Awesome list. Even I didn’t know some of these. I love Ableton Live. I tell all my friends using other DAWs to get into Live. It’s magic power in your music making hands!
1. Cut copy paste
2. Duplicate
3. Command A
4. Tab selects session or arrange window
5. command shift i
6. Highlight & effect multiple
7. Cmd f – scroll display to follow playback
8. Sidechain w/ compressor
9. Sidechain w/o compressor
10. Freeze
11. Audio to midi
12. Command 4 (no grid)
13. Command 1,2 &3(grid)
14. Cmd b – pencil
15. Hear samples w/ speaker icon
16. Tune drums with EQ
17. Tune drums w/ freq shifter
18. Send returns
19. Step record
20. Assign midi knob/fader
21. Assign midi button
23. Assign midi key
24. Midi key select (no wrong notes)
25. Warp: alt drag
26. Warp: shift drag
27. Warp: Select multiple, alt Drag
28. Warp multiple
29. DJ cue
30. Split DJ track
31. Record multiple tracks
32. Consolidate
33. Add time
34. cut time
35. dup time
36. Group tracks
37. Group instruments
38. Group effects
39. Chain selector
40. Add random w/ groove
41. Bass/low layer/high layer
42. Reverse reverb
43. Impulse- separate samples
44. Macros
45. Record session to arrange
46. Sustain midi loops
47. Send output to:
48. Receive input from:
49. Envelope automate (draw)
50. Envelope automate (record)
51. Dummy clips
52. Make kick
53. Cut non bass at 120hz
54. Shift & up/down arrow key moves selected midi notes by the octave
55. Shift tab: clip properties to instruments/fx
56. Click arrow to return to zero or center
57. Double click when zoom tool appears to show full arrangement or select area
59. Space bar stop, hit again restarts from cursor point
60. Shift space bar to stop and continue
61. Linked unlinked clip automation
62. Shift click to grab multiple tracks. Effect 1 and they all are effected (like volume)
63. Change cue to a different output to be able to cue each track (headphones icon)
64. Ctrl + shift + m – add midi clip
65. Alt + click – expand/collapse all tracks
66. Click + shift + arrow key – shorten or lengthen selected midi notes.
67. add return track ctrl + alt. + T
68. Cmd + Del – deletes automation but not the clip.
69. Drag section of a clip to a midi track, automatically creates a simpler with the sample
70. Assign knob to 1 clip for looping & pitch correct
71. Highlight all clips change warp settings, save, launch info etc
72. Simpler to sampler
73. Shift + – zoom in. – zoom out
74. Shift ? – shows info
75. Cmd alt B – show/hide browser
76. Cmd alt O – show/hide overview
77.cmd alt I – show/hide I/O
78. Cmd alt S – show/hide sends
79. Cmd alt m – show hide mixer
80. Cmd , – preferences
81. Cmd drag – fine adjustments
82. Cmd R – rename tab, rename next
83. Cmd up/down double or half loop length
84. Cmd up/down on midi part – goes to next midi note
85. Shift left right on midi note – lengthen shorten note
86. Enter – launch selected clip/clips
87. Cmd L – loop selected
88. Shift drag over envelope breakpoints.
89. Cmd t – create audio track
90. Cmd shift t – create midi track
91. Cmd alt t – create return track
92. Cmd M Midi map on off
93. Cmd K key map on off
94. Cmd U quantize
95. Cmd drag (alt drag PC) adjust velocity on selected midi notes
96 Cmd shift U quantize Settings
97. Route multiple tracks to sidechain
98. Utility for automated volume & volume for fine tuning later
via Synthtopia
This entry was written by , posted on June 13, 2011 at 6:46 am, filed under Ableton Live and tagged Ableton Live. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Now that I released my latest album Joyless Pleasure one thing that has me excited is that I can now talk about the songs. If you don’t mind I am going to make a post for each song going into as much detail as I can about the inspiration, influences and production. There is a reason for all the pro-audio gear lust that happens on this site. The crazy plastic and metal boxes full of buttons and dials are my secret weapons in song-writing.
