Transcripts
1. Welcome to Ableton Live and What You’ll Learn: Hi there and welcome to this Ableton Live Quickstart course. In this course, I guide you through the very basics
of Ableton Live. So even if you've never
opened the software before, you'll be able to
quickly understand how it works and create your
own music in no time. My name is Thomas George. I'm a music producer
and educator, and I've taught hundreds
of thousands of students music production
around the world. Ableton Live can look a little intimidating
when you first open it. There's different views,
tracks, and buttons everywhere. But once you know
the essentials, you'll see just how fast and effective this digital
audio workstation can be. In this Quick Start
guide, we'll explore differences between a session
view and arrangement view, how to record and
edit median audio, and how to add
instruments and effects. Finally, you'll
learn how to export your song and share your music. By the end of this
course, you'll have a solid
understanding of how Ableton Live works and have the confidence to start
producing your own tracks. This mini course is perfect
for anyone who wants a quick, hands on introduction to
Ableton Live and to see what makes it such a powerful fun tool for music production. So when you're
ready to start, hit the roll button. I'll
see in the course.
2. Session View vs Arrangement View in Ableton Live: The session view versus
the arrangement view. Ableton Live has two main views the Session view and
the arrangement view. The session view is designed
for creating loops, clips and recording in a more live performance
style workflow. This is one of the key
features that makes Ableton Live unique compared to other digital audio
workstations. Then we have the
arrangement view. You can switch between
the two views by clicking these buttons up here or
by simply pressing Tab. The arrangement view
looks more like a traditional digital
audio workstation layout. Tracks run vertically while bar numbers and time
run horizontally. It's mainly used for arranging beats, loops, and fall songs. You can also record directly into the arrangement
view if you prefer. Personally, I like to sketch out ideas and loops in the
session view and then record a performance into arrangement view where I can
arrange and edit further. I'll show you exactly how to do this later in this course. Okay, now let's have a look at the session view in
a bit more detail. So let's swap back to the
session view by pressing Tab. Adding a virtual instrument
in the session view. In the session view, we have each track
laid out vertically. Here you can see, by default, we have two midi tracks
and two audio tracks. You won't be able to play any
sound from the midi tracks, though, unless you
have a virtual instrument loaded
onto the track. So let's do this now.
On the left here, we have the library, and we can open and close it
with this, but in here. The library stores all the different instruments,
effects, and samples. For this example, let's find a virtual instrument to load
onto one of the MIDI tracks. So let's click on instruments, and here can see a list
of different instruments. You may have fewer instruments
than this, though, depending on what edition of
Ableton Live you're using. For this, though,
let's choose drift, which is available on all newer
editions of Ableton Live. We have different preset
sounds which we can use. You can preview these
presets by clicking on the arrow button next to the instrument and clicking
on these to preview them. You'll need to press on
the small headphone icon down here to hear
the preview back. For this example, though, let's choose the default drift sound. If we have the midi
track selected, then we can double click on
the instrument to load it, or we can click and drag
it over to the midi track, and this will load the
instrument onto the track. Setting up a midi keyboard. If you have a midi
keyboard plugged in, then you can play some
notes to hear the playback. For example, in
front of me here, I have my midi keyboard. So I'm going to play
a few notes now, and you'll be able to hear the sound from this
virtual instrument. If you have Im MIDI keyboard and you
can't hear any sound, then you may need to set
this up in settings. To do this, go to
live settings on Mac, or if you're on Windows,
go to option settings. Then go to Link tempo and MIDI, and here should find
your MIDI device listed. Then under input, make sure
you have track selected. This is the most
important one, but the other essential
one is remote. You can check this if you want
to map knobs and faders on your midi device for controlling
Ableton Li's interface, but we're not going to cover
this in the short course. So if you have track selected, you should be able to
hear some sound on your midi keyboard when
you press some notes. Let's now close settings. If you don't have a MIDI
keyboard or MIDI device, then you can actually use
your computer's keyboard as a midi keyboard by pressing the computer midi
keyboard button up here, or you can toggle this
on and off by using the key command N. If
you have this enabled, then you can play notes on
your computer's keyboard, and this will trigger notes
on your virtual keyboard. Let me show you now. However, if you want to play more
complex chords or parts, then I do recommend
getting a MIDI keyboard.
