Things you wish you knew when you started?

[rriparetti]

I just got Ableton Live Suite and Push 2. While I wait for my Push 2 to ship, I was hoping I could get familiar with he fundamentals of Ableton.

I don't know what I don't know, and I assume I know nothing (having prior experience working with Logic and Reason, many many years ago). I don't know what you guys would recommend, knowing what you know now. If that means reading a specific guide or book or youtube series you came across, hearing some advice that truly impacted your working with Ableton, anything.

I think my first instinct is to treat it like an instrument (both Push as an actual instrument and Ableton) in the sense of ... start writing some stuff that probably doesnt sound so good. But if I do that, and slowly learn and get more and more comfortable with the UI, I'd be off to a great start. But right now if you made me make 1 bar of a drum beat idk if I would be able to do that intuitively without getting to know the UI. And I don't know how to approach something so fundamental

[justanametouse]

Not really a "wish I knew" thing, but I can't recommend learning the quick keys and forcing yourself to memorize them enough. Hopefully you'll get a lot of enjoyment out of Push and use it a lot (I do), but you'll still have to spend time working with a mouse and keyboard. When you do, using the quick keys will give you a much quicker, efficient workflow, since a keyboard will often win out over a mouse in terms of speed.

EDIT: In terms of resources, the Ableton manual is actually very good. It's well organized and doesn't read like a damn thesis statement.

[yur2die4]

The most challenging thing to initially ‘wrap your head around’ is what set it apart when it first came out. Understanding warping and warp markers. Understanding how they relate to the global tempo etc. if you learn this, most other things are pretty intuitive.

The thing is, warping is easier to understand if you already have some kind of background with understanding rhythm. If you’ve never arranged a simple drum beat in other software and are unable to at least partially mimic simple drum patterns intuitively, then you might need to understand that concept first.

If you’ve got that down, the best way to develop your warping chops is to just drag in some music and warp them. Try not to use the ‘warp from here’ tool, as it can take away from actually understanding how it actually functions, and also take away from potential mistakes that would otherwise make for good learning opportunities.

If you can warp in Live, and if you get to grips with Session View (which you may or may not use depending on your workflow), you should have a basic understanding of everything. Just go through the manual a little at a time with the software open. Try out the device reference stuff. Lean your keyboard shortcuts, and maybe bind some keys early on for convenience (I have my metronome and Session Record buttons key mapped for instance, oh and tap tempo).

Good luck welcome aboard.

[miyaru]

I would say: spend as much time you can with Live and Push2. The more time you spend the more you will know. On the site of Ableton are good video's of the basic stuff from software and hardware. Having the manual as pdf and keeping it close to your sessions will help too. (At least if you read it LOL.)

I come from using Cubase in all sorts of versions for almost 25 years before I switched to Ableton Live. This meant a hugh change in the way of thinking of making music. After all I like Live better then Cubase, and has a lot to do with the music I (try) to make. I used to do bandlike stuff in Cubase, but my focus went from rokck, pop and reggea to EDM like music. With Push2, Live Suite 10 and some plugins it is so much easier to work on EDM projects.

Have discovering LIve and be welcome to ask the things you can't figure out yourself!

[8bitavenger]

Not really a "wish I knew" thing, but I can't recommend learning the quick keys and forcing yourself to memorize them enough. Hopefully you'll get a lot of enjoyment out of Push and use it a lot (I do), but you'll still have to spend time working with a mouse and keyboard. When you do, using the quick keys will give you a much quicker, efficient workflow, since a keyboard will often win out over a mouse in terms of speed.

EDIT: In terms of resources, the Ableton manual is actually very good. It's well organized and doesn't read like a damn thesis statement.

I wish I learned hotkeys first before anything else. I got the basics in the basic tutorial you get right after opening Live the first time. But lately, I've been watching some Mr. Bill youtube videos and have had my mind routinely blown watching how ridiculously fast he works, mostly hotkey stuff. It's been an inspiration to force myself to stare at boring pages of text to try to internalize more of it, because I know I'll end up saving tons of time and spending more of it being creative.

[rriparetti]

Update: I've been experimenting with Ableton Live Suite over the past couple days & now that I just got my Push delivered a couple hours ago, I've been having a blast. I already have a couple clips of a drum beat I like, using some weird music key I've literally never heard of, and a bass line that feels smooth thanks to the repeat function. Wow.

Regarding the ableton manual, how is it organized? Is it organized where the earlier pages are for beginners and later pages are for more advanced? Is it organized in terms of song design, making beats / melodies then mixing? I dont want to jump into a 600+ book if its one of those things where I need to know what I dont know.

Regarding warping, is that for more live editing of samples? I don't know if that applies to me for just playing instruments and creating tracks.

Do you all know a good generic work flow I can follow from someone that has a name for themselves in the edm production? maybe not from ableton but that'd be ideal. Something like a flowchart or guide. Something that tells me "apply sidechain compression" at some point - this would be great bc I'd need to look up how to do that, why to do that, when I need it, and what to do it on! It's like helping me, help me.

[nathannn]

Its ok to use presets and even drum loops.