Ableton Forum

It’s already been said, but I’ll say it again - if recording at 24 bit then -12 or even -18dB levels are generally fine. Especially if you are recording several tracks then summing them in the mix, as each channel added will push up the overall levels at the master bus. Recording “hot” signals can e...

I suggest you try dithering the 24 bit processed version when exporting at 16 bit, export another 16 bit version without dithering and also try setting preferences to 16 bit and doing the whole thing in 16 bit throughout. Then see which you think sounds best. The effect of dithering can be very subt...

The effects of the internal floating point resolution of a DAW - 32 bit in the case of Live, up to 64 bit in some other DAWs - is something you can let the DAW worry about. Where dithering comes in is when reducing the fixed bit depth of recorded or exported audio. Basically consider dithering when ...

Dithering is used when reducing the bit rate - such as a 24 bit recording being converted to 16 bit for CD use.

If the bit rate isn't being reduced all dithering does is add noise.

Vocoding nearly always involves a carrier signal - a few plugins use an alternative way to generate the effect but traditional vocoding uses a carrie.. Some vocoders use a side-chain from an external audio source as the source of the carrier, others have a built-in synth to provide it. Waves Morphod...

It works for me - just tried running it on a MIDI channel to my MS-20mini. There are a few potential "gotchas" though, e.g. adjusting the strum control switches the arp off, and the arp on/off button isn't perhaps as obvious as it might be. When it says "off" it means the arp is ...

A bit more information might help in solving the problem. Is the ASIO driver you downloaded the one supplied by the interface manufacturer? What is the interface? Are you plugging it directly into the laptop or using a USB hub? USB 2 or USB 3 socket? Have you tried more than one socket? If you disco...

I had quite a lot of crashes with 10.0.3 and 10.0.4. 10.0.5 seems better behaved, only one crash with that version so far. I don’t think my crashes just involve third party plugins - some have been when using only Live’s own plugins and the 10.0.5 crash was caused by zooming out a waveform in sessio...

If simply plugging something into a mixer causes a problem then the issue may not be with Ableton. Are you using a dedicated audio interface or the PC soundcard? If using an interface have you tried using a different USB/Firewire cable to check that isn’t the problem? If you’re running a traditional...

Beyer dt-990 Pro are pretty good. Like all phones their response isn’t flat, though neither are monitors or the room they’re in, and if you’ve small monitors phones are a way to find out what’s going on in the bass that the monitors don’t reproduce. It’s worth getting headphones that Sonarworks or W...

Running audio interfaces off a USB hub is usually problematic. MIDI is usually OK though, so it the hub is just used for MIDI then that shouldn’t be a problem. If you use an audio interface with enough inputs then connecting the synth’s audio outputs to it will work. If you don’t have enough inputs ...

Resource monitor in Windows would always report much smaller CPU usage. this is to be expected, as Live's "CPU meter" is does not show the % of overall CPU cycles being used. On a Mac it’s an even less helpful indicator of what’s going on. When Live 10 reports around 34-38% cpu usage High...

In arrangement view have the channels above each other and one more midi channel below that as a ‘palette’ of notes you’ll use. Have the notes in individual very very short clips that are color coded. Control-drag them up to the midi channel that is just below the audio channel in the appropriate s...

If you want hardware then the Beatstep Pro or Doepfer Dark Time are good. The (non-Pro) Beatstep is very basic, too simple to do a lot of things step sequencers are used for.

In software, Sugar Bytes Thesys is a very good step sequencer indeed and lets you do all kinds of things “on the fly”.