Being a Certified Ableton Trainer, I love teaching the use of Ableton Live to people.
I always say that the biggest selling point to me years ago was the Scenes in Live.
Before working with Live, I always worked with traditional, linear timelines only.
I did get a lot of music done with those, too, but when I got hooked on the Scene workflow, the game was changed for me.
These days, whenever I start a song, I put quite a lot of time in working on one “megascene” where I pile up a lot of ideas.
These are synths, instruments, drums, and whatever, which all contribute to the main theme.
I also do a few variation clips of drums etc.
This means I always work on the main idea for as long as I feel I have all the necessary ideas needed for a song.
By doing this, I avoid the pitfall of working on a loop that will not result in a song.
I always use the analogy of not trying to bake the cake (make a song) before all the ingredients (all the ideas, sections etc needed for a song) are there in front of me.
This has definitely helped me with my productivity, and I don’t end up with just loops: I make those loops work properly before I get into the song-writing stage.
When I have this one super busy scene, I only have to spread things out, and it’ll give me a song – in a nutshell.
To me, getting the "core" or the main sections, the busy section right is what matters the most. I usually don't have that much trouble getting the intro done and so on, but before Ableton Live, I always started working on the song by creating 16-bar sections starting with the intro, with no real idea of what the main thing would be.
Often this worked, as I was working towards the main idea, but as many times I did fail and get frustrated, looking at the timeline like, "Ahh shit it's only 1.5 minutes long and I don't know where this song should go."
So these days, this workflow ensures I will at least get the main vibe and supporting elements for it.
There's also a psychological factor at play here: at least for me, this stage of working on ideas is _always_ fun and doesn't feel like work, but when you take it over to the linear timeline, it's when the work begins.
So I try to put a lot of energy on the "fun" part because it is easy and benefits the creation of the song!
What’s your way of working?
PS: My Ableton Live Basics (where I demonstrate this, too) has now sold over 120 copies worldwide, and my 4-hour Advanced video is now being edited…coming soon!
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