http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHSgMl8Zzu0
Take Ableton’s Session View and mirror it inside Serato’s digital turntable interface and you have what the two companies call “The Bridge”. Every month or so I power up Traktor and make a mix for the car/gym. Considering my Ableton Live addiction I think I’m going to have to give this a shot.
“Huston from Ableton and Nick from Serato go through The Bridge – a new technology allowing communication between Ableton Live 8 and Serato Scratch Live” – SeratoHQ
For more info: http://serato.com/thebridge
This entry was written by , posted on January 22, 2010 at 5:36 am, filed under Ableton Live and tagged ableton, Ableton Live, deejay, mix, Serato, Turntables. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
My all time top tip for getting a nice sound from Ableton Live (or any DAW) is to keep your channel faders low and the Master at 0db. I explain my reasoning in an older post from January 2008. You can read it and the great comments by: clicking here. A safety net or let’s say helper in keeping your Master at 0db is a Limiter. Luckily (finally!) they added a native Limiter to Ableton Live 8. I recommend saving your startup Template with the Limiter in place. How much headroom below 0db you should leave is questionable but mostly I just leave it at it’s default setting of -0.30 dB. I’m guessing Ableton set it there for a reason. Of course you can use Limiters to shape and pump your sound and for something like that I turn to other plug-ins like Wavearts FinalPlug ($199) or a hardware unit such as a Universal Audio 1176.
“The Limiter effect is a mastering-quality dynamic range processor that ensures that the output does not exceed a speci ed level. Limiter is ideal for use in the Master track, to prevent clipping. A limiter is essentially a compressor with an in nite ratio. To ensure that your nal output will never clip, place Limiter as the last device in the Master track’s device chain and keep your Master fader below 0 dB.” – Ableton Live 8 User Manual
For more Ableton tips and info: wiretotheear.com/category/ableton-live/
This entry was written by , posted on January 21, 2010 at 7:12 am, filed under Ableton Live, plug-ins and tagged ableton, Ableton Live, dB, limiter, Universal Audio, Wavearts. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
http://www.youtube.com/v/yhfvzTivVLg?hl=en_US&fs=1
I’ve been watching Max for Live waiting for the patch that will make me buy and Schwarzonator made me do just that. Grid pattern making patches and hardware hacks don’t get me going as much as software that helps me create melodies. Schwarzonator was created by Berliner Henrik Schwarz and I am finding it very useful. I really love the random function! Check out the video above for what it can do.
“The Schwarzonator is a note twister. It’s all about helping musicians (or non-musicians) find the right notes and chords in real time. It turns one finger playing into chords that fit together well. Choose from a list of Chord Sets in a drop down menu. Then all notes you play on your keyboard will fit into the selected Chord Set.” – Henrik Schwarz (from Ableton’s website)
Get the Schwarzonator here: www.ableton.com/schwarzonator
This entry was written by , posted on December 21, 2009 at 6:45 am, filed under Ableton Live, song writing and tagged ableton, Ableton Live, Max for Live, patch, Schwarzonator. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PF2TQ3s5FuY
Dubspot is school in New York City that trains DJ’s and electronic musicians. I’ve been to the facility for a few Ableton meetings and it was always interesting. Mike Hatsis gives us a run through on using Ableton reverbs and such in a Minimal track. I like how he says, “I like to think of it as the sound’s shadow.”.
“Dubspot Instructor, Michael Hatsis, shows how to add Space and Dimension to Minimal Techno style drums. Topics covered include using Drum Rack’s Send and Return tracks, as well as Creating and using a Plate and a Room style reverb in Ableton Live.” – dubspot.com
For more info: dubspot.com
This entry was written by , posted on November 9, 2009 at 6:00 am, filed under Ableton Live and tagged ableton, Ableton Live, Dubspot, reverb, tutorial. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I’ve been working on an original song to be on a compilation being put together by Andy DeDecker. Andy is one of the members of the Belgian EBM group Ionic Vision. The compilation is original unreleased material and each song has to be sex related. In my normal workflow or “workslow” as I call it I create hundreds of different fills with different effects on each fill. This keeps what can be a monotonous electronic track amazingly dynamic and interesting. However, sometimes I want to work quickly and have a consistent sounding fill throughout the entire song. I create a chain of effects on a Return Channel and then increase/decrease it’s volume along the timeline of the song in Arrangement View. As you can see in the case above where ever the Red Arrows peak Ableton shoots Reverb, Delay and Distortion over the Drums Channel. The fill/effect won’t sound the exactly the same each time it fires because you are drawing little peaks in slightly different places.
Blow the Kiss (demo) -The Horrorist by thingstocome
If you use a delay plug-in the difference where your peak is placed makes a dramatic difference in the timing delays you will hear. If at anytime you want to add a new peak of effects (our “fill”) and the Breakpoint Envelope for your Return Channel is not showing simply click the small Send Box (top right Blue Arrow) to make it pop up. Easy, instant, changing Ableton Live Send FX Fills.