3. Recording and Editing MIDI: Okay, so now let's record
in some MIDI notes. In the session view, we
have this clips area here. When the track has
these small circles, that means you can record
onto one of these clips. To do this, we will need
to record MA track, and we can do this
by clicking on this small circle button
down here so it turns red. By default, in the midi from
area, it should say all ins. And for monitor, by default, it should be on Auto.
Let's leave it like this. And when you play some notes
on your midi device or computer midi keyboard, you
should hear some notes. If you can see audio here, but you can't hear any sound, I recommend checking out
your audio output settings. You can do this by going
to live settings on Mac or option settings on Windows,
and then go to audio. If you have an audio interface, you can select it
here in the audio output device drop down. If you're just using
your computers built in speakers or headphones, you should be able to
select them here as well. Let's now close settings, and let's record something in. It's really simple to record
clips in the session view. Just click on one of
these little circles here and record onto that clip. I recommend turning
on the click or Metronome first to make
sure you're on time. You can turn on the click by
selecting this button here, and if you click on the
arrow button next to it, you can choose a
counting amount. I like to have 1
bar of counting, but 2 bars can be fine as well. So now it gives me four
clicks before I play, so it gives me time to prepare and gives me a feel
for the tempo. You can also change the beats per minute of the
project over here, so you can click and drag
up to make the tempo faster or click and drag
down to make it slower. You can also tap in the
tempo or double click to go back to the
default of 120 BPM. You can also click and type
in a number if you wish. So for this example, let's
change this to 122 BPM. Okay, so now let's record an
idea on my mini keyboard. Once you've finished
recording your idea, you can press Space Bar
to stop the recording. Okay, now let's press on
a small circle icon hear, and I'll record in my idea. Once you've finished
recording your idea, press Space Bar to
stop the recording. You can always
delete what you've recorded and record again if you want to try another idea or if you think you can
record it in better. The midi note editor. We can
edit what we've recorded in the midi note editor or
we can write in parts in this editor and not record
them in at all if we wish. Let's first look at editing
what we've recorded in, so we can double click on a clip to open up the Midi Note editor. We can click and
drag on this area here to zoom in or out. This area should be
familiar if you've used another digital
audio workstation before. So this is the piano roll
or midi note Editor. Here on the left, we have the
piano flipped on its side. So vertically, we have pitch, and let's just enable
this headphone icon so we can hear some notes. So for press on one
of these lower notes down here, will be a lower note. And I for press on some
of these high notes here, it would be a high note. Horizontally, we
have bar numbers. We can hover up here so
the speaker icon appears, and if you click,
it will play back. So wherever we click,
it will play back from. And again, we can press
Space Bar to pause. We can click and
drag on the right of these notes to make
them longer or shorter. And we can click and drag
on them to reposition them. You can double click
to drawing notes, and we can stack notes
to create chords. You can undo any changes
by pressing Commands ed. So let's just undo this, so it's just a single note, not chord. You may have noticed, though that this part is
a little out of time. So if you record in a part
and it's out of time, you can snap the
notes to the grid by using the quantize function. You can do this with
the key command command on Mac or control
you on Windows. So let's do this now. So you should have seen that snap
the notes to the grid. We have some more settings for
quantize on the left here. Let's say you want to choose another grid value to
snap the notes to, you can select another
grid value over here. I'm not going to look at this to keep this course concise, but we cover this and
I complete course. Okay, let's play this back now. Sometimes when you quantize, it may snap to the wrong place. So I do recommend going
through and checking your midi note to make sure
they're in the right place. So let's just play this
back one more time. So for the part I want, this
note should be here instead. Let's say this back again. So I believe this note
should be here instead. And I believe this note
should be here instead. Oh Okay, that seems correct now. I'm just going to make some of these notes a little longer. And I think now,
this should be fine. Okay, so that's my midi part. This is my bass
part for the song. Before we continue, let's save. To do this, it's quite simple, just go to File and
Save Livesetas. And now let's choose
a location to save. For this example, I'll
save it on my desktop. And then hit Enter
or press Save.
