Noise. A website with a single purpose.“.

Be sure to check out all of The Covert Operators stuff: www.covops.org

Here’s an obvious but useful tip that will work in any DAW. What if have an external hardware device that does not allow Program Change control? How will you remember what preset you were using for a specific song? Easy: Name the clip or channel the patch number.

I’ve been using this method with my new Jomox Mbase 01. As you see above the clip is named r31. One thrilling things about the Mbase 01 is how the massive kicks really pump any sidechains. Lately I will have more than just one channel being sidechained. When this is the case you can’t freeze or render the kick without after re-sidechaining everything to the new rendered kick. This is why I just keep the Jomox “live”.

In Ableton Live when you hit the Space Bar it triggers the transport to start or stop. Each time you hit the Space Bar the song begins playing from the last Insert Marker. I find this very useful as you can make changes to a section and listen again to the same section quickly. But what if your playing a live show and you pause the music or you know your happy with a section you have just changed? You want the arrangement to keep playing from the location you stopped it right? Hold down shift and hit the Space Bar and presto your song keeps playing without returning to the last insert marker!

Arrangement playback can also be toggled on and off by pressing the keyboard’s space bar. To continue playback from the position where it last stopped, rather than from the insert marker, hold down the shift modifier while pressing the space bar. - Ableton Live User Manual

photo credit: gottlieb

Out with the old, in with the new. When Ableton released Live 7 they simplified the way to bring in audio and midi from an external device such as a hardware synthesizer or drum machine. If you use external hardware and your not using the Live’s new External Instrument Device read on.

So let’s take a look at the old way of bringing an external instrument into Live. You would have to create an audio channel, select it’s input and arm monitoring. You would also have to create a separate Midi channel, choose then Midi Interface (Midi To) and Midi Channel.

Now for the new imporved method. Go to the Live Device browser (upper left side of the interface) and under Intruments drag an External Instrument device to a Midi track. On the device you can choose all the parameters that were previously spread over two channels: Midi To, Midi Channel and Audio Input. You also have the additional Latency parameter which is usefull if you notice your hardware synth or drum machine notes are coming in a little late. The best part of the External Instrument Device is now that you set it up you can save the preset and your now one click away from adding any hardware you have into your current song. I have seperate presets for all my hardware synths and drum machines.

The Covert Operators are Ableton freaks like myself. Their website is full of tips, tricks, videos and free stuff to download. They also offer a few things for sale. Tonight I bought one of their products called Traces 1. Traces 1 is simply 50 Arpeggiator Racks created with different live Midi Devices. I’m constantly looking for ways to break out of my own mind’s repetitive mode especially when it comes to melodies. You know the deal; you sit down to create a new song and all you end up playing is the same four notes you always play!

The first edition of Traces focuses on arps, with 50 Arpeggiator Racks, ranging from simple beat sequences to complex melodies that can be altered in real-time. Combining the Racks with each other delivers even more sequences with literally thousands of combinations to try out. From instant glitch to subtle backgrounds. And how about using several Arpeggiator Racks at once? - www.covops.org

Here an audio sample I put together using Fabfilter’s Twin as the synth, Impulse loaded with GoldBaby’s free Cassette 808 drums and a few Traces 1 arp presets:

Here’s an audio sample of Impulse loaded with GoldBaby’s free Cassette 808 drums and a few Traces 1 arp presets controlling the actual drum beat (nice!):

With both the above demos I only have 1 note, 4 bars long laid into a clip. The Traces 1 presets are creating all the movement. It’s true you can make these yourself with some time but even I learned a few things by looking how they put these together. By the way here is a related post I did about using an arp on drums: click here

Traces 1 is 7:50€. link

In any DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) an important keyboard shortcut to learn is “Loop to Selection”. In Ableton Live’s Arrangement view select a clip you want to have looping and hit Command-L. The Loop Brace surrounds the clip and Looping is turned on. Command-L also works inside Clip View. Hitting Command-L will work on selected Midi notes or audio waveforms.

Whenever I start a new song I like the tempo to be 123bpm and have a 4/4 kick drum going. I also always like to have Reason ReWired into Live. Instead of loading Live and setting these things up each time I did it once then opened the Live Preferences and under the File Folder tab clicked “Save Current Set as Template”. Now each time I launch Live I am ready to go with the things I like pre-set.

Use the File/Folder Preferences’ Template Save button to save the current Live Set as a template. Live will use these settings as the initialized, default state for new Live Sets. You can use this to pre-congure:

• Your multichannel input/output setup.
• Preset devices, like EQs and Compressors, in every track.
• Computer key mappings.
• MIDI mappings.

The template Live Set, Template.als, is located in Live’s Preferences folder and can becopied or deleted from there. The easiest way to locate this folder is to search your disk for Template.als. - Ableton Live User Manual

Some other DAWs such as Cubase allow multiple start up templates. Whats your start up template?

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?

Here is an Ableton Live keyboard shortcut most people don’t know or use. Once you learn it you will use it all the time. In either Session or Arrange view hit COMMAND-OPTION-L. This toggles Clip View on and off giving either your mixer or arrangement more space.

Great no?

This morning I had a message on Facebook from a friend of mine George GábriÅ¡. The message said. “Yo I found this to be quiet bizzare.” and there was a link to the video above. Apparently someone figured out you can use the magnetic strip of a drivers license as a mini ribbon controller for Ableton Live.

Using the magnetic strip on the back of my driver’s license to make a ribbon controller which then controls Autofilter in Live 6 via MIDI. - db3l

He has some other cool videos up including an Ableton controller made of Popsicle sticks and pennies and a controller printed on a regular piece of paper.

By the way you can friend me on Facebook too: click here