IntroductionWelcome| 00:00 | (music playing)
| | 00:04 | Hi! My name is Yeuda Ben-Atar and welcome
to Up and Running with Ableton Live 9.
| | 00:11 | In this course we'll look at how to
record, arrange, mix, and master a song.
| | 00:16 | I'll start by showing you how to create the
drumbeat using the drum rack. Then I'll
| | 00:21 | show you how to record software
instruments, as well as recording audio
| | 00:24 | instruments like guitar and
vocals using audio tracks.
| | 00:28 | We'll see how to mix a song
using EQ, compressors, and time-based
| | 00:34 | effects, and we will be covering all these
features, plus plenty of other tools and techniques.
| | 00:40 | So if you're ready to make music,
let's get started with Up and Running
| | 00:44 | with Ableton Live 9.
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| What you should know before watching this course| 00:00 | I designed this course to fit all levels.
| | 00:03 | If you don't have any prior
knowledge with music software or making music,
| | 00:07 | this course is for you.
| | 00:09 | If you have prior music-making
experience, it will help you understand the more
| | 00:13 | advanced concepts in this course
like compression and mastering.
| | 00:18 | If you used other music software
before, Ableton Live might be new and
| | 00:22 | refreshing, thanks to the unique Session view.
| | 00:25 | So once again prior, knowledge
will help, but it is not necessary.
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| Using the exercise files| 00:00 | If you are a Premium member of the
lynda.com library, you have access to the
| | 00:04 | exercise files used throughout this course.
| | 00:08 | I have created these exercise
files for each corresponding video.
| | 00:11 | Each one of the exercise
files are an Ableton Live project.
| | 00:15 | If you open the Project folder,
you can see the ALS file, which stands
| | 00:20 | for Ableton Live set.
| | 00:22 | In each live set I have added an extra MIDI
track, called it Info, and colored it white.
| | 00:28 | I have also added MIDI clips and
renamed them with basic guidelines to what you
| | 00:34 | need to do in this exercise.
| | 00:35 | For example, in this project we need to
create an audio track and rename the tracks.
| | 00:41 | If you don't have access to the
exercise files, you can follow along from
| | 00:44 | scratch or with your own Ableton Live project.
| | 00:48 | So let's get started.
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1. Setting UpSetting up audio, MIDI, and external plugins| 00:00 | Before starting making music with
Ableton Live, it's time to set everything up.
| | 00:04 | Let's go to Live > Preferences.
| | 00:06 | If you are under Windows,
it's going to be located under Options.
| | 00:09 | In the Preferences, we're
going to set everything up.
| | 00:12 | We're going to set our audio interface.
| | 00:14 | We're going to set our MIDI controller,
which is a controller to control
| | 00:18 | all the different aspects in Live,
and actually playing music in a more
| | 00:22 | conventional way using a keyboard
or controls like knobs and faders.
| | 00:26 | We're also going to set up the plugin
folder which are tools and devices that
| | 00:31 | are not manufactured by Live.
| | 00:32 | So first, we can look at the Feel
Look tab and we can change the language.
| | 00:37 | Right now I am going to stick with English.
| | 00:39 | We can also change the Zoom Display,
which is going to change proportionately the
| | 00:43 | different sections of the screen.
| | 00:45 | Let's bring it back to 100.
| | 00:47 | If you want, you can also change the skin,
just to give it a different color skin.
| | 00:50 | Let's go back to Default.
| | 00:54 | Under the Audio tab,
you set up your audio device.
| | 00:57 | First you need to set up the driver type.
| | 00:59 | If you are on a Mac,
by default it will be chosen CoreAudio.
| | 01:02 | We set up the Audio Input Device so we
can record instruments into Live, and we
| | 01:09 | set up the Audio Output Device so
we can output the audio from Live to our
| | 01:13 | headphones or speakers.
| | 01:15 | Under MIDI Sync, we'll set up the MIDI
keyboard or any other MIDI controller you might have.
| | 01:20 | If you have a control surface that's
supported by Live, you will see it here in
| | 01:25 | the list, and you can choose it
and set the Input and Output.
| | 01:29 | If you don't see a controller in the
list, simply open the Track and Remote and
| | 01:36 | the Input, and you can have
the Output turned off for now.
| | 01:39 | The Track would allow us to play actual
musical notes or MIDI notes into Live,
| | 01:43 | and the Remote will allow us to
control different aspects of Live using MIDI
| | 01:47 | controllers like knobs, faders, and pads.
| | 01:51 | Next, let's go to the File and Folder
tab, and under Plug-in Sources, turn on Use
| | 01:57 | VST Plug-in System Folders
and turn on Use Audio Units.
| | 02:01 | Live supports two formats of
plugin devices: Audio Units and VSTs.
| | 02:06 | These plugins are external third-party devices.
| | 02:11 | They are not manufactured by Live and
could be anything from synthesizers,
| | 02:15 | samplers, or effects.
| | 02:17 | I recommend browsing the different
options in the Preferences menu to manually
| | 02:22 | re-customize Live to your own needs.
| | 02:24 | Let's close the Preferences menu.
| | 02:28 | If you go on the plug-ins in the Browser,
we can see the VST and Audio Units we
| | 02:32 | just set up. We can also go to one of
the clips and just auditioned audio to see
| | 02:37 | that everything is working.
| | 02:38 | Let's click to preview.
| | 02:40 | (music playing)
| | 02:48 | Now we are ready to music
make music with Ableton Live.
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| Using the Ableton Live 9 browser| 00:00 | In this video we will see
how to use Live's browser.
| | 00:03 | The browser is where we are going to load
everything we are going to use in our Live set,
| | 00:07 | things like instruments, effects,
audio files, MIDI files, and even
| | 00:12 | other Ableton projects.
| | 00:13 | Live's browser has two sections:
the sidebar and the Content panel.
| | 00:19 | We can resize them by
dragging the middle divider or
| | 00:23 | by dragging the main divider to expand it.
| | 00:26 | On the top section of the sidebar,
we can see the following categories.
| | 00:32 | Sounds is where we'll keep our
instrument presets organized by the type
| | 00:37 | of sound they make.
| | 00:38 | Drums, all over drums rack presets.
| | 00:43 | Instruments is where we'll find
all of Live's built-in instruments.
| | 00:46 | This list may vary depending on the
version of Live we are using. Audio Effects,
| | 00:53 | Live's built-in audio effects--
and again, this least may vary.
| | 00:57 | MIDI Effects, all of
Live's built-in MIDI effects.
| | 01:02 | Max for Live is where we'll find all
the Max audio effects, instruments, and
| | 01:05 | MIDI effects, and Max is an add-on to
Live and it comes built-in if you are
| | 01:10 | using the Suite version.
| | 01:11 | After that we'll find the plug-ins.
| | 01:13 | Plug-ins is where you'll find all your
third-party plugins, which are the devices
| | 01:17 | that are not manufactured by Ableton.
| | 01:19 | Live supports the formats VST and
Audio Units, and if this is the first time
| | 01:25 | you are using it, you might see a
button that says Activate Click on it, and
| | 01:30 | it will take you to Live > Preferences
menu, under File Folder, and in Plug-in
| | 01:36 | Sources you'd be able to turn on Use Audio
Units and turn on Use VST Plug-in System Folders.
| | 01:43 | After that we can find clips which
you'll find all of your Live clips, then
| | 01:50 | Samples, which would be
all your raw audio samples.
| | 01:55 | In the bottom section of the sidebar
we'll see the Places, where we'll find
| | 01:59 | Packs, Audio Live Packs that you can
download for online or from the Ableton website.
| | 02:03 | The User Library, where you'll to find
all your saved presets and samples, and
| | 02:09 | the current project, which will list all
the samples and presets you are using in
| | 02:13 | the current project.
| | 02:14 | You can also add a folder from your hard
drive so Live can scan it, and then you
| | 02:19 | can use it inside Ableton Live and
load samples or any files like full songs
| | 02:24 | from iTunes or even short audio files.
| | 02:27 | You can drag presets and clips from your
Live set to the browser to quickly save them.
| | 02:31 | You can also drag files directly from the
Finder or even other softwares like iTunes,
| | 02:37 | but I recommend getting
comfortable with the Live Browser since we're
| | 02:40 | going to use it a lot.
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| Looking at the interface| 00:00 | Live's minimalist concept will
always keep us working with one window.
| | 00:04 | In order to use only one window,
we will have to switch between different
| | 00:08 | views in our workflow.
| | 00:10 | Let's check out Live's views.
| | 00:11 | First, let's take a look at the main views.
| | 00:14 | This view is called the Sessions view,
and it's one of the Live's unique features.
| | 00:20 | We will see why it's so
special in the next chapter.
| | 00:22 | The other view is called the Arrangement view.
| | 00:24 | This is where we're going to arrange and
edit the different segments of our song.
| | 00:29 | We can switch between the two main
views using the view selectors right here.
| | 00:35 | We can also switch using the Tab key.
| | 00:39 | On the bottom-left we can find the Info view.
| | 00:42 | The Info view will give us brief explanation
on anything in Live that we move our mouse over--
| | 00:47 | for example, the clip slot and track title bar.
| | 00:53 | We also have two bottom views:
a Clip view and Device view.
| | 00:57 | For example, let's load a clip.
| | 01:01 | If I double-click on the
clip, I can see the Clip view.
| | 01:04 | This was where we'll see the waveform in an
audio clip or the MIDI editor in a MIDI clip.
| | 01:11 | The other view, which we can go through
using this tab on the bottom-right, Clip
| | 01:16 | view and the Device view, is where we
will put all our effects: media effects,
| | 01:22 | instruments, and audio effects on a MIDI
track and audio effects on an audio track.
| | 01:28 | For example, if I go to my Audio
Effects and drag an effect, we would see in the
| | 01:34 | Device view, and the Clip view we
will see what's inside the clip.
| | 01:37 | In Live we have four types of tracks:
a MIDI track, an audio track, a return
| | 01:42 | track, and master track.
| | 01:46 | All tracks have a Device view, but only
MIDI and audio tracks have a Clip view,
| | 01:52 | because they are the only
tracks that can hold clips.
| | 01:55 | Ableton Live gives us the power to work
fast and to never break our artistic flow.
| | 02:00 | I would recommend getting used to
using the Tab key to switch between the two
| | 02:05 | main views and holding Shift and
hitting the Tab key to switch between the
| | 02:10 | two bottom views.
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| Preparing for recording| 00:00 | Before we actually start making music
with Ableton Live, we need to prepare the
| | 00:04 | Live set for recording.
| | 00:06 | So first, let's create as many
tracks as we need for our song.
| | 00:10 | I'm going to need one MIDI track for
drums, one MIDI track for our bass line, two
| | 00:15 | audio tracks for guitar--one for chords and
one for lead--and one audio track for vocals.
| | 00:21 | By default, we have two MIDI
tracks and two audio tracks.
| | 00:25 | So, let's create one more audio track.
| | 00:27 | We'll go to Create > Insert Audio Track, or
Command+T or Ctrl+T. Let's rename the tracks.
| | 00:33 | I'm going to click on the track title.
| | 00:37 | I'm going to right-click and choose Rename.
| | 00:40 | We'll call this Drums.
Let's do the same with the rest.
| | 00:44 | I'm going to use Command+R or Ctrl+R.
Bass, Guitar, Guitar Lead, and Vocals.
| | 01:00 | We can also give a color to the track,
just to keep organized, and it might be
| | 01:04 | a good practice to do it every
time you're starting a new project.
| | 01:07 | You can get custom specific
kind of colors for each element.
| | 01:18 | Let's color it the same come color. And vocals.
| | 01:21 | Again, it doesn't matter what color you
choose, just to keep organized. Once you
| | 01:27 | get to make more and more music, your
projects will get to be very, very big,
| | 01:31 | and you want to know where everything thing is.
| | 01:34 | Now, if you use any other music software,
you might get confused from this view,
| | 01:39 | which is called a Session view.
| | 01:41 | Each track is a column.
| | 01:42 | They are standing next to each other.
| | 01:45 | On the bottom, we can see the
mixer device for each track.
| | 01:49 | It will have the volume, the panning,
the track activator, and solo. And we also
| | 01:54 | have the Arm Session Recording
button, which is a record icon.
| | 01:59 | We have to click on it if we want
the audio track or the MIDI track to
| | 02:03 | accept any kind of signal.
| | 02:04 | In audio, we'll accept an audio signal
and in MIDI, we'll accept a MIDI signal.
| | 02:10 | To be able to record anything into the track,
we'll have to make sure the track is armed.
| | 02:15 | So, if I want to record my bass,
I'll have to make sure it's armed, and if I
| | 02:19 | want to record my drums, I
have to make sure it's armed.
| | 02:22 | If you don't see the same elements
on the screen, make sure the right view
| | 02:26 | selectors are turned on.
| | 02:28 | We have Inputs/Outputs; Returns and
Sends, which I'm going to turn off for
| | 02:33 | now; the Mixer Device, which should
be the only thing that is open; Track
| | 02:38 | Delay; and the Crossfade.
| | 02:40 | So, if everything is open, you will
have a lot of different elements on the
| | 02:46 | screen you might not need at the moment.
| | 02:48 | So, let's close them and keep
only the mixer device visible.
| | 02:52 | Now we're ready to start producing our song.