4. Setting Up, Recording, and Editing Audio: Setting up and recording audio. So to record audio,
you will need an audio interface
or a USB microphone. You can use your
built in microphone on your computer, but
it won't be great. If you want to record audio, I recommend using
an audio interface and an ExcelR microphone. You can also record
guitar, bass, and external synthesizers
n Ableton Live two, but again, you'll need an
audio interface to do this. Before we record audio, let's set up my audio interface. To do this, we will need to go back to the
audio settings. So we can do this by
going to live settings on Mac or option
settings on Windows, and then selecting audio. Then under audio input device, you'll need to select
your audio interface. If you don't have
an audio interface, and you just want
to test this out, then you could select your
computer's microphone, but again, it won't be great. So for this example, I'm going to select my
audio interface, which is this one here
called ClareteFPre. For recording audio, I recommend using a
smaller buffer size, as this will give you less
latency or recording delay. So for this example,
let's select 32 samples. However, smaller buffer sizes will take up more CPU power, and if you experience
any clicks or pops in your audio recording,
increase the buffer size. Also, for arranging and mixing, I recommend using a
larger buffer size, but just for recording audio, I would use a
smaller buffer size. Let's just close the immediate editor by pressing this button here and you can see the audio
from my microphone here. If you're not
wearing headphones, then I don't recommend
monitoring your audio and change this off or you
may get some feedback. If you change monitor to in, you'll be able to
hear yourself back. Check, check, check. Now let's arm our track for
audio recording by pressing the small
circle icon down here. And for this, I'm going
to change monitor to off because I'm already
monitoring myself for this video. However, if you want
to monitor yourself, change this to auto or
N. For this example, I'm going to record the
audio of an egg shaker. So I'm just going
to shape this into the microphone that
I'm speaking into now. Okay, so let's record this in. Let's press the small
circle icon for the clip, and this will give
me a 1 bar counting, and then I'll record
in the Shaker. Again, to stop the
recording, press Space bar. Now let's double
click on this clip, and we can see the
audio editor appear. We can see this isn't
perfectly on time, but we can click and
drag the timing of the audio to stretch it to make it longer or make it shorter. Let's just zoom in so we can see the transients or
the audio spikes. So you can see the audio
starts around here, and I want to have
this on beat one. So let's click and
drag this back. Now the audio
appears around here. So let's click and
drag this back. And the next one around here. This can take a
few moments to do. There we go. Now, the audio
for these 2 bars is in time. In the audio editor, we
can adjust the audio, but we can't adjust it as much as MIDI and the midi Editor. Let's now play back
both of these clips by pressing as plate icon
here for the rove clips. We also have some different
clip and warp settings here. For this example, I
would choose beats, but I'm not going
to cover this now, but again, I do cover this
on my complete course. Now let's actually record
in a different pattern. So the same process as before, but like leg on the small
circle of another clip. Okay, let's do this now. This time, the clip was
4 bars rather than two. Again, let's zoom in
and put this in time. Et's play this back as I believe this is where
I played the Shaker. Okay, let's just zoom out and press Space Bar to hit back. So now we have two variations of the shaker, the first part. And the second part. Okay, so that's a really brief overview of recording audio. Of course, it's not just
a shaker you can record. You can record singing, guitar, and many other
instruments as well.
5. The Drum Rack and More MIDI Editing: Now have a look
at the drum rack, which is great for drums, and I'll briefly
go over this now. This is an instrument
that we can add in one of our MIDI tracks, and then we can perform
in the drum part on a midi device or program MIDI
trigger different drums. For this example,
let's use a drum rack preset that's loaded with
drum sounds already, and I'll program in
a simple drumbeat. So in the library and instruments,
let's find drum rack. Let's click on this arrow button here to have a look at
some of these presets. Let's turn on a small headphone icon and preview some of these. I think the first
1505 crit is fine. So let's click and drag this over to this empty midi track. So these different drums link
up to different midi notes. So it can trigger different midi notes to
play about the drums. I'm going to play some notes
on my midi keyboard now, and you should be able to
hear some different drums. So the kick is C one, the snare is D one, and the closed high hat
is F sharp one. Let's now double click
on an empty clip slot and program in a simple beat. You can see the different
drums are already labeled, and if we have this
headphone icon enabled, we can hear the drums back when they play these notes here. Let's first of all, have the
kick play on every beat. So let's double click on every
beat to add the kick drum. Now let's have the snare
play on beats two and four. So on the snare drum, double
click on beat two and four. Now, let's press this arrow button over here for column one, so we should be able to
hear this drift bass part, the drum part, and the shaker. Let's actually duplicate
the drum part by holding down option and
clicking and dragging below. And now for the second part, I'm going to add some high hats. So let's add a closes
high hat here. Like so, a really simple beat. I'm actually going to label this a different color, so I
know it's a different part. So let's write on this and
choose a different color. The same for the shaker,
for the second shaker part, I'm going to choose
a different color. So I know it's a different part. I'm not too happy with
this bass part now, I don't think it really
works with the drums. So I'm just going to adjust
some of these notes in the editor to make the
part a bit straighter, so it matches with
the drums more. Okay, let's hear this but now. I think the rhythm for
this first part is good. So I'm just going to copy that. Okay, let's hear this now. Often, when I'm creating a song, I would change and adapt
different instruments and parts to fit with the
rest of the song better. So to me, the bass
part didn't really work when I added the
drums and the shaker, so I decided to change this so it fits with the
rest of the parts more.
