I’m spending today working with my friend Haj (of Sub Swara) on his new Ableton Live setup, and it never ceases to amaze me how quickly you run out of knobs on even the most well equipped controller. One of the advantages of old fashioned hardware mixers and synthesizers is that the interface is already […]
BI-MODE FILTER
We’re almost done with the design of the filter rack we started two days ago – a few more steps, then we can move on to getting it mapped to a MIDI controller and rocking it on a gig. You see, I’m not happy with a one-knob high pass filter – I want it to […]
BUTTON THAT KNOB!
Hey everyone – occasionally I’m going to ask you for support of some sort to help keep the Live tips coming. Today, I’m asking that people help Haitian earthquake survivors. Even if our donations are small, if everyone helps it really adds up. The link above is to the aid organization started by Wyclef Jean. […]
OK FINE, DON’T USE THE MOUSE
In theory, the easiest way to remote control the parameters of an instrument or effect device is to set up a MIDI controller as a Control Surface and take advantage of Instant Mapping. (see Get MIDI Set Up Right for more on setting up control surfaces). In particular, I’m referring to controllers that have a […]
RACK VS. DEVICE PRESETS
It turns out that saving and loading presets is a slightly more interesting topic than you might imagine. Today I’m going to pick up where I left off yesterday with some basics – we’ll get into a more customized approach later in the week. When I’m talking about saving a Rack as a preset (like […]
ORGANIZE YOUR PRESETS, pt. 1
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 […]
SLOPPY CLAPS
Since we’ve been discussing some issues related to Simpler and velocity, I thought I’d show you a rack I made for a remix I’m working on. There’s a section of this track where we need a really loose sounding hand clap section. At the moment, it’s not practical for me to get a room full […]
ONLY THE BEST
Since we’ve spent the last few days majorly tweaking a sample, I want to take a minute to remind you (and me!) that the purpose of selecting a small group of samples is to get up and running quickly when creativity strikes. Hopefully, you’re now feeling secure in the knowledge that it’s possible to shape […]
PREPARE TO MORPH!
Earlier in the year, I spent a few tips building a Bi-Mode Filter, which is an important part of my performance setup. It’s not my only filter though – the bi mode is only used for tracks which contain beats or entire songs. For tracks which contain vocals or samples, I use a morphing bandpass/highpass […]
