The Ableton Q&A Thread

[Disco Nutter]

There's an Ableton Q&A topic for these questions.

Is your envelope lock button on? This button (depending on the state it's in) will help you either copy both notes and automation or copy them independently.

[JoshuaCasper]

New Ableton Tuts & Free Loop Packs, Presets, and a Chord Analyzer!

Watch the Videos and Download from here:
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Here are the first 2 Ableton Tutorials of 2013:
-Mixing & Mastering: EQ 8 Mid-Side
-Exporting a Pre-Master

Free Stuff:
-Chord Analyzer for PC
-Dark Techo & Tech House Loop Pack
-Glitch Hop & Dubstep Loop Pack

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[55stevieboy2010]

That should sort it, thanks mate

[Aphile]

chordata

[En1gmatic]

Hey, Two things have been bothering me lately as I can't figure out a solution to them.

Okay so firstly, lets say you're putting together a track which is pretty large (say, 30+ individual tracks and multiple grouped tracks) and each track has it's own set of effects/treatment on them/routed bus effects/etc. So we've established that this is a pretty intricate project that you're working on, and it is taking up a lot of CPU power due to all of the external plugins. When you finish tweaking the tracks around and are ready for a rough mix, how do most of you do it? Do you just leave the tracks as is with all the effects on it and mix it with everything like that, or do you bounce each individual track to .wav and import them into a fresh project so that the CPU usage is very minimal, and the project is a lot 'cleaner' overall so that you could focus on objectively finishing the track instead of endless tweaking of each element?

I've heard from an interview that Flux Pavillion did that bouncing/resampling your tracks makes them sound better automatically. Makes sense as there is a lot less going on if you have a shit ton of effects on the track.

So my question is, I have a track that I'm ready to begin final mixing/mastering of and I want to do it in a separate ableton project by bouncing each track to .wav and simply importing all of the .wav files into a new project. Is this the best way to go about doing this, or is there a better alternative? The problem I run into when doing this is that, when I export the original project and select "all tracks", it only exports the tracks as dry, unprocessed audio and has another .wav file for the bus effects and the grouped tracks. Why does it do this instead of exporting each track already processed with the group effects/bus effects directly from the master channel? Wouldn't that logically make the most sense to taking your track to the next step? Is there a way to do this with Ableton, or do you have to go through the excruciatingly long process of individually soloing each track and exporting the master 1 by 1 untiil you have each track exported? There HAS to be a more efficient way than this.


My second problem is when you actually resample tracks. I find if lets say I have a snare track that I tweaked the transients and the tails specifically with a precise groove that works for the track, and then I process it and resample it to another track, the two are never completely exactly the same sounding. The new resample of the track probably has a different algorithm due to warping (am I wrong, or even when u have the warp option on a clip off and you change the warp settings of the clip from say 'beats' to 'texture' there is still a significant audible difference? Why is that, even though the warp option isn't enabled?) I'm thinking this is the reason why the new resamples sound different. One track or so isn't a problem as I can re-process the new track to fit the overall song again, but if I had to resample every single track in order to do a master, the whole groove and swing of a song I originally had would likely be lost due to the resample. How do I resample a track in ableton and have the resulting resample sound identical to the original track? This I feel is essential.


These two problems are holding me back significantly and I want to begin a final mix/master of a large track today, but I don't know exactly how to get around these problems. Please help.

Sorry for the long post, I really need to figure out a way around these problems. Thanks in advance!

[En1gmatic]

Anyone?

[Disco Nutter]

You can just bounce your tracks in place by using the freeze>flatten function (won't work if you have side-chaining going on though). Or sample your groups/busses by using another track, then get rid of the originals (after saving a new project of course).

[big_lurch]

I've heard from an interview that Flux Pavillion did that bouncing/resampling your tracks makes them sound better automatically. Makes sense as there is a lot less going on if you have a shit ton of effects on the track.

can you post a link to this? how exactly does it make tracks sound better? are tracks that are being processed in real time being slightly degraded by the processing or something? i can't say iv ever noticed a difference in sound quality.

[sine143]

flattening your music is a big step to completing a tune. if you never feel comfortable enough to say "alright, thats the sound I want, freeze/flatten" how are you going to make it through the mixdown stage?

I think the "automaticly better" descriptor really just is meant to say the quality of your tunes will become better if you get into the habit of working in a linear sense, create, combine, mix, master. If you are trying to mix your tune down, but keep jumping into your synth lines, or eqs to "tweak" stuff, you just get lost in an endless loop, instead of moving forward with the track.

[big_lurch]

flattening your music is a big step to completing a tune. if you never feel comfortable enough to say "alright, thats the sound I want, freeze/flatten" how are you going to make it through the mixdown stage?

I think the "automaticly better" descriptor really just is meant to say the quality of your tunes will become better if you get into the habit of working in a linear sense, create, combine, mix, master. If you are trying to mix your tune down, but keep jumping into your synth lines, or eqs to "tweak" stuff, you just get lost in an endless loop, instead of moving forward with the track.

it can make mixing down a bit more organized (and i see your point as to commiting to something) but i'm really curious as to whether it really makes your tracks "automatically better" or whatever dude was saying. i've mixed down tracks by using all audio, as well as leaving the midi and iv never really noticed much difference.