6. Building a Basic Arrangement in the Session View: Okay, so now let's create a
bit more of an arrangement. So we have this basic idea that let's now flesh it out
into more of a song. Let's duplicate
this bass part by holding down option and
clicking and dragging. Also with the drums
and the shaker, I'm going to duplicate
the first part. Let's delete this first
one here and drag this second part Let's also rename these
tracks by clicking on the track and right clicking
and going to rename. Let's call the first one base. And the second one,
let's click on this, and let's use a key
command command R to rename or Control R on Windows. And let's call this drums. And the third one Shaker. Okay, so now I've made
a quick arrangement. This song does need
a bit more, though. It does need some
chords or a lead part. So let's now add a new MDiTrak
and create a lead part. So let's go up to create and then click on Insert MIDI track. So for this, let's use the
drift instrument again, as this is available on all
new editions of Ableton Life. For this example,
let's use a preset. If you're following along and you don't have the exact preset, don't worry, choose
a similar one. So let's just preview
some of these. We I think this one here
called Analog Chime is fine. So let's click and drag this over to this empty midi track. For playing leap parts,
most parts in general, I will play about the track
and then jam some ideas out. And then when I've come
up with the part I want, I will hit this record
button and record it in. So I'm going
to do this now. Okay, something like
that, I think can work. Let's record this in now. Let's double click
on Immediate Editor and just quantize now. So remember to quantize, we
use a key command command or Control you on Windows.
Let's hit back now. And and Okay, now let's add some chords. So again, let's add
another Midi track. So let's go on create
insert Midi Track. Again, I'll use drift
as it's available on all new editions
of Ableton Life. So let's preview
some of these and choose one that should be
suitable for a cord part. By the way, we can
use up and down arrows to quickly scroll
through the different presets. I think this one here called Analogue piano should be fine. So let's click and drag this
over to this new midi part. Understanding music theory
and being able to play the keyboard should help you
come up parts a lot quicker. Also, if you're struggling
to come up with chords, I do recommend having a
look at your bass part, and you can build the
chords from there. For example, you can
see, we start with an A. So for this example, I'm
going to play an A minor. Then we go up to D. So for this example, I'll
play a D minor. And then we go back down to A. So for this, I'll
play an A minor. And then we end with a G,
so I'll play a G major. These all fit in the key of A minor as this song
is an A minor. So there's different versions or orders you can
play the chord, but this is a quick way to
find the chords for your song. Okay, so now let's
jump some ideas in. Just to keep the
simple, I'm going to play hell chords that
follow the bass part. Okay, like this. Let's
quantize this again, so let's press command you. And you can see now it snapped all of these
parts to the bar. Let's he this back. It's a super simple idea, but I just wanted to create something so you can
see how easy and quick it is to create music in the session view
and a Ableton Live.
