Ableton Forum

Whaddup guys. I recently purchased an M audio firewire Solo. I have no recording experience whatsoever. I once purchased a tascam us 428, and gave up on it after a week!!!

So far, i have went through a few of the tutorials. I understand most of the stuff, until I get to recording my actual playing. If anyone has any suggestions, on where to seek information, or where to begin, I would appreciate it. Thanks for you help.

how far did you get? can you record and playback your guitar playing? can you chop your playing into loops? can you play along with a drumtrack? did you find the metronome yet?

The best way to learn is to force yourself to do as much as you can with Live, learn to love the help box in the lower left corner, and I find that using SEARCH on the .pdf form of the manual gets answers pretty quick (still wish I had a hard copy).

Kungfu,

thanks for the suggestions. So far, i'm stuck w/ recording. I set everything up properly. I installed the drivers for my hardware per instructions. Then i downloaded Live onto my computer. I've opened up live and did the first few tutorials. I haven't came across the section that describes how to use a DAW w/ the program. I actually cannot find that section.

The instruments i plan on using are: my guitar, my bass, and an alesis SR to make beats.

I attempted to record a few licks, but they weren't transmitting.

Any suggestions on where to start, what section of the manual to focus on, or what i need (additional hardware, etc.), i would be deeply in your debt. Thanks again for the help.

Do a search in the Manual for Recording Audio. It tells you how to set up your tracks.

Generally, to set up audio to record in a computer, you go thru these steps

1. Install the DAW
2. Install the Audio Interface Drivers.
3. Restart the Computer and boot the DAW
4. Set up your soundcard to receive the Interface audio stream to a specific Channel or Channels
5. Set up your DAW to record the Audio coming in through that assigned Channel/Channels
7. Set up your Tempo and Clickk Track in the DAW
8. Hit record and go...

Something we need to know: what kind of Computer and OS you are using.

Its hard to tell you what to do if whe don't know where you are starting...

Thanks Kabuki. I believe i completed all of your steps. I will check for more info in the recording section in the manual.

Right now, I have a PC and i'm running windows XP. I plan on purchasing a MAC powerbook sometime this month (i will use the mac solely for recording purposes).

I'll keep working on Live, and hopefully i can have a few tracks down.

If you have any additional tips or tricks on recording new audio clips, that would be cool. thanks again for all your help.

You ought to keep in mind that Live has a rock-solid Beat-box in the Impulse... a lot easier to use and more stable than a piece of hardware hooked up thru MIDI...

Just a thought

Kabuki,

How would you use these drum loops/beats? Would you just select the beat, and enter it into a clip?? oh yeah, i tried playing through my m audio interface, and i can only hear one side (i.e. only mono). how do i make the sound stereo??? any info would be appreciated. Thanks

The Impulse is a MIDI instrument and you would need to create a MIDI track to activate one and program it.

The mono thing is beyond my understanding.

I would suggest you read the manual cover to cover and run through the tutorials a few times. Being on a PC and me trying to convey any info through my crap typing isn't going to get you anywhere.

That's all I can do. Good luck

I'm assuming, since you went through a couple of the tutorials, that you are getting sound out of Ableton. So the next logical step is:

Did you try "arming" the clip or track? If you don't want to do complex remixes and the like, Ableton is really quite simple.

I was where you are very recently. Follow the tutorials. Then follow them again and again.It's really easy to gloss over the fundamentals. For your purposes - you're not crafting techno I assume - a good printable tutorial is the "Get your guitar groove on " -it's in tutorials under the support menu.
best of luck
FB

Thanks for the help. I'm going to read up on the "get your guitar groove on" until this works. Hopefully I can lay something down soon.

oh yeah. does anyone know where to get a downloadable manual online. I don't want to print the manual from my house, and my work has restrictions on uploading programs (so i can't install live and open the manual from my desk). thanks everyone!!!

At the bottom of this page:

http://www.ableton.com/index.php?main=downloads

HTH,

Ron

FuZZface80 wrote: oh yeah, i tried playing through my m audio interface, and i can only hear one side (i.e. only mono). how do i make the sound stereo???

Which audio interface are you using? Are you just plugging the guitar straight in when the interface needs a stereo line-level signal? By 'playing through' do you mean playing into the computer? Dumb questions like this often get problems fixed ;-)