If you use one of the many techniques that introduce randomness into your productions (such as in the previous tip), you’ll find that it’s generally a mixed bag. One moment you’re getting great results, the next not so much. My solution to this is another round of resampling – recording the output of the randomness […]
WHO’S GOT TIME TO TURN THE START KNOB?
I’ll admit it: I’m just too lazy to turn the start knob to search for my favorite sample snippet. Instead, I make Live do it for me. The advantage is that I get loads of variations with very little work. The first step is to switch over to Sampler (included with Live Suite, or available […]
DROP IT IN A DRUM RACK
Once you’ve sampled a mess of audio insanity, one of the simplest things you can do with it is drop the whole thing into a Drum Rack, along with your standard drum sounds. Once you’ve got a basic drum part programmed, program a couple of notes that trigger your new sample and listen back to […]
SAMPLE IT ALL
The next time you sit down to play with some new effects, or an old synth, or pretty much anything that can be expected to make some crazy sounds, try this: sample everything. Record the entire sound design session into a new audio clip. Say you’ve gotten inspired to check out some of the Max […]
MAX FOR LIVE: BIG PILE OF EFFECTS
OK, so once you’ve got your Max For Live demo all fired up, what to do? Well, the first thing you want to do is explore the stuff that comes pre-made and ready to use. So for today, we’ll look at MFL as if it were just a plugin bundle for Live. In Live’s device […]
MAX FOR WHAT?
If you’ve been wondering what all the Max For Live fuss is about, the release of Live 8.1.3 makes it easy to demo it and find out for yourself. First, head over to the Cycling 74 website and download Max/MSP. It’s a demo version, but not to worry. You’ve gotta have Max/MSP installed for Max […]
INSTRUMENTEMPLATE
Now that we’re all up to speed on using the External Instrument device with multi-output virtual instruments, its worth while to take a look at creating templates for these instruments. For example, here’s a set of grouped MIDI tracks that I’ve created to manage my Virus TI: Here are the External Instrument devices inserted in […]
EXTERNAL INSTRUMENTS – INTERNALLY
Any VST/AU instrument with multiple outputs can be accessed by Live’s Exernal Instrument device. For example, let’s say you want to use NI Battery, but you want one MIDI track to play the kick drum, another track the snare and so on. Or perhaps you want to use SampleTank for several sounds simultaneously, one track […]
EXTERNAL INSTRUMENTS
So, while we’re talking about working with elements outside of your computer, we better get to discussing the External Instrument device. This one has uses for almost all Live users, whether or not you have any external synths… Let’s cover the basics first. In the old days, sequencing an external hardware synthesizer required two tracks […]
DRY/WET? MAYBE
If you get into processing your sounds with external hardware, you may be tempted to experiment with the Dry/Wet control on the External Audio Effect device: As you turn it down from 100%, you’ll be blending the unaffected signal with the signal from your hardware processor. If you’re using an external reverb or delay, this […]