7. Continuing the Quick Arrangement in the Session View: Let's now arrange this
into more of a song. So I don't want to start with all the parts playing
at the same time, so I want to gradually build
up the different parts. To remember, we have two
different drum parts here, ones with the high hats,
and one's without. So I'm not going to
add the melody yet, so let's just drag this down. And let's also add the
chords later as well. So I'm just going to start off with the drums and the bass. Then later, I'll add the
shaker and the chords. Let's drag the
melody down again, and let's just duplicate some of these parts by holding
down option and dragging. Okay, so something
like this. It's going to start with the
bass and the drums, and then we'll add the
shaker and chords. And then we'll add the melody
and a quicker shaker part. And then we add the
drums of the high hats, the shaker and the chords, and then we'll add the melody, and then we add the
quicker shaker part. So let's do this
now. Let's click through these different rows
to hear the difference. Let's click the next one now. Then it just repeats. Let's
create a bit of a breakdown. So after this column here, let's remove the bass, and let's go back to the
more simple drums. So let's duplicate these drums. And for this new drum part, let's actually remove the snare. So it's just the kick
drum. Let's change this to a different color, so I know it's a different part. Then after this, we'll
build up the drums again, so we'll add the snare and
then we'll add the high hats. Then we'll add the bass,
and then the shaker and also the chords
and the melody as well. Okay, something like this. So let's go from
this column here. Oh I don't want to have this row here at
all, so let's delete this. So we can actually
delete entire rows. So let's click on this
row and press Delete. Now let's play back
from Row three. Oh So drawing playback, we can actually move
these clips around, so I added a base part there, and it also added a part
I wanted to use for Otro, which is just the chords,
and it kick drum playing. So that's just a really
quick arrangement in the session view. Let's actually hide this editor here so we have a
bit more space. So we have this
introduction section with the bass and the drums, and then we add the
shaker and the chords. And we also change the drum
part to add the snare. Then we go to the faster shaker and then we add the lead part. Let's rename this the lead. And this one keys so we
quickly know the difference. So on row three, we really have all of the
instruments playing. Then we break the drums
down to just a kick drum, and then we remove
the bass part. Then we add the bass
part again and add the snare, but we
remove the keys part. Then we add the
keys part in again. So for this part here, we have
the drums of the high hat. Then we have the
outtro where we just have the kick drum playing
and the keys part. So that's just a really
fast arrangement in the session view. If you're making
a song yourself, I do recommend spending
some more time than this, but that's just a quick
way of how to do it. Next, we're going to look at recording into the
arrangement view.
8. Recording into the Arrangement View: Recording into the
arrangement view. So now what we can
do is we can record the performance from the session view into the arrangement view. So let's now record
that song from the session view into
the arrangement view. Then we can further edit and arrange this in the
arrangement view. It's quite simple to
do in Ableton Live. First of all, recommend making sure you stop all the clips, and you can do this by pressing the stopball clips
button down here. Then all we need to do is press the record button up here and play back our
scenes or clips. And this we'll record
from the session view into the arrangement view. So when you press record
and play back the clips, you can choose to
play back entire rows or individual clips. Okay, so let's do this now. So Now, let's press space
bar to stop this and let's stop all clips by
pressing this button here. Now let's go over to
the arrangement view by pressing tab and we can see
what we just recorded then. Let me just hide this editor
so we have a bit more space. And you can see it's
actually graded out. So if the clips are
graded out, you'll need to press this back to
arrangement button, which is this little
orange button over here. So now we play this back, it'll play about the arrangement view. Okay, so that's how it can record into the
arrangement view. Next, we'll look at some basic features in the
arrangement view.
9. Arrangement View Basics: Volume and Panning: Basic features of the
arrangement view. Okay, so first of
all, we can change the volume for each of the tracks for these
sliders over here. For example, we can change the volume of the base
or this slider. These changes are linked to
the session view as well. So if we change the volume
in the arrangement view, it will change in the
session view and vice versa. So for this example,
let's play this back and adjust some
of the volume levels. So we can adjust the
level of all the drums here or we can adjust the level of the individual drums
in the drum rack. We can do this by
showing the chain list and adjusting here. So we need to press
this button here, and you can see
we can change the level for the individual drums. We have the bass drum here. Then this is for the snare. And this is for
the closed high h. We can loop a
section by clicking and dragging these arrows here. Straight away, I can
hear this lead part. It's far too loud. So let's just loop
a section with the lead part and play this back and then reduce the level. The shake is also too
loud, in my opinion. And the keys part
is also too loud. S And if we want
to loop a section, we need to click on
this bar up here. Okay, these levels seem
a bit more balanced now. We can also adjust the panning for individual instruments. Panning adjusts
the level between the left and right
channels or speakers. This is easier to hear if
you're wearing headphones. We don't have many instruments
here for this song, so I won't pan them too far in the mix or may feel off center. But just for this example,
I'll play this back and pan some of these tracks so you
can hear a difference. And we can double click
to go back to Center. So for this song, the
only instruments I would consider panning would be the
shaker and the lead part. I definitely wouldn't pan the
bass part, and generally, you do want to keep lower frequency
instruments center pant. I could potentially
pan the keys part, but again, I think it make
the song too off center. So I've just put a
small pan amount for the lead part
and the shaker part. We can also solo each
instrument with S button. And we can also utter track by clicking the track
activator button.