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2. RecordingCreating a drumbeat| 00:00 | In this video we'll start creating
our song starting from the drumbeat.
| | 00:04 | This song is going to be
electronic-based so we are going to use a MIDI
| | 00:08 | instrument to make a drumbeat.
| | 00:10 | In Live browser, let's go to Drums and
drag the Drum Rack to the Drums MIDI track.
| | 00:18 | We can see the empty drum rack device.
| | 00:20 | Here we can load samples
on each one of the pads.
| | 00:23 | Each pad has a MIDI note number on
it that corresponds to MIDI notes.
| | 00:27 | So if I play my MIDI keyboard, we
can see it plays the pad and if we had
| | 00:34 | samples there, we can also play them.
| | 00:35 | Live comes with drum rack presents
we can already load by dragging to the
| | 00:42 | Drop area and if we load up a Drum Rack
filled with samples, we can already start playing.
| | 00:48 | (music playing)
| | 00:51 | I'm going to delete this track by clicking
on the track item and hitting Delete.
| | 00:55 | Let's go back to our MIDI
track, and I'll empty drum rack.
| | 00:59 | I am going to load my own samples.
| | 01:01 | It's going to be one-shot samples.
| | 01:03 | One-shot samples are very short audio
files that usually contain one element of
| | 01:08 | the drums, if it's kick, snare,
hat, symbols, percussion, or even toner
| | 01:14 | sounds like effects or synthesizes.
| | 01:16 | To add the folder from our hard drive I
am going to click Add Folder, navigate
| | 01:23 | to it in my computer, and hit Open.
| | 01:28 | Now we can see it, under Places.
| | 01:31 | Let's click on it, navigate to the
Drums, expand it, and now we can start
| | 01:38 | dropping the samples onto our drum rack.
| | 01:42 | It doesn't really matter where you drop them.
| | 01:44 | You can drop them anywhere you want on
each pad. But if you play Live Drums from
| | 01:49 | your MIDI controller, it will be easy
to place them anywhere you want according
| | 01:54 | to your convenience.
| | 01:58 | I am going to load multiple samples at
once by just holding Shift and selecting them.
| | 02:01 | Let's do it with the Hats and with Perc.
| | 02:10 | Now, each pad is its own sampler.
| | 02:14 | So we have different parameters for
each pad we can change, like Filter
| | 02:18 | Cutoff, Gain, and Pitch. For example...
| | 02:20 | (music playing)
| | 02:23 | You can change the pitch.
| | 02:25 | (music playing)
Really cool.
| | 02:27 | To return any parameter in Live to default
we simply need to click on it and hit Delete.
| | 02:33 | Really cool.
| | 02:34 | Now that we have all the samples
loaded up, it's time to sequence them.
| | 02:39 | To sequence them we are
going to use a MIDI clip.
| | 02:42 | To create a MIDI clip we are going to
double-click anywhere on the track in
| | 02:46 | an empty clip slot.
| | 02:47 | Let's double-click and now we see the Clip
view, which is going to be the MIDI note editor.
| | 02:54 | Let's expand this by dragging.
| | 02:59 | We can see all the samples to the left,
and we can see the beat counter on the top.
| | 03:04 | We can right-click to change the grid size.
| | 03:08 | Let's go back to 16. And we can double-click
anywhere on the grid to start adding notes.
| | 03:17 | So, let's starting adding the kick pattern.
| | 03:19 | Now if I hit the spacebar, nothing happens,
although the global transport bar is playing.
| | 03:30 | And that's because--let's drag it down--
| | 03:31 | we need to actually launch the
clip in order for it to play.
| | 03:36 | So I am going to launch the clip using
the Launch button next to it, and then we
| | 03:40 | will be able to hear the kick plays.
So let's check it out.
| | 03:44 | (music playing)
| | 03:47 | Right now it's too fast for me,
| | 03:49 | so I am going to change the Global BPM to 83.
| | 03:51 | I am just going to input it using my
computer keyboard, 83, and hit Enter.
| | 03:55 | So now if we play it, we can already
spacebar without launching it, because we
| | 04:01 | already launched it once, and we can
see the Play button next to it is green.
| | 04:06 | So it's already launched and ready to play.
| | 04:08 | So let's hit the spacebar.
| | 04:08 | (music playing)
| | 04:16 | If we want to stop the clip, we simply
hit the Stop button and now if we hit
| | 04:20 | spacebar or the Global
Transport Bar, it won't play.
| | 04:24 | So once again, launching the clip and stopping.
Let's add the Snare. I am going to change to grid size.
| | 04:31 | I am going to right-click and choose quarter notes.
| | 04:35 | Let's input the snare, double-clicking.
| | 04:36 | I am going to put it on the 2 and the 4. Nice.
| | 04:42 | I am also going layer it
with the snare percussion.
| | 04:45 | So now it sounds like this.
(music playing)
| | 04:51 | Let's add some hats.
| | 04:53 | Right-click, 16 notes, and let's add some hats.
| | 04:56 | I am going to change to 32 and in the hats, nice.
| | 05:04 | Now if we drag the notes, we can see
they are moving freely on the grid until
| | 05:09 | they snap to the next note value.
| | 05:12 | So let's change the notes off grid
to add a groove to our pattern.
| | 05:19 | Let's listen to it now.
(music playing)
| | 05:24 | Nice. I am just going to move this note.
| | 05:26 | I think this will sound better.
| | 05:28 | (music playing)
Really cool.
| | 05:35 | You can make as many adjustments as you want.
| | 05:37 | Let's add percussion.
| | 05:42 | Now, I really want to work on
the percussion in this case,
| | 05:45 | so I am going to go to my Device view
and I am going to hit Solo on the Perc 2,
| | 05:52 | hold Command or Ctrl, and hit
Solo as well on the Perc 1.
| | 05:56 | Now we are only going to hear
these two samples. So if we hit play--
| | 05:58 | (music playing)
| | 06:04 | Although all the other samples are
playing, we only hit Perc 1 and Perc 2,
| | 06:07 | because we soloed them.
| | 06:08 | Let's go back to MIDI note
editor, expand it, play them.
| | 06:13 | (music playing)
| | 06:16 | Now I want to add more have a
dynamic feel to the percussion,
| | 06:20 | so I need to something.
| | 06:22 | I am going to add velocity changes
to the percussion, which are very, very
| | 06:28 | important in computer music.
Take your time adjusting velocities.
| | 06:31 | Velocities can be a adjusted using the
Velocity Editor on the bottom, but as
| | 06:36 | you can see, we have a lot of notes
layered on top of each other like this kick
| | 06:41 | and this Percussion.
| | 06:42 | So instead of changing it from then
Velocity Editor, we can also hold Command and
| | 06:49 | drag the note to the change the velocity.
| | 06:53 | We can also see the shade of red
changing according to velocity.
| | 06:58 | So once again let me Undo using
Command+Z and in Live you have unlimited undos;
| | 07:03 | don't worry if you make mistakes.
| | 07:05 | If you want to redo, it's Command+Shift+Z.
Let's play it without Velocity and
| | 07:09 | then I am going to apply the
velocity and we hear the change.
| | 07:12 | So let's hear it without
| | 07:13 | (music playing)
Now let's add some Velocity.
| | 07:21 | Again, I am holding Command
and simply dragging down or up.
| | 07:24 | Velocity is very, very important to
change the strength of the hit of the element.
| | 07:34 | It can be anything.
| | 07:35 | It can be even a tonal
sound, not only percussive.
| | 07:37 | So let's listen to it now.
| | 07:39 | (music playing)
| | 07:45 | Did you hear the difference?
| | 07:46 | Let's undo everything.
| | 07:47 | We'll listen to it one
more time without velocity.
| | 07:52 | (music playing)
| | 07:55 | And I am going to redo, Command+Shift+Z
| | 07:58 | (music playing)
| | 08:02 | You heard how we it added a lot more
dynamic response and feel to our pattern,
| | 08:07 | which is very, very important in computer music.
| | 08:10 | Now we have got our drumbeat, which is amazing.
| | 08:12 | Let's go back to Device view and
Unsolo and listen to our drumbeat.
| | 08:17 | (music playing)
| | 08:23 | The drum rack is a powerful device.
| | 08:25 | It was designed to make
drums, but don't stop there.
| | 08:28 | You can add sounds like bass, leads,
vocals, and experiment that way.
| | 08:32 | I am a person who is using the drum
rack extensively in all of my productions.
| | 08:37 | It's a great tool to know.
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| Recording software instruments| 00:00 | Ableton Live comes pack with different
sounds that can help you start making music.
| | 00:05 | In this video I am going to
record a bass line to our song.
| | 00:09 | So let's go to the browser, Sounds > Bass.
| | 00:14 | Let's expand this, and if we click on
one of the presets, we can preview them.
| | 00:18 | So let's click on that.
(music playing)
| | 00:26 | You can change the preview volume
| | 00:29 | through this knob right here
next to the Master volume.
| | 00:31 | (music playing)
I like this one. Let's load it.
| | 00:38 | I am going to drag it to the Bass MIDI Track,
and we can see the instrument on Device view.
| | 00:45 | Instead of making a MIDI clip and
editing the notes manually, I am going record it
| | 00:49 | using my MIDI keyboard.
| | 00:50 | First, we need to make sure that
track is armed and ready to record,
| | 00:55 | so we are going to turn on
the Arm Session Recording.
| | 00:58 | Once you load an instrument, the Arm
Session Recording should be turned on by
| | 01:02 | default on that track.
So now if we play my MIDI keyboard.
| | 01:05 | (music playing)
| | 01:07 | If for some reason your MIDI keyboard
does not send MIDI to Ableton, we need to
| | 01:12 | go Live > Preferences, under MIDI Sync,
and just make sure that the Track and the
| | 01:19 | Remote is turned on.
| | 01:21 | Right now I am using the SL MkII
from Novation. Let's close this.
| | 01:25 | (music playing)
| | 01:26 | We are ready to record.
| | 01:28 | So if you notice when I turn on the Arm
Session Recording button, all the small
| | 01:34 | Stop buttons on the empty
Clip slot turn into circles.
| | 01:38 | So if it's turned off, we can see it's square.
| | 01:40 | If I turn it on, we can see it turn
into circles, which means we can record on
| | 01:46 | each of the empty clip slots.
| | 01:47 | So once I am going to hit the Circle
button, we will be able to start recording.
| | 01:52 | (music playing)
| | 01:58 | I hit the spacebar to stop recording.
| | 02:00 | If I double-click, we can see what we did.
| | 02:03 | Now, I have all this empty
space. I can simply it edit out.
| | 02:07 | But instead of editing out, let's
delete this MIDI clip and I am going to
| | 02:10 | give myself a 1-bar or 2-bar count-in that
will give me time to prepare before recording.
| | 02:16 | So the count-in we can
choose from the metronome.
| | 02:18 | Click on the dropdown menu and
under Count-in, let's choose 1 Bar.
| | 02:23 | Now if I hit the Clip Record button,
we will hear a 1 bar count-in and then the
| | 02:29 | beat will stop playing.
| | 02:31 | So I am going to record my bass line right now,
so I am going to hit it Record button.
| | 02:35 | (music playing)
| | 02:51 | I hit spacebar to stop the
recording and now we have 4 bars bass line.
| | 02:56 | Let's play it and let's take a look at it.
(music playing)
| | 03:10 | I can edit the notes if I made
mistakes or if I want to move them around.
| | 03:15 | For example, I want to make this
note shorter, maybe also this note.
| | 03:19 | I want to make all of these notes be on
time, because as you can see, if we zoom
| | 03:28 | in using the magnifying glass, they are
not exactly on the grid, which I do want
| | 03:35 | them to be on time.
| | 03:36 | To do that we can use the quantizing.
| | 03:39 | Quantizing is simply a tool to allow us to
align the human errors on the musical grid.
| | 03:45 | To do that I am going to select all the
notes, go to Edit > Quantize Settings,
| | 03:51 | or Command+Shift+U, and in this menu
I am going to choose Quantized 2-16.
| | 04:01 | Correct, align all the notes to the
musical grid according to 16the notes.
| | 04:07 | Adjust notes from the start.
| | 04:09 | I don't want it to adjust from the end.
| | 04:11 | And how much I want it to quantize.
| | 04:13 | In this case I want 100%.
| | 04:14 | In some cases you would want to keep
your groove and not to fix it all the way.
| | 04:19 | So we will choose a
different amount here. Let's hit OK.
| | 04:23 | And as you can see, all the notes
are now perfectly aligned to the grid.
| | 04:27 | Let's take a listen to it again.
| | 04:29 | (music playing)
| | 04:40 | All the notes are quite long,
| | 04:42 | so I am going to select all of them--
only the tops ones--and I will go
| | 04:47 | make them a little shorter.
| | 04:50 | We got our drums, we got our bass.
| | 04:52 | We are starting to make some music.
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| Recording line instruments| 00:00 | In this video we'll record
a guitar into Ableton Live.
| | 00:03 | To record any amplified
instrument we need an audio interface.
| | 00:07 | I am using the Duet by Apogee.
| | 00:09 | I plugged in a quarter-inch
cable to input number one.
| | 00:13 | So let's set it up in Ableton Live.
| | 00:15 | I am going to go to Live > Preferences
and again, if you are on Windows, it's
| | 00:19 | going to be under Options.
| | 00:20 | Let's go to the Audio tab and under on
the Audio Input Device, I am going to
| | 00:24 | select from the List my audio
interface, which is the Duet USB.
| | 00:29 | Let's also go to Input Config and make
sure all of the inputs are turned on.
| | 00:34 | You might have more if you have a
different on interface with more inputs.
| | 00:39 | Hit OK and let's close this window.
| | 00:42 | Now let's open up the Input Output
section using the view selector to the right
| | 00:47 | marked with a small i and o.
We can the Audio From and Audio To.
| | 00:52 | Audio To goes to the master, which is
exactly what we want, and Audio From
| | 00:56 | we would set to Ext. In and input number 1,
because that's where I plug my guitar to.
| | 01:02 | Now if I play my guitar, we can
see the level meter is changing.
| | 01:09 | To hear the guitar we'll first have to
arm the track to put it there to record.
| | 01:14 | Now we can also a signal comes into
the fader, but it's grayed out, because the
| | 01:18 | Monitor is set on Off.
| | 01:19 | If you want to hear the
guitar, let's set it to Auto.
| | 01:22 | (music playing)
| | 01:27 | Now, there is an
audible latency from where I strum my guitar
| | 01:32 | and where I hear the sound.
| | 01:33 | To decrease this latency let's go back
to our Preferences, and under Latency, we
| | 01:39 | can see the Buffer Size.
| | 01:41 | We can it down. And right now
Overall Latency is on 29 milliseconds,
| | 01:47 | so it takes 29 milliseconds from the moment
I hit my key to the sound to actually play.
| | 01:53 | Let's apply a smaller Buffer Size,
and we can see the Overall Latency went
| | 01:58 | down from 29 to 12.
| | 02:01 | Now when I strum my guitar I
can hear the sound much quicker.
| | 02:05 | Let's close this window, play the guitar.
| | 02:09 | I can't hear it, so
let's change Monitor to Auto.
| | 02:11 | It's very important to note that if
you do not use headphones, but you do use
| | 02:16 | speakers and you do not want to put the
Monitor on Auto, because you might get
| | 02:20 | feedback noise, which will be a
very loud and distorted noise.
| | 02:24 | So once we have our track armed and
ready to record, we have our Monitor set to
| | 02:29 | Auto, because I am using headphones and
I want to audition what I am recording,
| | 02:32 | we are going to go ahead and hit one
of the clip record buttons, and we will
| | 02:37 | record in this case an audio
clip, not a MIDI media clip.
| | 02:40 | So I am going to make sure I have a
count-in, going into the Metronome dropdown
| | 02:44 | menu, Count-In, 1 Bar, which is great.
| | 02:46 | Let me strum some chords.
| | 02:48 | (music playing)
| | 02:52 | I am ready to record, so I
am going to hit the Record button and record.
| | 02:55 | (music playing)
| | 03:17 | So let's do another take
because I wasn't exactly on time there.
| | 03:21 | Another take is very easy.
| | 03:22 | We are just going to hit one of
other record buttons on the clip.
| | 03:25 | So let's do it now.
| | 03:27 | (music playing)
| | 03:41 | Again, you can stop
recording by hitting the spacebar or hitting
| | 03:44 | the Launch Clip Again.
| | 03:45 | (music playing)
| | 03:53 | So this is the clip view for the audio clip. If you
remember, if we go to MIDI clip, we'll see the MIDI
| | 04:01 | editor and in an audio clip,
we'll see the sample editor.
| | 04:05 | So recording audio is very easy and very simple;
| | 04:08 | just remember to set up your inputs and
outputs, arm the track, set the Monitor
| | 04:13 | and Stage to whatever you want--
Off or Auto--and you're good to go.
