Ableton Forum

the Live meters show peak and RMS levels. also, there are those small horizontal lines which are short-term peak hold meters. oh, and the number in the oval field is a long-term peak hold value (if you click on the value it resets to -infinity). peak levels show the absolute highest signal levels f...

Can someone explain the difference between the solid green lines and the more "opaque" lighter green line above when looking at the volume meter? Which one should I be looking at/paying attention to with concerns to overall head room? i.e. if the solid green lines are peaking at -6, but th...

Can anyone help explain the main reason my tracks are still not sounding as bright and loud as professional quality tracks? My tracks still sound a bit muffled and overall are quieter than most professional tracks - just dont have the same oomf! I believe a lot of it is do to EQing and Compression, ...

Ive had an MS20 for many years and while its a great synth full of personality I wouldnt say its NOT the ideal first synth. Its ideosyncratic, dirty, wild, it needs some know-how to figure out the patching, its not ideal for live performances. Its great, but as perhaps a second or 3rd synth. If I w...

I make a lot of Electro House, Bass House, and Deep House music, but only use soft synths/VSTs as of now. I would love to begin incorporating a hard synth into my productions. Anyone have any suggestions on good starter synths to look at (unfortunately I don't have 2k to drop on a prophet...). I've ...

Anyone know of any good, relatively inexpensive companies or sites for logo design? I'm looking to get a more professional logo designed, or at least a more professional version of my logo. Trying to stay under $100.

Anyone have any Bass plug-ins you love using to make Bass House basses? Right now I use Massive and Serum.

If I make a bootleg of a track using an Acapella found online, is it legal for me to upload my bootleg to streaming services as long as I am not making money from the track? Or do I need to get permission from the original artist first before uploading?

In a track I am working on, I have some white noise that I duplicated to two tracks, panning one hard left and one hard right in order to get a very wide/spread sound. Will this cause these to phase cancel each other out when playing on a club or mono system?

Does anyone know what filter is being used on the lead bass synth in this song? Either plug-in or perhaps stock filter setting? Sounds like it starts out with a bit of EQ using a high pass filter, but seems there is something additional on it giving it that almost phased sound. Any help would be app...

Quick question that I'm guessing is pretty simple but don't know the answer to. Say I'm writing a song in the key of G major. This gives me the notes of G, A, B, C, D, E and F#. Am I able to use a G minor 9th chord and still "conform" to the key, since a Gmin9th would be G, A#, D, F and G?...

Can anyone explain what is happening when you use one oscillator to modulate another oscillator? For example, what is happening if you use Osc. B to Modulate Osc. A in serum?

I come across quite a bit of sound design videos where this is a technique, but I want to understand what is happening!

The consensus on most things I read is that you should keep about -6db of headroom when making a track. I know that this means the volume of the master channel should not be going over -6db at any point. However, is this BEFORE or AFTER a limiter is applied to the master channel? I.e., should I be s...

Calling all music theory people out there! Question on chord structures (Full disclosure: I am self taught in music theory, so this may be dumb question): Say I have a C major chord (triad C E G). If I add say a 7th, 9th, 11th etc., can I take out other notes and still be "compliant" with ...

I just downloaded Waves VU Meter in order to get more professional sounding tracks/volume. The manual says to make sure and calibrate the VU meter to the DAWs reference level: "This calibrates the VU meter to the DAW’s reference level. When Headroom is set to “18,” then a -18 dBFS reference ton...