Ways to use Ableton Live

[quincy]

Hey,

Just got Live 4 yesterday, had a few hours messing with it and its very inspiring! I can see myself getting pretty deep into the subtle art of mashing the utter crap out of audio

I had a few ideas regarding DJ/Live use and i might share them if they end up being any good!

So how do you good people use it, whats your workflow etc?

[quincy]

Well, its good to know that others share my excitement about Live!

I guess the question is a bit vague and been asked before, but i thought i might get at least a single reply!

Never mind

[original flipper]

HI

AHHhhh.

What happerned to Tracktion ?

Flipper.

[WillieJenkins]

check out abletons forum, we've discussed it all over there

[quincy]

HI

AHHhhh.

What happerned to Tracktion ?

Flipper.

I've got that too

And i will use it, just perhaps not as much as Live

[DHR53]

Funny, after spending a couple of months with Live 4.0, I came to the conclusion... That it didn't really do anything for me, that I couldn't do with what I already had... Just a different way to go about it! But, after asking a lot of questions, I seem to notice a lack of examples (or explanations) on how people created songs from scratch... for instance: chorus, break, chorus, fill, either in scenes or arrange etc. I never did get comfortable with using session versus arrange or both together... and a total lack of navigation tools... Hmmm... Good luck! ...bet you don't get any response!

[original flipper]

HI

Well keep us informed, I bought Live a while back so I could get a better upgrade deal.

Like most programs though it requires time, I haven't had a DAW for a while but when I get my new set-up I would like to play around with the tutorials and see what kind of Audio manipulation it can get going.

Flipper.

[WillieJenkins]

If you attempt to create a song like you'd create a song in a traditional sequencer you may fall flat on your face. It'd be like trying to toast bread with a microwave.

Essentially what I do with Live is start by creating a 4 bar drum loop that will be the base drum loop.

Then create 5-10 variations of that loop. If the drum loop is midi / vsti based, Live makes this extremely easy.

Do the same with percussion loops and grooves
For this you can even bring in other peoples loops, or maybe your own audio loops, and using clip envelopes, you can remove hits so you can just use a hi-hat or snare you like to add some spice.

Do the same with bass loops and grooves.

Once I get that stuff down, then I play some keys/synths on top. Different ideas, motives, I usually just loop a section, and improvise. Then I cut out the bits the I like, and store them in their own audio clips.

Basically you're building loops to base your tune on/out of.

Once I get a bunch of clips I want to work with, I better lay them out in session view and begin to improvise record stuff. Since at this point, everthing works well with everything else, I can click around and activate things and unactivate them as I go, just seeing what I like, while Live records it all. Sometimes at this point I add effects and play with different things.

Next I might go into arrangement view and cut and paste bits I thought worked, or more formally lay out the structure.

Then I play back the tune and listen to it adn get ideas for more improv / fx ideas.

Then i go back and re-record new changes over the existing arrangement.

repeat listen and record
repeat listen and record
repeat listen and record

Pretty soon I have something I jammed out on thats pretty cool sounding. Maybe then I can bring it into Sonar and finish it up, or just revel in the fact I just a couple of hours of fun

Other major uses for me:

Creating lots of samples and one-shots for use in other music, maybe some orchestral loops for flavor. Since they're in Live, I can reasonably sync them to tempo, which is nice.

The way live loops midi, and how simple/quick the midi editor is to use REALLY helps me make midi loops sound great very quickly.

I'm going to be working on a live set with a dj soon, where he'll run his decks thru live, and then we'll load the rest of session view with drum breaks, atmopsherics, effects, vocal samples etc etc, mabye even z3ta+ or some other synths that I can play real time over him stuff. Another bonus is I can add delay, eq, reverb directly on his mix, so its like having a full fx rack to add to his mix as well.

IMO the key to live is to THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX. Its a new tool, it should be used to invent new ways of working and thinking. Using it like Cubase/Sonar/Logic, Live can't compete. Using Live like Live, nothing can touch it

I used to fiddle around with FL Studio, Reason, I was thinking of getting Traktion or P5 to augment Sonar to give me that 'speed' I was always looking for. But with Live I can get rid of them all. Sonar + Live is my perfect combo.

YMMV

-Eric

[Har]

I've always found Live to be an incredibly inspiring tool, to the point of being almost too much fun: I can easily lose myself in it for hours, and the newest version doesn't make it any easier to tear myself away from it.

One of the things I've been finding it very useful for is for a kind of "audio quantizing", using the Warp markers to go into a recording I might have made of a guitar, bass or Stick part and tighten up the performance to the point of being almost inhumanly precise: move a slightly late note back, or a slightly early note forward, etc...I've managed to get some excellent results doing this.

