Even though I’ve described some other approaches to performance, my main tool for performance in Live is the mega-set. This just means that I keep adding new material to my set as I develop it until it eventually has hundreds of clips. If I want to change directions during a performance, it’s just a matter […]
SUPA-TRIGGA: THE RACK
Like pretty much everything I use in performance, my Supa-Trigga lives in a Rack. There are two particular reasons for this. The first reason is that SupaTrigga is a buffer-based effect, meaning that it has to have a bit of audio stored in memory before it can begin processing it. This means that it won’t […]
TIPS VACATION
Well folks, I was overly optimistic that the tips schedule would smooth out… For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been writing a few chapters for an upcoming book, “Your Ableton Live Studio,” and also preparing to play about 10 sets in six days at the Burning Man festival… preparation for this has been an […]
RACK THAT FUZZ!
When I get crazy with the Saturator, I usually don’t even bother trying to get the wet/dry balance right. Instead, I set the Saturator to 100% wet, and use a wet/dry rack instead. This makes it much easier to get the levels right in my experience. It also offers more sophisticated sound shaping capabilities. For […]
THE BEST FREE COMPRESSOR
One of my absolute favorite plug-ins is free, and you’re just plain crazy if you don’t have it. The Rough Rider, brought to you by Audio Damage: If you’ve got a small plug-in collection (or even a big one), you’ll find that this sucker is a fantastic compliment to Live’s built-in compressor. While Live’s Compressor […]
COLLABORATING: COLLECTING ALL
This tip might be a real snoozer for some of you more advanced users, but it’s one of those things that all sorts of folks aren’t completely clear on, so here goes… Live lets you drag in samples from all over your hard drive. Loops, drum hits, field recordings, whatever. When transferring a Set to […]
COLLABORATING: ABLETON INSTRUMENT AGGRO
If you have the Live Suite, or any of Ableton’s add-on instruments (or the Corpus effect), you have to be extra careful if you’re transferring a Set to a user that doesn’t have the same instruments. The issue is this: any set containing unauthorized instruments will be opened by Live in Demo mode – which […]
COLLABORATING: EDIT FROZEN AUDIO
When working with frozen audio tracks, there are some important things you can’t do, such as messing with Warp markers and adding new effects. Typically, the Flatten command is used to turn a frozen track into a standard audio track. When a track is flattened, the original track is thrown away and replaced with a […]
COLLABORATING: FREEZE!
To easily share Sets between two different computers, both computers must have the same plug-ins installed (or rather, all of the plug-ins used in the Set being shared). When the necessary plug-ins aren’t available on both machines, the common workaround is to use Track Freeze. First, a bit about freezing tracks, then we’ll talk about […]
SAVE PARAMETER CONFIGURATION
As I’ve alluded to a couple of times already, the most complete solution to the hassles of plug-in parameter configuration is to create a Rack that contains your fully configured plug-in. The process looks like this: 1) Configure the plug-in’s parameters 2) Use the Group command to put the plug-in into a Instrument or Effect […]