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| Converting audio to MIDI| 00:00 | Ableton Live 9 has introduced a very
unique feature that allows us to convert
| | 00:05 | any audio material into MIDI.
| | 00:07 | This can be used on drums, harmony, or melody.
| | 00:10 | So first, let's record a guitar lead.
| | 00:12 | I'm going to arm the track using
the Arm Session Recording button.
| | 00:15 | I'm also going to set the Monitor
on Auto, so I hear what I'm doing.
| | 00:19 | Make sure we have a count-in. And let's record.
| | 00:24 | (music playing)
| | 00:39 | So, I've go my guitar lead.
| | 00:41 | I hit the spacebar to stop recording.
| | 00:42 | Let's double-click.
| | 00:44 | We'll see the Clip view,
and we can see our recording.
| | 00:47 | Let's play it just to hear it.
| | 00:48 | I'm going to take the Arm recording
button off because we don't need it anymore.
| | 00:52 | (music playing)
| | 01:05 | Now, we want to fatten up this guitar
sound, and we're not going to use effect
| | 01:10 | right now, but we are
going to convert it into MIDI.
| | 01:14 | I'm going to use a MIDI
instrument to play the same notes.
| | 01:17 | So, to do that, let's right-click
on the audio clip and choose Convert
| | 01:21 | Melody to New MIDI Track.
| | 01:23 | Live will analyze the audio clip and
will try to take the notes out of it and
| | 01:28 | place it into a MIDI clip.
| | 01:29 | We're going to have a new MIDI track
with a MIDI clip and a MIDI instrument.
| | 01:34 | So we double-click on the
clip and see the notes.
| | 01:37 | Let's solo this track using the S on the mixer
device, play it, and see if Live got it right.
| | 01:43 | (music playing)
| | 01:56 | Almost. We'll just add one small note here.
| | 01:58 | (music playing)
| | 02:03 | Let's make this note shorter.
| | 02:04 | So, let's play it with a
guitar and see if they're matching.
| | 02:09 | I'm going to hold Command or Ctrl
and click on the Solo on the Guitar Lead
| | 02:13 | track and let's play them together.
(music playing)
| | 02:26 | They're exactly the same, which is perfect.
| | 02:29 | But we wanted a different kind of sound on
the MIDI because right now if we solo it --
| | 02:34 | (music playing)
| | 02:36 | It's very similar to
the guitar tone, so let's change it.
| | 02:39 | I'm going to go to my
browser. Under Instruments,
| | 02:41 | I'm going to go to Operator, expand it,
and choose one of the presets inside
| | 02:49 | the Categories here.
| | 02:50 | Let's go to Voices.
| | 02:54 | Let's preview a couple of presets.
| | 02:55 | (music playing)
I like this one,
| | 03:00 | so I'm going to drag it on
top of the MIDI Instrument.
| | 03:05 | And it's going to change
it, and now if we play it --
| | 03:08 | (music playing)
| | 03:12 | --we get a completely different tone.
So, I will need to back up the guitar lead.
| | 03:16 | So let's play both of them together,
again by holding Command or Ctrl and
| | 03:20 | clicking the small S for solo.
| | 03:21 | (music playing)
And we can call it--let's rename it.
| | 03:30 | We'll call it Backing Lead.
| | 03:33 | Let's expand it just so we can
see the name. Let's color it.
| | 03:41 | And even let's rename the MIDI clip,
again by right-clicking and choosing Rename.
| | 03:46 | Let's unsolo and hear what we've got so far.
| | 03:51 | (music playing)
| | 04:05 | Awesome! So, our song is coming along.
| | 04:07 | We've got drums, we've got bass, we've
got guitar, we've got a guitar lead, and
| | 04:11 | we even converted the guitar lead audio to MIDI.
| | 04:14 | I urge you to experiment and explore
the new feature in Ableton Live 9, which is
| | 04:19 | the Convert Audio to MIDI.
| | 04:21 | You can also convert harmony,
melody, and drums to MIDI.
| | 04:25 | You can take famous songs and convert
them to MIDI to see how they will play,
| | 04:29 | and maybe play along with them,
or even make remixes on the fly.
| | 04:33 | So go ahead and convert to MIDI.
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| Recording vocals in Arrangement view| 00:00 | Producing music in the Session view
is a very unique way of working because
| | 00:04 | there is no timeline and we can mix
and match different clips together.
| | 00:08 | When working with the vocalist, you
sometimes want to record using a linear
| | 00:12 | workflow on a timeline.
| | 00:13 | Let's switch between the
two views using the Tab key.
| | 00:16 | Ableton will still play from the
Session view because we still didn't start
| | 00:21 | arranging our song, and that will
allow us to record as many takes as we
| | 00:25 | need for the vocals.
| | 00:26 | As you might already notice, the tracks are
no longer vertical, but rather, horizontal.
| | 00:31 | We can find the same mixer control as we have
in the Session view on the left of the track.
| | 00:36 | They will be the same mixer controls
as we see in the Session view, and they
| | 00:42 | will correspond accordingly.
Go ahead and hit Value and hit Delete.
| | 00:51 | Let's go back to the Arrangement view.
| | 00:52 | Let's open up the Inputs/Outputs
using the view selectors to the right.
| | 00:57 | Scroll down to our vocals track.
| | 00:59 | I'm going to set external-in from the
first dropdown menu, and then I plugged in
| | 01:05 | my microphone to my audio
interface through input number 2,
| | 01:08 | so I'm going to set input number 2.
| | 01:10 | I'm going to record-enable the track.
| | 01:13 | I can set the Monitor to
Auto if I want to hear myself.
| | 01:16 | But in this case, I don't want to hear myself,
so I'm going to keep it on off.
| | 01:20 | I'm going to hit the Stop button, just so
the play bar will go back to the beginning.
| | 01:26 | And once I hit the global record
button, we'll start recording our vocals.
| | 01:30 | I'll record 4 bars, let it play for 4 bar,
and then record another 4 bar, and let it play for 4-bar, so total 16 bars.
| | 01:38 | Let's do this.
| | 01:40 | (music playing)
| | 02:30 | I stop the recording using the spacebar.
| | 02:33 | Once we finish the recording, we'll
see all the clips in the Session view
| | 02:37 | recorded into the Arrangement
view, but they are all grayed out.
| | 02:40 | And that's because we are still
playing them from the Session view.
| | 02:45 | Now, we have a drumbeat, melody,
guitar, and bass clips playing from the
| | 02:49 | Session view, and the vocals are
playing from the Arrangement view.
| | 02:53 | We can see the vocals are enabled
and all the other clips are disabled.
| | 02:56 | Recording vocals in Ableton Live is
straightforward and very similar to
| | 03:03 | recording other instruments like
guitar, bass guitar, and acoustic drums.
| | 03:07 | You can also record vocals in the
Session view, but I find it to be more
| | 03:12 | comfortable recording vocals on a timeline.
| | 03:14 | Now that we have a drumbeat, bass,
guitars, and vocals, we're almost ready to
| | 03:20 | start arranging our song.
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| Bringing the recorded vocal to Session view| 00:00 | When working with Live, you'll find
yourself switching between the two main views--
| | 00:04 | the Arrangement and the Session--a lot of times.
| | 00:07 | But it's good practice to
work in one view at a time.
| | 00:10 | To move the recorded vocals from the
Arrangement to the Session view, we can
| | 00:14 | simply drag the clip over the Session view
selector and place them in the vocal track.
| | 00:21 | Another way to do this is to simply
right-click on the vocal clip, choose
| | 00:27 | Copy, go back to Session view, right-click
anywhere in the empty clip slots, and choose Paste.
| | 00:34 | Let's delete this too.
| | 00:37 | In Ableton Live 9, we have a new
feature called Consolidate Time to New Scene.
| | 00:43 | And what it will do is it
will take the highlighted time--
| | 00:45 | let's highlight a certain time, for
example, these 8 bars. Right-click and
| | 00:51 | choose Consolidate Time to New Scene.
| | 00:54 | What it will do is it will take all
the clips that are playing in that time,
| | 00:57 | move them to the Session view, and it
will place everything in a new scene.
| | 01:03 | A scene is a row in
Ableton Live. So now we can see
| | 01:09 | we have all the clips
| | 01:10 | that played in that highlighted time
created on a new scene, on a new row in
| | 01:15 | the Session view, which is great.
| | 01:17 | It did the work for us.
| | 01:18 | So, we can delete all the duplicates.
| | 01:21 | By holding Shift, I'm going to choose
all the clips, and let's delete them.
| | 01:24 | Now we have the vocals and all
the other tracks in this view.
| | 01:29 | In our case, I don't really want this take;
| | 01:31 | I want the other take.
| | 01:32 | So, let's do the same
thing but with the last 8 bars.
| | 01:35 | I am going to highlight these 8 bars.
| | 01:39 | I am going to right-click and
choose Consolidate Time to New Scene.
| | 01:42 | Let's go back to the Session view.
| | 01:43 | We can see we have all the clips that
were playing at that highlighted time
| | 01:49 | created on a new scene.
| | 01:51 | Let's delete the other ones.
| | 01:53 | Let's choose all of them, bring them to
this top row, and let's play all the clips.
| | 01:58 | (music playing)
| | 02:26 | So, you will find yourself often
working from the Session view to the
| | 02:31 | Arrangement view and vice versa.
| | 02:33 | It's always smart to work in one
view, just to keep everything organized.
| | 02:37 | So, this is how you move from
the Arrangement to the Session.
| | 02:41 | And if you want to move from the
Session to the Arrangement, you can again
| | 02:44 | simply drag the clips, copy the clips,
| | 02:56 | and we can also record it,
which we'll talk about more later.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Warping clips| 00:00 | One of the most advanced
features in Live is the warp engine.
| | 00:03 | The warp engine allows us to edit
the waveform as if it were elastic.
| | 00:08 | We can easily speed up or speed down
different sections of the audio clip.
| | 00:13 | In other words, when an audio clip
is warped, it will play in sync with
| | 00:17 | the project's tempo.
| | 00:18 | We can change the global tempo to hear
that the pitch is not changing, although
| | 00:22 | the speed is changing,
thanks to the warping engine.
| | 00:25 | So I'm going to solo the guitar track.
I'm going to play it and change the global
| | 00:28 | tempo and listen to what happens.
| | 00:30 | (music playing)
| | 00:47 | Let's bring it back to 83.
| | 00:49 | So as you heard, the speed of that
audio clip has changed without the
| | 00:53 | pitch, which is amazing.
| | 00:55 | We can change the guitar's
groove to fit better on the grid.
| | 00:58 | Live will place transient markers
wherever it thinks there is a new sound, and
| | 01:04 | we can see them with the small gray lines.
| | 01:07 | I can then double-click on any
transient marker to create a warp marker, marked
| | 01:13 | with a yellow square.
| | 01:14 | If we move the warp marker, we can see
we changed the timing of the audio before
| | 01:19 | and after the marker,
| | 01:21 | like the warp marker is marking a
change in the playing speed of the clip.
| | 01:25 | So let's align the guitar to the grid.
| | 01:27 | I want to create a warp maker here,
move it slightly, another one here, just
| | 01:34 | small fixes so it will really be on time.
| | 01:40 | If you only want to move a specific
section of the audio without changing
| | 01:44 | everything before and after the marker,
you'll have to create two warp markers
| | 01:49 | before and after the one
you're going to actually move.
| | 01:52 | I'm going to hit Command+C to delete them.
| | 01:58 | A shortcut to this is to hold Command or
Ctrl and Live will automatically create
| | 02:04 | a warp marker before and after.
| | 02:06 | You can change the grid of the warped audio
clip just like the grid in the media editor.
| | 02:13 | Ableton has six different warp modes, each
designed to best warp a specific type of audio.
| | 02:21 | Beats designed for rhythmical audio,
Tones designed for clear pitched audio,
| | 02:26 | Texture designed for polyphonic or
noise, Re-Pitch will change the pitch with
| | 02:32 | the speed, just like a record, and
Complex and Complex Pro, which is designed
| | 02:36 | for a whole song and complex audio, like vocals.
| | 02:40 | So in this case I'm going to choose Tones.
| | 02:42 | Experiment with the different
warp modes to get different sounds.
| | 02:46 | The warp engine can be used to
sync any audio material to your song.
| | 02:50 | You can also use it creatively and
create new sounds and textures by using the
| | 02:55 | warp engine to the extreme.
| | 02:57 | You can always turn off the warp engine
using the Warp button and then the clip
| | 03:01 | will play at its original speed,
regardless of project's tempo.
| | 03:05 | Go ahead and warp the lead guitar and vocals.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding scenes and preparing for arrangement| 00:00 | Now that we have our basic musical
idea, it's time to arrange our song.
| | 00:05 | We already know how to use
MIDI tracks and audio tracks.
| | 00:09 | Let's see how we can use the master
track to help with our arrangement.
| | 00:13 | The master track cannot hold any clips,
| | 00:16 | but it can allow us to
launch entire rows of clips.
| | 00:18 | Each row in the session
view is called a scene,
| | 00:22 | and we have launch button on each scene.
| | 00:25 | So I'm going to stop all the clips,
just so we can see the clips being
| | 00:29 | launched by the scene.
| | 00:30 | So stop our clips from the master track.
| | 00:32 | All the clips are now stopped.
| | 00:34 | If we hit the Global Play button
nothing will happen because no clip is
| | 00:38 | launched, and if I hit the
scene launch on scene number 1--
| | 00:42 | (music playing)
| | 00:45 | --all the clips in that row are launched.
| | 00:47 | Scenes are useful when moving from
the Session to the Arrangement view.
| | 00:51 | It will help us to record in the real
time a rough arrangement to our song.
| | 00:56 | In Scene number 1 I'm going to set up an
intro, so I'm going to click the scene and
| | 01:00 | hit Command+R to rename.
| | 01:04 | Scene number 2, let's rename our
verse. Scene number 3 is the Chorus.
| | 01:12 | So now it's time to set up the
clips, and remember, because we're not
| | 01:15 | launching clips individually--
we're launching them by rows--
| | 01:18 | it's important to set them accordingly.
| | 01:20 | So the Intro, I want only the guitar to
play, so I'm going to move all the clips
| | 01:24 | away from scene number 1.
