Fade Clip

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ronald82
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Joined: Sat Jan 30, 2021 1:54 am

Fade Clip

Post by ronald82 » Fri Apr 23, 2021 12:46 am

So I have a song with multiple tracks (midi clips) and would like some of the tracks to fade to a certain volume when the singing comes in (not added yet) ... So how would I do that? Thanks! (I am using Ableton Live Lite 10)

[jur]
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Re: Fade Clip

Post by [jur] » Fri Apr 23, 2021 1:29 am

Automation and/or sidechain are of the most common ways to do it.
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dsu
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Re: Fade Clip

Post by dsu » Fri Apr 23, 2021 2:39 am

In the old days the musicians would play quieter so as not to over power the singer.

My sense is that is is a good approach for trying to make the music sound more live or organic. Of course for some genres the goal is completely the opposite.

If this approach makes sense to you, one way to accomplish this is to work with the MIDI clips directly. The goal is to lower the velocity (loudness) settings for each MIDI note. To make this less tedious you can select a bunch of notes (command/control A) and change all those notes at one time. Also, there is a MIDI plug in that will do this automatically for you that you can turn on and off when needed.

It this isn't enough control, the next step could be automation. My preference is to put an Live UTIILTY plug in on the track and automate the gain of the plug in. This allows you to set the performance dynamics of the track while leaving the faders free for the mixing process.

Another thing to be aware of is to see if the notes in the MIDI clip are "stomping" over the notes the singer is singing. While this situation can be addressed by gain control and filtering it often a more effective solution is to rearrange the notes in the chord to create some space for the singer. If this can be done successfully it makes mixing much easier.

bjbr
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Re: Fade Clip

Post by bjbr » Sat Jun 12, 2021 2:04 pm

ronald82 wrote:
Fri Apr 23, 2021 12:46 am
So I have a song with multiple tracks (midi clips) and would like some of the tracks to fade to a certain volume when the singing comes in (not added yet) ... So how would I do that? Thanks! (I am using Ableton Live Lite 10)
Just render it in Audacity and import back! lol
In fact, just do your entire production work in Audacity and then 'render it back' to Ableton.

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