Ableton Forum

I've been browsing a few boards reading topics about Live. Reading a book and the manual. Watching videos. I'm constantly thinking of ideas and what I'd like to learn to do with Live.

But when I actually have time and open up Live to actually figure I what I want to learn, I freeze up. I play a little-- load a few clips, trigger them in and out. Play with a few effects. I end up feeling like I don't know how to progress and learn how to use it the way I want.

Any tips? How did you progress in learning Live?

Shave your balls.


I felt the same way after Live 6, racks and all that. It put me into a musical rut,I was completely overwhlemed. I actually stopped using Live for a week (a record), then just got back into the basics, playing guitar, keep it simple, do something different (shave your sack!) forget all the fucking bells and whistles, make music at its simplest form. I was so depressed when my muses were gone, they're back. Yours will return too, keep it simple, back to basics, do something different.

Everytime you are not in front of Live and think of something you want to learn, add it to a bullets list. When you open Live, start tackling each point in complexity order. It shouldn't be that hard to separate what you think you can learn from what you still don't think you have the skill for.

Try reading and watching etc while you have Live open, try stuff out as you go, you learn much better by doing. Also I found it useful to carry a notebook around so if I had an idea or an inspiration I could write it down.

listen to aphex twin

Years ago, we didn´t had Ableton

Use Ableton as a tool, it won´t do the whole thing for you

Progress yourself, then explote it with Ableton

When i can´t make music, i usually listen music

I hope you find this usefull

PeReYrA wrote:Years ago, we didn´t had Ableton

Use Ableton as a tool, it won´t do the whole thing for you

Progress yourself, then explote it with Ableton

When i can´t make music, i usually listen music

I hope you find this usefull

Spot on.

Make music first, then use ableton as your toolbox.

Verbal wrote:I've been browsing a few boards reading topics about Live. Reading a book and the manual. Watching videos. I'm constantly thinking of ideas and what I'd like to learn to do with Live.

But when I actually have time and open up Live to actually figure I what I want to learn, I freeze up. I play a little-- load a few clips, trigger them in and out. Play with a few effects. I end up feeling like I don't know how to progress and learn how to use it the way I want.

Any tips? How did you progress in learning Live?

just sell the damn thing

Open Ableton with "no expectation of creating anything" - open it just to goof-off and poke around.

Every single time I do this, I end up with the kernal of a song.

When I open Ableton with a specific project in mind, and an expectation of getting something done in a finite time, I get immensely frustrated. There are so many options, and the interface is sometimes so cryptic (I despise Icons!!), that trying to figure something out takes so long that it kills the creative process. Once that creative process is killed in a session, I can no longer learn, or create. My only option then is to turn off the rig, get drunk, and watch old B&W movies.

So instead, I take the "sideways" approach - letting the inscrutability of the program sweep me in whatever direction it wants to. Along the way, I learn new stuff that I can apply the next time I'me in "time-driven" mode.

It's God's way of telling me to "chill the fook out", I suppose!

Spot on advice. Ableton Live is definitely a forest, and there's just too damn many trees. One thing I do when I'm overwhelmed, suffering from creative blocks, etc. is find a tutorial and play. Even if it's something I think I know or a tutorial I've done before. Just working in the software and doing *something* helps. Right now it's the tutorial on dummy clips. I was getting ready for a DJ set and got sick and tired of warping tracks, so I went to work on some of my own stuff. Hit the wall HARD. Fired up the tutorial on dummy clips and the lightbulb went off. Shot back to my DJ set, starting routing tracks full of songs through a dummy clip track, the next thing you know I was setting triggers on my MPD16 to launch effects I hadn't even THOUGHT about using. Came back from the party I DJ'd at (blew the DOORS off the place) and applied everything I did to a new live p.a. session.

Sitting down with the manual and a pad of post-it notes can be a launching point for creativity too. The basics always give fuel for fun.

If you have any friends who use Live its always worth getting them to show you things...

ReverendZed wrote:Fired up the tutorial on dummy clips and the lightbulb went off.

Link to dummy clip tutorial?