So now if we launch scene number 1--
| | 01:27 | (music playing)
| | 01:30 | --it's only going to be the guitar, and
that's because we have Stop buttons.
| | 01:35 | And the scene is not only launching clips,
but it's launching whatever is inside the clip slot.
| | 01:41 | If we have no clips, it's
going to launch the Stop button.
| | 01:43 | So now if we launch scene number 2,
it's going to be all the clips except the guitar.
| | 01:49 | (music playing)
| | 01:54 | So for the verse, I'm
going to take the bass down.
| | 01:58 | I'm going to duplicate the drumclip
because I want to delete all the perc and hats.
| | 02:05 | Let's delete them. So now we have
only kick and snare and the entire drum.
| | 02:13 | I'm going to close the inputs/outputs for now,
just so we have more room in the Session view.
| | 02:20 | Let's take at the guitar lead down.
| | 02:21 | Let's take backend lead,
and let's take the vocals.
| | 02:24 | I'm going to copy the Bass, holding
Option and copying it, and doing the same
| | 02:29 | for the guitar for scene 2 and the scene 3.
| | 02:33 | So now if we launch Intro,
we're only going to hear the guitar.
| | 02:36 | We launch Verse, we are going to hear
the Guitar, Bass, and Drums, which is going
| | 02:41 | to be only the Kick and Snare,
and we're going to hit Chorus.
| | 02:44 | You are going to hear all
the clips playing together.
| | 02:47 | Now to record it to Arrangement view,
I will have to hit the Global Record
| | 02:50 | button and record it to the arrangement.
| | 02:53 | To make it easier enough to learn
scenes instead of hitting the scene launch
| | 02:57 | button, I'm going to go into key, which
will get us into Key Mapping mode.
| | 03:01 | And everything that is highlighted can
be mapped to our computer keyboard.
| | 03:05 | So I'm simply clicking the first scene,
hitting number 1 on my keyboard, second
| | 03:10 | scene, 2, third scene, 3.
| | 03:12 | Now if exit to Key Map mode, when I hit 1--
| | 03:16 | (music playing)
--it's going to launch scene 1. When I hit 2--
| | 03:21 | (music playing)
--it's going to launch scene 2 and 3
is going to launch scene 3.
| | 03:26 | Now Key Mapping mode can be mapped to
a lot of other things, and I definitely
| | 03:30 | recommend it, because it's a
very efficient way to control Live.
| | 03:34 | You might also notice that when I
launch the second scene, I did not launch it
| | 03:38 | exactly on time, but the clips did
play on time, and that's thanks to the
| | 03:42 | Global Quantization Engine, which is
going to quantize everything that we do in
| | 03:47 | the Session view--which is recording,
stopping, and playing clips--to the next
| | 03:53 | musical bar, 1 bar.
| | 03:56 | So let's see how it works.
| | 03:57 | I'm going to launch the first scene and
then I'm going to second scene, not on
| | 04:01 | time, but we can see the clips launch
buttons are blinking until next musical
| | 04:06 | bar, where they going to start to play.
| | 04:08 | So let's check it out.
| | 04:09 | (music playing)
| | 04:27 | So as you can see, it doesn't really
matter when I hit the launch button.
| | 04:30 | It will always keep us on time.
| | 04:32 | So now I am ready to record my arrangement.
| | 04:34 | I'm going to stop all clips, just to
make sure that none of the clips are
| | 04:39 | playing from different scenes.
| | 04:40 | For example, I can play the guitar
from here and the drums from here.
| | 04:45 | (music playing)
| | 04:49 | So just to make sure the all the clips
are stopped, I'm going to stop all clips.
| | 04:53 | I'm going to hit the Global Record, and
I am going to stop recording my scenes.
| | 04:56 | And once again I'm going to launch the
scenes using the 1, 2 and 3 number keys
| | 05:00 | on my computer keyboard.
So let's record our arrangement.
| | 05:04 | (music playing)
| | 05:55 | Nice. Let's go to the Arrangement view,
and we can see everything that we did in
| | 06:00 | the Session view has been
recorded to the Arrangement view.
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|
|
3. ArrangementExploring the Arrangement view| 00:00 | The Arrangement view in Live is where
we'll arrange and edit the different
| | 00:03 | segments of our song.
| | 00:04 | It will allow us to plan the
progression of our song using the timeline.
| | 00:08 | We've recorded a rough arrangement
from the Session view to the Arrangement
| | 00:12 | view, but we can see all the clips in
the Arrangement view are grayed out.
| | 00:15 | And that's because they're
still playing from the Session view.
| | 00:18 | If we want to go back to
Arrangement, we'll have to click the Back to
| | 00:22 | Arrangement button individually for
each track, and we can see it enabled.
| | 00:25 | Or click the Global Back
to Arrangement right here.
| | 00:29 | Now all the clips are
playing from the Arrangement view.
| | 00:33 | (music playing)
| | 00:36 | If we launch a clip from the Session view--
| | 00:37 | (music playing)
| | 00:41 | --we can see it grayed out in the
Arrangement view, and that's because only one
| | 00:45 | view can be played at one time per track.
| | 00:48 | So if we launch it from the Session, it
is going to be played from the Session
| | 00:52 | until we go Back to Arrangement.
| | 00:54 | First, let's add locators that will
help us to quickly jump between the
| | 00:59 | different segments of our song.
| | 01:01 | So I'm going to right-click in the
scrub area and choose Add Locator.
| | 01:04 | I'm going to rename this Intro.
| | 01:07 | Let's get another one here,
and another one here, Part B.
| | 01:11 | We can also go into Keyboard
Mapping mode using the Key button,
| | 01:17 | click on one of the locators, and
map it to our computer keyboard.
| | 01:21 | I'll hit 5. It doesn't really matter which key.
| | 01:24 | Part A 6, Part B 7. Now let's exit
keyboard mapping mode, clicking on the Key
| | 01:31 | button again, or Command+K or Ctrl+K.
We can jump to the different segments of
| | 01:36 | our song and play them.
(music playing)
| | 01:41 | You saw how it blinked there and
didn't jump instantly? Let's do it again.
| | 01:45 | (music playing)
| | 01:48 | That's because we have the Global
Quantization Engine exactly like we have
| | 01:52 | in the Session view.
| | 01:53 | So everything will be quantized
according to it, and right now it's set to 1 var.
| | 01:57 | So everything will start
in the next musical bar.
| | 02:00 | To navigate in the Arrangement view,
we'll use the Beat Time Ruler or the
| | 02:03 | Overview Bar on the top.
| | 02:06 | You can click and drag left and right
and up and down to zoom in and out.
| | 02:11 | If you don't see the Overview Bar,
go to View and click on Overview.
| | 02:18 | If you want to loop a section in the
arrangement, we can take the loop bracket
| | 02:22 | and place it wherever we want.
| | 02:24 | Let's loop the intro and
turn on the Loop button.
| | 02:28 | (music playing)
| | 02:41 | We can also click on the clip and hit
Command+L or Ctrl+L to instantly loop it.
| | 02:46 | We can right-click anywhere on the grid
to change the grid size exactly like we
| | 02:51 | did in the MIDI Note Editor.
| | 02:54 | Adaptive Grid will change
with zooming in and zooming out,
| | 02:58 | and Fixed Grid will always remain the
same size no matter what the zoom status is.
| | 03:05 | It's good practice to
rename and color your track.
| | 03:07 | This project might be fairly small,
but you might end up with big projects, of
| | 03:12 | about 50 or even 60 tracks.
| | 03:15 | I want to color the clips right
now according to the track's color.
| | 03:18 | I'm going to hold Shift and choose all
the clips in the track and color them.
| | 03:23 | Under the loop bracket, we can find the
scrub area marked with a small speaker
| | 03:31 | icon where we can start
from any point in our song.
| | 03:35 | (music playing)
| | 03:36 | Remember, you don't have to start
making music using the Session view.
| | 03:41 | This is just a quick way to lay down
musical ideas, perform your music live, or
| | 03:45 | mix and match different musical concepts.
| | 03:48 | You can start your song directly from
the Arrangement view and more easily plan
| | 03:52 | the progression of your song over time.
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| Editing clips| 00:00 | Editing clips in the
Arrangement view is simple and efficient.
| | 00:03 | We can simply drag the clips
to make them longer or shorter.
| | 00:08 | We can highlight a specific section in the
clip and drag it to only crop that section.
| | 00:14 | I'm going to hit Command+Z to undo.
| | 00:16 | If you can't highlight,
because you don't have any room,
| | 00:20 | you can unfold the track
and then highlight and drag.
| | 00:24 | You can also click
anywhere and place the play bar,
| | 00:30 | go to Edit, and click Split or
Command+E or Ctrl+E. Nice. Command+Z.
| | 00:38 | So let's duplicate the guitar track,
by right-clicking on the track and
| | 00:41 | choosing Duplicate.
| | 00:42 | Let's Rename the duplicated
guitar track to Reverse Guitar.
| | 00:49 | I am going to fold the guitar track.
| | 00:51 | I'm going to keep the Reverse
Guitar unfolded. Let's expand it.
| | 00:59 | Let's delete the intro and delete Part
B. We are only going to work on Part A
| | 01:01 | right now, and I'm only going to work on 4 bars.
| | 01:04 | So let's change it to 4 bars and
even make it shorter. 4 bars, nice.
| | 01:10 | We can see in the Clip view that
we have 8 bars, which we don't need,
| | 01:13 | so I'm going to right-click on
the clip and choose Crop Clip (s).
| | 01:17 | So we only have 4 bars, nice. Let's solo it.
| | 01:20 | The sample box in the Clip view can
allow us to do a lot of things to further
| | 01:27 | more change and handle the sound.
| | 01:28 | First I'm going to hit the Rev button, which
is going to reverse the sample or the clip.
| | 01:33 | If we listen to it now--
| | 01:34 | (music playing)
| | 01:47 | Nice! Let's also transpose it,
which will change the pitch.
| | 01:50 | You can take it down or up.
| | 01:52 | In this case, I'm going to take it up
12 semitones, which will be an octave.
| | 01:56 | Let's listen to it now.
| | 01:57 | (music playing)
| | 02:03 | Because we're taking it to extreme measures,
we will hear a lot of sound artifacts.
| | 02:07 | That could be changed using the Warp mode.
| | 02:10 | Let's choose Complex, which will
give it a different kind of sound.
| | 02:13 | I recommend experimenting
with different warp modes.
| | 02:16 | Each one of the warp modes was
designed specifically to be used with a
| | 02:19 | different kind of audio.
| | 02:21 | For example, Beats was designed
to be used with rhythmical audio.
| | 02:24 | Let's choose Complex.
(music playing)
| | 02:33 | Now we have to rearrange it because
we reversed the clip and it's not in the
| | 02:37 | same order of how our guitar chords are playing.
| | 02:39 | So I'm going to zoom in.
| | 02:40 | I'm going to click on the first bar and
hit Command+E to split it and do the
| | 02:49 | same with the rest.
| | 02:50 | Now I'm just going to drag
the clips to rearrange them.
| | 02:58 | And let's solo it with also our guitar track.
| | 03:01 | Listen to how it sounds.
(music playing)
| | 03:04 | It's starting from here, so I'm going
to hit the loop bracket to start it from
| | 03:08 | the start of the loop.
(music playing)
| | 03:22 | We can choose all the clips that
we've rearranged by holding Shift.
| | 03:26 | We can right-click and choose
Consolidate, which is going to make all the
| | 03:31 | clips into one clip.
| | 03:34 | If we don't like the new pitch,
you can pitch it back down.
| | 03:37 | (music playing)
| | 03:44 | Pitch it even more up.
| | 03:46 | (music playing)
Might be kind of squeaky.
| | 03:51 | Or pitch it all the way down.
(music playing)
| | 04:03 | Let's change the warp
algorithm and bring it back to -12.
| | 04:08 | (music playing)
| | 04:17 | I'm also going to add warp points to
make everything sit better on the grid.
| | 04:26 | If you're working with a lot of
different clips, you can also deactivate them by
| | 04:29 | clicking on them and hitting the 0 number.
| | 04:32 | It'll deactivate the clip and won't play it
until you reactivate it using the 0 number again.
| | 04:40 | Take your time editing
your song in the Arrangement view.
| | 04:44 | It can be a fun and creative
process, and it can improve the
| | 04:47 | natural progression of your song.
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| Adding effects| 00:00 | Ableton Live comes packed with
audio effects and media effects.
| | 00:05 | Since they are built in, they are
very CPU-efficient, so don't be afraid to
| | 00:09 | experiment with a lot of effects.
| | 00:12 | The CPU meter can be found on the top
right-corner of Ableton Live's screen.
| | 00:17 | Let's start adding some effects.
| | 00:19 | In the browser let's go to Audio Effect.
| | 00:23 | Let's scroll down and let's drag
a phaser to our Reverse Guitar.
| | 00:27 | We will see it in the Device view.
Remember, we have the Clip view, which will
| | 00:33 | show us what's inside the clip, and we
have the Device view, where we will see
| | 00:37 | all the signal chain or all the effects that
we are going to add to the audio or media track.
| | 00:42 | Go ahead and change around Parameters.
| | 00:45 | Don't worry if you don't know
what each one of them is doing.
| | 00:48 | This is your time to be creative.
