Ableton Forum

When viewing clip mode of an audio file with warping on, you can move Transient Markers by holding shift without affecting the waveform. This is good when Ableton Live isn't accurate enough at finding the transients.

Also, when a warp marker is not correctly placed you can move the audio waveform around the marker with shift. Watch out for this one as it can really stretch or squash the waveforms pretty badly. This may be useful for sound design?

Ableton Live is an anagram of EVIL NOTE LAB.

david.barker wrote:This secetion is great

Other than typical gutter thoughts, it makes me think of an enthusiastic scientist in any alien movie.

I'm gonna have to sig that for a sec.

And since I'm here no secret tip comes to mind, except to right click everywhere and read thoroughly.
And you can get some great effects tweaking warp controls as a clip is playing.
If you midi map a keyboard range to an audio clip, turn off the clip quantization and turn on legato, you can auto-tume the clip by hand.
Oh, I did come across something new in the Groove Pool.
There's a velocty slider that can be very useful for mellowing and intensifying, especially if instruments like drum rack and sampler don't have typical velocity to volume settings turned up all the way.
This is very handy if you have different drums set by different velocities but on the same key.
When you turn the velocity slider down, not only will instruments get quieter but a snare could turn into a rimshot. If you have a velocity linked to release time on a high hat, lower velocities could tighten or loosen it up.
Oh and if you want to save cpu on some fx and instruments, link their device on/off switch to a macro knob or chain selector. In the device/rack mapping set both min and max values to the number it's on in the chain selector, so it only turns on when the chain selector is on the same number. Or leave some leeway in the mapping so devices overlap but turn on and off at some parts. I do this to vsts that a free running or not optimized very well. It can save significant cpu.

Keep your secretions to yourself.

You can hear the repitch happening when you switch delay times in sync mode when audio is already going through the effect.

You get a funny squeaking pitch shift.

Not really obscure but something I've used quite often. Let's say you drag a drumloop you like (amen for instance) but you want it slower without the effect of timestretching, you naturally set it to repitch but when doing so you can't use sample offset or tranposition clip envelopes. What I do is put in the arrangement view set to repitch, slow down the tempo, consolidate the clip and bring it back in the session view. Instant beatmode.

Double-clicking on your Devices or VST icon in the browser will reset the folders there.
That's something I use regularly.

If you have a MIDI track armed to record, select the red arm button with your mouse and the arrow keys can be used to toggle arming.
Handy in certain situations... such as when abseiling down a rocky cliff wearing a tutu.

Stuff in the manual that people who never bothered reading the manual often miss:
Saturator "SOFT CLIP" adds a sort of limiter to the signal ..
EQ8 can be operated in Stereo mode by changing MODE to L/R ..
Reverb has a High Quality mode ..
You can copy and paste oscillators in Operator by right-clicking just above an Operators label (A/B/C/D)

Also:
The quickest way to export an audio clip WAV FILE is to use the "Current Project" folder.
Assuming you have frozen and flattened it, or recorded it, or whatever, it will already be in your Current Project folder. If not, simply drag it in......
From the Current Project folder in Lives Browser you can drag the file to your desktop (on Mac at least), or any folder within Lives browser.

Not that obscure but CMD + B to change between Draw and Pen modes for midi editing

Also, i discovered in Preferences the Takeover Mode, on the Midi page.

That one boned me for a while. I had it set to Pickup, instead of none. Something to watch out for.

in arrangement view hold "ALT" and click on the button to expand the track. all tracks which are closed will open. if you do it on a open track all others which are open will close too.

the same for automation lanes. hold "ALT" and click the little "PLUS" to add ALL automation lanes.

in the Arranger:
select a time span, then double click the time ruler: Live will zoom in on the selected time span..
double click again: Live will completely zoom in on the time span..

this also works inside clips..

I've been reminded of that one in a conversation a few days ago. In zone editors, like the Sampler zone editor or the Racks zone editor, press a note or a range of notes on your MIDI keyboard, then double click a zone: it is set to the note/range you've pressed on the keyboard.

Ooh, did not know that.

another "not so obscure tip" but so useful I'll mention it.

Right click and "map to macro _" is a huge time saver, instead of mapping this with the little map buttons. I still see videos online where people don't use the context menu.
I have option+shift+1 as a macro with iKey that allows me to hover the parameter I want and map it with a key stroke.

Add notes to your set by right clicking fx and even channels and selecting "edit info text". sometimes i'll create a dummy lyrics channel just to have some text stored.

just remembered a good one...
In large sets, removing all the unused "stop" buttons on the tracks improves CPU usage. (or removes weird hiccups in the audio when using scene launch).

Shortcuts I use a lot:
CMD E - Remove stop button from Session View cell (previous clip continues to play)
CMD D - Duplicate clip

Also, when you have a promt such as "Save changes to 'Untitled' before closing?" ... You can press the corrosponding keyboard letter, instead of using your mouse, i.e: D for "Don't Save", C for "Cancel", S for "Save" etc....

Holding shift while pressing up and down on some Live plugin parameters will move them in higher increments, like Pitch and Scale knobs will move in octaves.