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 […]
HIDE THE VELOCITY LANE
I really like MIDI editing in Live. Over time, I’ve developed a workflow for programming MIDI that is faster and smoother than I’ve ever achieved in any other environment. I create a lot of parts by drawing them directly into the MIDI editor. In fact, I’ve made entire songs without ever touching a MIDI controller. […]
OK FINE, SHOW THE VELOCITY LANE
Of course, as with any proposed Best Practice, there are always going to be exceptions. When editing velocity for certain types of parts, the velocity lane may be just the thing. For example, let’s take a simple hi-hat part. Assume you want to create a velocity curve that moves up and down with slight variations […]
DUPE THAT LOOP
Since I’ve been talking about the MIDI editor for the last two days, I’m going to take this opportunity to answer a question that a reader asked about the best way to duplicate loops during MIDI editing. When programming parts, it’s very common to start with a 1 bar loop to get the basic feel, […]
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’ […]
TRANSIENT ENVELOPE: WICKED GATE
One of my favorite features introduced in Live 8 has been the revamped warp engine, and the introduction of Transients mode for warping Beats. This mode has some great creative potential, so it’s well worth taking some time to understand and explore it. Live used to always use a straight division of the beat to […]
TRANSIENT LOOP MODE: WICKED GLITCHA
Hopefully yesterday’s tip inspired you to experiment a bit with the Transient Envelope. Today we’ll take it a little further by digging into the Transient Loop Modes. With some material, switching between the various Transient Loop Modes may not seem to have much effect. In particular, when you play a drum loop back at it’s […]
PITCH UP TO GLITCH UP
So, now that I’ve gotten myself going on the transient loops and envelopes, I can’t stop myself…if you’re just tuning in, I’d suggest reading the last two days tips first. Yesterday I suggested that you slow down the playback of a loop in order to hear what the various Transient Loop Modes do, but in […]
AFTER THE GLITCH
So, you’ve gotten the Warp Engine to do some wacky stuff, but you’re now left with a loop that’s either at a tempo that’s completely wrong, or perhaps you’ve pitched the thing up so far that it now sounds like the percussion section for a munchkin opera. The trick here is to take your mangled […]
