Where do I begin? Getting started with producing in Live

Share your favorite Ableton Live tips, tricks, and techniques.
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Schiggy
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Joined: Sun Sep 16, 2012 10:05 am

Where do I begin? Getting started with producing in Live

Post by Schiggy » Thu Nov 01, 2012 7:31 pm

Hi community,

so i've been messing around with a lite version of Live 8, today i bought Suite! :)
Anyway, it seems that i am pretty overwhelmed by the vast opportunities Suite offers. I hope you guys can gimme some advice. Here's what i wanna do:

I want to start with some minimal (in the literal sense really) house music: drums, bass, harmony, melody. I figured the best way to produce something bearable would be to create a small library of sounds which would fit my purpose. As i got the general idea of Live and i also got a pretty good musical education i don't have any experience with oscillators. I guess Sampler is the right choice to get accustomed with. I know there are loads of youtube tutorials online, but i wanted to work through the manual anyway step by step.

So, would you recommend starting with sampler in my case?

Thanks for any help in advance! :wink:

pepezabala
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Re: Where do I begin? Getting started with producing in Live

Post by pepezabala » Thu Nov 01, 2012 7:49 pm

i would start with a drumrack, some loops and then create loads of interesting scenes in session view.

Schiggy
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Re: Where do I begin? Getting started with producing in Live

Post by Schiggy » Thu Nov 01, 2012 7:53 pm

pepezabala wrote:i would start with a drumrack, some loops and then create loads of interesting scenes in session view.
Thank you for your reply!

Well, i am past that point where i just create drums and some harmonies and melodies. I wanted to get deeper into Live by creating my own sounds. So in other words: Which are the essential Instruments and effects i got to know when i want to produce electronic dance music?

I am just afraid of getting frustrated by starting at the wrong end. :wink:

simmerdown
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Re: Where do I begin? Getting started with producing in Live

Post by simmerdown » Thu Nov 01, 2012 7:55 pm

Operator
...but i wanted to work through the manual anyway step by step.
no one has ever said these words before, you are about to be showered with universal forumluv

Schiggy
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Re: Where do I begin? Getting started with producing in Live

Post by Schiggy » Thu Nov 01, 2012 8:20 pm

funken wrote:Do you know your way around Simpler pretty well?
I most certainly don't.

Thanks for the replys so far!

Schiggy
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Joined: Sun Sep 16, 2012 10:05 am

Re: Where do I begin? Getting started with producing in Live

Post by Schiggy » Thu Nov 01, 2012 8:22 pm

simmerdown wrote:Operator
...but i wanted to work through the manual anyway step by step.
no one has ever said these words before, you are about to be showered with universal forumluv
Yeah well, that'S good news for me anyways. I was just impressed by some guys in this forum dropping knowledge so heavily everywhere that i figured there's no way way around the manual. :mrgreen:

oddstep
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Re: Where do I begin? Getting started with producing in Live

Post by oddstep » Fri Nov 02, 2012 7:49 pm

Yeah, if you haven't got much experience in synthesis then just browse the instrument rack presets and try out things you like the sound of. Over time and if you're interested you'll start to understand why certain parameters do what they do. Eventually you'll understand Tension. Analog and Operator are good places to start because there's an uncomplicated relationship between wave forms, filters and signal paths. Simpler and sampler are much the same but the intial waveform can be a lot more complex. The physical modelling synths are all a bit opaque in comparison.

MacGuffin
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Re: Where do I begin? Getting started with producing in Live

Post by MacGuffin » Fri Nov 02, 2012 10:21 pm

I find the instrument presets to be confusing if you want to learn about synthesis, too many are in racks within racks and it's complicated to explore when you don't know much. I would recommend playing with Analog and Sampler (or Simpler) first, explore those, learn the basics of synthesis and sampling (filters, envelopes, etc), learn about the parameters since they will come back in about every other VST you'll ever use and check out some youtube videos to learn how to put your ideas together in Live. That should get you started.

Also, fellow forumite Timothy Allan's video tutorials are really well done and specifically aimed for house music, and on sale right now:

http://www.groove3.com/str/producing-ho ... nt-fx.html
http://www.groove3.com/str/producing-ho ... synth.html

Vios
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Re: Where do I begin? Getting started with producing in Live

Post by Vios » Tue Nov 06, 2012 3:03 pm

I always recommend Tom Cosm's tutorial:

How To Write Beats – 2 Hour Introduction to Electronic Music and Ableton Live

Here's a whole suite of introduction tutorials on Live's instruments, effects, etc.

Introduction Tutorials

Schiggy
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Re: Where do I begin? Getting started with producing in Live

Post by Schiggy » Fri Nov 09, 2012 9:01 am

Thanks for your replies, guys. I am finishing my master's thesis atm, so i don't get to ableton much, but i found that youtube is really a never ending source for tutorials. And I started with getting into Operator now, since there is an Austrian guy (on Youtube) who does really impressing stuff only using Operator.

I guess in the end, when you really want to get to know Ableton Live, you can just do what you want. At least that won't spoil anything. :)
Thanks again for your help. :)

Schiggy
Posts: 45
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Re: Where do I begin? Getting started with producing in Live

Post by Schiggy » Fri Nov 09, 2012 4:19 pm

funken wrote:Oh, I have another on Operator

Music theory 3 - sound, pitch, harmonics & waveforms

It's done in Operator and it explains how combining several partials in one oscillator is the same as using one osc to FM synthesize another and so on. This is the stuff a lot of people don't know and isn't in most of the tutorials as far as I know.
Thanks, this sounds good!
You should seriously think about getting your tutorials into videos, you would reach out to a whole lotta more people and it probably would'nt cost you half the time to do them... :)
And this is not a polite way of sayin 'sorry, bro, but i am way to lazy to read this' ;)

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