Recently my old bassist came over and I introduced him to Live, and he totally freaked out. (I've been recently introducing him to music software in general). I had him just play a slap-bass part off the top of his head to a click track directly into Live, and had him intentionally play a few parts with sloppy timing. I then went in and started correcting his timing using the Warp markers until everything was really tight with the click, and then started layering in breakbeats and all kinds of other sound-bites I had lying around (including Chris Rock's famous "One Rib" routine from "I'm Gonna get Ya Sucka" ) so they all were working together rhymically. Four hours later we had concocted this hilarious tune and the ideas just kept coming...by the end of the night he was so fascinated that he had me send him a ton of links to various DSP and VST resources...he's a C++ programmer and is now getting excited about getting in on the fun of possibly creating plugins and apps himself, not to mention just getting his hands on all this stuff from an end-user point of view. Another convert.

In general, SONAR is and has been my platform of choice for some time, but Live is starting to get a serious work-out now as well, and works well in conjunction with the stuff I do in SONAR, as Live works great as a unique tool on its own merits.

[Sicklecell666]

Great post, Eric.

[drez]

Yeah, Eric pretty much summed up my workflow in Live4. I use it exactly the same way. I do a bunch of various loops in the session view, jack with them, and then drag clips over into the Arrangement view to assemble a tune. What's great is its easy for my buddy to write with me. We trade the Live songs and he'll dump new clips into my tune and send it back and I can tweak those, etc.

My weak point is drum programming. My friend is a great drum programmer. He creates loops soooo fast, so I just have him dump them into audio files, I start dumping them in Live then I can start warping those to make variations quickly.

Reason is also integral. I use it in conjunction with Live constantly. Its got great sounds and is low on the CPU. I use it to layer with other VST's and it adds a bit to the overall sound.

Also, its easy to create complex clips and then just quickly convert that loop to an audio loop. I used to be a complete purist and think that I had to keep everything in a MIDI loop, but I am discovering that by dumping it into Audio, I can edit it in different ways that sound completely different then what I could do with MIDI...plus keeping the CPU happy.

I guess that best part of Live for me is that its so easy to try out new ideas on the same parts in session view. I mean Ctrl+drag a clip into a new cell and edit away. Doesn't work? Delete it. You don't have to and cut and paste it into the context of a song, you can see how it sounds quickly with the other parts going on in the session view.

[meister eder]

Well, its good to know that others share my excitement about Live!

I guess the question is a bit vague and been asked before, but i thought i might get at least a single reply!

Never mind

Click on my sig pic om verder te gaan! Then head over to the toutorial section there.

[SharksFin]

hi

this my latest daft concoction using live, it just started off as an acoustic guitar part then got a bit out of hand

http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/dom ... wonder.mp3

i think i'll have to chant some spells over it then do a mandolin section (then maybe stop watchin spinal tap)

so i basically just use live to record my guitars and basses into, then layer them with drum loops and the like. add some eve and its cooking nice

or i just load a loop and start mangling away till the cows come home

regards
dave

[TVD]

Well, its good to know that others share my excitement about Live!

I guess the question is a bit vague and been asked before, but i thought i might get at least a single reply!

Never mind

Keep in mind quincy that I'm still new to Live 4 myself.

Long story short: I create most of loops, patterns, and MIDI sequence parts within FLS first. Then I export everything one by one (as wav) to Live 4 and finish all arrangements from there.

The most important thing with using Live 4 is improvise. I can do the same thing in FLS. But in Live 4, it much more fun and live (no pun intended).

[stale bread]

i do all the stuff these guys do, thats what is really wonderful about using Live, you're not penned down to one approach, not even within one song, if you get the hankering for changing up how you're doing what you're doing you can do it in a blink of an eye and keep on composing. if you're the type that hovers over the computer screen discecting miniscule pieces of audio, placing them here and there with surgical percision then live is perfect for you, or if you're the type of person who hates to even look at a computer screen (imagine that) then live is perfect for you cause you can compose without even looking at the screen, and you can compose without having to stop and start the program.
you can record a drumbeat, or plug up your guitar and record something, and stop recording and let it keep on playing while you pick up your bass and laydown a bassline, then you could throw something else in all the while you never stopped the guitar and bass track from playing , you haven't even stopped the program once.

so there are many ways to use Live and best of all it's the only app i imho know of that makes other apps better, they become an extension of it or it becomes and extension of them
very easily.

of course there will be some folks like DH53 that have no use
for any of the things we've mentioned in this thread but like he said good luck you're already on the right track as your post said you were developing some cool working methods
that you might share with us already, that describes live perfectly.