Ableton Forum

pottering wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 15, 2021 4:48 am

This one from user polarforsker on Ableton's Reddit subreddit seemed so obvious in retrospect that I almost forgot it was actually new knowledge to me:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ableton/commen ... t/gu8epxh/

Throw a loop of silence into Simpler. Actually any loop will do and color the sound in some way. I havent played around with that part much.

Select one of the special filters and crank the resonance to 125%

I had done it with stuff like single-cycle waveforms, but it never really occurred me to use silent audio or near-silent audio.

With silent audio you can get some really nice kicks (*) with the awesome Cytomic filters, and you can also use near-silent audio like tape hiss or vinyl noise samples to add a subtle texture to it (also simply loading a click/noise works pretty much the same as layering a click with the kick).

(*) Filter Envelope On with high Amount, Attack zero or close, Delay not so short maybe about 150 ms, Sustain 0%.

What a great idea. I might see if I can remix 4'33".

Double Tap wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 24, 2021 7:17 am

pottering wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 15, 2021 4:48 am

This one from user polarforsker on Ableton's Reddit subreddit seemed so obvious in retrospect that I almost forgot it was actually new knowledge to me:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ableton/commen ... t/gu8epxh/

Throw a loop of silence into Simpler. Actually any loop will do and color the sound in some way. I havent played around with that part much.

Select one of the special filters and crank the resonance to 125%

I had done it with stuff like single-cycle waveforms, but it never really occurred me to use silent audio or near-silent audio.

With silent audio you can get some really nice kicks (*) with the awesome Cytomic filters, and you can also use near-silent audio like tape hiss or vinyl noise samples to add a subtle texture to it (also simply loading a click/noise works pretty much the same as layering a click with the kick).

(*) Filter Envelope On with high Amount, Attack zero or close, Delay not so short maybe about 150 ms, Sustain 0%.

What a great idea. I might see if I can remix 4'33".

Just to be clear, filter resonance generates sound.

Vintage General MIDI music is not dead...

In this thread, viewtopic.php?t=113004, forum user broc once taught me how to make General Midi music in macOS Ableton.

The GM Synth of OS X is available in Live as AU plugin, called "DLSMusicDevice". Just assign it to MIDI tracks like any other AU instrument. Send program change to select a patch.

I recently (in Live 11) imported a multitrack MIDI file of Vivaldi concerto, and loaded DLSMusicDevice on every track, it automatically assigned the correct instruments. Just the last track, with some extra program changes(?) didn't seem to work. I don't know what it was supposed to do.

pottering wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 24, 2021 8:13 am

Double Tap wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 24, 2021 7:17 am

pottering wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 15, 2021 4:48 am

This one from user polarforsker on Ableton's Reddit subreddit seemed so obvious in retrospect that I almost forgot it was actually new knowledge to me:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ableton/commen ... t/gu8epxh/



I had done it with stuff like single-cycle waveforms, but it never really occurred me to use silent audio or near-silent audio.

With silent audio you can get some really nice kicks (*) with the awesome Cytomic filters, and you can also use near-silent audio like tape hiss or vinyl noise samples to add a subtle texture to it (also simply loading a click/noise works pretty much the same as layering a click with the kick).

(*) Filter Envelope On with high Amount, Attack zero or close, Delay not so short maybe about 150 ms, Sustain 0%.

What a great idea. I might see if I can remix 4'33".

Just to be clear, filter resonance generates sound.

Doesn't it still need some sort of signal to generate sound though? If there is silence going into the filter, it doesn't matter how much feedback/resonance there is? Which is why I made that slightly lame joke about 4'33", since it's not actually silent.

Double Tap wrote: ↑

Sat May 01, 2021 9:43 pm

pottering wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 24, 2021 8:13 am

Double Tap wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 24, 2021 7:17 am

What a great idea. I might see if I can remix 4'33".

Just to be clear, filter resonance generates sound.

Doesn't it still need some sort of signal to generate sound though? If there is silence going into the filter, it doesn't matter how much feedback/resonance there is? Which is why I made that slightly lame joke about 4'33", since it's not actually silent.

Some filter auto oscillate.

I posted exactly because it was surprising to me that you can use a silent sample (as the Silent.aif sample that comes with Core Library, which I assumed was only useful for "Dummy Clips") to make sounds using Simpler's Filters (except Clear).

Changing topic and not really "obscure". but "16 macros + Rand button + Macro Variations" is awesome with the smaller M4L synths.

Useful only in a few situations, but if you open a old Set (or somebody else's) that uses some Live preset (usually from a Pack or your User library) that you don't remember where it is from anymore, and it has a really generic name like Guitar that makes it a bit annoying to Ctrl+F, you can use Hot Swap (Q), it will usually remember where the Rack/device preset was loaded from. Can also be useful for those M4L device presets that load only with the device name (now that I think about it, I wonder if that's not a bug, of course probably the dev simply renamed after saving the preset with the device name).