[En1gmatic]

flattening your music is a big step to completing a tune. if you never feel comfortable enough to say "alright, thats the sound I want, freeze/flatten" how are you going to make it through the mixdown stage?

I think the "automaticly better" descriptor really just is meant to say the quality of your tunes will become better if you get into the habit of working in a linear sense, create, combine, mix, master. If you are trying to mix your tune down, but keep jumping into your synth lines, or eqs to "tweak" stuff, you just get lost in an endless loop, instead of moving forward with the track.

I agree with you completely and this is what I'm trying to do, but is there a faster way to do so? What exactly is the process, can I freeze and flatten all tracks at once into a new track? If so how do I do that?

And does freezing/flattening tracks produce any audible difference in the pre-flatten and post-flatten tracks, or will they sound exactly identical?

[CaveLvl]

maybe you already do this but i just started and feel like an idiot for never using it before. CMND
B switches the pencil and pointer.

[Perej]

Hi guys,
not trolling for once, need some genuine help because Ableton is annoying me so much. I don't want to move to Logic because I'm so used to the interface of Ableton but things like this are irritating.

Things I have experienced recently in Ableton:-
1. Bursts of deafening static / white noise at random intervals when a channel is sent to a return track... so loud that I jumped up out of my chair in shock a few times!

2. I opened a recent project and the drum bus had just randomly stopped working.... this has happened a few times. What I mean is that all the individual drums within the group were playing as normal, but there was no activity on the volume meter on the actual group channel - so where it said 'DRUMS' the volume wasn't going up and down..... wtf!?!?!

So I tried to add effects to the group and nothing happened.... so then I had to ungroup all my drums and RE-group them.... fuck doing that

3. If I send a group / individual channel or anything to a return track, even when I turn the plugin OFF the signal still goes through that effect! o.O
So say I put a waves H-Comp on the return, even when I press the off button the compressor is still working and compressing the signal.

4. I was layering hi-hats just now and noticed something bizarre! When I was panning the hi hats fully left (50L) they sounded normal and hit around -13DB, but when I panned them fully RIGHT they were hitting -10DB and sounded distorted / nasty and overly top-endy.

Seriously... I'm at my wits end here. None of this ever happens in Logic pro 9... it's a shame that it's so shit for workflow!

[Snarfie]

Hi guys,
not trolling for once, need some genuine help because Ableton is annoying me so much. I don't want to move to Logic because I'm so used to the interface of Ableton but things like this are irritating.

Things I have experienced recently in Ableton:-
1. Bursts of deafening static / white noise at random intervals when a channel is sent to a return track... so loud that I jumped up out of my chair in shock a few times!

2. I opened a recent project and the drum bus had just randomly stopped working.... this has happened a few times. What I mean is that all the individual drums within the group were playing as normal, but there was no activity on the volume meter on the actual group channel - so where it said 'DRUMS' the volume wasn't going up and down..... wtf!?!?!

So I tried to add effects to the group and nothing happened.... so then I had to ungroup all my drums and RE-group them.... fuck doing that

3. If I send a group / individual channel or anything to a return track, even when I turn the plugin OFF the signal still goes through that effect! o.O
So say I put a waves H-Comp on the return, even when I press the off button the compressor is still working and compressing the signal.

4. I was layering hi-hats just now and noticed something bizarre! When I was panning the hi hats fully left (50L) they sounded normal and hit around -13DB, but when I panned them fully RIGHT they were hitting -10DB and sounded distorted / nasty and overly top-endy.

Seriously... I'm at my wits end here. None of this ever happens in Logic pro 9... it's a shame that it's so shit for workflow!

Pirate a better version of Ableton or buy it

[Perej]

It's a legit copy - version 8.3.4 that i got with a student discount and a free upgrade to live 9.

having said that i did get a refund for it a while back, were they supposed to deactivate my authorization and forgot or something??

[Perej]

It's a legit copy - version 8.3.4 that i got with a student discount and a free upgrade to live 9.

having said that i did get a refund for it a while back, were they supposed to deactivate my authorization and forgot or something??

[RmoniK]

That is really weird, i never had any of those problems. I think you should try reinstalling it altogether man...

[RandoRando]

as for that white noise problem, im not sure whats causing it. but you can put a limiter on the master at 0db so you dont blow your speakers/ears next time it happens

[outdropt]

Hey guys, wondering if you have seen this before. I'm using Ableton (obviously) but the issue usually happens in my massive patches, i haven't tried to replicate outside of that yet.

What will happen is if i'm playing through a song and stop the song after a midi note is triggered but before the midi note is finished playing, the note will continue to play (at least until i hit play and trigger another note in the patch) This only happens in my basses when I have my keyboard mapped to the patch.

I was thinking that maybe my midi keyboard is not sending a note end message. But I can play on the keyboard and it will glide to whatever note i select, when the key is released it will go back to the note that it was originally stuck on (until i hit THAT note)

Anyone see this before?

[bkwsk]

Tried using Restart via gate in Massive?