Post your most obscure Ableton Live knowledge

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
Angstrom
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Joined: Mon Oct 04, 2004 2:22 pm
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Re: Post your most obscure Ableton Live knowledge

Post by Angstrom » Mon Jul 06, 2020 11:38 pm

This is now no longer the tips thread, it's the timday/filtersweep chat thread.

well done guys

timday
Posts: 569
Joined: Mon May 04, 2009 1:02 pm

Re: Post your most obscure Ableton Live knowledge

Post by timday » Tue Jul 07, 2020 6:43 am

filtersweep wrote:
Mon Jul 06, 2020 10:55 pm
Well all I can say is I've messed about with it this evening and it seems to work fine for me as long as the grid snapping is on and that it's the fixed grid. And won't really work in a useful way when the grid is switched off completely.
Final tidy up of the chat thread :D

Looking at the key commands the weirdness is a PC/Mac thing.
On a PC (which you are on I assume because you're talking about ctrl) bypassing the grid is alt, and this function uses ctrl, so they don't interfere with each other.
On a Mac (which I'm on) bypassing the grid is cmd, and this function also uses cmd, so they interfere with each other and you have to start with the grid off so cmd turns it on again.

huh.

filtersweep
Posts: 59
Joined: Fri Dec 09, 2005 7:28 pm

Re: Post your most obscure Ableton Live knowledge

Post by filtersweep » Fri Jul 10, 2020 10:28 pm

I have absolutely no idea what any of that post means.. ?

Tone Deft
Posts: 24152
Joined: Mon Oct 02, 2006 5:19 pm

Re: Post your most obscure Ableton Live knowledge

Post by Tone Deft » Fri Jul 10, 2020 10:43 pm

.
Last edited by Tone Deft on Sun Aug 23, 2020 4:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
In my life
Why do I smile
At people who I'd much rather kick in the eye?
-Moz

wayfinder
Posts: 176
Joined: Tue Jul 28, 2009 4:01 pm

Re: Post your most obscure Ableton Live knowledge

Post by wayfinder » Sat Jul 11, 2020 5:35 am

Might as well post this here:

If you want a directory in the browser indexed immediately (say, for example, you just put new samples in there and don't want to wait until the program gets around to indexing it eventually, since that can take a while), you can, from within the browser, create a new subdirectory in the place you want indexed (and then delete it again if you like). That will show the newly added files right away.

filtersweep
Posts: 59
Joined: Fri Dec 09, 2005 7:28 pm

Re: Post your most obscure Ableton Live knowledge

Post by filtersweep » Sat Jul 11, 2020 9:13 pm

Tone Deft wrote:
Fri Jul 10, 2020 10:43 pm
filtersweep wrote:
Fri Jul 10, 2020 10:28 pm
I have absolutely no idea what any of that post means.. ?
post edited.

chill the chat, asked yet another person.
It makes a lot more sense with the images : )

Tone Deft
Posts: 24152
Joined: Mon Oct 02, 2006 5:19 pm

Re: Post your most obscure Ableton Live knowledge

Post by Tone Deft » Thu Jul 23, 2020 1:35 am

.
In my life
Why do I smile
At people who I'd much rather kick in the eye?
-Moz

Slow Hand
Posts: 35
Joined: Fri Nov 13, 2020 7:54 am

Re: Post your most obscure Ableton Live knowledge

Post by Slow Hand » Fri Nov 13, 2020 8:08 am

I'm very surprised to get to the end of this thread without coming across this hidden feature:

If you drag a single cell from a drum rack into an empty MIDI channel, not only will it move that instance of Simpler into the new channel, it will export the MIDI pattern for that note from the original MIDI clip into the empty MIDI channel.

This makes it super easy to extract the MIDI data for one drum element from a complex drum pattern and quickly transfer it onto it's own track.

--------

One last tip. This is more of a workflow tip than a hidden feature: I always keep a 'Pitch' MIDI plugin before my drum racks and then use it to transpose my MIDI to different samples, instead of using hot swap. I always program my separate drum elements on their own own MIDI tracks, each with their own drum rack: A channel with a rack for my kicks, a rack for my snare, for my hats, etc...

I use the 'Pitch' plugin to transpose my MIDI note and quickly audition that MIDI pattern with any number of samples, while searching for the perfect drum sample. For me this beats hot-swapping samples because it allows me to dial in the exact volume, EQ, or processing for each drum sample and quickly A/B between them.

