Your personal Ableton tips n tricks

#1

i want all of your tips n tricks

#2

what are you trying to accomplish?

#3

i should have added ‘personal’. i’ll do that now if it allows. dunno, i wanna see if anyone has any go-to parameters. what crazy thing does one do with the stock reverb. any sends ideas? we have groups within groups now with ableton 10, anyone go crazy with that glue compressor?

anyone actually ever use digital clipping distortion as an effect? sounds a bit naff

#4

one trick I use quite a bit is get a couple of arpeggiator ideas started and then re-record the output onto a new MIDI channel so you can edit the individual MIDI notes and move things around to your liking.

#5

i never thought of doing this. that’s actually a really great idea. thanks

#6

If you open your project file folder on your computer, you can drag and drop the project files (.als or whatever they are) directly into a new set, drop them into new clips (and they’ll all drop in their respective tracks), and build up a sort of mix/live-set/dj-set this way. Pretty handy.

Also, the glue compressor is ace.

If you’re using hardware I’d recommend syncing Live to the hardware, and not the other way around, as the sync is way more stable and doesn’t drift off nearly as much as if you use Live as the master clock.

#7

When making a DJ mix, have separate tracks for every song and every layer of loops, etc. Really helps to isolate effects and ensure you don’t have volume changes, effects, etc from earlier in the mix still running.

I made a few mixes where I just alternated between two tracks (like I had seen on tutorials) — volume management and making sure effects were turned on or off was nightmarish 4 or 5 tracks in.

#8

I watched this and found it interesting, even though I generally work with hardware.

#9

A lot of times when I start a track, nothing is mixed and it sounds like crap and I wanna abandon whatever little sketch I have. So to gloss over any ugly mix details when I’m composing I put three effects on the master channel:

  • EQ Eight in M/S mode with high pass around 250Hz on the sides.
  • Reverb “Bright room” setting at like 10% Wet
  • Limiter “Upper Ceiling” setting to keep it from clipping

Just sort of a “singing in the shower” sort of effect that helps me focus.

#10

recently discovered incremental quantisation (CMD+Shift+U) - which allows you to quantise slightly, or mostly (your choice of %), without snapping completely to grid. really handy feature for tightening up recorded midi patterns while retaining that imperfect human feel, if your playing is a little too human :relieved:

#11

If you tend to start a new track with a similar set up use the save current set as default feature. Saves you a lot of time getting your project started and lets you jump straight in to making music.

#12

Shape sounds by controlling their effects with the envelope follower
Give sounds more depth by adding a subtle granulated version in the background, it’s somekind of uhh dry reverb
Make glitchy beats by recording jams with crazily patched instruments and feedback processes. Then select and duplicate by hand or slice them with an arpeg in Simpler.

#13

Keep forgetting this one: write ‘drunk’, edit sober

From 74 Creative Strategies for Producers. When you’re in the flow: operate fast, don’t rationalize, don’t refine, don’t mix, recklessly keep dropping new material. Then later on, select the best outcomes, analyse it, reshape it, mix it… best creative sequence I think.

Most of my music stays unfinished cause of the don’ts mentioned above.

#14

@Jim excellent, i have this book yet haven’t read it in some time. it really is a great idea. it’s too easy to get stuck fiddling with unnecessary details when we get into the ‘mix as you go’ mindset

#15

Yeah always tough to find this balance, as Ableton is designed this way, and especially when making music which is sound design oriented…

#16

sounds a bit Ned Rush inspired, perhaps? can you point me to some resources that explain some of these tips a little more in-depth?

#17

Will check him out!

But these are just personal findings, got no youtube resources

#18

I’ve picked up a lot of cool tricks watching his channel. he’s very much into randomization and chaos (and I’m very much not) but some of his processes are pretty inspiring.

#19

One of the tricks I use for making a dynamic evolving yet tacky 80s sampler synth sound is recording a long generated drone on a single frequency from Max/MSP that’s usually run through lots of FX and what-have-you, dump it to a simpler, then scrub the start time as you play a midi sequence, the scrub won’t interrupt any current notes being played but subsequent notes played will pull from a different part of the drone depending on where you are. It works really well on short release bass line sequences. Gives it a sort of E-MU sampler kind of vibe, especially if you bit crush down to 12 bits :slight_smile:

#20

Cool, any tracks of you online which use this?