Ableton thread (tips and tricks, q and a)

im gunna bother the hell out of you guys then :P

Anyway someone could point me in the direction of either some videos or a website that can teach me the basics of the program and maybe how to use the plugins.
 
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Gr1pz said:
im gunna bother the hell out of you guys then :P

Anyway someone could point me in the direction of either some videos or a website that can teach me the basics of the program and maybe how to use the plugins.
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Youtube, in particular a bunch of "Sonic academy" tutorials.
Just type into youtube whatever you need and there's usually something. Also reading the manual helped me a bit, it might help you :D
 
my understanding of Sends and Returns are as follows:

Sends and Returns are just like routing a percentage of audio from any track into another track(the Return), where FXs are applied, but are not 100% wet as they would be if the FX was placed on the track directly, it also allows you to route many tracks through one return track, and all being effected by the FXs on that return, thus saving some CPU, or making things sound like they are in the same room, if using reverb for example.

you can right click on the blank area in session view and add as many different return tracks as you wish, and every midi/audio track you have in your track has knobs above their volume fader to send the sound from your track to a return track.

they are good for applying parallel compression to drums, or using the same reverb setting on a number of tracks, theres really not much more to explain than that, but you can use them for anything you want. just experiment..

there could be more information in the Live manual which is really helpful and descibes how to do things also, and gives examples.
 
Ok next question... soo I want to learn how to process sounds and such, like make a car horn into something completly different, but I have no idea where to even start on that. Does anyone have a guide for it I cant seem to find one on youtube.
 
basically youll be fucking around with your desired sample in a sampler, say you want to turn a weird sound into a drum hit, you would start by simply altering the attack, decay, sustain and release of the sound to make it short and snappy, altering the pitch, adding some FX's to just start you off.

of course you wont be able to take a random as sound and make it into absolutely anything you desire there are limits, but not much. (someone wil surely disagree with me there :) )

its all about using your imagination there are no set techniques for turning things into other things.

as for the car horn example, i guess you would want to know what to turn it into, if its a solid bass, then as an example off the top of my head you could find a seciton of the sample that would make a nice sound, then loop it and work the the release and fades to make it sound like a smooth continuous sound, and then lay it down on the piano roll, add some FX's, beef it up, modulate..whatever and you have a completely original bass sound, or make it plucky for techy kinda shit.. whatever..

as i said, no set way to do what your asking, just experiment and have fun, thats the great thing about working with audio its easy to trick people into never knowing what a sound was or where it originally came from so the possibilities are endless..

hope that helps a little
 
yeah that helps alot, I just gotta find out how to add effects to things haha. also can I add sounds to sounds I make in massive? such as add something to the bassline I made in massive to give it a different sound or do you usually just tweak sin's and sqares or whatnot and leave it at that?>
 
There are filters and effects in Massive in different boxes, play around with those. And you can always add Ableton's audio effects onto whatever you have in massive on the channel you have it in
 
Gr1pz said:
Ok next question... soo I want to learn how to process sounds and such, like make a car horn into something completly different, but I have no idea where to even start on that. Does anyone have a guide for it I cant seem to find one on youtube.
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Sampler would be your best bet for this if you wanted to create a midi clip of your sound
Mess with things like ADSR envelopes different filters etc... add effects, distortion, you name it..

Or you could just load the sound into an audio file, mess with it that way a bunch, then take that audio file and load it into sampler (or simpler) the possibilities are endless

I suggest learning sampler, very very useful

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Gr1pz said:
yeah that helps alot, I just gotta find out how to add effects to things haha. also can I add sounds to sounds I make in massive? such as add something to the bassline I made in massive to give it a different sound or do you usually just tweak sin's and sqares or whatnot and leave it at that?>
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The easiest thing to do would be to create your desired sound in massive and then on a different channel add the other sounds. You don't have two sets of sounds in the same channel at the same time.

---------- Post added at 12:49 ---------- Previous post was at 12:48 ----------



Watch this tutorial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFpoPFtS5L4

and this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJ55tzwnxts&playnext_from=TL&videos=q6gdtrDhg2Y
 
for beginners to DAWS as a whole and new ableton users dont forget there are built in tutorials learning things like adding FX's, working with session view and arrangement, piano roll, drum racks, very useful and easy to follow.
also as i said before you can look in the manual and it explains every FX and synth that comes with ableton very nicely and gives some examples on how to use them and what they do.
 
When I add a new track my midi keyboard will automatically use itself for that track, which is good and all, but it won't do anything for all the other tracks when I select them. Basically, how can I make my midi controller select a different track?
 
im not sure i understand you 100%, but in ableton, to play notes of a midi track live on a keyboard, or a midi keyboard, you have to arm the track first, which is the square button at the bottom of each track that turns red when you click it, directly underneath the solo button. so to play any track through your keyboard, arm it first.
 
dexter said:
im not sure i understand you 100%, but in ableton, to play notes of a midi track live on a keyboard, or a midi keyboard, you have to arm the track first, which is the square button at the bottom of each track that turns red when you click it, directly underneath the solo button. so to play any track through your keyboard, arm it first.
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^ yeah exactly what dexter said! I finished typing out the exact same answer and then read dexters answer
 
Its just good to see someone had the same answer I was gonna give!

I don't know how much help I really am because im still learning too
 
ok watched a bunch of youtube videos and still havent found one on how to make like leads and such for deep dnb such as jubei or nymfo. I gget the making sounds in massive part kinda but after you make those basic sounds i knows theres processing and effects you put on it...how do i do that part lol.
 
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