Leather-Virgo
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Joined: Mon Dec 14, 2020 7:08 pm

Re: Post your most obscure Ableton Live knowledge

Post by Leather-Virgo » Mon Dec 14, 2020 7:23 pm

This one might be more common knowledge, but I don't run into many people who know it: you can drag and drop individual instruments out of a Drum-Rack and get them on individual tracks... super useful for mix downs if Drum-Rack is part of your workflow!

grrrz
Posts: 156
Joined: Mon Dec 28, 2020 1:54 pm

Re: Post your most obscure Ableton Live knowledge

Post by grrrz » Mon Dec 28, 2020 2:02 pm

not sure if it's obscure or the most annoying thing about live (or solved by live 10); but if you don't put a change in a midi automation (not a point; an actual change of value); the initial value will not be transmitted upon playing. same used to go for notes (best feature of live 10 imo; no more going to the beginning of a drone to get the note playing)

JeffStein
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Joined: Sun May 05, 2019 7:50 pm

Re: Post your most obscure Ableton Live knowledge

Post by JeffStein » Wed Dec 30, 2020 6:25 pm

Maybe not obscure, but if you load in the Saturator through presets the HQ is turned off by default. This does seem to make a difference in sound quality. Technically I guess it's oversampling but I'm not sure. You can turn it on again by right clicking in the Title bar of the Saturator/Device itself.

Threaded Nail
Posts: 28
Joined: Mon Aug 03, 2020 1:24 am

Re: Post your most obscure Ableton Live knowledge

Post by Threaded Nail » Fri Jan 22, 2021 4:45 am

This is something that took me too long to realize but you gotta sidechain the kick on your sends.

marra
Posts: 295
Joined: Sat Jul 31, 2010 7:08 pm

Re: Post your most obscure Ableton Live knowledge

Post by marra » Wed Feb 17, 2021 7:02 pm

Ableton Live - VST Patch Keeps Resetting Cause & Fix - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0xjsI5GsxY

My apologies if this has already been posted :lol:

The_Subject
Posts: 137
Joined: Thu Jul 07, 2011 11:08 am

Re: Post your most obscure Ableton Live knowledge

Post by The_Subject » Wed Mar 03, 2021 5:27 pm

I dunno how widely known this is, and its a bit of a long winded work-around/hack than a secret tip, but hopefully someone will find it useful. For many years I was trying to make a step-sequencer in ableton, without M4L, without plug-ins etc etc and I think I asked on here years ago, and generally the response seemed to be that you can't.

So, there's a few ways, each with pros and cons, but the main idea being you have your steps (for the sake of argument) 8 steps, which you can have just 8 x 8th notes in a midi track, these have to have some difference, ie a semitone apart.

Each has its own chain in the rack, which you'll need to connect to each note via its unique quality, eg either velocity, pitch or make steps with the chain selector. If a semitone apart, then your chain will identify them with pitch, and only accept the relevant pitch.

You then have a MIDI effect, eg. pitch on each chain, which you map the on and off to your keyboard or controller, and do that 8 times, you have 8 steps that can be turned on and off, and used to trigger whatever. So I'd usually run my 8 steps ascending from C-2 to G-2, my drum samples would be triggered on say C0, so the pitch effect on note one (C-2) would be +24st, the effect on step 2 would be +23st, etc, so you C is your "on" point, and you turn things on or off.

I used this with a basic LaunchPad for a longtime, 8 drums x 8 steps, and then upgraded to 2 x LPs for 8 drums x 16 steps, or 2 x 8x8 that I could cross fade between.

Fun alternatives include having each step in a different clip, with launch settings (follow action) to keep it running. This means if you tell it to start the loop again (from beat/clip 1, with a bar quantization) the follow actions get over-ridden and you can put a fill in the clip after the initial note, which will be ignored unless you skip that follow-actions via restarting the sequence.

Can be done from a single note and an arpeggiator too, with different consequences on your final control.

Hope that makes some sense!

pottering
Posts: 1800
Joined: Sat Dec 06, 2014 4:41 am

Re: Post your most obscure Ableton Live knowledge

Post by pottering » Thu Apr 15, 2021 4:48 am

This one from user polarforsker on Ableton's Reddit subreddit seemed so obvious in retrospect that I almost forgot it was actually new knowledge to me:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ableton/commen ... t/gu8epxh/
Throw a loop of silence into Simpler. Actually any loop will do and color the sound in some way. I havent played around with that part much.

Select one of the special filters and crank the resonance to 125%
I had done it with stuff like single-cycle waveforms, but it never really occurred me to use silent audio or near-silent audio.

With silent audio you can get some really nice kicks (*) with the awesome Cytomic filters, and you can also use near-silent audio like tape hiss or vinyl noise samples to add a subtle texture to it (also simply loading a click/noise works pretty much the same as layering a click with the kick).

(*) Filter Envelope On with high Amount, Attack zero or close, Delay not so short maybe about 150 ms, Sustain 0%.
♥♥♥

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