The only issue with saving presets as described in yesterday’s tip is that Live decides for you where the preset shows up in the browser, and if you’re like me you might want a bit more control over how things are organized. First off, be aware that right-clicking on a device allows you to use […]
ORGANIZE YOUR PRESETS, pt. 2
My personal approach to preset organization is to keep all of my presets in a folder outside the Live library. In my Mac’s “Music” folder, I keep a folder called Presets: When I want to save a preset into this folder, I skip using the Save switch entirely and use drag-and-drop instead. Just grab the […]
FREQUENCY SHIFTER: SUBTLE MODULATOR
If you’ve played with the Frequency Shifter at all, you’ve probably gotten the impression that it’s one of the more aggressive sound mangling devices that comes with Live. Well, that’s true. However, I’ve recently become a fan of using it like a chorus to produce stereo modulation effects. Try setting it up something like this: […]
KICK THAT SNARE
Alright. In the name of silly sound design experiments, today I’ll make a snare drum out of the same kick sample I started with a couple of days ago. I’m not saying that you’ll necessarily want to do this in real life – just showing how flexible every bit of sound in your sample library […]
GRAIN DELAY: STEREO-IZER
Ah Grain Delay, how many times will I return to you this year? A lot, I’m guessing. One of the tricks to making a compelling mix is to fully utilize the stereo field. Sometimes you want to impart width to a sound – simply make it sound as if it’s coming from the sides of […]
DROP THE BASE
Often a bit of Saturator is just the thing to push an aggressive bass sound just over the top. The problem is that while the Saturator can add midrange and high end grit to a sound it sometimes ends up reducing the bass frequencies – not such a good thing for bass. The trick to […]
DJ EQ
If you’re designing a Live set that needs EQ on a few tracks, the obvious thing to do is to use the EQ 3, Live’s DJ-style EQ. The problem with this device (without getting into any issues regarding sound quality) has to do with how it works with a controller. Simply stated, the problem is […]
BOOST THE CUT
The next step in building the custom DJ EQ we started yesterday is to put the EQ 8 into a Rack, and map the Gain of each band to a Macro, so it looks like this: (If you’re new to building Racks, take a look at One Knob, Multiple Functions) The problem with this EQ […]
CUT THE BOOST
Yesterday we left off having created a custom DJ EQ with +/-30dB on each band. Today we’ll modify it so there’s 30dB of cut but only 15dB of boost. The trick lies in the technique I demonstrated in Adding Auto-Bypass. The first thing you’ll want to do is rename the second EQ 8 – otherwise […]
FILTER DELAY: DJ LOOPER
With all of the different live setups that I’ve created, there’s one thing they all have in common: a delay device on a return track. I find myself using the Filter Delay the most for a variety of reasons. One reason in particular is that this device can double as a looper. Take a look: […]
