For a long time, I was largely uninterested in Live’s punch-in/punch-out controls: That’s because I was thinking of punching in the traditional sense, the way I used it in Pro Tools – namely, to replace bits and pieces of a live recording when working with musicians in the studio. That sort of thing isn’t a […]
AUTO PAN: CHOPPER
Live’s Auto Pan device can be used not just for creating stereo effects, but also as a simple mono volume modulator. One use for this is rhythmically chopping up a signal. Try setting up Auto Pan like this: The key aspects of this setup are: Phase is set to 0. At it’s default value of […]
SILENCE BY NUMBERS
Something that’s easy to miss about the Insert Silence command is that it has two modes. If, instead of making a selection in the timeline, you simply click in the arrangement to place the blinking playback cursor, the Insert Silence command looks like this: Invoking the command will bring up a window allowing you to […]
SILENCE!
Today I’ve been working on a new hour-long Hobotech mix, and I’m getting a lot of mileage out of the Insert Silence command, which can be used to give you a chunk of empty space in your arrangement wherever you need it. First, select a clip, or a section of time in the Arrangement view, […]
THE LITTLE NUDGE
Nudging can be done in small values as well – not just by the bar like I mentioned yesterday. The advantage of working with smaller quantize values (try 1/16), is that you can intentionally offset clips from each other by launching them at different points in the bar. If your new to this, its well […]
THE BIG NUDGE
Even with my tracks broken down into multiple clips, I still want a bit more flexibility in terms of getting around a clip on the gig. For example, I might want to mix in a song from a position other than the four that I’ve already picked out. This is where the clip nudge controls […]
LOOP IT LIVE
If you look at the Clip View for any clip in my current Hobotech set, you’ll see that I have several controls MIDI mapped: The Loop switch is used to enable or disable the clip’s loop points, while the Set buttons are used to set loop points interactively while the clip is playing back. […]
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 […]
ABLETON LIVE: NOT SO MUCH
Occasionally people ask me questions about how to set up Ableton Live to work more like a conventional DJ program: how to play a musically diverse set where you don’t want to beat match anything (turn Warp off for all clips), how to launch clips instantaneously (set Quantize to None), and how to deal with […]
SAVE A (SUB)SET
Once you know the secrets of Importing from the browser, there are all sorts of interesting things you can do. In particular, you can save Sets that are designed strictly for importing into other Sets. For example, take a scenario such as the one I described in One Song, Multiple Clips. Once I’ve broken down […]
