Ableton Forum

hey guys! i knew you could do this, but i never bothered to set one up. well, i just did. I was wondering what you have in your default template? I was always opening up live just to mess around and i'd load everything up every time. now, i have jam-ability from the get go.

Here's my default.

Track 1 - guitar (set for input from my interface)
Track 2 - vocals (set for input from my interface)
Track 3 - Piano (from EIC, Grand Piano Lite, volume boosted most of the way up)
Track 4 - Zebra 2, set to the HS 16 perc organ (had to turn the volume down a bit on that one)
Track 5 - Cold Tight Room lite drums, also i loaded some midi drum loops (from smart loops) so that i have a few basic beats, a few fills, and a few ride beats right away
Track 6 - Bass (from instrument rack, p-bass finger) had to tweak it. Not totally sure i like it, but i needed a bass i could play in from the keyboard. i own big bertha from pure magnetik too, but i can't seem to get it to sound right.

Master - limiter.

That's what i'm starting with when live launches. what abouts you?

I'm way too sparse. I have one empty audio track for loops and one empty midi track for plugs. That's all I need to get started.

i like to have my default setup like a funk band...

trk 1 - drums ===> stylus rmx/battery 3/steven slate drums
trk 2 - perc ===> another instant of stylus rmx
trk 3 - bass ===> omnisphere (using the trillian library)
trk 4 - e piano ===> scarbee e piano/kontakt
trk 5 - ac piano ===> halion sonic/kontakt
trk 6 - organ ===> vintage organ/kontakt
trk 7 - electric guitar ===> electri6ty or funky guitar/kontakt or halion sonic
trk 8 - sax ===> chris hein horn I&II/kontakt or halion sonic
trk 9 - horns ===> chris hein horn I&II/kontakt or halion sonic
trk 10 - synth ===> omnisphere
trk 11 - strings/pads ===> omnisphere
trk 12 - omnisphere (midi channel 4)
trk 13 - kontakt (midi channel 3)
trk 14 - kontakt (midi channel 4)
trk 15 - stylus rmx (midi channel 2 of the 2nd instant)
trk 16 - stylus rmx (midi channel 3 of the 2nd instant)

I have not used this feature too much.
using default template with 1 Audio and 1 MIDI track, both empty.
However I make use of templates in the library, tuned for some of my recurrent needs.

- Best
- Pasha

- just one midi track with a rhodes piano. so i can play when i open live.
- one reverb and one delay and three subgroups (drums, instruments and audio).
- markers for a typical dance track in the arrange (intro1, intro2, drop, main1 etc)

i tried more midi instruments but my tracks get more interesting when making them "fresh".

my set template consists of the average two tracks (one audio one midi containing a piano from ableton's presets) and a compressor on the master track. my sets normally evolve the following:

trk 1: audio containing songs and different samples (as a sample source)
trk 2: piano
trk 3: drums (either drum rack or impulse)
trk 4: bass (tal bassline vst)
trk 5: operator
trk 6 ...
trk 7: ...
trk 8: drum rack with 1-shot samples; partly evolving partly presets

1. Drum Bus, including:
- 16 direct outs from 1 Maschine instance (this is pretty much where the magic happens. Maschine has become essential for my tracks.)
- 4 empty MIDI tracks (for the occassional synthesized drum hits, or impulse/simpler madness)
- 4 empty Audio tracks (sometimes I feel like layering barely audible loops under the main groove. E.g. resample the drums, pitch them up, and layer them.)

2. Bass Bus, including:
- 4 empty MIDI tracks
- 2 empty audio tracks

3. Synth bus, including:
- 4 empty MIDI tracks
- 2 empty audio tracks

4. Vox bus, including:
- 2 empty MIDI tracks
- 4 empty audio tracks

5. FX bus, including:
- 4 empty MIDI tracks
- 2 empty audio tracks
- White Noise track, which features a rack I've built and mapped directly to a midi controller. It allows me to record white noise buildups/hits common in EDM, and tweak them afterwards.

6. Resampling track, for quick resampling

7. Reference track, that I'll load with similar sounding commerical tracks

8. Pre-Master track. Every track but the reference track gets sent to it, so I can apply effects to my track only (if I wish to).

And I have 4 sends:

A: Ambience (subtle glue to the sound)
B: Reverb (usually automated later)
C: SCC (sidechain compression bus, if I want something to pump...)
D: Delay (enabling send to itself for feedback madness)

So basically, I don't have any preset sounds whatsoever in my template. Just the routing which I will typically need and everything neatly coloured. After composition, if I'm nearing the end of arrangement, I'll delete any spare tracks that I didn't use.
Bussing sounds is pretty important to get the sound I want, especially with drums. Just a bit of common processing can really glue your drums together.
Plus, having control over the individual buses makes soloing e.g. only the bass really easy.
Oh, and I've set the levels of each track. First Maschine track (Kick) is set to -10 dB, and everything else is orientated on that value.

4 Drum racks controlled by LaunchPad
1 Battery controlled by drumpad
1 Reaktor controlled by LaunchPad
1 ACE controlled by remoteSL25
2 DSI Evolvers
4 m4l 'monome' control tracks
2 delays on return
1 Reaktor SpaceMaster2
1 FSU return track

A completely empty set. I don't like presets at all. Except p.a. (digital desks) and mixing presets, in my music production chain presets don't exist cause I want each track to sound completely different.

2be wrote:1. Drum Bus, including:
- 16 direct outs from 1 Maschine instance (this is pretty much where the magic happens. Maschine has become essential for my tracks.)
- 4 empty MIDI tracks (for the occassional synthesized drum hits, or impulse/simpler madness)
- 4 empty Audio tracks (sometimes I feel like layering barely audible loops under the main groove. E.g. resample the drums, pitch them up, and layer them.)

2. Bass Bus, including:
- 4 empty MIDI tracks
- 2 empty audio tracks

3. Synth bus, including:
- 4 empty MIDI tracks
- 2 empty audio tracks

4. Vox bus, including:
- 2 empty MIDI tracks
- 4 empty audio tracks

5. FX bus, including:
- 4 empty MIDI tracks
- 2 empty audio tracks
- White Noise track, which features a rack I've built and mapped directly to a midi controller. It allows me to record white noise buildups/hits common in EDM, and tweak them afterwards.

6. Resampling track, for quick resampling

7. Reference track, that I'll load with similar sounding commerical tracks

8. Pre-Master track. Every track but the reference track gets sent to it, so I can apply effects to my track only (if I wish to).

And I have 4 sends:

A: Ambience (subtle glue to the sound)
B: Reverb (usually automated later)
C: SCC (sidechain compression bus, if I want something to pump...)
D: Delay (enabling send to itself for feedback madness)

So basically, I don't have any preset sounds whatsoever in my template. Just the routing which I will typically need and everything neatly coloured. After composition, if I'm nearing the end of arrangement, I'll delete any spare tracks that I didn't use.
Bussing sounds is pretty important to get the sound I want, especially with drums. Just a bit of common processing can really glue your drums together.
Plus, having control over the individual buses makes soloing e.g. only the bass really easy.
Oh, and I've set the levels of each track. First Maschine track (Kick) is set to -10 dB, and everything else is orientated on that value.

sounds good!