Ending a song

[DangarStu]

Hi all

I'm very new to Ableton Live but I've been doing a fair bit of reading and experimenting and so far things are going pretty well. It took me a while to settle on a setup that worked for me, you can read a bit about that (including a DIY foot switch board) here if you are interested: http://dangarstu.tumblr.com/

I've mostly been using the new Looper feature along with a pre-recorded drum loop and a MIDI loop too. The problem that I am having is that I haven't yet hit on a good way to end songs. By this I mean being able to hit 'stop all' just after the first beat of the last bar and have it fade or ring out in some way. A few thoughts I've had have been around using either Follow Actions somehow or having a final scene that contains pre-recorded clips that just play the final note/ beat and then don't loop.

At the moment when I hit stop things end very abruptly. Playing a final live guitar chord over the top smooths (hides!) things a little bit but I figured the collective wisdom of the Ableton forum can probably provide some insight beyond my newbie ideas.

Thanks in advance,
Stuart

[www.midischool.com]

Hi Stuart,

Liking the home-made foot pedal!

I'd go with the idea of having an extra scene of one-shot Clips which contain maybe a couple of bars of outro. Once triggered these will play through and stop, giving you a smooth ending. Just be mindful however of the fact that Live will still be ticking over in the background even with no Clips playing. This means that any subsequent Clip launches will be subject to Launch quantisation (hence they might not start immediately when triggered).

You could also achieve a fade-out based ending using Clip envelopes to automate volume fades on the new one-shot outro scene.

You could also try applying delay to the end of a track by mapping a delay send level to a rotary encoder on your MIDI keyboard.

In other words, there are many ways to skin a rat!

If you're new to Live and are looking to do any sort of training in the future, I've just launched a new online Ableton Live course - check it out at:
http://www.midischool.com/online-course ... arn-online

Let me know how you get on, you can contact me through our website.

Cheers, Tom.

[ciw]

Try making an effect rack on the master track with a reverb with fairly long tail.

Chain 0: no devices
Chain 1: utility->reverb

Now map a rack parameter to use chain select to fade between chain 0 and chain 1. But also fade out and mute the utility the more reverb you apply.

Now, map the parameter to a knob or even just a key on the keyboard. No need to press stop, activate the effect and everything will reverb/fade out.

This is of course one example, many other ideas are possible (check out the free 'tapestop' vst plugin - will simulate a vinyl spindown).

[solacerodgers]

I usually do a mix of the 2 examples given here I have a verb/delay which is gated and make a last clip which i just add just draw in a quick fade at the end near a transient so it fades very smooth.

[pepezabala]

do it like a dj: start with the next song before the last one is ending.

Or write endings. that's actually hard.

[solacerodgers]

Oh yeah huge brain fart there I was thinking this was for a "live" setup but if your at home or the studio take the time to write a ending even if all you do is simply start taking out elements of the song then fade it out.

[DangarStu]

Hi all

Thanks for all your suggestions. I will primarily be playing these songs live so I think having an effect on the master track is a good way to go. I will also look into envelopes for doing a rapid automated fade. I think the combination of a quick fade and some long-tail reverb/delay will certainly give the desired effect.

Thanks for all your help!

Stuart

[Angstrom]

I've always wanted to end a song like the Stones did with Mother's little helper

link to relevant part of song ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13olfeD026g&t=2m36s

that's a quality ending