I recorded a large amount of music and only picked ten songs to release. Narrowing the selection was easy because my criteria was simple. I only picked songs that were completely inspired by true events in my own life. The first song was Modern.
It’s hard for me to label my success as an musician. I don’t sell millions of albums and there are no paparazzi on my front door. However, I can make a living solely from music and I have fans pretty much in any city I go to. The music I listen to and love isn’t popular so I don’t expect my own releases to be on the billboard 100. I can’t make pop music or trance or even Minimal tracks with a purpose to chart. I can only really make my own songs. I’ve tried to conform but all that happens is I pull my hair out and stress. Music like my own had it’s day in the 80s backed by a very different kind of music industry.
As I entered my late 30s I realized I wanted more. I began to see my friends begin to purchase homes, cars and start families. I knew if I wanted to afford more than rent and drum machines I would need to get a day job. I also knew that even though I was a full time musician I only actually worked on music when I was inspired. I could easily take on more in my life. This was the point I decided to move back to NYC. I loved my time in Berlin but if you’re going after large buckets of cash my home town is where it’s at. I crossed the ocean and started looking. My only requirement is that the pay had to be high. I looked into music jobs such as cataloging sounds for Toys R Us or running a Pro-Tools rig at a small television advertising company. Too boring. I decided I needed some help so I looked for an employment agency. I walked into a place called Tomorrow’s Workplace and immediately saw a sign for a job at an Energy Services company. I knew there was green stuff in energy in both senses of the word. I have no idea why I thought I could land the job. Amazingly I got the job on the spot and quickly learned my tech savyness made be popular. I could also sell quite well. Afterall I’ve been selling music for years. A commodity most people don’t even want to buy! Fast foward to today. I left that company and started my own ESCO called ENVEN with a 78 year old ex-lawyer, mortgage broker named Charlie. In some ways we couldn’t be more different. He’s a religous concervative who thinks in numbers. Yet we have become best friends and I’ve unearthed his not so secret past as a party animal. While parts of my job are unfun I am on my way to the things I want.
As my team modernizes around Manhattan I watch the old become new. Many of the things I love about Berlin are happening here. Glass, steel and cool white futuristic lighting replace what’s left of urban decay. I’ve learned more in the past two years than the ten before it. I’ve modernized myself. That’s the inspiration behind this song.
You can hear many of my music influences in Modern such as Kraftwerk and Joy Division yet I think it has my stamp on it. Now let’s talk tech! This song is very much an analog affair. Every single synth sound and the white noise comes from a Yamaha CS-5. It took me about a week to piece the panned layers into it’s repetitive verse chorus. The drums except the kick are from my favorite piece of equipment the Vermona DRM1 MKIII. I think the DRM is so under rated under noticed. The kick is from my Jomox Mbase which is signed by Jürgen Michaelis himself. The vocals were recorded using my API 512c mic pre and Shure KSM32 microphone. There is panned Altiverb on my voice. I used a Lexicon PCM90 Impulse Response. I recorded some NYC street sounds on my iPhone which you can hear in the background throughout the song. Everything was sequenced in Ableton Live.
“All the modern. All the modern. Super Building. Super Building. Growing into a new day. Growing into a new day.”
Available on: iTunes | Amazon MP3 | Amazon CD | Beatport
This entry was written by , posted on June 1, 2011 at 3:48 pm, filed under music, Uncategorized and tagged Ableton Live, Jomox MBase, Oliver Chesler, Shure KSM32, The Horrorist, Things to Come Records, Vermona, Vermona DRM1, Yamaha CS5. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
SoundPrism Pro – Demo by thingstocome
Last night I had some time to hook up SoundPrism Pro (iTunes link) to Ableton Live via the Camera Connection Kit and a small M-Audio MIDI interface I had lying around. I am very pleased that it worked easily and the results are wonderful. I was able to record all the pretty chord and bass selections SoundPrism spit out. It took less than a few minutes to create verse and chorus melodies that work together. In this quick demo I used some free Roland TR-808 samples and a software Korg Wavestation through D16′s Devastor distortion. Truly inspirational.
