Ableton Forum

Hi All,

Firstly I have Aspergers/Autism & ADHD so was looking for an app/Daw that could help me be able to produce music in a none traditional way and so I could perform live solo. Prefer not solo as I'd love a band/musicians to work with "Offers Welcome", just can be hard to get people interested with the Aspergers/Autism. To be frank I'm rather old school & prefer the close to analog as possible, jamming/recording live, live music period, so its trying to get as close to this as possible. My background is High-End Film and TV Post-Production Technology (including working closely with ProTools peeps when starting out)so I'm pretty savvy with pro audio/music in this context. A rather fumbling musician that cannot really play, but can just pick stuff up, again where people to bounce off is a real need as ironically one of the paradox's of my Asperger's is that I excel collaboratively, I go into savant mode.

Can do way better (as like to be part of an Indie/Alternative Rock Band)
https://soundcloud.com/zombiecupcakerec ... evelopment

So Live 9 looks like it might fit the bill, so I thought I'd jump in with some testing by trying to do something with some Guitar riff's licks, hoping it can equally help correct my naff timing/playing issues (not having anyone to bounce off at mo), ergo Quantize or such. I've no live interface at the moment just a Alesis Q49 Midi Keyboard/controller so am recording off my Tascam DR-40. The plan is to buy more kit depending on testing. I also wanted to be able to do Midi conversion from my voice and wanted to test this to create other instrument layers, but there seems no ability in the Lite version on tying to replicate the tutorial video? Its a BIGGY to be able to TEST this before purchasing FULL version as only on disability Benefits at moment (job offers welcome)!

So Blood at the top of my profile is quickly chucking some ideas down (ill come back & improve)
https://soundcloud.com/zombiecupcakerecords

As you can see with the Ableton Live 9 Lite Test, think I have time signature (any tools internal/external free to figure this out, pull from the audio?), need to quantise issues or such (why I sped the Tempo up as I really wanted to make Guitar riffs/licks, beefy and wide (no so fast), with beefy Drums, so slower than current project tempo, nearer the recorded Riffs). Just chucked guitar ideas in as a sequencer & mapped sample to Midi keys along with a D&B drum loop that came with Lite for the moment (as could no find sample Midi presets to go with the Free Drum packs? to get running quickly and at most edit/tweak the Midi in the first instance).

The other is editing audio, splicing it up, into samples and loops, Qauntizing and such; along with better workflow before investing in live audio interface hardware and full package (are there any better fuller free Video Tutorials or such anywhere? & any other forums?)

Here's the project packed.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wwczbx9o35lrf ... d.alp?dl=0

Cheers,
Sam

Hi

With regards to the time signature, I'm not sure if any software exists to pull it from the audio but it's really more of a human skill you need to learn the theory for. Basically you need to identify the downbeat of a song (i.e. the first beat of every bar) and count based on that.

By far the most common time signature in popular music (and all dance music) is 4/4. This is 4 beats to the bar and is counted like this:
1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4

Where the 1 is the downbeat, or start of every bar.

So it's just practice, probably advisable to watch some YoutTube videos on time signatures as well which will help alot.

You mentioned Quantizing audio, this is a bit more tricky to do because recording audio just creates 1 intact file based on what you played in. To get your audio locked into the beat you'd first need to set the project tempo to where you want it (you can do this by turning the metronome on and pressing play and adjusting the tempo to roughly where you want it to be). Then record as tightly as possible - this is another area where practice will get you much better!

Additionally Ableton allows you to place 'warp markers' on the audio and drag them around, so you can manually 'Quantize' your audio by adjusting these markers closer to the beat. Note - too much warping can affect the sound in a negative way so it's best to only make small adjustments.

YouTube is the best resource for learning stuff, just have a look at Point Blank and Sonic Academy to get you started, there are many others. Good luck!

Cheers for replying, yer I get that Lojik , I think mostly just getting back into the right head-space again having worked in Pro Post & that Demo Project was a good while back too. Think I might be starting to get there as Live is more like live multi-cam systems I've worked with in TV/Film Post.

https://soundcloud.com/samanthahamer/bl ... livetest01

Just low tempo for now, then to patch the riffs back into my midi keys, to do progressions and then start adding more stuff! Baselines, more riffs, more drum elements etc, etc and see where it leads. It will be much more straightforward if I can afford a Mixing/Recording Desk, Digi Drum kit etc at some point.