And if you want to know more about each
| | 00:52 | parameter, you can use the Info view or
you can go to Help and read the live manual.
| | 00:57 | So let's start out the Reverse
Guitar and play with some parameters.
| | 01:03 | (music playing)
| | 01:15 | Live also comes with two effects
designed for guitars: Amp and Cabinet.
| | 01:20 | Let's add them to our lead guitar.
| | 01:22 | First I am going to go to Amp and
going to drag it to our Lead Guitar.
| | 01:28 | And I am also going to
drag Cabinet right afterwards.
| | 01:32 | Let's solo the Lead Guitar.
| | 01:34 | Let's click on the clip and hit
Command+L or Ctrl+L to loop that section, and I
| | 01:40 | am going to play with some
parameters. Let's play it.
| | 01:43 | (music playing)
| | 02:01 | Thanks to Live modular concept,
| | 02:02 | we can easily change the position of the
effects and rearrange them and change the sound.
| | 02:08 | So let's see how the cabinet
sounds when it's in front of the amp.
| | 02:11 | (music playing)
I am going to drag it after.
| | 02:16 | (music playing)
| | 02:20 | Let's change the type of
amplifier we are using, maybe to Lead.
| | 02:23 | (music playing)
| | 02:30 | I like it after the amp.
| | 02:31 | Every device in Live has a device
activator located on the top-left of the device.
| | 02:37 | If we click on it, it will turn off
the device and it will let the audio through
| | 02:41 | without affecting it.
| | 02:42 | So it's a very easy and quick way to
audition different effects on the track.
| | 02:47 | So let's turn off the amp and cabinet, play it.
| | 02:50 | (music playing)
| | 03:02 | If you make changes to any instrumental
effect, you can click on the disc icon
| | 03:07 | on the top-right of the device and save
that device as a preset in your library.
| | 03:12 | So let's save the amp, and I
am going to call it My Amp.
| | 03:16 | It's going to be saved
under Places > User Library.
| | 03:18 | Here you will find audio
presets, your saved preset.
| | 03:23 | Let's also save the drum rack without
drums so we can use it in other projects.
| | 03:27 | Again, I am going to click the disc icon,
and I am going to save my drum rack, and
| | 03:32 | I am going to call it My Drum Kit.
| | 03:36 | If you save a preset that contains
samples, Live is also going to copy the
| | 03:40 | samples into your library.
| | 03:43 | Now we can load it and use it in other projects.
| | 03:45 | Let's go ahead and load a couple more effects.
| | 03:48 | We will go to Audio Effects.
| | 03:50 | I am going to load a Chorus to the Guitar.
| | 03:54 | Live also counts with a lot of
predesigned presets for you to use.
| | 03:57 | Let's expand the chorus.
| | 04:00 | We have all the different presets here,
and let's drag one of them to the guitar.
| | 04:04 | Let's solo it and listen.
| | 04:08 | (music playing)
Without.
| | 04:12 | (music playing)
With.
| | 04:17 | (music playing)
| | 04:21 | Remember that most effects have a
Dry/Wet knob that will adjust the amount of
| | 04:26 | effect that is outputting through the device.
| | 04:29 | So if you put it all the way
on Dry, it won't affect at all.
| | 04:33 | (music playing)
| | 04:34 | And as much as we get it more
Wet, it will be more affected.
| | 04:39 | (music playing)
| | 04:48 | We have a very big arsenal of effects to
our disposal to be used in Ableton Live.
| | 04:53 | I urge you to be irresponsibly creative
when it comes to using effects in Live.
| | 04:58 | Experiment with a long list of chains.
| | 05:01 | Don't be afraid to just add effects
and see how they sound on the track.
| | 05:07 | If you have a lot of effects in your
signal chain, you can right-click on the
| | 05:11 | Device Overview and choose
the effect to jump to it.
| | 05:15 | There are a lot of different
effects to play with in Live.
| | 05:18 | We've got spacious and
time-based effects like Reverb and Delays.
| | 05:23 | We have dynamic effects like
Compressor and the Glue Compressor.
| | 05:27 | We have distortion effects like the
Overdrive and Redux, and we have unique
| | 05:32 | creative effects like
the Beat Repeat and the Looper.
| | 05:34 | Experimentally those effects
drastically change the sound and get your own
| | 05:39 | unique sound in Ableton Live.
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| Creating and recording automation| 00:00 | Using effects in your song can
give you unique and special sounds.
| | 00:04 | If you play your song and move the
parameters of the effect over time, you
| | 00:09 | can gradually change the sound.
| | 00:11 | You can recall these changes in
parameters over time using
| | 00:15 | automation envelopes.
| | 00:16 | Let's solo the Reverse Guitar.
| | 00:20 | Let's play it and play around
with the phaser while it's playing.
| | 00:23 | (music playing)
| | 00:35 | We can hear a very cool, interesting
moving sound, and we can also recall these
| | 00:40 | changes in parameters using automations.
| | 00:44 | To see the automations we simply need
to unfold the track, choose the device
| | 00:49 | from the first dropdown menu--
| | 00:51 | let's choose the Phaser--and choose
the parameter of the device from the
| | 00:54 | second dropdown menu.
| | 00:55 | I am going to choose the Frequency.
| | 00:57 | Alternatively, you can also right-
click on the parameter that you want to
| | 01:02 | automate and choose Show Automation.
| | 01:04 | We will then unfold the track and
we will choose the parameter for you.
| | 01:09 | This is the automation lane. To add a
breakpoint we simply click once and then
| | 01:14 | we can change it around.
| | 01:17 | We can also click and add another
breakpoint to make a change over time.
| | 01:22 | So now if we play the clip--
| | 01:24 | (music playing)
| | 01:36 | --we can see the change in the
parameter over time and we can also see a
| | 01:40 | small red dot indicating
that we have automation on it.
| | 01:44 | If we move the parameter after we recorded
automation, we can see the red dot is grayed out.
| | 01:50 | (music playing)
And automation won't do anything.
| | 01:55 | That's because we changed something
after we recorded automations and to go
| | 01:59 | back to reading from the automation lane, we
need to click the Re-enable Automation button.
| | 02:06 | You can also record
automation using a MIDI controller.
| | 02:10 | So to record automation we first
need to make sure that none of the track
| | 02:14 | is armed because we don't want to
record clips, audio, or MIDI; we only want
| | 02:18 | to record automation.
| | 02:19 | Then we make sure that
Arrangement Automation button is turned on.
| | 02:26 | We are going to map one of the
parameters to our MIDI keyboard exactly like we did
| | 02:31 | with the computer keyboard, but I am
going to click the MIDI Mapping mode
| | 02:35 | instead of Key Mapping mode.
| | 02:37 | MIDI Mapping mode, click on the parameter, and
move one of my knobs on my MIDI controller.
| | 02:43 | Now, let's play the clip and move the knob.
| | 02:46 | (music playing)
| | 02:52 | For the recall to happen, we need
to hit the Global Record button.
| | 02:55 | (music playing)
| | 03:11 | So you can edit in your
automations and you can record them.
| | 03:16 | Let's go back to the Frequency.
| | 03:17 | Let's zoom in, and I want to
add a curve to this automation.
| | 03:24 | So to add a curve between two
breakpoints, you simply hold Option or Alt
| | 03:30 | and use the Curve tool.
| | 03:31 | We can highlight the envelope,
right-click, and do all the Clipboard commands we
| | 03:39 | have for clips also:
| | 03:40 | Cut Envelope, Copy Envelope,
Duplicate Envelope, and Delete Envelope.
| | 03:47 | If we copy a clip, by right-
clicking and choosing Duplicate, we see the
| | 03:53 | automation was copied with it.
| | 03:55 | If you want the automation to stay in
place and not be copied, we need to turn
| | 04:00 | on the lock envelopes using the Lock key.
And now if we duplicate the clip--I am
| | 04:05 | going to hit Command+D or Ctrl+D--you
can see the automation did not copy with
| | 04:09 | the clip because we locked the
envelopes. Let's delete this.
| | 04:13 | In audio clips, we have a special
automation envelope that we don't have in MIDI
| | 04:18 | clips, which is the fades.
| | 04:20 | We can adjust the fades from the
starting or the ending of the clip to create
| | 04:26 | more smooth transitions between different clips.
| | 04:29 | If we unfold the master track, we can
also find the automation envelope for the
| | 04:34 | Song Tempo, for the Global Groove Amount,
and for the Crossfade, which we don't
| | 04:39 | have in regular tracks.
| | 04:41 | Automating envelopes is very, very important.
| | 04:47 | It will bring your music to life and
will give a more realistic, organic feeling,
| | 04:52 | even if you are using electronic sounds.
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| Creating a transition effect and recording automation in Session view| 00:00 | In Live it is possible to create and record
automation clips also in the Session view.
| | 00:06 | Let's switch to the Session view.
and I'm going to create the Transition
| | 00:09 | effect for our song.
| | 00:11 | So let's create a new MIDI track.
| | 00:13 | Go to Create > Insert MIDI Track, and let's
use the browser to browse for a specific sound.
| | 00:19 | I'm going to right-click, and
let's navigate, maybe Synth Rhythmic.
| | 00:24 | (music playing)
| | 00:26 | That's a good sound.
| | 00:27 | Drag it to our MIDI track.
| | 00:29 | I'm going to create a MIDI clip,
double-click anywhere in the empty clip slots
| | 00:33 | and I'm going to input the chord
from our song, which is D Major 7.
| | 00:43 | I'm copying the notes by holding Alt or Option.
| | 00:48 | Let's select all the notes and make them longer.
| | 00:50 | Let's add some effects to
make this sound more interesting.
| | 00:55 | So I'm going to add MIDI Effects.
| | 00:58 | Note that the MIDI Effects go before the
effect and not after, because they are
| | 01:04 | affecting the MIDI and not the audio. In other
words MIDI effects will input and output MIDI,
| | 01:09 | instruments will input MIDI and output audio,
and audio effects will input and output audio.
| | 01:16 | So let's add some more MIDI effects
to make the sound really interesting.
| | 01:21 | I can also duplicate devices, changing
on some parameters and maybe add also
| | 01:30 | some audio effects to
affect the sound.
| | 01:32 | Let's listen. I'm going to solo.
| | 01:40 | (music playing)
I just want to change one note.
| | 01:47 | So I want to automate the Rate field.
| | 01:53 | I want it to start fast and go and become slow.
(music playing)
| | 02:04 | Right now, I also don't need this
clip to loop, because I only want the
| | 02:08 | effect to happen once.
| | 02:09 | So I'm going to double-click and go
to the Clip view and turn off Loop.
| | 02:15 | Go back to Device view, and now I'm
going to click this Session Record
| | 02:21 | button, which is going to enable
overdubbing of MIDI notes and recording of
| | 02:26 | automation envelopes.
| | 02:28 | So I can do it manually using the mouse or
I can also MIDI map to my MIDI controller.
| | 02:35 | Let's click the parameter, move one of
the knobs on my MIDI controller, and it's
| | 02:39 | mapped. Now I can control it.
| | 02:42 | Let's click on the Session Record button.
| | 02:44 | (music playing)
| | 02:53 | Now, if we play the clip we
can see the Rate is automated.
| | 02:57 | (music playing)
| | 03:02 | If you right-click on the Rate and Show
Automation, it will take us to the Clip
| | 03:08 | view, but we won't see the Note
Editor; we will see the clip envelope.
| | 03:11 | If we want to see the notes, we need to
click on the Note box or go back to the
| | 03:16 | clip envelope by clicking on the envelopes.
| | 03:19 | Here we can edit the envelope just
like we edited in the Arrangement view.
| | 03:23 | We can also go into Draw mode using the
pencil by hitting B or clicking on the
| | 03:31 | pencil, and we can draw it.
| | 03:34 | Note that the draw will
automate according to the grid size.
| | 03:41 | So we change the grid to make small
automations or we can even turn the grid off
| | 03:46 | to truly draw in the automation.
I'm going to use Command+Z to undo.
| | 03:52 | Now I want to record this clip to the
Arrangement view with the automation.
| | 03:57 | We'll simply hit the Global
Record button and play the clip.
| | 04:01 | So first I'm going to launch the
clip and hit the spacebar to stop.
| | 04:04 | (music playing)
Then I'm going to record to the arrangement.
| | 04:10 | (music playing)
| | 04:17 | Let's go to the Arrangement view, scroll down.
| | 04:20 | Let's make this smaller.
| | 04:24 | We can see the clip is recorded.
| | 04:26 | We have an extra section here we don't need.
| | 04:28 | Let's delete the extra clip.
| | 04:31 | We also see the automation is being
recorded as well with the clip, but it's
| | 04:34 | been grayed out. And it's still playing
or I think is playing from the Session
| | 04:39 | view, and that's why we need to go back to
Arrangement for it to play from the arrangement.
| | 04:46 | Let's move it around and now
we have our Transition effect.
| | 04:49 | (music playing)
| | 04:59 | Session automation using clip envelopes
is an amazing feature that allows us to
| | 05:02 | create advanced music ideas on the fly.
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| Using time commands| 00:00 | When arranging a song we sometimes want
to check different arrangement styles.
| | 00:05 | For example, I want to delete these
four bars of Part A. So instead of deleting
| | 00:10 | them, then choosing all of Part B,
and getting it closer to Part A, we can
| | 00:15 | simply--let me first undo.
| | 00:16 | We can simply highlight the time,
right-click on the Beat Time Ruler, and choose
| | 00:25 | one of the time commands.
| | 00:27 | We can cut, copy, paste, duplicate and delete.
| | 00:31 | Let's cut the time, and
let's paste it after Part B.
| | 00:38 | You can see the clips are
not on their designated tracks.
| | 00:42 | That's because I didn't
click on the right track.
| | 00:44 | So I'm going to undo, click on
the first one, and then paste time.
| | 00:53 | Let's delete these
transition effects; we don't need it.
| | 00:56 | We can also duplicate time.
| | 00:58 | For example, let's duplicate the Intro.
| | 01:00 | So I'm going to highlight the time,
go to Edit, and choose Duplicate Time.
| | 01:06 | So you can use the time commands from
the Beat Time Ruler or from the Edit menu.
| | 01:14 | Using time commands will help to
quickly audition different arrangement styles
| | 01:18 | to our song, and will help you to
achieve maximum creativity when using the
| | 01:23 | Arrangement view in Ableton Live.
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| Preparing your project for mixing| 00:00 | After we recorded our musical idea,
arranged it in the Arrangement view,
| | 00:05 | added effects, and automated
parameters in the effects over time using
| | 00:09 | automation envelopes,
| | 00:11 | now it's time for mixing.
| | 00:13 | It's time to make all the
elements of the song work together.
| | 00:17 | When I mix a song, I usually
convert all the MIDI tracks to audio.
| | 00:21 | In Live, it's very easy to quickly bounce
your MIDI tracks to audio using Freeze & Flatten.
| | 00:26 | Let's right-click on the Bass
track and choose Freeze Track.
| | 00:30 | Freezing a track will
temporarily disable all the devices on it,
| | 00:35 | but we will still be able to hear its output.
| | 00:39 | This can also help saving up
CPU power in heavy projects.
| | 00:42 | If we right-click again on the track,
we can choose Unfreeze Track to go back, or
| | 00:50 | Flatten, which will
convert all the MIDI into audio.
| | 00:54 | So now, if we double-click on one of the
clips, we can see its audio rather than MIDI.
| | 01:00 | If you want to keep your MIDI data--
let's go back and hit Command+Z. Let's
| | 01:04 | create a new audio track by going to
Create > Insert Audio Track, or Command+T
| | 01:10 | or Ctrl+T. And then I can copy the
MIDI clips, the frozen MIDI clips, to the
| | 01:16 | audio by holding Option or Alt.
| | 01:20 | And we would be able to keep
the MIDI as well as the audio.
| | 01:24 | So whenever we want to go back and
change MIDI or change parameters, we
| | 01:29 | can unfreeze the track.
| | 01:31 | But in my case, I like the bass how it
is, so I'm going to Freeze & Flatten.
| | 01:35 | Let's delete this audio and
right-click again and Flatten.
| | 01:38 | You can also see the clip name
is changed and added a Freeze tag.
| | 01:44 | You can change it if you want.
| | 01:45 | It's just a name.
| | 01:46 | Let's go up to Session view.
| | 01:48 | And before I freeze and flatten the
drums, I want to split the different
| | 01:54 | elements of the drums for mixing,
because right now everything is on one track.
| | 01:59 | All the samples are inside a drum rack.
| | 02:01 | So, let's unfold the chain mixer. Choose
Perc 1, holding Shift, and choosing also Perc 2.
| | 02:07 | I'm going to right-click
and choose Extract Chains.
| | 02:11 | Live will then create a new MIDI track
with a new drum rack and place only
| | 02:17 | Perc 1 and Perc 2 on it.
| | 02:19 | It will also create the MIDI clip with
only the data we had in Perc 1 and Perc 2.
| | 02:24 | And if we go back to our original drum
rack, we can see the percussion elements
| | 02:30 | are no longer there. Let's do the same with
the hats, Extract Chains.
| | 02:37 | And I'll do the same with
the snares, Extract Chains.
| | 02:42 | Let's fold the Chain Mixer, go back to
Arrangement, just arrange everything. Keep it organized.
| | 02:52 | I'm going to call this Kick
because we only get left with the kick.
| | 02:56 | I'm going to copy the clips to
wherever the drums are playing, by
| | 03:02 | holding Option or Alt. This is our Perc.
| | 03:06 | I am going to rename it using Command+R or
Ctrl+R. This is our Hats, and this is our Snare.
| | 03:15 | We don't really need the Hats and
the Percussion in part A, so I'm only
| | 03:19 | going to keep the snare.
