Ain’t no party like a Live Tips party. Just sayin. Once you’ve got your beat variations dancing around using Follow Actions, the next step is to Extract Chains: In the above example, I’ve created a fairly simple beat using only three drums – you don’t need anything complicated to get great results with this technique. […]
FOLLOW ACTION FREAKOUT
I’m gonna show you a fun workflow for generating a ton of variations on a beat using Follow Actions. Even if you’re familiar with Follow Actions, you might have never stumbled on this one before.This technique works best for an IDM or possibly Dubstep context where a lot of syncopation and variation works well. First, […]
OH GOD, MY BRAIN HURTS
So, here we are in the last month…being at this point in the process reminds me of the email reply I got from Peter Kirn of Create Digital Music when I told him I was going to write 365 Ableton Live Tips in a year: “You are completely insane.” Surprisingly, the project has been a […]
VOCODER: THE SNARERERIZER, pt. 2
Who knew there could be so much to shaping a little blast of noise? What’s the story with that X-Y controller? This guy is a character control for the noise. For most sounds, it works just great in the upper right hand corner, but you can move it around to make the sound more lo-fi. […]
VOCODER: THE SNARERERIZER
If you’ve spent any time with Live’s Vocoder, you’ve probably noticed that in it’s default state, it tends to lend a snare drum like quality to anything it touches. That’s because it’s default carrier is Noise – a key component to any synthesized snare drum sound. Unlike using a straight noise generator, however, the vocoder […]
PREVIEW W/ THE RIGHT ARROW
I always forget about this one. And then I remember again, and like it a lot. To preview files from the browser, there’s actually no need to turn on the Preview switch: Just highlight the file you want to preview and hit the right arrow on your keyboard. This turns on Preview for the current […]
GRAIN DELAY: MUTANT CHORUS
At first, the Grain Delay appears to be a beast intent on total sonic destruction, but as I’ve pointed out a few times this year, it really shines at some much gentler effects. I quite like using it as a chorus effect. Let’s take a look: Spray is turned up a little bit. Strictly speaking, […]
MIDI SYNC: WHAT’S THAT OTHER STUFF?
A little more about the advanced options that appear when you unfold the Output or Input ports in the MIDI/Sync tab of Live’s Preferences screen. By default, the MIDI Clock Type for Output sync is set to Song mode: First off, the name of this parameter tells you an important piece of information: Live only […]
WE DON’T NEED NO STINKING MIDI SYNC
So. If MIDI sync isn’t going to do the trick, how do we work without it? Well, first off – it all depends on the context. The short drama I’m going to present right now can be easily adapted to some contexts but not as well to others…I leave it to you to digest and […]
MIDI SYNC: THE LOWDOWN
A few tips back, I mentioned that I sometimes give a really short answer to people who ask me how to set up MIDI sync with Live. It is this: “Don’t” Let me explain. There are two situations where sync is handy: in the studio and on stage. In the studio, MIDI sync is very […]
