Ableton Forum

I have a stereo drum track and I want to reduce the volume in certain sections of the track. Not the overall volume of the entire track, just a few sections. How can I do this?

You could use volume automation, or put a Utility device on the track and automate the gain knob on that.

Thanks for the help! For now I'm going into utilities and putting a gain control on the track, then drawing the levels where I want them to be. I realize it's not ideal for mixing but it's the only concept I can grasp right now.



Here is how I wish this could be done: highlight the portion of the track for volume reduction, then use a drop down menu and select volume and adjust as necessary.

antic604 wrote:

Scrub Tillman wrote:Thanks for the help! For now I'm going into utilities and putting a gain control on the track, then drawing the levels where I want them to be. I realize it's not ideal for mixing but it's the only concept I can grasp right now.

:)

Here is how I wish this could be done: highlight the portion of the track for volume reduction, then use a drop down menu and select volume and adjust as necessary.

If you're using the Utility effect, then you're doing it correctly :)

And you can actually do it like you desribed - just enable the automation lane for the track you're editing, choose Utility, choose 'Gain', click "b" to switch to drawing mode and draw the volume as you wish :)

The easiest is probably to select the section in this lane for Utility:gain and then move the mouse pointer towards the ghosted automation line until it turns blue indicating it's editable and then hold down and move to the proper value. This ensures the whole section gets the same level.

if you are working in arrangement view, another method would be to split your stereo clip (cmd-E mac, ctrl-E win) at the points where you want to lower the volume.
Then you can just use the fader in the clip view (bottom left when you double click on the clip) to lower volume for each part of your track.
An advantage of this method is that you can visually see the waveform reducing or increasing as you move the fader.
Once you have finished your edits, you could consolidate the track back to a single clip using cmd or ctrl J ( mac or windows) if you prefer to have a single clip.

I wish Ableton would put in a second volume slider (and additional assignable sliders) for each track in Arrangement view. Currently, to use Utility, you have to insert it, then click the gain button, then if you want to make changes later you've got click around again. Much better if it was immediately available like Track Volume, Sends, and Track Pan.

Even this is an old question and people might stumble over it.

The solution is to mark the automation in the arrangement view,
the specific track or section of a track where the automation is set.
Now when hovering over the automation while the part you want
to change is marked shows the automation line in blue for the selection.
This enables you to adjust a whole track automation or parts of it upwards or downwards.


Cheers,

M_pi_R