Let's move the snare up.
| | 03:22 | Let's color everything the same color.
| | 03:23 | Now, instead of Freeze & Flatten, all
these four tracks which might take time, we
| | 03:31 | can also export all tracks at once.
| | 03:34 | To do that, I need to place the
loop bracket around the entire song.
| | 03:39 | Go to File > Export Audio/Video.
Under Rendered Track, I'll choose All Tracks.
| | 03:47 | I'm going to choose Bit Depth 24 Bit,
because I want to keep the file in high quality.
| | 03:53 | File Type, whichever you prefer--WAV or AIFF--
and Create Analysis File, let's keep it on.
| | 04:01 | It will create another file except
the AIFF file, which will end with .asd.
| | 04:06 | That will be Ableton analysis file,
which will allow us to more quickly read the
| | 04:12 | files when you load them into
a new project. Let's hit OK.
| | 04:15 | Let's now choose a place in our hard
drive where we want to place all the files.
| | 04:21 | I'm going to choose New Folder.
| | 04:23 | Let's go with Exporting Files. Create.
| | 04:29 | Let's name them Mix test. That's good.
| | 04:33 | I'm going to save.
| | 04:36 | Live will then render all the tracks
in our project and will export them to
| | 04:41 | audio files and will place them in the folder.
| | 04:44 | Now, if we go to where we saved it,
we can see we have AIF files and also the
| | 04:53 | analysis files ending with .asd.
| | 04:55 | Arrange it by kind and see all the files.
| | 05:02 | We can also see the
Mix test.aif without the name of the track.
| | 05:06 | That's the export from the master track
if we need any reference for the entire
| | 05:10 | song before we start mixing.
| | 05:12 | Now, we are ready for mixing.
| | 05:14 | We have all our tracks exported into
audio. And if you have a fairly small
| | 05:20 | project, you can also freeze
and flatten all your tracks.
| | 05:23 | If you have a large project,
I would recommend exporting all tracks.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
4. MixingWorking with the mixer| 00:00 | After recording our musical idea,
arranging it into Arrangement view, adding
| | 00:05 | effects and changing parameters over
time using automation envelopes, it's
| | 00:10 | time to mix our song and to make all the
different elements in the song work together.
| | 00:15 | So, for that, we're going to create
the new Live set, go into File > New Live
| | 00:19 | Set, and let's save it already.
| | 00:22 | Go into File > Save Live Set as,
and I'm going to call it Mixing Project.
| | 00:28 | Now, let's go to the folder where we
exported all the tracks, and I'm going to
| | 00:34 | import them into the Arrangement view.
| | 00:38 | So first, let's switch to the Arrangement view.
| | 00:39 | I'm going to hit the Tab
key, go back to the Finder,
| | 00:44 | and we can see we also
have A-Reverb and B-Delay.
| | 00:47 | We didn't use them, so they are
basically going to be silence audio files.
| | 00:51 | So, I'm going to choose them and delete them.
| | 00:55 | I'm also going to delete the Mix test,
which is the export from the master track,
| | 01:00 | which is going to play the
entire song before mixing,
| | 01:03 | so we don't really need it right now.
| | 01:05 | So, I'm going to also delete that one.
| | 01:07 | I'm going to choose all the audio files
by holding Shift, and I'm going to drag
| | 01:13 | them into Ableton Live.
| | 01:14 | They're going to be placed one after another.
| | 01:19 | So, to be placed on each individual tracks,
I'm going to hold Command or Ctrl. Let's go to Live.
| | 01:28 | Now, we have all the tracks
imported into our mixing project.
| | 01:32 | I'm going to click on one of the tracks.
| | 01:35 | I'm going to hit Command+A or Ctrl+A to
choose all tracks, and I'm going to hit
| | 01:40 | the left arrow in my computer
keyboard to fold all tracks.
| | 01:44 | Now, let's rename them.
| | 01:45 | I'm going to click
Command+R or Ctrl+R and rename it.
| | 01:49 | I don't even have to hit Enter.
| | 01:53 | I can just hit the down arrow
key to quickly rename everything.
| | 01:57 | I'm going to arrange the tracks.
| | 02:02 | So, I'm going to take all the drums
to the top, give them the same color.
| | 02:13 | Backing Lead with a Guitar Lead.
| | 02:19 | The Bass, the Guitar with a
Reverse Guitar, Transition, and Focus.
| | 02:28 | I'm also going to color
the clips the same color.
| | 02:34 | As you can see, I'm first clicking on
the track to see what color it is and then
| | 02:40 | I am coloring the clips.
| | 02:43 | It's also a good practice to
delete the silence in the audio clips.
| | 02:48 | You don't have to do that,
| | 02:50 | but it might free up some CPU
power in really big projects.
| | 02:55 | Place the play bar and hit Command+E
or Ctrl+E to split, do the same with
| | 03:02 | auto-silence, and delete the silence clips.
| | 03:06 | We can do the same with all of them.
| | 03:10 | But for now, I am only going to do it
for the drums, because once again, this is
| | 03:15 | not a must step, but it's a good practice to do.
| | 03:19 | So, clicking again, Command+E or Ctrl+E to
split the clips and delete the silence parts.
| | 03:28 | The Mixer Device in Live can be used
from both Arrangement and the Session view.
| | 03:34 | But in the Arrangement view, you will
have to unfold the tracks and then use
| | 03:39 | the Mixer Device next to them.
| | 03:41 | I prefer using the Mixer Device in the
Session view because we have a much more
| | 03:47 | classic analog mixer layout.
| | 03:49 | The first stage in my mixing process is
to adjust the volumes and pan positions
| | 03:55 | of each track to make them blend
together in a much more musical way.
| | 04:01 | So first, let's work only on the drums.
| | 04:03 | I'm going to solo all of them by holding
Command or Ctrl and hitting the Solo buttons.
| | 04:08 | Let's go to the Arrangement view by
hitting the Tab key and loop a section of
| | 04:14 | the song where all the drums are playing.
| | 04:16 | Turn on Loop, go back to Session, and play them.
| | 04:20 | (music playing)
So, I want to place the perc and hats.
| | 04:26 | Let's move the snare on.
| | 04:29 | I want to place the hats slightly to
the left in the stereo field and the
| | 04:33 | perc slightly to the right, and I'm
also going to turn the perc a tiny bit
| | 04:37 | down, and also the hats.
| | 04:38 | (music playing)
Let's add the bass to the mix.
| | 04:45 | (music playing)
| | 05:18 | So, as you can see, I adjusted the pan
position and the volume of each track
| | 05:23 | and slowly added more tracks into the mix
to make them more balanced and work together.
| | 05:31 | If you want to see exactly where you
are in the pan position, you can look at
| | 05:34 | the status bar on the bottom.
| | 05:37 | It will indicate what number
you are in the track panning.
| | 05:41 | Right now, I'm 13 L, which is 13 Left, or
15 L, which will give you a more accurate
| | 05:48 | measure to the panning.
| | 05:49 | If you want a more detailed view of the
Mixer Device, you can expand it up and
| | 05:56 | have much more space to
observe the meters in the mixer.
| | 06:00 | The first stage of mixing might be the
most important one, and that's to make
| | 06:05 | everything balanced and
to work together musically.
| | 06:07 | I would recommend leaving the master
track where it is and not touching it at all.
| | 06:12 | If the master track volume is
reaching the reds, you can choose all the
| | 06:17 | tracks by holding Shift, and change the
volume, which will change all the volumes together.
| | 06:25 | (music playing)
| | 06:32 | Although you can see we have a lot more
to turn up, it's always good to leave a
| | 06:37 | space, which is called
headroom, for the mixing part,
| | 06:40 | so in the less part, in the mastering, we
can push it up and then bring the levels up.
| | 06:46 | The first mixing stage will help
you get a rough mixing for your song.
| | 06:50 | So, take your time adjusting the
volumes, pan positions, renaming, and
| | 06:55 | coloring the tracks, so we can keep
organized and move on to the next step
| | 06:59 | of the mixing.
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| Adding EQ to the mix| 00:00 | The EQ Eight device in Live is a powerful tool.
| | 00:03 | We can use it to sculpt the
different elements of the song to make them
| | 00:08 | work better together.
| | 00:09 | Let's go to the Live browser.
Under Audio Effects, let's navigate to the EQ
| | 00:14 | Eight and drag it to the guitar track.
| | 00:17 | We can see it under the Device view.
| | 00:23 | Let's solo the guitar track, go to the
Arrangement, and let's loop a section a
| | 00:30 | where the guitar is playing.
(music playing)
| | 00:39 | The EQ Eight has eight multimode
filters that can shape the sound.
| | 00:45 | We also have a spectrum analyzer, which would
analyze the frequency response in the audio.
| | 00:52 | So if we play it, we can see
activity goes in the frequency display.
| | 00:57 | Let's play it and take a look.
| | 00:58 | (music playing)
| | 01:02 | So we can see we have a lot
of activity below 100 hertz.
| | 01:06 | Now because this is not a kick or bass, we
don't really need any low-end information.
| | 01:10 | So I'm going to change
filter number 3 to low cut,
| | 01:16 | and I'm going to cut from around 90 hertz.
| | 01:20 | You can also change the previously
chosen filter point using these three knobs:
| | 01:25 | Frequency, Gain, and Q.
| | 01:29 | To turn off filter points, you can
simply click on the filter activator.
| | 01:32 | And let's take filter number 5.
| | 01:37 | Right now it's set to Bell filter, which is good.
| | 01:42 | It's exactly what we want. And I am
going to emphasize around let's say 220.
| | 01:47 | I am going to take the Gain up.
| | 01:50 | I am going to adjust the Q that
will adjust the width of the filter.
| | 01:54 | So I'm going to play it and change it around.
| | 01:57 | (music playing)
| | 02:10 | Let me add another filter
point. Keep it on Bell.
| | 02:13 | I am also going to boost around 250 hertz.
| | 02:20 | You can also click on the parameter
and input the value using your keyboard.
| | 02:25 | Let's make it narrower.
| | 02:28 | (music playing)
| | 02:34 | Let's add another filter point.
| | 02:36 | Change it to High Shelf, which means
all the high frequencies turned up from 6
| | 02:42 | and above, to make it brighter.
| | 02:44 | (music playing)
| | 02:56 | If you want to see the frequency
display larger, you can double-click on it.
| | 03:00 | It would bring it up.
| | 03:01 | You can also see this small box on the
side tell us the frequency that we're moving
| | 03:06 | our mouse on, the note that is
associated with the frequency, and how much DB
| | 03:13 | if we go up and down.
| | 03:16 | You can also use the EQ as a creative
effect and not only as processing effect.
| | 03:21 | Let's add another EQ on the
guitar lead, solo the guitar lead.
| | 03:32 | Now EQ Eight also has three modes:
Stereo, Left and Right, and Mid and Side.
| | 03:39 | So if we choose Left and Right,
now we have two EQs to work with:
| | 03:42 | one for the left and one for the right.
| | 03:46 | So let's create a stereo effect
using the left and right to make the guitar
| | 03:57 | lead expand in the stereo field.
| | 03:59 | (music playing)
And this effect might be too much, so we can the Scale.
| | 04:06 | We can take it down to
make the effect more subtle.
| | 04:11 | (music playing)
| | 04:15 | Let's add another EQ after
it, just to cut all the lows.
| | 04:19 | Again around 100. I am going to put it before.
(music playing)
| | 04:28 | I'm going to boost around 220.
(music playing)
| | 04:40 | EQ Eight has more powerful features,
like Audition mode and Oversampling, and I
| | 04:47 | highly recommend future experimentation.
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| Adding a compressor| 00:00 | Modern music is heavily compressed,
which means the levels are being push to the max
| | 00:05 | because after all, louder sounds better.
| | 00:08 | Compressors are very important to
achieve a perceived louder signal and to glue
| | 00:14 | the different elements of the song together.
| | 00:16 | For example, if you have a vocalist
that in the verse is whispering and in the
| | 00:21 | chorus is shouting, using a compressor can make
those two segments of the song the same volume.
| | 00:27 | The compressor will compress the
dynamic range of the audio signal.
| | 00:31 | It will take the loudest and quietest
sounds and make them closer to each other,
| | 00:36 | and will give us an overall louder sound.
| | 00:40 | Let's go to the Live browser, under Audio
Effects, and drag a compressor to the guitar.
| | 00:46 | I also went ahead and EQed
each one of the tracks to boost any
| | 00:51 | frequencies that can complement the sound and
to cut any low end other than the bass and kick.
| | 01:01 | In the compressor I'm first going to
switch to the Show Activity view, so we can
| | 01:04 | see what's going on, and if I
play the guitar--let's solo it--
| | 01:08 | we'll see the activity going right here.
| | 01:13 | Right now the compressor won't do anything.
| | 01:15 | (music playing)
| | 01:19 | If we take the threshold down--and you
can see it's that orange line--everything
| | 01:25 | that will pass it will be compressed,
and we can see how much it compressed by
| | 01:30 | the top yellow line.
| | 01:31 | (music playing)
| | 01:37 | We can change the ratio of the
compression, how much it's going to be compressed
| | 01:41 | by the signal that it passes the
threshold, using the Ratio knob.
| | 01:45 | Let's compress it more.