For more Ableton Live tips and tricks: click here
This entry was written by , posted on September 29, 2009 at 5:52 am, filed under Ableton Live and tagged Ableton Live, automation, Breakpoint Envelope, workflow. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Some days when I get home from working in Manhattan I am completely exhausted. I love keeping up with the world using Google Reader. Sometimes I don’t even have the energy to sit upright and hit the keyboard shortcut “J” in Reader to go to the next story. I started thinking that if there was an iPhone app that let me have a remote Mac keyboard I could increase the font size on my screen, sit back and remotely hit “J”. To my delight I found such an application and it’s called Keymote (iTunes link). I set it up and now can half sleep half browse from a far in a comfy chair. You can see my set up for Google Reader in the screenshot above left.
I woke up this morning and the very first thought out of my head was: Whoa I can control anything with Keymote. Ableton Live! Yes it works just fine. Keymote doesn’t have nifty things like sliders but it’s certainly useful. There are Ableton specific iPhone controllers too. Check out TouchOSC: click here
“Tired of keyboard shortcuts? Is Command+Shift+Option+J really more efficient than tapping a single button? With Keymote, you’ll never have to remember another shortcut again! Keymote creates single buttons out of complicated shortcuts and groups them by application, speeding up your productivity and boosting your workflow. Keymote acts as a universal remote for your Mac. Easily control Front Row from across the room, refresh your Twitter stream wirelessly, or play a song from iTunes without even touching your computer, the possibilities are endless.” – icedcocoa.com
Keymote is $3.99. For screencasts and more: icedcocoa.com
This entry was written by , posted on August 18, 2009 at 7:30 pm, filed under Ableton Live and tagged ableton, Ableton Live, Google Reader, iPhone, Keymote, TouchOSC. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Ireland based Sonic Academy has posted a few new Ableton tips on their site including the one above which quickly shows you how to extract a groove from and audio file and apply it to a different Midi or audio clip. At 3:36 he shows you the power of the Warp Marker by fixing a glitch. Good job. Time to extract some grooves off some OLD records…
“In this weeks tech tip we should you how to extract a groove from an audio file and apply it to a MIDI clip and a drum loop, all in Ableton Live 8″ – www.sonicacademy.com
For more info visit the Groove Engine page at Ableton: click here
This entry was written by , posted on August 12, 2009 at 4:41 pm, filed under Ableton Live and tagged ableton, Ableton Live, groove, Sonic Academy, tip. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taAh1_xIfsk
I found Swayzak by their single I Dance Alone (iTunes link). Later I found the album Some Other Country (iTunes link) to be perfect office work background music. They have released a free Ableton Live pack. It’s a 50MB download available now: click here
“Swayzak is a tech house duo from the United Kingdom that consists of James S. Taylor and David Brown. They live and work in London and released their first 12″ single “Bueno” / “Fukumachi” in February 1997 to much acclaim. It was followed up by the 12″ “Speedboat” / “Low Rez Skyline” to become part of the burgeoning tech-house scene in the UK.” – Wikipedia.org
What does the word “Swayzak” mean anyway? Is it some kind of UK thing?
This entry was written by , posted on August 6, 2009 at 8:07 pm, filed under Ableton Live, interviews, music, sounds, video and tagged ableton, Ableton Live, Swayzak. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Here’s a few small Ableton Live tips I use all the time. When in Session View you can click on the small left facing arrow on any mixer channel and move it up or down using the Arrow keys. This is a great way to fine tune the volume of a Channel. If you hold Shift down while pushing the up or down Arrow Key the volume will jump negative or positive 3.12db. If you want to return any Fader to 0db simply click once on the small left facing triangle and hit the Delete key. Lastly, if you hold down Control and click the Left or Right arrows you will move to the next Left or Right Channel Fader.
Remember you can find all the Ableton Live keyboard shortcuts in Chapter 28 of the user manual. Happy music making!
For more Ableton tips and tricks: click here
This entry was written by , posted on July 14, 2009 at 4:50 am, filed under Ableton Live and tagged ableton, Ableton Live, keyboard shortcut. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
The Little Things in Live: Part 1 from Bjorn Vayner on Vimeo.
Bjorn Vayner has a great collection of Ableton tips and tricks on Vimeo. Today he shows us two little tips that we may have overlooked. First he selects multiple tracks and resizes them (hold ALT). Next, Bjorn reminds us that holding SHIFT and Spacebar will play your song from it’s last stopped position.
See more of Bjorn’s great videos: click here
This entry was written by , posted on June 18, 2009 at 4:05 am, filed under Ableton Live and tagged ableton, Ableton Live, Bjorn Vayner, Session View. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
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