Back to arrangement, pt. 1

Day three… for those of you who are just tuning in, this week’s focus is on Essential Knowledge. While this is geared towards newer users, it’s also intended to help more experienced users round out their understanding of the basics. I know this is a topic that’s been covered a fair amount, but I seem […]

ONE SONG, MULTIPLE CLIPS

Today’s tip comes directly from my gig last night, which went pretty well. To me this means not just that partygoers were dancing and having a good time, but that I was having fun as well – and feeling that the technology I was using on stage was serving me well. As you may have […]

START IN THE SESSION VIEW

For most of us, the production process begins in the Session view. Even in the remix/stems context that I was talking about yesterday, a good chunk of my work – creating new MIDI parts and editing audio loops – is going to happen in the Session view. So, it may seem like I’m stating the […]

RETURN OF THE SESSION VIEW

  So, as I was saying yesterday, after I’ve laid out the basic arrangement of a track I return to the Session view for all sorts of things. In particular, I love being able to listen to my song play back while I compose new loops against it. For example, while the song is playing […]

THE NAME GAME, pt. 1

Hey folks! Today’s tip is from guest tipster Chris Buono. Chris Buono has been an Ableton zealot since Live 4 and has worked with the likes of Moldover, Elijah B Torn, Karsh Kale and many others. Recently Chris and Elijah B Torn along with Jon Francis Lucow formed the improv trio, trillions, et al. Chris’ […]

THE NAME GAME, pt 2.

And now the thrilling conclusion of yesterday’s tip by my first guest tipster, Chris Buono! Within the confines of Ableton Live there’s more to the name game than just track identification. As you may already know, the Master track contains Scene Launchers. These slots can be renamed easily with the same steps used for track naming.  Naming […]

MASTER OF IMPORTS

Yesterday’s tip covered the basics of importing from one Set to another but there’s a bit more to know if you really want to take full advantage of Live’s import functionality. In addition to tracks, you can also import individual clips from the tracks within a Set, as long as those clips are contained within […]

TRACK STATUS

When creating MIDI mappings for a performance set, it’s important to note that there are a number of mappable areas in Live that may not at first be obvious. An important one to know about is the Track Status indicator: This allows you to display the Clip View for whatever clip is currently playing in […]

ONE BUTTON, STATUS AND CUE

One thing I find is that no matter how big, or how many controllers you have, you’ll always run out of buttons or knobs. Somehow, you always use them all up. To solve this problem, it helps to find simple ways to get multiple uses out of individual controls. I just discovered a very simple […]

CRATE TRACKS

Here’s another concept to check out if you’re using Live as a DJ platform: use a set of tracks as your virtual record crates for a gig. Take a look: The tracks on the right are set up for Cueing only while the two Deck tracks are used to send a track into the sound […]