(music playing)
| | 01:52 | We can change the attack time, which
will determine how fast the compressor is
| | 01:56 | going to start compressing when the signal
passes the threshold. So I am going to make it faster.
| | 02:02 | (music playing)
| | 02:07 | And Release Time, which will determine
how fast the compressor is going to stop
| | 02:12 | compressing once the
signal drops below the threshold.
| | 02:16 | And I am going to turn on Automatic, because
I don't want to worry about this right now.
| | 02:20 | (music playing)
So this is without.
| | 02:24 | (music playing)
And this is with.
| | 02:31 | (music playing)
| | 02:37 | In Ableton Live 9 we also have a new type
of compressor, which is the Glue Compressor.
| | 02:43 | Let's drop it on the bass.
| | 02:44 | The Glue Compressor is similar to
the regular compressor, but it has
| | 02:49 | fewer knobs, and it has much more of a
characteristic sound that will color the element.
| | 02:55 | Let's take the threshold down until
we see activity here in the meter.
| | 02:58 | (music playing)
| | 03:02 | And if we go back to the guitar,
we can see we have the Makeup turned on.
| | 03:06 | Because we're compressing the audio, so
we're turning down the volume, the Makeup
| | 03:11 | will automatically return
the volume to where it was.
| | 03:16 | In the Glue Compressor we don't have an
automatic makeup gain, so we'll just use
| | 03:21 | the Makeup knob to turn it up
after we compressing the audio.
| | 03:25 | I am going to turn it up.
| | 03:27 | We can adjust the Attack, Release,
and Ratio, just like in the compressor.
| | 03:33 | Don't worry if you don't
understand, what is a compressor?
| | 03:35 | It is a more complex audio tool and
a more complicated musical concept.
| | 03:40 | I am sure it will become
more and more clear over time.
| | 03:43 | You can always use the presets
that come built-in into Live.
| | 03:46 | So let's go to the Glue Compressor preset,
expand it, and I'm going to choose Punch.
| | 03:51 | I'm going to delete the first one. Let's play it.
(music playing)
| | 03:57 | I'm just going to play with the
threshold to fit to our bass not.
| | 04:03 | (music playing)
| | 04:05 | Without. With. Nice.
(music playing)
| | 04:12 | Give that tiny extra punch.
| | 04:13 | I am going to go ahead and compress
the guitar, lead guitar, and vocals.
| | 04:19 | And it's safe to say, when recording
and editing vocals, you will always want
| | 04:23 | to compress them.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using side-chain compression| 00:00 | Another technique to use with
compressors is called side-chain compression.
| | 00:05 | Side-chain compression is when we take
an audio signal from a different source
| | 00:09 | to activate the compressor every
time the signal passes the threshold.
| | 00:14 | To demonstrate this, I've created
a new Live set with a kick track.
| | 00:18 | (music playing)
And a pad sound.
| | 00:22 | (music playing)
| | 00:24 | A pad sound is a lush sustained sound
that comes to emulate what strings would
| | 00:29 | be in the real world.
| | 00:30 | It sounds something like this.
| | 00:31 | (music playing)
| | 00:34 | I'm going to add a
compressor from the Live browser.
| | 00:37 | Let's go to Audio Effects and
drag a compressor on the pad.
| | 00:41 | I'm going to click on the Side Chain
toggle to open up the Side Chain section,
| | 00:46 | turn on Side Chain, and
change the Audio From to Kick.
| | 00:53 | Now, we can see that the Threshold signal
is coming from the kick rather from the pad.
| | 00:58 | (music playing)
| | 01:01 | If we start turning down the
Threshold, listen to what happens.
| | 01:04 | (music playing)
| | 01:11 | Let's do the same thing by
listening only to the pads.
| | 01:14 | (music playing)
| | 01:22 | So, by side-chain compressing a track,
we can create that pumping feeling or
| | 01:27 | that breathing effect that is so
popular in electronic dance music.
| | 01:31 | The Ratio will determine how much
will it be compressed every time the
| | 01:35 | signal passes the threshold, and the
Attack and Release will determine the
| | 01:42 | groove of the side chaining.
| | 01:44 | (music playing)
| | 01:54 | So, this is without. This is with.
(music playing)
| | 01:58 | Excellent! Let's go back to our project.
| | 02:10 | I'm going to use the side-chain
compression technique on our drums to make them
| | 02:15 | sound better together.
| | 02:16 | So, I'm going to solo the hats.
| | 02:18 | (music playing)
| | 02:22 | I'm going to place a compressor, open
up the side chain, turn Side Chain on,
| | 02:27 | Audio From, The Kick, and
let's take the Threshold down.
| | 02:32 | (music playing)
| | 02:40 | Let's take the Ratio up.
| | 02:41 | This will determine how much
gain reduction is going to happen.
| | 02:45 | Gain reduction is how much
volume it's going to drop.
| | 02:48 | (music playing)
| | 02:51 | So, this is without.
| | 02:52 | (music playing)
And this is with.
| | 02:55 | (music playing)
| | 03:00 | So again, it's a very subtle change,
but it will add to the groove of our song.
| | 03:04 | Let's do the same thing with the perc.
| | 03:06 | I'm going to add a compressor.
| | 03:07 | This time I'm going to turn on Side Chain,
but I'm going to get the audio from the hats.
| | 03:13 | So, every time the hats play,
the percussion will drop in volume.
| | 03:16 | Let's take the Threshold down.
| | 03:17 | (music playing)
| | 03:18 | Let's solo the percussion
| | 03:20 | (music playing)
| | 03:27 | If we change the Attack and Release,
that will change the groove of the side chaining.
| | 03:31 | (music playing)
| | 03:40 | Okay. So this is without, and let me
turn it up, so we can hear it.
| | 03:44 | (music playing) Without.
| | 03:46 | (music playing)
| | 03:59 | And together with the hats. Let's turn it down.
(music playing)
| | 04:02 | (music playing)
| | 04:07 | And all the elements of the drums together.
| | 04:08 | (music playing)
| | 04:21 | Work much, much better together.
| | 04:24 | Side-chain compression is a
must-have tool in your arsenal, especially
| | 04:27 | when creating electronic dance music
and trying to achieve that pumping
| | 04:31 | or breathing effect.
| | 04:33 | Use side chain creatively and in
different places in your signal chain.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Grouping and using bus tracks| 00:00 | When working with big projects, you
often find yourself wanting to narrow down
| | 00:05 | the amount of tracks.
| | 00:06 | We can do that by grouping
different tracks together.
| | 00:09 | Let's choose all the drum
elements by holding Shift and selecting.
| | 00:13 | I'm going to right-click and choose
Group Tracks, or hitting Command+G or Ctrl+G.
| | 00:19 | It's going to place all the tracks into a group.
Let's rename the group Drums.
| | 00:25 | And now we can place effects on the group.
We'll affect all the tracks inside the group.
| | 00:32 | So I'm going to go to my compressor.
| | 00:34 | Let's open it up and load a preset.
| | 00:36 | I'm going to load Mix Gel.
I can play with the parameters.
| | 00:43 | (music playing)
| | 00:49 | Let's add another compressor,
maybe a Glue Compressor. I'm going to add Drums gentle two buss.
| | 00:55 | (music playing)
| | 01:03 | We can also add an EQ if we want,
before or after the compressors, whatever you
| | 01:10 | feel sounds more good.
| | 01:11 | I'm going to change them to high shelf and
low shelf and take some from the middle.
| | 01:18 | (music playing)
| | 01:23 | The drum sounds much better. Change the color and
| | 01:24 | let's fold the group.
| | 01:27 | I'm also going to group the Guitar
Leads and the Guitar and Reverse Guitar.
| | 01:42 | Let's color them and fold.
| | 01:47 | Let's add effects, go down to Compressor.
| | 01:50 | Let's add in an Acoustic.
| | 01:54 | (music playing)
Take the Threshold down.
| | 01:58 | (music playing)
| | 02:05 | And I'm also going to add Glue
Compressor, why not? Lead solo.
| | 02:10 | (music playing)
| | 02:16 | Turn off the Makeup Gain.
I don't want to add too much volume.
| | 02:22 | And let's add another compressor on the
Guitar track. I'm going to add Mildly Aggressive.
| | 02:30 | That sounds good.
| | 02:32 | (music playing)
| | 02:38 | And now let's group the Guitar group
and the Lead group together. Because we
| | 02:42 | don't have groups within groups in
Ableton Live, what we can do is create
| | 02:47 | and insert audio track, or Command+T or
Ctrl+T. Let's rename this Guitar's Bus
| | 02:54 | Track. I'm going to move it to the side.
Oh, I accidentally placed it inside a group.
| | 03:02 | So if that happens, simply open the
group and drag the track outside the group.
| | 03:08 | I'm going to open up the inputs-
outputs using the inputs-outputs view
| | 03:11 | selector to the right marked with I and O. And
now we can see Audio To from the Guitar tracks.
| | 03:18 | Let's send it to the Guitar Bus Track,
and Lead Group we'll send it to the
| | 03:24 | Guitar Bus Track as well.
| | 03:26 | We're going to change the
Monitor on the Guitars Bus Track to in,
| | 03:30 | so we won't have to arm the track in order to
hear what's coming into it. So if we solo it--
| | 03:36 | (music playing)
| | 03:42 | --we have both groups coming
in, so we made a bus track.
| | 03:47 | It's very important to create groups
and bus tracks in your mixing stage,
| | 03:51 | especially if you're
dealing with a very large project.
| | 03:54 | Remember, back in the day they used to
record on a 2 track, 4 track, 8 track,
| | 03:59 | 16 track, and so on.
| | 04:02 | They had a very limited amount of tracks,
but still achieved a very good-sounding mix.
| | 04:07 | It's good practice to try and
achieve a good-sounding mix with the least
| | 04:11 | amount of tracks.
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| Adding reverb and delay| 00:00 | Spacious and time-based effects are
very important in a mix to give an extra
| | 00:05 | dimension to the music.
| | 00:06 | Effects like reverb and delay
are commonly used on return tracks.
| | 00:11 | By default, we have two return
tracks: A, which has a reverb on it, and B
| | 00:16 | which has delay on it.
| | 00:18 | Let's create another one by going to
Create and choosing Insert Return Track.
| | 00:26 | If I send the audio for my drumbeat--
| | 00:30 | (music playing)
| | 00:32 | To Return Track C, we can see the
signal serving to input in Return Track C.
| | 00:39 | (music playing)
| | 00:47 | Right now because I don't have any
effect on Return Track C, we're simply going
| | 00:52 | to double the level of the volume.
| | 00:54 | But if I use Send knob A, we'll send
the signal to Return Track A, which has a
| | 01:01 | reverb on it. So that will sound like this.
| | 01:03 | (music playing)
| | 01:14 | So with the Send knobs, we can determine
how much of the signal we're sending to
| | 01:19 | the return track, or how much of the
signal we're sending to be affected.
| | 01:23 | For this reason, whenever we use
effects on the return track, we want it to be
| | 01:28 | 100% wet, because we already got the
dry signal from the original track and we
| | 01:34 | only wanted the affected
signal on the return track.
| | 01:37 | So let's go back to our project.
| | 01:39 | I'm now going to save this. That expands.
| | 01:47 | Now, if you don't see the return
tracks and Send knobs, you need to click on
| | 01:52 | the view selectors.
| | 01:53 | So first I'm going to close the inputs-
outputs because we don't need them for now.
| | 01:56 | I'm going to open the Return tracks
view and I'm going to open Send knobs view.
| | 02:02 | Again, by default we have a reverb on
return track A and a delay on return track
| | 02:07 | B. So I'm going to solo the drums.
| | 02:11 | Let's go to our arrangement and loop a
section where all the drums are playing together.
| | 02:16 | Go back to session.
| | 02:17 | (music playing)
| | 02:19 | And start applying slowly some reverb.
| | 02:20 | (music playing)
| | 02:26 | I want the effect to be
very subtle because it's drums.
| | 02:29 | We just want to emulate as
if the drums were in a room.
| | 02:33 | We can go to the reverb and adjust some
parameters like the quality of the Reverb.
| | 02:37 | If we put it on High, it will give us
a much more natural-sounding reverb.
| | 02:41 | We'll also change the Decay Time
to make it decay faster to silence.
| | 02:46 | (music playing)
| | 02:50 | I can also go to the
Guitar Lead. Let's solo it.
| | 02:54 | (music playing)
| | 02:56 | That's the Backing Lead.
Let's solo the Guitar Lead.
| | 02:58 | (music playing)
| | 03:01 | And I'll send it to the
delay, which is on Return Track B.
| | 03:05 | (music playing)
| | 03:13 | Let's go adjust the delay, clicking on the
Return Track B and go into the Device view.
| | 03:18 | Let's adjust the Delay
Time and adjust the Feedback.
| | 03:26 | You can already tell that we
cannot put clips on the return tracks;
| | 03:29 | they are only there to be
used as effect tracks.
| | 03:32 | (music playing)
| | 03:36 | Let's add another one, Create and
Insert Return Track, and I'm going to go to my
| | 03:41 | Browser > Audio Effects, I'm going to
scroll down, and I'm going to use one of the
| | 03:46 | presets that comes with the Reverb.
| | 03:48 | Let's choose Hall, and let's choose
Large Hall, and I'm drag it to Return
| | 03:55 | Track B. Make sure that the Dry/Wet
is all the way on Wet, and let's apply some for the vocals.
| | 04:05 | (music playing)
| | 04:14 | Reverb and delays are very important to
use to get depth and space in our song.
| | 04:20 | It's sometimes vital for vocals to fit
better with the music and can really come
| | 04:24 | in handy on drum groups.
| | 04:25 | Do not stop only with one effect on
the return track; try and experiment with
| | 04:30 | different effects to achieve
an interesting return effect.
| | 04:33 | For example, we can use the
Auto Pan, under Audio Effects.
| | 04:38 | Let's scroll up and drag
Auto Pan after the reverb.
| | 04:42 | I'm going to set up the Auto
Pan to affect like a gater.
| | 04:50 | And now if we play the reverb--
(music playing)
| | 04:59 | --we gave it some more movement.
| | 05:00 | Add more return tracks to add more
reverbs and delays to your track.
| | 05:05 | You can even go ahead and add another
return track, put one of the presets of
| | 05:11 | the reverb on it, and send all your
tracks in a very subtle way to put your music
| | 05:27 | in a certain space, so all the elements
are playing in a certain space, which is
| | 05:32 | the Large Factory Reverb.
| | 05:33 | Let's make sure that it's 100% Wet
because we put it on a return track.
| | 05:41 | And although it's subtle,
it will make a big change.
| | 05:44 | Spacious and time-based effects can make
your tracks sound bigger and atmospheric.
| | 05:49 | These effects are at most
times crucial for a good mix.
