Ableton Forum

alex.the.forge wrote:

outershpongolia wrote:

I often end up deleting the template file and going back to the default one, then gradually adding little bits until it becomes bloated and makes Live take a good minute longer to load, so I trash it again….and so the cycle continues……

Just been there and done that. I'm now back to the bare bones and thinking about scrapping all those half finished sets..

Mine's basically the Live default too. I remove the overview from Session and Arrange, set up my custom key commands, and set the loop brace to be 32 bars long. Otherwise it's just the blank audio and midi track most people see.

Tarekith wrote:Mine's basically the Live default too. I remove the overview from Session and Arrange, set up my custom key commands, and set the loop brace to be 32 bars long. Otherwise it's just the blank audio and midi track most people see.

the first thing I always do is map the OVR to a key like "/" and map the metronome to ">" or something and set record quantise to 1/16

on a similar track... my template looks blank, but in fact I map

the letter p to the pen on/off
the letter t to tap tempo

and i've recently mapped cue level, tempo, click on/off, overdub, loop and 'back to arrange window' to buttons/knobs on Maschine that correlate with a control surface template i use on it.

do none of you use sends / returns?? A template session is essential for me because I have 10 return channels all with specific FX loading into them, mostly reverbs and delays but also one for parallel compression. It would be a serious time waster to re-create these channels at the start of any session, so hell yes I use a template...it also has a few things on the master and a few pre-setup Utility - EQ 8 devices that work as "channel strips", things I'll be loading no matter what onto channels so they might as well be there already.

-M

mholloway wrote:do none of you use sends / returns?? A template session is essential for me because I have 10 return channels all with specific FX loading into them, mostly reverbs and delays but also one for parallel compression. It would be a serious time waster to re-create these channels at the start of any session, so hell yes I use a template...it also has a few things on the master and a few pre-setup Utility - EQ 8 devices that work as "channel strips", things I'll be loading no matter what onto channels so they might as well be there already.

-M

oh yeah, often I stick a reverb and delay in, but they're just place holders and usually get replaced with Waves ones down the line… even there I find I usually end up adding them as I need them specific to the job

Honestly it's pretty rare I use sends these days, no real reason why other than my computers have been powerful enough for me to apply effects directly to each track if needed. Then again, I don't use a lot of effects either.

Custom key commands for me:

, = Stop
. = Play
' = Rec
L = Loop on/off

mine has a template that's mainly aimed at letting me get down what's in my head straight away. So I can go from load-up to laying down whatever riff has been bugging me as quick as possible.

Usually most of the stuff gets swapped out as soon as I've got the basics down

Tracks
1: Breaks - if I need to lay a looped break in to play on top of I drop it here.
2: Drum machine - a rack of my own with a configurable analog style drum machine in it. Quick to tweak so it fits OKayish.
3: bass synth - it's an Analog, set to a standard generic 'moog bass' type sound
4: Bass Guitar - a tuner, a compressor, saturator for bass guitar playing
5: Guitar - another tuner, compressor and saturator rack, for quick guitar riffs
6: Electric Piano - Ableton's Electric, set on an MK preset, with a bit of reverb. This gets the most use of all.
7: a looper - just in case I want to send a bass, guitar, or something to the looper it lives here.
FXA : Delay, feeding back on itself dub style, with a compressor on to avoid screaming ear death
FXB : Reverb, just ableton's reverb.


as I said, most of this gets thrown away once the basic idea is down. As soon as I get the crucial thing in I can make decisions about instrumentation, or whether the bass is best on a new bass sound, on a bass guitar, or whether the guitar part is better handled by a synth, or a guitar played a bit better through GuitarRig. That sort of thing.

Obviously I don't always come to the computer with a full song in my head, sometimes I just sit and play around. In that case I just delete all the tracks and start messing.

alex.the.forge wrote:

outershpongolia wrote: but honestly, it might as well be the blank template cause I usually start from scratch..

+1

I have been working on this for literally years and I find myself making elaborate templates to use with my controllers, then I find I actually end up doing things a lot more quickly if I just start from scratch….

I often end up deleting the template file and going back to the default one, then gradually adding little bits until it becomes bloated and makes Live take a good minute longer to load, so I trash it again….and so the cycle continues……

Same here, it gets nice and bloated and then I stream line it.. it's almost a nice workflow, you try a bunch of shit out for size and at the end of it you purge what you don't need.. then start over..

These days I have a liveset called "Resources" has drum racks for kick, hat, clap, glitch, vocal snips, fx racks (like laser zaps etc) some effectrix and the FINGER routings that I can just drop into a set and route them out on the quicks.. also has my "go-to" sub bass, sub kick, reverse cymbal loops that are about 32bars long, that kind of thing.. basically just what it is, a bunch of Resources..

Load them from the browser on the fly, much better work flow then loading up a bloated template set IMO..

i would agree about the slow low times had i used some CPU intensive plugs. I actually use my template as an enhancement to Live's functionality. I am very aware of the cookie cutter fear of making music so that is why i have all tracks empty. It basically is an enhanced canvas that suits my workflow and makes me work faster from the get-go. there are alot of great suggestions here. I rarely use sends for Parallel compression because i usually just create a rack and do that at the track level. good idea though.

What sort to return tracks do you guys like to setup? So far I have a return for drums, percussion, bass and reverb.
I am currently working on making a template atm. I usually just get an old project and delete everything, but I just want 1 solid template I can work from straight up.

Ill Frequencies wrote:What sore to return tracks do you guys like to setup? So far I have a return for drums, percussion, bass and reverb.
I am currently working on making a template atm. I usually just get an old project and delete everything, but I just want 1 solid template I can work from straight up.

it's interesting this thread came up again - I was just thinking about this last night. I am still working with just the default template. There are a few little things I should probably do, such as the returns, limiter on master and so on and save as a template, but I just never get round to it, and it is really so quick to load things that I rarely get irritated enough to bother, because once I'm in the set I just want to carry on with the idea and not get distracted.

For returns I always just start with a basic Ableton Reverb and Filter delay, then later on when the track is a lot further along I switch them to something else, usually Waves RVerb, IRL or TrueVerb, and H-Delay

alex.the.forge wrote:

outershpongolia wrote: but honestly, it might as well be the blank template cause I usually start from scratch..

+1

I have been working on this for literally years and I find myself making elaborate templates to use with my controllers, then I find I actually end up doing things a lot more quickly if I just start from scratch….

I often end up deleting the template file and going back to the default one, then gradually adding little bits until it becomes bloated and makes Live take a good minute longer to load, so I trash it again….and so the cycle continues……

pretty much the same here.
these days i start from the default empty one.

i do have dj/mashup templates though, but for production?
not really heh.

Anyone care to share their template? I've been messing around with making one for a while now, but always seem to just start fresh. It makes sense to have one though I think....

I usually start with a blank template, but I have my keyboard keys mapped to some very quick global functions:

c = toggle the click
f = toggle the follow
l = toggle the loop
w = stop
i = left brace in Arrange
o = right brace in Arrange

That's about it, really.