Ableton Forum

Hi all. New to Abelton and just missing the simple sollution to this issue.

When trying to record more audio over a piano take it overwrites the original take. I'm recording armed, in arrangement view with the overdub + button on. Not sure what I'm missing. Any help would be appreciated!

https://youtu.be/zAIs15jD4XA

If you want both recordings to be audible simultaneously, use a different track for the second one.

You can add (overdub) notes to an existing MIDI take, but not to audio. On an audio track, different takes will always be mutually exclusive – they're meant for having another go at a performance or to try something different. You can cut them up and stitch together bits of different takes, but as you play through them, only one will be audible at any one time.

What you're trying to do is what multitracking was invented for! Just add another track with the same settings and record the new part there.

I actually don't want both to be audible simultaneously, I just want to record a second audio take without it erasing the original so that I can comp them together after.

Currently it records into the second take lane but also erases the original take. It seems to do this even without the overdub + button enabled.

Ah! Right, sorry about that.

I'm not sure why your original recording isn't in a take lane of its own already. There is an empty take lane: did you delete it from there? You could copy the original recording to that empty take lane, or manually create a new take lane to copy it to.

After that, each new recording should automatically add a new take lane and you can comp all of them, including the original one.

Thanks, that solved the problem. So I guess usually it would automatically keep the original as a take but I just messed around with it.

Appreciate the help!

Exactly, the first take would have sat in that first lane normally, and then the second one would have gone in a new lane. You can hide those take lanes when you're done, I think it's Ctrl+Alt+U. Comping is easy with the pencil tool, shortcut B: just 'paint' over parts of takes you want to use.

Glad it's sorted out, sorry for misjudging your knowledge level earlier!

No, I am a complete beginner with Ableton I just have a small amount of experience with other DAW's. So thanks!