All I want to do is record some guitar clips and...

[yaddablah]

Greetings all. I hope you can bear another newbie thread.

I bought a midi keythingy so that I can add some bass lines (and who knows, maybe learn some piano) to some guitar stuff I have and hope to do. It came with Live and so I thought, "well, maybe I don't have to go buy a Macbook to get GarageBand after all..." (I had been recording in Audacity but once I saw GarageBand I knew it was for me.)

So all I want to do is put down a riff and maybe chain two or three of them together to make up the "A" part. And then something different for the "B", etc. And then some drums. Whatever.

But it's not that easy. Yes, of course, I have figured out how to get the guitar into Live. That's pretty easy. But suppose I do two tracks and want to hear them together? Can't figure that out easily. And it's not obvious.

And what if I need to tweak that clip a little bit, maybe cut out a tiny bit of dead space and fine tune the timing in the way it fits in with the rest of it? Again, it is not self explanatory, not to me.

I've looked for tutorials but nothing satisfactory could be found.

I don't want to have to have a PhD to use this stuff and by the way am not interested in hiphop or DJ things.

Is this doable for the casual user or do I need to just go out and buy GarageBand?

Thanks,

yaddablah.

[3dot...]

you edit the clips in 'arrangement view'..
(ctrl-e = split clip)
once you're happy you "highlight" your bit..
and hit ctrl-j (consolidate)
you're then left with a clip you can drag to "session" view..or not

when 2 clips ..
on 2 seperate tracks are playing together..
then you'll hear them together ..
that IS pretty self explanatory..
(providing they're both routed to the "master" bus)

there's no way around it..
you will need to go over the manual..
or have some one teach you some bits..
or get a tutorial set for beginners...
even the simple things need to be learned...

good luck !

[Gaetano CAPUANO]

Hey man, if you have any more noob questions feel free to pm me and I will try to help

[yaddablah]

(providing they're both routed to the "master" bus)... I guess that should be self explanatory, too, but it's Greek to me.

Anyway, having resigned myself to the fact that I have this program and don't have the other, I reapplied myself to the first included tutorial, did the latency compensation exercise (and did it right, although it did not correct the latency issue), and in general feel a tad more willing to go the next step.

But I think the real clincher is that my strat sounds a lot better through the speaker than it does through the micro-cube in my little apartment.

Plus, for some reason, playing with the latency makes me feel a little more in control of it. Bizarre, eh?

Anyway, thanks for the tips.

[Warrior Bob]

(providing they're both routed to the "master" bus)... I guess that should be self explanatory, too, but it's Greek to me.

The "Master Bus" or "Master Track" is that one track on the right that all your tracks feed into. Sound starts in one of your tracks, gets mixed together into the Master, and then that goes out to your speakers. That's why if you turn down the master volume slider (the "Master Fader"), all your sound gets quieter.

You can have several tracks with different sounds that all get mixed together and sent to one master track. It's similar to hardware mixing boards you might've seen. Lots of sounds come in, only one mix comes out.

(and did it right, although it did not correct the latency issue)

If I remember right the latency compensation just compensates your recordings - it can't get rid of latency so instead it nudges your recordings so that they line up with what you heard.

Plus, for some reason, playing with the latency makes me feel a little more in control of it. Bizarre, eh?

I tend to think that small latencies sound a bit like a delay effect on guitars

[yaddablah]

Thanks WB.

The latency thing was curious. I did it as instructed, applied the change as instructed, and it immediately had the same latency again. But I guess you're saying the compensation is only internale...I guess that makes sense.

Now that I've actually started to compose, I'm facing questions that are more about the art than the software itself...like how to make the mix work, how much and what type of rhythm to use with that lead, etc etc, things that there are no easy answers for and that nothing but experimentation will answer, I think.

But it would be nice to know what the most efficient means of build a riff library would be and stuff like that. Guess I'll figure that out as I go along.

[Warrior Bob]

The latency thing was curious. I did it as instructed, applied the change as instructed, and it immediately had the same latency again. But I guess you're saying the compensation is only internale...I guess that makes sense.

Handling latency is an art/science unto itself. You can find descriptions of it around Google or elsewhere on this forum ("how do I reduce latency" is a common question) but the basic idea is "your software is constantly filling a little buffer that in turn feeds your sound card." The longer the buffer is, the longer it takes for a bit of sound data that gets put into it to make it to your soundcard. The advantage is that if your computer has to do something else for long enough that it'd interrupt the sound flow, which is very common with computers, there's plenty of buffer left to keep you safe, and your software can refill as it is able to.

Shrink the buffer (this is the ASIO buffer on Windows or the Core Audio buffer on OSX) and your latency decreases, but you run a higher risk of running out of buffer and introducing pops and clicks and generally mangling your signal.

In Ableton you can usually change the buffer size in the Audio section of preferences. Not all sound drivers allow this; most of them seem to in my experience.

Now that I've actually started to compose, I'm facing questions that are more about the art than the software itself...like how to make the mix work, how much and what type of rhythm to use with that lead, etc etc, things that there are no easy answers for and that nothing but experimentation will answer, I think.

Welcome to composing! Experimentation and education are king here, but if you come across specific answerable questions, feel free to ask them on here or on Answers or something.

[yaddablah]

I'm getting through the manual...really starting to dig this software.

[savyurrecords]

Every system out there as some sort of latency, the best way to improve it is to change your audio interface to something nicer (ie more expensive you get what you pay for)

How much latency does your system say? Most decent audio interfaces can get below 10ms as long as the computer is fast as well.

[yaddablah]

(ie more expensive you get what you pay for)

agreed.

How much latency does your system say? Most decent audio interfaces can get below 10ms as long as the computer is fast as well.

60ms. Right now it's not an issue...for the moment.