The Ableton Q&A Thread

[symmetricalsounds]

Wicked mate exactly what I was looking for! What an idiot I am

Many thanks!

no worries, remember wondering the same thing when i was starting out.

[travis_baker]

hello, this question may sound a bit broad... abletons groove bank swing thing sucks am i right? i like ableton but its the groove that gets me, i have shit rythm myself and find it hard to rite nice drums whith just midi. how do you guys go about making drums whith a dubsteppy shuffly swing in ableton and make them flow with all other variables in the track. it seems to me that if your using ableton you need to be a funksoul rythm god whith mad beatpad skills.

[mks]

hello, this question may sound a bit broad... abletons groove bank swing thing sucks am i right?

No, it's actually pretty cool. You can even record new drum grooves into it and save it as a template.

i like ableton but its the groove that gets me, i have shit rythm myself and find it hard to rite nice drums whith just midi.

Well, that might be part of the problem.

how do you guys go about making drums whith a dubsteppy shuffly swing in ableton and make them flow with all other variables in the track.

My favorite trick is to quantize the drums to 16ths and then quantize certain elements like the hi-hats or perhaps the whole drum track to 16T at about 30 to 50% depending on the groove. The other parts should be locked into your rhythm.

it seems to me that if your using ableton you need to be a funksoul rythm god whith mad beatpad skills.

Yeah, that's pretty much true. That's what Jesus told me, and the pope . The Buddha too. Billy Cobham said that as well...

[symmetricalsounds]

the groove engine is supposedly really good, one area i don't actually play with much. i prefer to just nudge the midi notes back n forth manually using alt+left/right.

also you can create a shuffly sounding beat and still have everything on grid, sample selection particularly with hats is key in this.

[travis_baker]

hello, this question may sound a bit broad... abletons groove bank swing thing sucks am i right?

No, it's actually pretty cool. You can even record new drum grooves into it and save it as a template.

i like ableton but its the groove that gets me, i have shit rythm myself and find it hard to rite nice drums whith just midi.

Well, that might be part of the problem.

how do you guys go about making drums whith a dubsteppy shuffly swing in ableton and make them flow with all other variables in the track.

My favorite trick is to quantize the drums to 16ths and then quantize certain elements like the hi-hats or perhaps the whole drum track to 16T at about 30 to 50% depending on the groove. The other parts should be locked into your rhythm.

it seems to me that if your using ableton you need to be a funksoul rythm god whith mad beatpad skills.

Yeah, that's pretty much true. That's what Jesus told me, and the pope . The Buddha too. Billy Cobham said that as well...

thanks, but is that in 8, iv got 7 and havnt come across templates yet.

[symmetricalsounds]

na in 7 just have global swing settings, the groove system was redesigned in 8.

[olyko12]

I'm completely new to Ableton.
Tried it out at a guitar center the other day and loved the workflow. Anyways, I'm using my computer keyboard and it was working fine till I closed Massive and now the computer keyboard won't work for any of the tracks. The computer keyboard switch is on. I don't really know where to look next.

Help appreciated.

[Aphile]

I'm completely new to Ableton.
Tried it out at a guitar center the other day and loved the workflow. Anyways, I'm using my computer keyboard and it was working fine till I closed Massive and now the computer keyboard won't work for any of the tracks. The computer keyboard switch is on. I don't really know where to look next.

Help appreciated.

look for the red "arming" button

[olyko12]

that worked! so do I have to press the arming button every time I want to listen to a track now?

[[asterisk]]

that worked! so do I have to press the arming button every time I want to listen to a track now?

Not to hear it in the mix, but you have to arm the specific track you want to send midi info to. If you want to "play" or record on multiple tracks (instruments) via midi controller or keyboard simultaneously you can arm them all by ctrl clicking the arm buttons for each.

[olyko12]

oh ok awesome! Thanks a ton man.

[The Riot Act]

hello, this question may sound a bit broad... abletons groove bank swing thing sucks am i right? i like ableton but its the groove that gets me, i have shit rythm myself and find it hard to rite nice drums whith just midi. how do you guys go about making drums whith a dubsteppy shuffly swing in ableton and make them flow with all other variables in the track. it seems to me that if your using ableton you need to be a funksoul rythm god whith mad beatpad skills.

What I did the other day was got a heap of dubstep loops then used the "slice to midi" function then I went through and removed everything but the hihats, lined up all the slices then dropped this midi pattern into my hihat track. This gave me some good shuffle for my drums. I found that in all the loops I used the hihats were in a triplet style.

[The Riot Act]

How does everyone here like to split their frequencies into low, mid and high in Live?
I have seen a few different ways but not too sure what the best way would be.

[Airgonaut]

How does everyone here like to split their frequencies into low, mid and high in Live?
I have seen a few different ways but not too sure what the best way would be.

Make yourself an Audio Effect Rack with 3 Multiband Dynamics in it. Solo one 'band' in each (High, Mid, or Low).

That's how I do it at least, seems to work pretty well.


EDIT: I have a question as well. I recently attempted to make a Madeon-style cut up track. I recorded all my parts that I wanted to use and chopped them up into audio clips, and put them in Session View. I put them all to trigger to "Any" so they would just jump around randomly. But when I try to record it, Ableton crashes every single time after 1 measure. Any ideas why?

[olyko12]

I have another question. :p How would you go about getting reverse reverb? The only way I can think of is recording a midi clip and then reversing the audio sample and putting reverb on it then record and reverse again, but I'm not even sure how to do that. Help would be much appreciated.

[symmetricalsounds]

I have another question. :p How would you go about getting reverse reverb? The only way I can think of is recording a midi clip and then reversing the audio sample and putting reverb on it then record and reverse again, but I'm not even sure how to do that. Help would be much appreciated.

you're on the right track, stick reverb on something with a big tail record it off into a new audio track and then just reverse it thus giving you preverb.

for technical step by step, take track you want to apply this to, stick a reverb on there put a big decay time on there. then setup a new audio track that is armed to record, set the input from the original track and then record it off, then all you have to do is reverse that audio clip.

you could also set the new audio track to resampling but in that situation you would solo the original track you wanted to record from.

[olyko12]

I have another question. :p How would you go about getting reverse reverb? The only way I can think of is recording a midi clip and then reversing the audio sample and putting reverb on it then record and reverse again, but I'm not even sure how to do that. Help would be much appreciated.

you're on the right track, stick reverb on something with a big tail record it off into a new audio track and then just reverse it thus giving you preverb.

for technical step by step, take track you want to apply this to, stick a reverb on there put a big decay time on there. then setup a new audio track that is armed to record, set the input from the original track and then record it off, then all you have to do is reverse that audio clip.

you could also set the new audio track to resampling but in that situation you would solo the original track you wanted to record from.

When I arm it to record it just uses my mic as input. How can I get it to receive input from the song instead?

[symmetricalsounds]

you have to change where it receives the input from, i can't find a good pic to illustrate this point easily, check the manual for a full explanation.

[olyko12]

Found it! Thanks a ton man!

[symmetricalsounds]

no worries