KNOWLEDGE: When any of the 127 MIDI Performance controllers (sustain pedal, mod Wheel, Pitch Bend, etc.)
are recorded, they will remain stuck in their most recent position for the lifetime of your project.
It's been like this since the year 2003.
(and that page at this web site with the Workaround you're about to reply with > that workaround never worked and still doesn't work).

But in case: that's called "Chase MIDI events". Version 9 introduced the Preference for 'Chase MIDI NOTES', which is quite different
as. you can imagine.
Think: "Pitch Bend for the entire set because you touched it last week"

Even DJ's know this one.

I read all the topic, and found very useful tricks, in some cases totally jaw dropping.
I share some things I discovered that I'm posting as they come into my mind.

- This easy one made me sick, like how the hell I didn't know! How much time wasted before!
On every pitch transposition knob (or pitch parameter) in Ableton - eg on audio clip view or pitch midi device - select the knob or parameter with the mouse click, shift + arrow up/down and you will add +12/-12 semitones, thus easily moving an octave up or down. It only doesn't work on grain delay pitch (pity!)

- This is quite common, but not everyone knows that on Eq8 you can adjust the Q by pressing ALT

- You can kick-sidechain low freq only through multiband dynamics: tweak (on A page) the bass only threshold and ratio, leaving other bands to 1:0:0. It helps "digging" space for the kick without the sense of "EDM pumping effect" .
-

• Wavetable doesn't allow to automate values on the matrix (it's a pity), you can automate only the global. It affects abruptly all the values on the matrix though.
If you wanted to automate e. g. a single filter envelope or an LFO amount, it can't be done through the matrix (as it would seem obvious).
This can be worked around by automating the value of a single envelope (it can be found on a sub page) or the value of a single LFO. The result is pretty identical to a classic (filter) envelope (as long as there aren't too many parameters associated to that envelope)

• If you want a direct audio monitoring straight in Ableton with barely no latency (even with poor performing audio interface), put an external audio effect with "audio to" off and "audio from" the IN you are after to hear playing. On the audio track select the external in with monitoring off otherwise you want hear anything.
External instrument and external audio effect automatically correct latency issues with the live set is playing. You can't benefit of "Auto" monitoring (usefull on live jam recording) but for common recording purposes it's perfect!
Pay attention that common audio IN monitoring ALWAYS adds (from "some" to "a lot of" ) latency, even with latency correction set into the options. And even on pretty hi end audio interfaces (such as Focusrite Clarett 8pre or UAD Apollo).
Monitoring OFF doesn't, but you can't hear in real time through Ableton what is played (as long as you don't select zero latency direct monitoring from the audio interface software).
This workout allows to actually minimize latency and monitoring.

Angstrom wrote: ↑

Sat Aug 18, 2012 3:59 pm

There are some things in Ableton Live that I think only three people know about.

Here's one: The rack Hierarchy view, right click the little Rack Overview and receive a menu which will allow you to quickly jump to any instrument, or effect within the rack.

It's very useful when dealing with complex racks, but almost nobody knows about it.



So what obscure Ableton Function do you think most people do not know?

Definitely handy mate. At first I didn't see the point because you can scroll but you're right - with long racks, this is a time saver. Cheers fella

agent314 wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 20, 2012 4:42 pm

Select a group of MIDI notes and right click and there's an option for 'Stretch notes' which will leave the relative timing intact but change how long your notes last.

I find this especially helpful when I'm playing in a MIDI drum track by feel, and I end up playing the 4-bar phrase in 3.75 bars but am happy with the timing/feel otherwise.

Just tried it and there is no stretch notes option. I'm on Live 11. Did they move it?

luckykat wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 17, 2021 11:00 pm

agent314 wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 20, 2012 4:42 pm

Select a group of MIDI notes and right click and there's an option for 'Stretch notes' which will leave the relative timing intact but change how long your notes last.

I find this especially helpful when I'm playing in a MIDI drum track by feel, and I end up playing the 4-bar phrase in 3.75 bars but am happy with the timing/feel otherwise.

Just tried it and there is no stretch notes option. I'm on Live 11. Did they move it?

Select the relevant notes in the Piano Roll, and Warp Markers will appear in the bar ruler at the top of the window. These behave just like Warp markers for audio clips.

The "Stretch Notes" context menu is old functionality. It's not in Live 10 either, not sure when it got changed.

If you're OCD like me, while you're recording, on the active recording track, if you place the cursor on the top boundary of the track, right as the "general prohibition" icon turns back into the arrow cursor, if you left-click and drag it, you can highlight the recording track and delete previous clips while you're recording.

I record a lot of clients so I'm always keeping my sessions quick and tidy, so eventually, I finally caught on to this by accident. This isn't really a useful thing to know but I didn't know if anyone else knew about this.

*this is on Ableton 10*

agent314 wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 20, 2012 4:42 pm

Select a group of MIDI notes and right click and there's an option for 'Stretch notes' which will leave the relative timing intact but change how long your notes last.

I find this especially helpful when I'm playing in a MIDI drum track by feel, and I end up playing the 4-bar phrase in 3.75 bars but am happy with the timing/feel otherwise.

I use this for quintuplets. Stretch tool that is.