Ableton Forum

just wondering if any bass players or guitarists fancy trading recording tips or techniques???

what would you like to know or share.

I'm amazed at how nice my bass sounds when I plug it directly into Live. Very little processing needed.

To get some busier, funky basslines going without messing up the timing, I've been dropping the tempo down to a comfortable level and then warping back up once I'm done. I love that that there isn't any noticeable drop in sound quality when I do this.

are you using any effect pedals or processors

Here's my standard setup for guitar and bass:

Modulus 5 string bass, Trace-Elliott 4x10 bass combo. I either plug bass direct into my interface or go direct from the amp head. The amp adds some nice eq. Don't use any effects although there was one preset bass effect in Live that I like and sometimes use, can't remember the name right now...

Fender Stratocaster Ultra, Rivera 50-watt amp, Electro-Harmonix flanger pedal, I use the distortion and reverb off of the amp. I haven't recorded in live with this amp yet, but I'd probably mic it up. My experience recording it on other platforms has been pretty good in the past.

right now I just running my bass through my audio interface just to see how it sounds. I will try using my small amp later on. I find I am tweaking things here and there.

i run my Fender Marcus Miller Jazz Bass through a Carvin 600watt RedEye2x10's, split with a DI box straight into Ableton.

been playing the bass since i was 13, my favorite way of achieving grooves is with electric bass, i can ghost notes and get a way more controlled feel this way. i'll tighten up my best recordings in Melodyne. sometimes just take the MIDI info and run it through a synth. wish i had a MIDI Bass... or one of these: http://www.iguitar.com/i2000Bass/i2000Bass.asp

i run my fender jazz into a BD121 and just use that as a D.I , then into my emu 1820 and into live..... i got hold of amplitube 2 and amplitube svx vsts and they`re pretty damn good in my opinion.. someone mentioned the sonalkis sv315 mk 2 compressor vst is top notch and are the blue tubes bundles really that good???

I play an epiphone les paul through NI's guitar rig 3, into Ableton Live 7. Results are awesome. I mostly play heavy, riffy stuff for industrial music. My favorite tools in Ableton for this setup are 1) copying a single guitar part into a second track, panning hard left/right, then using ableton's little delay window below the mixer to offset one track = great stereo spread effect, and saves me from playing everything twice. I put a different distortion (from guitar rig) on each part, otherwise they'll still overlap too much. Secondly, I *love* messing around with Pan and Pitch clip envelopes on my guitar clips, to create crazy spastic tweaks, particularly good for fast playing stuff, turning a heavy riff into glitchy, twittering dance of sound...

-M

been running my epi jack casady into live with some impulses in KeFir (http://habib.webhost.pl/) and it sounds great! maybe a little compression but can get all kinds of sounds.

also doing ambient stuff using epicverb, dronebox and reaktor stuff with a '64 teisco. too much fun!!

dunno wtf i was doing wrong but i just DIDNT like guitar rig 3

I use the IK Ampeg SVX plugin....

I avoid IK like the plague normally, but I HAD to buy the SVX.

I use Live and Guitar Rig 3 with Rig Kontrol 3 foot pedal/interface, and a behringer midi foot controller and use the midi to record loops and trigger effects in Live. I use the Rig Kontrol for Wah, Whammy, and patch and effect changes. I have been playing live with an acoustic guitar for roughly 6 years, and with Guitar rig for about 2, but only incorporated Ableton Live in a live setting this past month. I have always had another guitar player in the group and we have always played solos, but this year when our guitar player left, I picked up live looping to cover the second guitar part.

I got fed up with the computer being in my guitar playing. take Guitar Rig or Amplitube, you start playing and BRRRKJJJJJJZZZZZZZZZZZPFPFPFPFPFPFFP, then go look around and change settings in Live. so now I use a PodXT with another $100 for the bass guitar expansion pack. I leave GearBox (the GUI to tweak it via USB) open to tweak the sounds.

any tips? one is to always leave your guitar's tone pot wide open, present ALL of your guitar signal to your processor, then apply EQ there.

That's good advice Tone, but I don't think I could bring myself to follow it. Maybe it's psychological, but every electric I have ever played sounds best with the tone knob at 7, unless you are playing more mellow, dare I say jazzy stuff, then tone knob goes to 3 or 4. But for the most options in tweaking after the track is laid, you are absolutely right in not limiting your guitar signal with the pots.