ableton tutorial
- Thread starter stelfox
- Start date
the music tech magazines often run special 'getting started with ableton' issues (music tech, future music etc.) with tutorials in, but to be honest though.. the getting started 'using live for djing' tutorial in ableton is as good for teaching the basics.
oh- make sure you've got a sound card with a pair of stereo outs (one for the master, one for a monitor) and a midi controller, i find working the qwerty isn't very tactile.
live is a really powerfull tool for pitchshifting and arranging audio but to be honest i'm more of a traktor man, a simpler layout and better for mixing tunes if your not wanting to mash things up to much with loops edits etc.
oh- make sure you've got a sound card with a pair of stereo outs (one for the master, one for a monitor) and a midi controller, i find working the qwerty isn't very tactile.
live is a really powerfull tool for pitchshifting and arranging audio but to be honest i'm more of a traktor man, a simpler layout and better for mixing tunes if your not wanting to mash things up to much with loops edits etc.
The button with the two dots in the top left, although I'm sure you've worked that out by now!
Running the metronome during playing a clip and making little shifts of the warp markers can get things really accurate.
The biggest disadvantage of using ableton (or traktor) for that matter is that sort of instant arsing about fun. I find it really unintuitive and uninspiring scrolling through folders of mp3s (no matter how they're organised), compared to flicking through a box of 12s and pulling one out with "it's crazy, but it might just work" approach.
I have a macbook and whenever I try to mix two mp3 together in arrange view the cpu load just shoots up and I get crazy clicks and pops. Is it really that demanding on the cpu to play two mp3s at the same time? I've adjusted the buffer size but even on max it's still unusable.
Any ideas?
Any ideas?
Martin Dust
Techno Zen Master
Avoid MP3's, use aiff or wavs because Ableton can't play MP3's - what it actually does is convert (badly) to a cache and then plays them from there - which is pretty close to pointless.
Other tips, turn of everything you don't need, including wireless.
Buffers should be set to 512.
Make sure your disk isn't fragmented.
Get a faster hard disk (7200rpm) and as much ram as possible.
Martin Dust
Techno Zen Master
I don't understand this at all, you can do tons of stuff you can't do on Technics with Ableton in second, I'm busy with a remix/edit at the mo - you can't do that shit on the fly with wax.
wonk_vitesse
radio eros
i think it's 2 totally different attitudes to material, neither are better than each other, they're just different. It depends whether you want the material to do the talking or let your tweaking/editing make something new.
Personally i spend far too much time behind a computer and don't want to do that when playing/djing live. I'd much rather get in a mess with a load of record sleeves than glumly sitting behind my laptop.
KernKätzchen
Well-known member
Been familiarizing myself with Ableton this week trying to produce beats. It does seem pretty intuitive on the whole and the tutorials are good. I normally find program tutorials to be a pointless waste of time but in this case I think it's worthwhile spending a few hours working through them. Still got just one question tho: how do you produce syncopations i.e. sounds that span the metric boundaries without it trying to make you input the same sound twice, once before the beat and once on it? I've tried zooming in and out but that doesn't seem to help - it just allows you to input shorter or longer beats. Does that make any sense? Can anyone provide the (no doubt) easy answer? Ta. 
Martin Dust
Techno Zen Master
Been familiarizing myself with Ableton this week trying to produce beats. It does seem pretty intuitive on the whole and the tutorials are good. I normally find program tutorials to be a pointless waste of time but in this case I think it's worthwhile spending a few hours working through them. Still got just one question tho: how do you produce syncopations i.e. sounds that span the metric boundaries without it trying to make you input the same sound twice, once before the beat and once on it? I've tried zooming in and out but that doesn't seem to help - it just allows you to input shorter or longer beats. Does that make any sense? Can anyone provide the (no doubt) easy answer? Ta.
Use Simpler and the little midi keyboard to draw your patterns.
Martin Dust
Techno Zen Master
to put it simply, and i think this applies to everything, you just gotta do the most with whacha got. and you gotta use what you have in it's own unique ways, exploiting the advantages that it has, and never try to use one system to try to do things like with another. so comparisons with turntables are pointless, it's like "yeah taking the tube is fast, but honestly i miss talking to my horse on long journeys"
i've incidentally just spent the past week or 2 in ableton (and my weed pipe but that's another story), and the majority of the new mix consist of mashups... South African Gospel singers with grime instrumentals for instance. i think it's very special. can't wait to share with the board
i've incidentally just spent the past week or 2 in ableton (and my weed pipe but that's another story), and the majority of the new mix consist of mashups... South African Gospel singers with grime instrumentals for instance. i think it's very special. can't wait to share with the board
KernKätzchen
Well-known member
Thanks - this seems to work. Was using mouse rather than keyboard to input patterns before.
Yeah totally - Ableton is great for creating mixes with edits and effects, and for doing a studio based mix I use it all the time.
It's more to do with digital files - folders full of music, whether alphabetical or by genre, I find really hard to look through to come up with the next track etc. Physical records, that you can flick through, is much more inspiring/fun. I also find I get a subconscious map of where things are around me - flicking through you mentally note something to be played later.
*shrug* maybe it's just me.
RE mp3s - I've never had a problem using mp3s in the mix with ableton. wavs obviously give you better quality, but I've never had the sort of processor issues that Pestario mentions
Ableton workshop
At Cargo, on the 24th, free...
http://www.cargo-london.com/event/ableton-live-workshop
Run by Pitch Black, who I'm not a massive fan of... could be useful though?
At Cargo, on the 24th, free...
http://www.cargo-london.com/event/ableton-live-workshop
Run by Pitch Black, who I'm not a massive fan of... could be useful though?
noel emits
a wonderful wooden reason
There's a good talk here from Robert Henke (Ableton / Monolake) mostly about how he uses Live in his live sets, not so much about DJing but it all ties in. Worth watching if you have the time.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5496004795361152922
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5496004795361152922
Martin Dust
Techno Zen Master
Great video that.
after rendering out a mix i noticed that one track sounds total shit because ableton can not handle a -15 shift. there must be a way or some tool i can use to slow down the track without losing resolution and then bring it back into ableton? any suggestions greatly appreciated!!!