“It’s like getting a futuristic keyboard in the present.” – Lee Kaczor (iTunes review)
For more info: audanika.com
This entry was written by , posted on March 28, 2011 at 4:48 am, filed under Ableton Live, iPad and tagged Ableton Live, Audanika, iOS, midi, SoundPrism, SoundPrism Pro. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Drum kits made from vintage analog synthesizers are a good thing. Here’s one set up for you in an Ableton Live pack created with a Korg MS-10. It’s $10 AUS via Paypal. Audio samples and more info: click here
“All the samples have been programmed on the MS-20 from the ground up and treated with the utmost care to provide you with pristine and unique sounds you wont find anywhere else.This is our most comprehensive pack to date as it includes 6 unique LIVE sets, 6 Drum Racks, 77 samples, 58 midi clips as well as unique FX such as our Geiger and 3F-Sat.The samples and FX have been grouped within the racks and have useful macro controls assigned to them to broaden the pallet of sounds you can produce.” – voltagedisciple.com
For more info: voltagedisciple.com
photo credit: aliasfreq
via sonicstate
This entry was written by , posted on October 20, 2010 at 5:12 am, filed under Ableton Live, drum machine, sounds and tagged Ableton Live, drum machine, Korg, Korg MS-20, Voltage Diciple. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Ritchie Hawtin, John Acquaviva and a small group called Liine have created an Ableton specific iPad controller called Griid. It looks interesting. I’m usually sweating and holding a microphone on stage but I am constantly running back behind the laptop to adjust and control things. A small sturdy stand at the very front of the stage with the iPad and Liine or touchAble on could be a solution. Who knows with one of those OtterBox Defender cases maybe I wouldn’t need the stand. I could just carry and leave the iPad various places on stage like I do with my mic sometimes. I’m going to try out Griid this weekend although I’m still a little skeptical. I do think eventually something like this will work but we are not quite there yet. Maybe I’m wrong? Let me know if you tried Griid out.
“Griid is an advanced clip grid interface which allows you to control Ableton Live (running on your desktop or laptop) from your iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch. Using specially developed touch objects and simple gestures, Griid is carefully designed with the performance experience in mind. Finely tuned for rapid navigation, you can enjoy the freedom of playing Live sets of any size with ease. Explicit visual feedback means that you have all the information you need, quite literally at your fingertips. Combined with wireless operation, this means you can perform with Ableton Live without ever needing to look at the computer screen.” – http://liine.net/
For more info: http://liine.net/
This entry was written by , posted on August 13, 2010 at 3:52 am, filed under Ableton Live, iPad and tagged Ableton Live, controller, Griid, John Acquaviva, Liine, Ritchie Hawtin. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I’m sure there will be plenty of iPad to Ableton Apps however here’s a way to get going today. Check out more info on Ryan Noise here: ryannoise.com
“How to use APPLE IPAD to control Ableton Live wireless using “OSC, OSCulator, Touchosc and Python script.” – dripatlanta
A natural connection or will you wait for an iPad sequencer up to the task?
This entry was written by , posted on April 5, 2010 at 3:48 am, filed under Ableton Live, iPad and tagged ableton, Ableton Live, iPad, sequencer. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Mr. Bill – Tutorial 2 : Making complex drumbeats using arpeggiators from Bill Day on Vimeo.
It’s interesting to peak into someone’s left brain meets right brain work flow. You can pick up a few Ableton tips and tricks in this video and see how pushing pixels turns into sound.
“So in this tutorial i have used Ableton’s Simpler, Arpeggiator and utility to create some complex beats out of simple ones. The idea here is you don’t have to program everything by hand if your more into the idea of chance music or your just lazy or want to control things in a different way!” – Bill Day
I never knew that dragging a audio selection onto a MIDI track would automatically create a Simpler with the audio set up. Did you learn anything new?
For more tutorial from Mr. Bill: mrbillstunes.net
This entry was written by , posted on March 31, 2010 at 3:49 am, filed under Ableton Live and tagged ableton, Ableton Live, arpeggiator, Bill Day, sequencer. 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=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.
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