Archive for the 'Ableton' category
How to make Ableton Live Follow a Variable-Tempo Audio File
August 30, 2010 8:25 amOur goal here is to set a ““Master”” clip in Live, so that other files you record or drag in will follow the original tempo of the master audio file.
1) Warp the audio file you’d like follow very tightly. You can follow my fast warping instructions to get started, and use Beats mode for the most transparent sound.
You may want to make other audio files follow the Master clip even tighter by quantizing the audio to 1/4 notes.
To quantize audio: Command-click on the audio file in Clip View:
I choose 1/4 note here, that should be fine enough for my purposes:
Now click Master — this sets this clip as the master tempo for the set, all other clips will be slaved to this clip’s tempo.
Note that if you have multiple clips set to master, the one highest in the set in arrangement will be master (there can be only one master at a time).
If you look at the Arrangement view’s tempo automation, it is following the tempo of this clip.
Next you’ll want to know about multi-track warping, coming soon…
Jethroe
How to Warp an Acapella in Ableton Live 8
January 28, 2010 8:37 amUPDATE 8/23/11:
There’s an easier way to do this. Follow J. Period’s instructions for multitrack warping (but you’re only warping the beat, then having the acapella follow those warp markers.
Old lesson just in case:
1) In Live’s Browser, navigate to the folder that has your acapella and instrumental (or the original mix). Hold shift to multi-select the instrumental and acapella and drag them into Live’s arrangement view.
Note that holding command/apple when you drag the files in brings the files in in parallel on different tracks.
2) Select both files and turn warping off.
Make sure the Start Marker flag in the clip waveform of both files is set at the very beginning. Press the space bar to listen.
If your acapella and instrumental don’t sync up unwarped, you have little chance of making them sync up warped. If they are out of sync, you can try moving the Start Marker flag of the acapella around to sync them up.
3) Once they are playing in sync unwarped, you need to make sure both files are exactly the same length. You may need to consolidate the files to make them exactly the same length. To do this, drag around both tracks in the arrangement view, with a length longer than the longest of the two tracks and Consolidate (Command-J).
4. Now select both files (select one and hold shift to select the second) and turn warping on again.
5. Mute the Acapella track and warp the Instrumental/Mix file as you normally would. See here for more info on how to do this.
6. Now we need to duplicate the instrumental track. Click on the Track Name
And press Command-D to duplicate the track:
7. Drag the acapella back into your browser to create a Live Clip and press enter:
8. Double click on the duplicated instrumental file to bring it up in the Clip Waveform below:
9. Now drag the Live Clip into the clip waveform of the instrumental track. You can delete the original acapella track.
10. Your acapella should be warped like the instrumental/original.
How to make drums cut each other off (choke) in Ableton Live’s Drum Rack
January 19, 2010 2:07 pm1) Drag a Drum Rack preset onto a midi track
2) Make sure to open the Chain List view:
and Input/Output view:
3) Set your pads to a choke group, to say, have your open and closed hi-hats cut each other off:
Loop Length Shortcut
December 4, 2009 2:05 pmClicking on the word Length snaps the Loop Brace to fit the Sample Editor window. 
Splitting up a DJ mix for discrete CD tracks in Ableton Live
November 3, 2009 2:39 amHow to split up a mix from vinyl and cut it up to have discrete tracks on a CD in Ableton Live.
1) Record your stereo mix from your turntables/mixer into an audio track in Live. (this lesson assumes you already know how to do this).
2) Double click on the audio file to show it in clip view, below.
3) Likely you don’t want this long file warped, so turn warping off:
Note: If you plan to fix tempo problems and bring in other audio files to embellish your mix, you may want to leave warping on here, but that’s a subject for another lesson.
5) Make sure the start marker starts at the beginning of the file by dragging it to the left.
6) Now we’ll put in some “Arrangement Locators” to tell Live the sections you want to export.
7) Click on the spot you want the first marker (i.e. break between songs). Likely the first one is at the beginning of the arrangement:
8) Now press the set button over on the right hand side of Live’s screen:
Note: You can click on the flag of this marker and press command-r to rename it to the name of the first song if you want.
