Hi. For years I've been using Cubase so when our techie guitarist left our band (and took all his sequences & source files with him) and I was elected to take over creating sequences, I started trying to learn Ableton Live 9 Lite, which I got free with some equipment.
We're a guitar-based rock band but we have quite a lot of samples in our songs. I'm trying to record full versions of our songs so we have them recorded, but we also need it to run alongside us when we're playing live. We have a click track for our drummer in every song because he can't keep time, plus we have those samples I mentioned.
I've tried to go through some online tutorials but they all seem to be related to dance music and I'm getting frustrated trying to do some things I found to be very intuitive in Cubase.
So I have questions . .
Firstly, do i need to upgrade to the full version, or could I stick to the Lite one for now?
I don't get the session view. It seems to be a writing tool more than anything else but all our songs are written with people and instruments. can I get away with not using it?
In the session view, each 'clip' seems to be for a single bar only. Have i got this right and how would I create, say, a whole section of song, or have I got the wrong idea?
The MIDI editor seems particularly unfriendly. I'm trying to create and 'humanise' a drum track and editing it in fine details is very frustrating as it seems to involve creating dozens of clips. Am I doing it wrong?
There are no doubt plenty more questions to come.
Rather than answer all these pain-in-the-arse questions, If you can direct me to a good and clear online tutorial that would be pretty good.
I'm really really pissed off. Can anybody recommend a stiff drink?
Many and sincere thanks for any help I might get on here. Hopefully one day I might be one of the ones helping useless newbies like me.
If you want to hear the sort of thing I'm doing, its here: http://www.cinic.co.uk/tunes and Cocaine Revolver is the one I'm working on.
Nick
Struggling to migrate from Cubase to Ableton Live
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The Boy Holty
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Re: Struggling to migrate from Cubase to Ableton Live
Session view clips can be of any length, either type in a length you want into the numeric thingumy somewhere in the bottom left. Or just drag the visual length marker, or loop brace, in the clip editor view.
Session view gets used for a number of things, myself I use it as a bin of takes, a scratchbook of rough clips which I can use in an arrangement. However, it's other (some would say main) purpose is for live performance. You should divide your existing song into "scenes" and trigger the scenes or some arbitrary non-contiguous combination of clips, as a Live performance. "Follow actions" allow chunks of clips to rotate in sequence, or semi-randomly (for example to produce slightly varying drum parts). Eg, having 4 slight variants of a four bar pattern in a "jam section", the follow actions could play them in the order, 1,1,2,3,1,2,3,4,2,1,3,3,4 ... Without any input from you. Or you can influence, or interrupt that semi random chain to , for example, exit the jam section and go to a chorus.
When humanising drums I tend to micro manage the actual part creation, I make a few 4 bar variants in session, choose the best and lay them in a temporary arrangement, extend the 4bar clip to 8 bars then consolidate it to a new 8 bar clip, and modify the later 4 bars of this. Rinse and repeat.
To humanise you should use the groove features, perhaps slightly confusing at first but very useful. They have some randomisation features which are applied transparently to the clip they are selected on. You dont see the groove visually on the note editor, only hear it - unless you "apply" to that clip, which finalises it. I never do that, as it defeats many of the benefits.
Although many of the examples and tutorials relate to dance music, the software is used in many types of music. Amateur dance music had a low entry barrier and a large market of diletantes, so features heavilly in product tutorials and sales. It's lucrative due to its size.
As for the lite version versus the full. I find the lite version to be a PITA. Ableton have a demo system where I believe you can use an unrestricted trial license for a month. Saving, etc, is enabled with that trial key. Best decide for yourself.
Session view gets used for a number of things, myself I use it as a bin of takes, a scratchbook of rough clips which I can use in an arrangement. However, it's other (some would say main) purpose is for live performance. You should divide your existing song into "scenes" and trigger the scenes or some arbitrary non-contiguous combination of clips, as a Live performance. "Follow actions" allow chunks of clips to rotate in sequence, or semi-randomly (for example to produce slightly varying drum parts). Eg, having 4 slight variants of a four bar pattern in a "jam section", the follow actions could play them in the order, 1,1,2,3,1,2,3,4,2,1,3,3,4 ... Without any input from you. Or you can influence, or interrupt that semi random chain to , for example, exit the jam section and go to a chorus.
When humanising drums I tend to micro manage the actual part creation, I make a few 4 bar variants in session, choose the best and lay them in a temporary arrangement, extend the 4bar clip to 8 bars then consolidate it to a new 8 bar clip, and modify the later 4 bars of this. Rinse and repeat.
To humanise you should use the groove features, perhaps slightly confusing at first but very useful. They have some randomisation features which are applied transparently to the clip they are selected on. You dont see the groove visually on the note editor, only hear it - unless you "apply" to that clip, which finalises it. I never do that, as it defeats many of the benefits.
Although many of the examples and tutorials relate to dance music, the software is used in many types of music. Amateur dance music had a low entry barrier and a large market of diletantes, so features heavilly in product tutorials and sales. It's lucrative due to its size.
As for the lite version versus the full. I find the lite version to be a PITA. Ableton have a demo system where I believe you can use an unrestricted trial license for a month. Saving, etc, is enabled with that trial key. Best decide for yourself.
Re: Struggling to migrate from Cubase to Ableton Live
I don't think you should dismiss Live Lite until you have outgrown it or decided Live is not for you. The most serious limitations of the lite version are probably the 8 track and 8 scenes limits.
Regarding session view, it is possible to avoid this completely and do everything in the arrangement view. I have never used Live like this myself, so I can't vouch for its usability. I also think that you will lose out on some of the best aspects of Live by not using session view, even though session view requires you to rethink your workflow. If you decide to use session view, maybe you could start by creating larger clips for intro, verse, chorus, break etcetera. That will help you stay within the 8 scene limit of the lite version, unless the samples you mention are too many.
As for the stiff drink, I myself intend to have a mint julep with dinner tonight.
Regarding session view, it is possible to avoid this completely and do everything in the arrangement view. I have never used Live like this myself, so I can't vouch for its usability. I also think that you will lose out on some of the best aspects of Live by not using session view, even though session view requires you to rethink your workflow. If you decide to use session view, maybe you could start by creating larger clips for intro, verse, chorus, break etcetera. That will help you stay within the 8 scene limit of the lite version, unless the samples you mention are too many.
As for the stiff drink, I myself intend to have a mint julep with dinner tonight.
Live 10 Suite, Push 2, Roland V-drums, lots of plugins, hardware synths and drum machines...
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The Boy Holty
- Posts: 7
- Joined: Sun Jul 27, 2014 1:55 pm
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Re: Struggling to migrate from Cubase to Ableton Live
Hi. Thanks for your replies, its all very helpful. I'm sure I'll be back soon with more daft questions . . .