Ableton Forum

Like the title of the thread. After getting Ableton with no real prior music experiance, trying to get into it and sit down and learn the software and music production gets super overbearing for someone like me.
I feel like videos that I try to watch on the matter don't really seem to address the basic points and principles when trying to understand the software and music production itself. Its almost like everyone who uses a DAW is an expert who's been using them for years while there is no real noob friendly channels or guides for it.

Anyone here know of any such channels, sites, blogs? Also be free to share any of your stories if you're struggling with understanding it as well.

Have you tried these videos from Ableton themselves?

https://www.ableton.com/en/live/learn-live/

Wacky1 wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 06, 2023 6:40 pm

trying to understand the software and music production itself.

Learning a software, and learning music (production) are 2 very different and quite unrelated things, and I can understand that's a lot to take simultaneously!
I can't help on the learning music side of things are i think this is a very personal path, what instrument you're already playing or not, which ones you'd like to learn and so on...
Regarding Live, I highly recommend one of the best content to learn the basics out there: go to Live's Help menu > Help window. This will open a panel on the right hand side > have fun!
You should also probably check the Learn Live video series.

In addition to the Ableton resources mentioned above, EDMProd has a lot of materials. There are lots of beginner-friendly articles and tutorials here, and videos on the YouTube channel as well. For example, this video might be useful to you. (They also have more advanced stuff, so if you're just getting started and feeling overwhelmed, look for the more beginner-oriented stuff.)

This course may be good for you, as it has an element of songwriting as well as basic Ableton Live skills, and I think it is still free: https://www.coursera.org/learn/ableton-live

Same problem for me as experienced user dealing with different DAW's for years. I found it useful to print out the shortcuts cheat sheet and tried out/made notes of the functions behind it. Here is a packed cheat sheet.
https://defkey.com/ableton-live-10-shor ... e&pdf=True
Another complete version is found in the Ableton Live manual.

I would recommend looking around the Arrangement View first as it works the way you'd expect from a DAW (linear editor), and later discovering the Session View (non-linear editor) as a way to improvise on the fly. Then you can transfer the loops from Session to the Arrangement View, which is pretty simple while firing up the scenes and record it with the record button. Anyway, to complete the song with all its refinements, you will do that in the Arranger.

In order to get to know the subtleties of editing, you will not be able to avoid reading the manual, especially the first 1/3, which covers the basics.

Btw: Tutorials are all well and good, but you hardly learn anything if you let yourself be sprinkled or just replicate things. We all know the effect, that we fully understand what it's shown at that moment, but if we try to do it on our own we fail at the simplest problems. You have to experiment yourself, even if it sometimes leads to frustration. Hopefully it will become clear after reading some documentation. Supervised courses will definitely get you further, but not everyone wants to spend money again after the software wasn't cheap.

agree with Klangraum…

starting in Arrangement view is a big one—I tried getting into Ableton lite 3 times and giving up before finally looking at Arrangement view on the 4th try. within 2 days I’d upgraded to the full version. Session view is undoubtedly powerful, but it is FAR from intuitive—Arrangement view is vastly easier to understand.

and the best way to learn any DAW (in my experience) is to start making music in it, aiming to produce a whole, polished song, start to finish. you’ll overcome the majority of the roadblocks you’ll encounter regularly in future projects along the way.

it’ll be a slow slog at first, but as long as you’re only focused on what’s in front of you at that moment, instead of thinking about how overwhelming the entire process is as a whole, you’ll get there. only RTFM/watch tutorials for the step you’re on, so you’re not trying to remember so many things that you’re not ready to use yet.

Wacky1 wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 06, 2023 6:40 pm

...
I feel like videos that I try to watch on the matter don't really seem to address the basic points and principles when trying to understand the software and music production itself. Its almost like everyone who uses a DAW is an expert who's been using them for years while there is no real noob friendly channels or guides for it.

Anyone here know of any such channels, sites, blogs? Also be free to share any of your stories if you're struggling with understanding it as well.

Been there - done that. I got an Ableton Live Lite license with some hardware several years ago. Tried it on my own - but didn't succeed.

After that I played around with several DAWs on iPad and Mac (Garageband, Cubase, FL Studio etc.) but none of them "felt right" for me. So I came back to Live to give it another try. This time I made my first steps with the help of the tutorial for beginners from borntoproduce.com and this helped me a lot! The first 4 (of 19) lessons are free. After watching these I decided to buy the full course and didn't regret it. Jon Merritt explains everything in an easy to follow way and you build a whole track from scratch. For me this is the perfect way to learn. BTW: This course uses Arrangement view right from the beginning.

The videos on the Ableton site are great also but they just explain single topics. Good for diving into some features - but IMO not so good to get the big picture.

Another video I can recommend for beginners is Ableton Live 11 Beginner Tutorial from Tomas George. Beware that this is also just a "teaser" for a complete course and that it uses Session view though.

Learning a DAW (and music production in general) isn't an easy thing. It takes time, patience and practice. Of all the DAWs I got in touch with Ableton Live has the most logical approach so I think it's worth to make the effort to master it.

BTW: To be able to completely follow most of the tutorials you will probably need at least Ableton Live Intro (with Live Lite you will hit the 8 track restriction soon). There is one exception though: The How to make a track in Ableton Live Lite series from MusicRadar is explicitely made for Live Lite. Completely free and well made! Should have mentioned this first maybe.

Very good tutorials, especially the tutorial with Ski Oakenfull. (Music Radar/Point Blank Music School)