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| Mixing techniques| 00:00 | Let's take a look at more tools
we can use to achieve a better mix.
| | 00:04 | First I'm going to close the Return
and Send sections so we have more space.
| | 00:11 | Let's solo the Lead
Guitar sound and listen to it.
| | 00:15 | (music playing)
| | 00:21 | We can hear we have lot of background noise.
| | 00:24 | We can eliminate that those
using a gate audio effect.
| | 00:27 | Let's go and load the gate audio
effect from the Browser > Audio Effects and
| | 00:31 | drag the gate onto the Lead Guitar group.
| | 00:34 | The gate will let the audio signal
pass only if it passes the threshold.
| | 00:41 | Let's adjust the
Threshold and see what it's doing.
| | 00:45 | We see right now if I play it's
going to drop in volume -40DB.
| | 00:51 | (music playing)
| | 00:53 | Let's take the Threshold down.
| | 00:54 | (music playing)
| | 01:04 | We can hear that in some places
the gate opens and closes very fast.
| | 01:09 | So let's take the Return up and that
will eliminate the chatter that is caused
| | 01:14 | by the gate opening and closing very fast.
| | 01:16 | (music playing)
| | 01:41 | Great, much less noise.
| | 01:43 | We can use other effects that we usually
use for creative purposes as mixing tools.
| | 01:50 | For example, we can use the
Frequency Shifter Wide feature to make the
| | 01:56 | Reverse Guitar wider.
| | 01:57 | So let's open up the Guitar group.
| | 01:59 | Then let's load a Frequency
Shifter on the Reverse Guitar.
| | 02:03 | I'm going to turn on the Wide
and make very subtle changes.
| | 02:08 | Let's listen to it in solo.
| | 02:13 | So this is without.
| | 02:15 | (music playing)
And this is with.
| | 02:21 | (music playing)
| | 02:28 | Very subtle change, but it makes a difference.
| | 02:31 | We can also use the Auto Pan to make the
Vocals move from left to right in the stereo field.
| | 02:37 | This time I'm going to use a preset.
| | 02:39 | So let's expand the Auto Pan presets,
and I am going to drag to around the
| | 02:45 | head on the vocals.
| | 02:46 | Let's solo the vocals and listen to it.
| | 02:49 | I'm also going to change the Rate for
the time of how fast it's going to move
| | 02:53 | from left to right and the Amount
of how much of this Auto Pan I want
| | 02:58 | affecting the Vocals.
| | 02:59 | (music playing)
| | 03:16 | It's good practice to keep the
Kick and the Bass tracks as mono.
| | 03:20 | We can put a utility device on the Bass
and take the Width all the way down to
| | 03:28 | 0. That will make it mono.
| | 03:31 | Let's do the same with the Kick.
| | 03:32 | I am going to expand the group and drop a
utility on it, take the Width all the way to 0.
| | 03:40 | We can also the other way and expand it.
| | 03:46 | Listen to the differences between the left and
right more than we listen to the Mono signal.
| | 03:50 | So let's take it up, about one-third is good.
| | 03:53 | There are a lot of mixing techniques
you can use in Live that I'm not going to
| | 03:58 | cover in this course,
| | 03:59 | like de-essing; splitting, panning and
delaying tracks to create a stereo effect;
| | 04:05 | and use multiband compressors.
| | 04:07 | Once again--and this is kind of a
repeating theme in this course--
| | 04:11 | experimentation is key.
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| Dynamic mixing using automation| 00:00 | If we think of an old-school mixing
engineer working on a big analog mixer
| | 00:04 | disc, we think of an active mixing process.
| | 00:08 | When building the track, the mixing
engineer does not simply adjust the
| | 00:11 | volume, panning, EQ, and compression
and sits back; he moves the faders
| | 00:16 | according to the song energy,
creating a dynamic mix that would carry the
| | 00:20 | energy of the song with more impact.
| | 00:23 | You can choose to go the old-school way
and record your volume automations using
| | 00:27 | a MIDI controller or edit them
in manually into automation lanes.
| | 00:31 | Let's go to the Arrangement view and first,
I am going to open up the Guitar group.
| | 00:37 | Under Guitar, I am going to open up
the automation lane, expand it, and I am
| | 00:42 | going to click on the Track Volume so
Live will jump to the automation lane
| | 00:47 | of the Track Volume.
| | 00:48 | Then I am going to zoom in on the
intro and make kind of a fade-in.
| | 00:54 | So, create a breakpoint by
clicking, create another breakpoint by
| | 00:58 | clicking somewhere else.
| | 00:59 | Everything is now highlighted, so let's
click into background just to deselect
| | 01:03 | and take the first breakpoint down.
| | 01:06 | (music playing)
Let's listen to that.
| | 01:11 | (music playing)
| | 01:22 | I am going to do the same thing with
the Reverse Guitar, so clicking on the
| | 01:26 | Track Volume to jump to the
Automation lane of the Track Volume, creating a
| | 01:30 | breakpoint, creating another break
point. I am going to take it down.
| | 01:35 | Remember, you can also add a curve between
two break points by holding Option or Alt.
| | 01:42 | Let's close the Guitar group.
| | 01:44 | Now I am going to open up the Drums
group, and this time I am going to automate
| | 01:48 | the group Track Volume,
so let's click on the Volume.
| | 01:52 | We see it jumps to the Mixer. Track Volume.
| | 01:56 | I am going to fade it out right before
other elements of the Drums come into
| | 02:01 | play together, so creating three
breakpoints and taking it down. Let's listen.
| | 02:04 | (music playing)
| | 02:14 | We can also go to the Master track
automations, expand them, and choose Song
| | 02:20 | Tempo. So we can automate the song's tempo.
| | 02:23 | Let's go to the end of the song,
create a breakpoint, create another one to
| | 02:29 | slow it down towards the end, and we can see
the timeline change according to the new tempo.
| | 02:36 | So, let's play it.
| | 02:37 | (music playing)
| | 02:49 | You can automate the track's
volume and panning, as well as effects.
| | 02:53 | For example, you can automate the bass
compressor and EQ to give more punch in the chorus.
| | 02:59 | You can even add a filter delay to
affect only the last phase of the vocals.
| | 03:03 | Dynamic mixing can add more impact
to your song and help carry the energy
| | 03:08 | between the different segments.
| | 03:10 | I recommend using a MIDI controller,
hitting the Global Record button, and
| | 03:14 | recording the real-time
changes in volume and panning.
| | 03:17 | You can always undo and
rerecord or edit everything later.
| | 03:22 | So, just because we are making music in
the computer doesn't mean we cannot
| | 03:25 | bring the old-school magic.
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5. Finishing the SongExporting your song| 00:00 | After we finish our song, it's time to
mix it down and export it to our computer.
| | 00:04 | There are a couple of ways we
can mix down a song in Ableton Live.
| | 00:08 | First, we can set the loop
bracket around the entire song.
| | 00:11 | And I would recommend setting it even
after the song is finished, just to give
| | 00:16 | some space for any reverb or delay
tail we might have, because if we listen to
| | 00:21 | the end, we can see the audio doesn't
stop exactly at about 21, but decaying or
| | 00:26 | fading out slightly after.
| | 00:28 | (music playing)
| | 00:35 | After setting the Loop bracket,
go to File > Export. Under Rendered Track, choose Master.
| | 00:44 | File Type should be WAV or AIFF, it's up to you.
| | 00:49 | Sample Rate, I am going to keep the same
Sample Rate that I worked so far, 44100.
| | 00:54 | Bit Depth, I am going to keep it 24,
because I still want the high-quality audio
| | 00:59 | for the mastering stage. And no dither.
| | 01:01 | We are going to do that
after we do the mastering.
| | 01:05 | Create Analysis File and Upload
Audio to SoundCloud turned off.
| | 01:09 | This is not the final stage, and we don't not
to upload our song to Sound Cloud right now.
| | 01:15 | Hit OK.
| | 01:17 | Choose a place on your
computer you want to save the song.
| | 01:19 | I am going to call it My song and hit Save.
| | 01:23 | Live will then render the audio to disc.
| | 01:27 | It might take a couple of minutes
depending on the length of your song, and now
| | 01:31 | your song is rendered into one file.
| | 01:33 | There is another way we can mix
down our song in Ableton Live.
| | 01:37 | We can create a new audio track, Command+
T or Ctrl+T, making sure the inputs and
| | 01:42 | outputs are visible, using the view
selector, marked with I and O, and selecting
| | 01:49 | Resampling from the first dropdown menu.
| | 01:52 | This will take everything that comes
out of the master and will record it
| | 01:56 | into this audio track.
| | 01:57 | So let's arm the track, hit the Loop
bracket so we can start from the beginning
| | 02:02 | of song, and hit the Global Record button.
| | 02:05 | (music playing)
| | 02:27 | This process might take longer
because we need to wait for the full length
| | 02:31 | of the song to play.
| | 02:33 | There are a lot of the debates of which
method gives you the best audio quality,
| | 02:37 | and it's up to you to check both of
them--exporting or resampling--to choose
| | 02:42 | which one sounds better to you.
| | 02:44 | When we export our song, Ableton will
automatically collect all the files in our
| | 02:48 | project and save them into the Projects folder.
| | 02:51 | If you go to Live > Preferences and
under the Library tab, we can see the
| | 02:57 | Browser Behavior > Collect
Files on Export is set to Always.
| | 03:01 | If you set it to Never, you can collect
all and save manually by going to File
| | 03:07 | and choosing Collect All and Save.
| | 03:08 | Live will then ask you
which files so you want to save:
| | 03:12 | files from elsewhere, files from other
Projects, files from User Library, and
| | 03:17 | files from Factory Packs.
| | 03:19 | This will take all the samples that were
recorded, all the sample that we freeze
| | 03:22 | and flatten, all the presets that
you might have, and all the information for third-party plugins.
| | 03:29 | But it's important to know that if you
do use third-party plugins and you move
| | 03:32 | to a different studio, or a different
computer, if that computer doesn't have
| | 03:36 | the plugins that you used,
they are not going to work.
| | 03:39 | Let's hit Cancel, because we
already did this automatically.
| | 03:42 | You can also go to File > Manage Files >
Manage Project and see all the files
| | 03:49 | you are using in your project.
| | 03:51 | We can see we have 3 media files
and we have 11 files from elsewhere.
| | 03:55 | Exporting your song is not the last stage.
| | 03:58 | Next, we are going to master our mix down.
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| Mastering the finished song| 00:00 | After exporting our song,
it's time to master it.
| | 00:03 | Mastering is the last stage in our production.
| | 00:06 | It's where we'll glue everything together
and bring the volume to a commercial level.
| | 00:11 | I opened the New Live Set by
going to File, choosing New Live Set.
| | 00:15 | I'm going to switch over to the Arrangement
view because this is where we're going to master.
| | 00:22 | Let's import our song from the desktop.
| | 00:24 | I'm just going to drag it.
| | 00:30 | We can delete the other tracks because
we're only going to work with one audio track.
| | 00:34 | Let's set the loop brackets around it.
| | 00:36 | Now it's time to drop effects directly on
the audio track or on the master track;
| | 00:43 | it doesn't really matter.
| | 00:44 | Common mastering effects are EQ,
Saturator, Compressor, Dynamic Tube, Multiband
| | 00:52 | Dynamics, and Limiter--not necessarily
in that order. Mix and match different
| | 00:57 | combination of effects to come up
with your mastering signal chain.
| | 01:00 | A lot of people send the songs
to be mastered to professional mastering engineers.
| | 01:06 | You need a lot of experience and the
right gear to really come up with a
| | 01:11 | professional mastering file.
| | 01:13 | But for now, let's do it inside Ableton Live.
| | 01:15 | Ableton comes with great playsets for mastering.
| | 01:19 | You can find them under Audio Effects/
Audio Effect Rack/Mixing and Mastering
| | 01:26 | and choosing one of them from the list.
| | 01:28 | I think in this case I'm going
to go with Stereo Enhanced Master.
| | 01:32 | I'm going to drop it on my master track.
| | 01:36 | And here we can see the chain of effects.
| | 01:39 | We have an EQ, a Glue
Compressor, a Utility, and a Limiter.
| | 01:48 | We also have 8 knobs that are mapped to
different parameters in those effects.
| | 01:53 | These knobs are called Macro controls.
| | 01:54 | I recommend tweaking the Macro controls,
even if you're using the presets, just to
| | 02:01 | adjust the mastering chain to your song.
| | 02:05 | So let's listen to it and while we
listen to it, I'm going to adjust some
| | 02:09 | parameters using the Macro controls.
| | 02:11 | (music playing)
| | 02:55 | We can look at the limiter and see if it has
any gain reduction in this meter, right here.
| | 03:01 | If it doesn't have any gain reduction,
it means you can push the level of
| | 03:04 | your song even more.
| | 03:06 | I am going to double-click on the
other effects, just to fold them, because we
| | 03:10 | don't need to look at them right now.
| | 03:12 | I only want to see the limiter.
| | 03:15 | So I'm going to listen to the song and
I'm going to take the limiter up as much
| | 03:19 | as I can, to push the level
of the song to make it louder.
| | 03:23 | Once again, louder sounds better.
| | 03:25 | (music playing)
| | 03:26 | Remember that after adding your master
signal chains of effects, you would have
| | 04:00 | to print the track again
using Export or Resampling.
| | 04:04 | Once again, there are a lot of
debates on which method sounds the best,
| | 04:09 | and it's up to you to use both of them
and choose which one fits best for you.
| | 04:14 | In our case, I'm going to
export the song using File > Export.
| | 04:22 | In this case, under Bit Depth, I'm
going to change it to 16 and not 24, because
| | 04:26 | we want to propel it to be a CD-quality file.
| | 04:29 | I'm going to use the Dither options
because we're moving from 24 bits to 16
| | 04:34 | bits, so we need to use the dithering.
| | 04:36 | I'm going to use Rectangular.
| | 04:39 | I'm not going to choose Upload Audio
to SoundCloud, but if you do have a
| | 04:42 | SoundCloud account, you can upload to it
directly from Ableton Live. Let's hit OK.
| | 04:47 | I'm going to call my song
My first mastered song. Let's hit Save.
| | 04:58 | Now let's import our master track to
Ableton, just to look at the WAV file and
| | 05:04 | see and compare it with the unmastered one.
| | 05:09 | We can see that the waveform is lot
thicker, which means it will be a lot louder.
| | 05:13 | We exported the file in 16 bit, which
means it's started to be burned to a CD.
| | 05:19 | If you plan to keep your file only on
the computer in a digital format, you
| | 05:23 | might want to have another
high-quality export in a 24 bit.
| | 05:27 | Remember, only use dithering if you
are decreasing the bit depth. That's it.
| | 05:33 | We recorded our song,
arranged it, mixed, and mastered.
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ConclusionNext steps| 00:00 | Thanks for watching this course.
| | 00:02 | I hope you had as much fun
watching it as I had making it.
| | 00:05 | You can check out other courses on lynda.com if you
are interested in expanding your music-making knowledge.
| | 00:11 | If you want to know more about recording
techniques, check out Bobby Owsinski,
| | 00:16 | Audio Recording Techniques, a very
extensive and informative course.
| | 00:20 | Foundation of Audio courses will show you
the basics of effects like EQ and filters,
| | 00:26 | as well as delay and modulation.
| | 00:28 | And finally, if you want to take your
production on stage, or just to find out more about how
| | 00:33 | to use MIDI controllers, check out my
course, Ableton 9 Live for Live Performance.
| | 00:39 | And remember, making music is about having fun.
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