Ableton Forum

Hi all,

I got a copy of ableton live and a axiom 25 keyboard from my wife. I had mentioned I missed the old days of working as a Dj back through highschool/college and instead of tables/cd decks etc, she got me this to tinker with.

Only problem is, is that I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing, and I've been at this for a month now. Granted I'm not trying to create the next best dance tune but I can't even seem to get a solid grasp on the ableton foundation.

I've tinkered with operator, made some drum loops, but overall, trying to record anything that comes out decent, is beyond me. I've watched dozens of videos and every time I watch one it makes me feel like a complete novice. Secondly, the slightest click on something in ableton and I set off a bad setting and everything else goes to pot.

My biggest mind block, is the clip/rack layout, I don't like it because I can't get anything to work the way "I" think it will. Is the purpose to make an instrument, say operator, record some notes, then somehow export it as a wav file then re-import it as a clip to fire off when recording?

Sadly I'm starting to think I should have just kept my mouth shut and remembered my fond memories as a Dj through my teen/20's when working with real physical hardware was so much easier

If anyone has any links to some decent tutorials showing you how to make a song from scratch, and I don't care if it's Mary had a little lamb with a drum beat, I'd love to see how it's "supposed" to be done, then I'd have some sort of standard to build on.

kaotik78 wrote: Is the purpose to make an instrument, say operator, record some notes, then somehow export it as a wav file then re-import it as a clip to fire off when recording?

I don't see much use in converting your stuff into audio unless you're going to perform the song live like in a DJ set and want to have it split up into, for example, intro, breaks, main parts, buildups, outro etc... and launch these clips from Session View. In this case converting your stuff into audio can be beneficial because it uses less CPU power and keeps things simpler in a live performance situation.

If you're sitting at home composing/creating a song and it's all MIDI it's better to just keep it that way.
Are you working in Session View or Arrangement View? They both make you think in very different ways.
It's easier for most people to use Arrangement View if they're looking to put together a full "song" with a beginning middle and an end because it's linear and everything is laid out from left to right along a timeline.

Unless you're a DJ type, Session View is good when you're just messing with ideas, building drum loops or bass parts then copying those little bits into a new clip slot and making a slight variation on it and letting them loop while working on other parts of the song. In the end you're probably going to drag all that stuff into Arrangement though.
You can do that by the way, drag (or copy and paste) stuff from Session to Arrangement. That was actually the most important discovery for me in the beginning.

do you still have a turntable? Maybe you could chop up some samples and work with those... as a foundation. Then try laying different sounds on top of that. Another thing you can do is dig into Live's loops in the library and build from there.

I started with an Axiom 25 that came with a copy when I first got in to Live. I was coming from Cubase and FL Studio though... Don't give up just yet. It'll start to get easier. Try and stick with the tutorials that come with Live or that can be downloaded from the Ableton website. It will probably help to get a good grip on fundamentals. Then, as you define what it is you're trying to do you can post back here on the forum in Music and Audio Production and ask the next wave of questions...

hope this helps a little...

good luck!!

The great thing about Ableton is the number of possible uses one can come up with. You can produce wholly original music with anything from soft synths and drum sequencers to doing multitrack recording of a live band. Or you could use it to provide backing tracks for a solo guitarist. Or you could fill it up with ambient loops and set the automation up to create constantly evolving soundscapes that never produce the same output twice. Hell, you can even make or record sound effects and sync them to video. Over time you'll gain a more full understanding of what it all can do, but for now maybe you should look at it from a DJ's perspective, because it sounds like that's what you fell in love with in the first place.

Here's a really simple set up I play around with now and then:

Create two audio tracks in session view
Open up the crossfader and make one track 'A', and the other track 'B'
Think of these as the left and right channels on a turntable set up.
Instead of changing records, simply load up each column with some of your favorite mixable tunes. Live shouuld warp them automatically for the most part, so you don't have to worry about beat matching.
Ideally you want to have two outputs so you can cue up tracks in your headphones.
As for hands on control, an APC40 is perfect for this situation, but the Axiom 25 works just as well. Midi map the the keys on the keyboard to the clips(songs) in your tracks, so you can launch them without using the mouse. Then you can map a knob each to the volume tracks A and B, a knob to the crossfader, and perhaps one to the master track volume. You might also want to map another knob to your global tempo.
That should give you something to chew on for a while.
Another great resource to learn from is the built in live tutorial sets.

Maybe watching some tutorial videos will help? that's how I learned.

http://www.ableton.com/pages/movies/archive/tutorials

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... orial&aq=f

All,

Thanks for the encouragement, tips and advice! Will be going over all that was discussed and certainly come back with the next batch of questions once I have a better understanding of really what I'm after Thanks again!

best thing is to set a goal and work towards that, then you have a concrete context within which to learn, e.g. create a 16 bar loop with bass, drums and a melody (lead).

So you can then think, ok, i need 3 tracks using operator for bass and lead, impulse for drums.

Make a track, add impulse, find a kit you like, create a 1 bar drum pattern.
Add a new track, add operator, find a sound you like, create a bass line to go with the drums.
Add a new track, add operator, find a sound you like, create a melody line to go with the bass.

now you have 3 tracks and 3 clips so you might want to add some variation. time to learn about the options available
Either make the clips last longer then copy and paste the note data in the clips and edit them, or copy the clips into a new scene and edit those.

Now try arranging them in the arrange view. In session view select all the clips, start dragging and hit tab, drop the clips into the arrange view. setup the loop markers and start moving / copying the clips.

then you can start investigating other stuff, like track fx, send fx etc.

thats one approach for getting the very basic foundations.

I felt quite lost with ableton at first even though i'd been making music with computers for a long time, part of the difficulty is that its a very flexible environment and not a 'typical DAW' like cubase so there is often many ways to do things.

good luck