10. Using Automation in Arrangement View: Okay, now let's have a look
at how to add automation. Automation lets you make
changes over time in your mix. For example, you could
automate the volume, panning or effects on the track at different points in the song. We can show the automation by pressing this button up here, or you can use the
key command A. You can only use this
key command, though, if the computer midi keyboard is disabled because
if it's enabled, pressing A will trigger a note on the computer midi keyboard. So let's disable this
and then press A. Before I look at automation, I do want to change
my buffer size. So previously, you
may remember, I said, if you're arranging or
mixing in Ableton Live, you want to change your buffer
size to a higher amount. So let's do this now. So under live and settings or
options and preferences, if you're using
Windows, let's go to audio and let's
change the buffer size. So I'm going to change this
to the maximum amount, as we only need a
small buffer size if we're recording, not
arranging or mixing. Okay, so for this
automation example, let's have the keysp
gradually fade in. So under the keysp under mixer, let's choose track volume, and now I'm going to have
this gradually fade in, so we can click to
add these notes here, and then we can
click and drag down. Now, let's play this back,
and you should be able to hear the keys part
gradually fade in. I also want to have
this first shaker part a lot quieter than the
second shaker part. So for the shaker
part and the mixer, let's choose track volume. And let's collect to add some of those here and drag this down. Let's make this a bit tighter. So the first part
will be -15 DB, and the second part will be
-4.7 dB. Let's this back. I'm actually going to make the
second part a bit quieter. Let's put it to minus ATB. I also don't need
this node here, so we can double click
to remove a node. Okay, let's hit back now. I dragged it down even
further drawing playback. As a shaker part is not
a main part of the song. It really is just a
background instrument, so I want it a lot
lower in the mix. Let's now add some pan
automation for the lead part. So with the mixer, let's make sure we have track
panning selected. And now let's drag this so it should go from the right
to the left channel, and then back to the right.
Let's hear this now. We can also copy and
paste automation data. So I'm going to click and
drag over these 8 bars here and then copy this
with Command C or Control C on Windows, and then select it where
I want to paste it, and then paste this
with Command V or Control V on Windows. Again, for this bar
and here as well. And here as well. Now let's add some automation
for this drift synth. So let's open up this
drift synth here, and I want to automate the
filter frequency dial. So I play this back, and I'll show what this
does first of all. So if we drag this
back, we're basically cutting out some of the
higher frequencies. Because I selected this, you can see in this
automation box here, it says drift LP frequency, which stands for
low pass frequency. Low pass frequency means
it allows the lows to pass and it filter out or
cut out some of the highs. So for the start, I want to actually filter
some of the highs. So I'll click to add some notes here. And now let's
play this back. You'll notice it
will cut out some of the highs and drawing playback, some of the
highs will enter. There's a lot more we can do in terms of mixing and automation. I just wanted to
quickly cover this now. Okay, so that's the basics of volume, planning and automation. Next, let's have a look at adding some effects
to our tracks.
11. Effects and EQ Eight Introduction: Adding audio effects. Okay, so now let's have a look
at adding some effects. We have two different
types of effects, audio effects and MIDI effects. Audio effects can be added
to audio and MIDI tracks, but MIDI effects can only
be added to MIDI tracks. Let's first look
at adding and EQ. I personally like
using EQ Eight, but just be aware this
isn't available on the intro or light
edition of Ableton Live. So if you're using
intro or light, I recommend using the
channel EQ or EQ instead. Within the EQ, we can adjust
the frequency balance. For example, we
could cut some of the low frequencies or
boost some of the heights. So in the library, let's
click on audio effects. Now let's select EQ Eight. For this, let's click and
drag this to shake a track. Let's loop bar nine.
