Ableton Forum

I would say a subwoofer is usually not needed with how low most studio monitor's bass range goes, and the fact that most rooms actually amplify most of the bass frequencies. Whatever frequencies are loudest in your monitors will end up being lacking in your mixes as you'll cut them out, therefore on...

One of those things that's really hard to answer as there are a million ways to make electronic music. For me, I loved Operator as it was really technical and used everything I'd learned about waves in college studying electrical engineering. I learned Live using tutorials on youtube. I've put toget...

The size of the SSD doesn't directly affect its performance. Every SSD is rated for different transfer rates and response rates. It is true that the larger ones are generally rated for quicker transfer rates, but not always. Google reviews of the SSDs you are considering using.

A properly done limiter adds to the energy and feel of a track. Especially tracks with sidechain compression, there's a certain 'feel' that a limiter adds and actually enhances a lot of tracks. However it's something not to be overdone. 3-4dBs is usually the maximum you should be putting on your own...

Always check the low parts of your track by using a low pass at ~200Hz and again at ~500Hz. You'll probably find a lot of mud/work that needs to be done there. I always do. Checking the higher parts/mids is a matter of trying your sound on many different sound systems. Try your home theater and twea...

Warming things up a bit, and for cases where only a mild saturation/distortion effect is desired. Using dynamic tube plus a bit of compression works really well on a lot of synths to give them a nice warm sound, and makes them sound not so "digital". I tend to prefer the sound of other &qu...

Compression can help a lot by taking the dynamics out of your sample and helping it be audible much earlier in the sample. A good starting point might be 3ms attack, 75ms release, 6db knee, and a ratio of 2:1. Turn off makeup and bring down the threshold on the compressor until you're getting ~6dbs ...

Transitions are one of the hardest parts of electronic music composition IMHO. Often using a white noise "sweep" noise works well at low volume, with it going up 4 or 8 bars up to the point of something dropping off and then coming down 2 or 4 bars. Some ideas for you: Ideas for Breakdowns...

For those who want additional information about utility and what it can do:

Utility Basics and How to Use Width Setting to Separate Sounds

It explains a bit more about how you can use utility to help separate out stereo sounds.

If you want more power, more controls, and to not simply DJ, there's no question that Ableton Live is your bet, versus traktor. That being said it takes a lot more time to learn and use Live properly. For a set that's only a few days away it might be worth sticking to Traktor just for that set, espe...

Freeze tracks. Sometimes it's a matter of inserting an audio track and then routing your audio to the audio tracks to do half of your processing and your sidechain compression (as Live won't let you freeze tracks with sidechain compression). Several times I've taken a instrument and took half of the...

I know for a fact that Ableton can open MIDI files. It's simply a matter of finding the MIDI files in the file browser and dragging them into session view. Renaming a .mdd file to a MIDI file does not make it a MIDI file though....

Yeah, when your export "all track" in the export settings, Live will leave silence on everything when it's not playing and each piece will be the same length as your total track. Therefore the production engineer simply lines everything up and plays all of the audio files simultaneously an...

Note that a really easy way to bring your volume below 0db is to select all of your tracks by pressing ctrl+A, and then holding shift and moving a volume knob down. This will bring down the volume on all of your track simultaneously. Works really well as long as you don't have automation on your mix...

How much headroom are you leaving? To get zero distortion for all digital to analog converters you need to have your maximum signal no higher than -0.3dB. -0.2dB is usually acceptable. For mp3's the technical amount is -1.3dB, but the distortion typically isn't noticeable on most tracks that have -0...