9) Press command-4 to turn off the grid in Live, as likely your mix doesn’t fall on the grid lines.
10) click on the next spot you’d like to make a ‘split’
11) press the ‘set’ button again to make another arrangement locator.
12) repeat for as many song breaks as you need.
Exporting the individual tracks with no gaps
1) Right click (control click on mac) on the first arrangement locator and select “Loop to next locator:”
2) Click on the Loop bracket:
3) Select “Export Audio/Video in the file menu or press (Shift Command-R):
For CD burning, you’ll want your settings to look like they are here:
(Aiff on mac, Wav on PC, 16 bit, 44100 don’t normalize, triangular dither is best at all times except if you are exporting to 32 bit.
Repeat as necessary between each segment of arrangement locators.
Other tips
You might want to name files with numbers as you go, i.e. “1.Intro.aiff” 2.Firstsong.aiff” so that they show up in order in your finder when you’re done.
Here’s a nice Live 8 preset I put on my master fader for a little multiband compression and limiting:
Make sure that your mix never goes above 0db if possible, a Limiter is key here.
The Fastest Way to Warp a Track in Ableton Live
October 28, 2009 2:25 pmWarping tracks let’s you easily timestretch tracks for beatmatching, mash ups and sampling in Ableton Live. I find this the fastest way to do it (using Live 8 here) thought I will manually tighten up every 4 bars or so to double check that everything is right.
Drag an audio file (wav, aiff, mp3) into Live, from Live’s browser or directly from iTunes.
Live will attempt to auto-warp the file. If Ableton gets it right, you’re done. If you want to ‘tighten up’ the warping’ or if it just plain didn’t get it right…
2) Double click on the clip…
…to show it in the clip view below:
Then launch the clip (press the triangle). You need to find the ‘one,’ or in this case I’m just looking to warp the file once the drums come in.
For my MP3, I hear the ‘one’ around the -1.2bar. I’ll want to zoom in here, using the magnifying glass above the audio file.
I see the first beat is slightly off. I’m going to double click on the transient above the “one” to create a yellow warp marker (you can double click on a yellow one to remove a warp marker as well).
Right click on that warp marker, and select “Set 1.1.1 here”
This is the hardest thing for any computer autowarping to find. If you guide Ableton to this point, the computer can basically figure out the rest. Now you need to right click again, and select “Warp From Here.”
Live generally gets it right from this point. Let’s turn on the Metronome…
…to hear that the track is warped right. Seems good in this case.
Next let’s turn on the Loop button:
Set the Length to 4 Measures:
And set the position to 1.1.1.
Now we hear a four bar loop. You can click on the word “Length” to snap the view to that loop. Click and drag in the tempo field to change the tempo of your loop.
You may want to play with the warp mode for better sound.
Complex or Complex Pro is good for mixed down songs, Beats is good for drums, and Tones is best for guitar, vocals, piano, etc.
To check the rest of the track and make sure it’s warped right, you want to click on the loop bracket, and using the arrow up and down keys you can hop through the rest of the song and add, adjust or get rid of warp markers.
The Bridge is out…
September 10, 2009 8:03 pmI’ve been working a looooong time on The Bridge with my good friends at Serato, and it’s finally here…
Jazzy Jeff
July 20, 2009 7:02 amDid a movie with Jazzy Jeff talking about how he’s using Ableton Live:
…had some great guests at his place while filming, including James Poyser, Kenny Dope and Ca$h Money, been really cool to learn from them all…
(photo here from Mike Regan:)
Here’s a Simple Delay preset (Live 8 + Above) Jeff made which adds a nice ambience to sampled music:
Jethroe DJ FX
April 21, 2009 6:53 amHere’s a little master bus effect rack for Live 8 that I put together. This is the one used in the APC40 video. Thanks to Ableton user joesapo, I used some of his effect racks as components in this one.
Fade to Red uses Live 8′s new modes for the delays, for some nice dubby delay, similar to an Electro-Harmonix Memory Man.
Note: edited on 9.3.10 to fix the delay mode to fade on one one of the inner delays. This is so it doesn’t crackle when slaved to a variable tempo…like say, The Bridge ;)