And so do this. So in this recording, you can
actually hear me breathing. And you can see in
this analyzer here, the shaker is really just
using these high frequencies. So I'm going to click
and scoop out some of the lower frequencies so this should hopefully cut out
the sound of my breath. The shaker still has some
of these lower sounds. But just for this example, let's just have these higher
frequencies for the shaker. Let's also hear this in the mix, so let's unslo this and hear this with the
other instruments. There are many
other audio effects we have in Ableton Live. You may have fewer than
the ones I have here, I am using Ableton Live Suite, but let's have a look and
another audio effect.
12. Using Reverb and Delay with Sends and Returns: Let's have a look at the
reverb and delay effect. By default, these are loaded
onto return track A and B. So if you click on A here, you can see we have
a reverb and if I click on B, you can
see we have a delay. They are set up like
this, so multiple tracks can share the same effect. This can save a lot of computer power as you will
send the tracks to one effect rather than having a reverb or delay on each track. We can add some
reverb by clicking and dragging on the first sand. That's this over here.
So for this example, let's add some reverb
to the lead part. And for the second sound,
we can add some delay. Again, let's do this
for the lead part. Let's also add some
delay for the keys part. Let's add some reverb, as well. Let's also add some
for their shaker. You can see there when
we increase the delay, we're creating a
different kind of rhythm. Okay, I think it sounds
better adding some delay. So this is what it's
like with no delay. And this is what it's like
when we add some delay. So adding some
effects can really change the sound of your
instruments or tracks.
13. Arpeggiator MIDI Effect Basics: Okay, let's now quickly
talk about midi effects. As I mentioned, these can only
be applied to midi tracks. So let's now add one
to the keys track. There are a few different
types of midi effects, but the most common
is an arpeggiator. This takes the
notes from a chord and plays them one
after another. This is really useful
if you've got MDichords and you want them to be
broken down into a sequence. So let's click and drag
this over to the keys part. Let's play this bat
now and solo this. We can disable the effects by clicking on the
activator button here. And we can also delete effects by clicking on them
and pressing delete. However, for this example, I quite like having this
arpeggiato effect, so let's bring this
back by pressing undo. In the arpeggiato we can
choose different rates. So let's choose a quicker rate. And we can choose different
styles or patterns. Okay, so there's
just a few examples of effects inn Ableton Live. There's many more that I
recommend you test out. Next, let's have a look
at exporting our song.
14. Exporting Your Track: Bouncing and exporting. When you want to get your song
out of Ableton Live, whether it's finished
or just a work in progress you want to share,
you'll need to export it. To do this, I recommend dragging your loop region
over the whole song. Make sure we leave some space at the end for reverb or
effects to fade out. So let's just play
back at the end and make sure the
effects aren't cut out. Okay. About there
should be fine. And now let's go to File,
Export Audio Video. I recommend leaving the
rendered track set to Maine. For sample rate, if you're
exporting audio to to video, I recommend choosing 48,000. Or if it's just a song, I
recommend choosing 4,400. For the file type, if it's a finished song,
I recommend choosing Wav. If it's a work in progress, you just want to share
with friends online, I recommend enabling MP free. The file size will be smaller, but keep in mind it's compressed and it won't sound
as good as wav. For bit depth, 24
bits generally fine, and for diring, you
can select triangular. Once you're happy with the
settings, press Export. Then you need to
call it a name, and then press Save and Export. This may take a few moments, depending on the
size of your song. Once it's finished, you
can find your export file, play it back and check it, and then upload it
online if you wish. Let's now have a listen to this song from start to finish. Attached as a resource is this web file and also
this Ableton Life project, just in case you want to
hear this song again, or open this project and have a look around
at how I made this.
15. Class Project and Conclusion: Okay, so we're now at
the end of this class. Thank you so much for watching and I hope you found it useful. For your class
project, I like to create your own short
song in Ableton Live. It doesn't have to be too long, but it should
include a drum part, bass part, chords,
and a lead part. You can build your
project in either the Session view or
the arrangement view. But if you build your
project in the Session view, make sure you record your performance into
the arrangement view, just like I showed
you in the class. Once you finish your song, take a screenshot of it in
the arrangement view and write a short
paragraph explaining how and why you wrote the
song the way you did. This helps me understand
your creative process. So thanks again for watching, and I hopefully see
another class soon.
Tomas George, Music + Audio Production Instructor
