Ableton Forum

Angstrom wrote:There are some things in Ableton Live that I think only three people know about.

Here's one: The rack Hierarchy view, right click the little Rack Overview and receive a menu which will allow you to quickly jump to any instrument, or effect within the rack.
It's very useful when dealing with complex racks, but almost nobody knows about it.

So what obscure Ableton Function do you think most people do not know?

YESSSSS!

Thank you Angstrom!

G Pop

invol wrote:@Angstrom, nice one.

To move your view of anything in Live left/right or up/down, hold Option+Command (Mac) and you will see a hand you can drag around - e.g., Device Chains, Arrangement View, Zone Editors...

I am sure there are PC equivalents to the first 2.

FOR PC /WINx:
[Ctrl] & [Alt] gives you the "grabby hand" thing and thanks (again!)Angstrom!
(Between Angstrom & Stromkraft I'm getting lots of ideas and help!)

G Pops

I just learnt you can edit the text window for Lives clips as well as well as Live’s tracks. Quite useful for adding info relating to Key or how it was made, at a glance.

It’s not particularly obscure Ijust see stuff in Live and never really use it until I notice it properly.

Gregory Wells-King wrote:I just learnt you can edit the text window for Lives clips as well as well as Live’s tracks. Quite useful for adding info...

I just "lernt" this myself a bit ago Greg! Same way too...
Stumbled on it while I was wishing for it! (Sub-Menu)

My challenge with the manual is usually nomenclature but this
one was all "where to find it" and I run out of patience quick
when I'm in the middle of creating something. I've been using
"side-chaining" lately and particularly "Ducking" my drums, and
the "Notes" have come in very handy indeed!

My recordings and clips may come IN raw, but they never stay that way.
The Notes feature I KNEW had to be there; who wouldn't want this???
So although not so obscure, it is in a way and I'm sure lots of future
forum visitors will be glad you mentioned it here and/or stumble
across this post and find it THAT way!
Brilliant!

G Pops

When multiple controls are mapped to rack macros, they are displayed as 0-127 values, and plugin parameters are always mapped like that:



I always had problems with this because it isn't natural for human beings to think in 7-bit integers (hey, MIDI). This is how rack macros can have meaningful units and scales.

A dummy device that has a control with desirable units (percents, dBs, Hz) is inserted into the chain and goes first. It can be disabled if it's not needed in a chain. Both dummy and useful controls are mapped to a macro, it stays 0-127 at this point as expected:



Then both dummy device and useful devices are grouped with dummy racks, a macro takes units from the first mapped control in chain, which is dummy device:


Mapping ranges can be tuned inside inner dummy racks but not inside outer rack, to not lose macro units.

Discovered by jur here, this seems to be a bug but also a great feature, hope it will never be fixed.

Exie wrote: ↑

Sun Mar 17, 2019 4:36 pm

Discovered by jur here, this seems to be a bug but also a great feature, hope it will never be fixed.

Haha, I was reading your post thinking "I know this one".


Btw, at some point I'd like to review the whole topic and make a sticky with all the tips listed and organized in a nice single post.
If anyone is interested in helping drop me a pm.

Group of audio tracks saved as .als - You can save a group of audio tracks in a .als template file and place it in your user library then drag and drop it into a new session when you need to record something like a drum kit with you regular presets!
https://atlasmusic.us

Make a chain with redux (I like to use Broken Hi-Hats) and an EQ that cuts the low end at 1.44 khz, then make another chain without these and set the first chain to -5.7 db. You'll get more texture to your hi-hats! I learned this from SadowickProduction.

ETA: Shit, I already posted this. But this is what Sadowick did in his video; I'd twisted it into my own, crappy version.

Rename the scenes under the master with tempos and or time signatures and the scene and session will conform to that.

Tempo in this format: xxxbpm
Time signature in this format: x/x
If you use both, they need to be separated by any character: xxxbpm~x/x

https://imgur.com/a/dx2ZU8x

Danthewoman wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 23, 2019 8:45 pm

Make a chain with redux (I like to use Broken Hi-Hats) and an EQ that cuts the low end at 1.44 khz, then make another chain without these and set the first chain to -5.7 db. You'll get more texture to your hi-hats! I learned this from SadowickProduction.

ETA: Shit, I already posted this. But this is what Sadowick did in his video; I'd twisted it into my own, crappy version.

thats a good one,

Ive done a similar thing with vocoder, it adds a nice noise to any signal you throw at it and can really help give a sound some highs. It follows the volume of the input and you can control so much with the different things such as formant = pitch of the noise, attack and release, you can also move the vocoder bands up and down as sort of a EQ but i prefer to use a EQ 8 at the end. Sounds very natural when done right

Add vocoder to a channel
Right click it
Group it
Add a chain and keep it empty ( dry chain )
Set vocoder to 100% wet if it isnt already
Set amount of bands to 4
Bandwidth ( BW ) to 200%

A personal favorite:

Sidechaining in Dance Music

... mastery of these techniques may result in a noticeable increase in drink tickets, remix offers and dates.

Source: Live 7 Printed Manual


https://imgur.com/a/MU7JLOs

I just found a trick that I thought I would share. After like 13 years using Live... Anyway

I always found annoying that working with Scenes (typically with global launch quantization) causes abrupt changes on the downbeat. I always missed, for example, the ability to have a drum call (or whatever you call it) just before the first beat of the launched scene.

Here's how you can do that (with the example of a drum track and assuming that you're using a 1 bar global quantization) :

- Arm the Drum Track
- Create a MIDI track, call it "Drum Call" and route the MIDI out to the Drum Track
- In scene 1 of the "Drum Call", put an empty 1 bar clip
- In scene 2 of the "Drum Call", put a 1 bar clip, call it "Drum Roll", draw your drum roll at the end of the clip.
- Put the "Drum Roll" clip in LEGATO, set the launch to Trigger and Quantize to a small value (or NONE), and adjust the Follow Action to stop the clip after 1 bar.

Here it is : when you launch scene 2 after scene 1, it's always preceded by your drum call. The only downside is if you trigger the next scene in the middle of the "drum call", it will play the whole bar, so you'll hear the beginning of the roll.

It's maybe obvious but I never figured it out until then.

ShelLuser wrote: ↑

Thu Oct 24, 2019 8:55 am

Fun thread!

Anyway, this is not too obscure I think but even so it's easily overlooked...

I assume everyone knows that you can set up a default setting for any instrument or effect? Just in case: if you want a specific setting to be applied the very moment you drag in a device then you can simply set up your instrument or effect and when you're done you right click on the device and use 'save as default preset'. Nothing new here I hope

I am aware you can save as default audio or midi tracks, but i don't have any option to save a default for a plugin.
When I right-click i only see "Save as default configuration" if i click this and then drag the fx on to a track, nothing has changed.
Am I missing something?
thx

filtersweep wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 25, 2019 5:59 pm

I am aware you can save as default audio or midi tracks, but i don't have any option to save a default for a plugin.
When I right-click i only see "Save as default configuration" if i click this and then drag the fx on to a track, nothing has changed.
Am I missing something?
thx

Group your VST and save it !

carrieres wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 30, 2019 10:41 am

filtersweep wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 25, 2019 5:59 pm

I am aware you can save as default audio or midi tracks, but i don't have any option to save a default for a plugin.
When I right-click i only see "Save as default configuration" if i click this and then drag the fx on to a track, nothing has changed.
Am I missing something?
thx

Group your VST and save it !

Sorry, I'm being dense, how do you mean group?