Ableton Live stands out as an innovative DAW system that reinvents how music is made. Featuring drum machines and an extensive library of vintage synths, Ableton Live reinvents how you create music.
One of its key features is Capture MIDI, which records your improvisations automatically and retrieves them as waveforms. Another key feature is Racks, which combine multiple instruments and effects for complex signal sculpting.
Session View
Clips in session view are loops or one-shot samples of audio or MIDI that you can play back, trigger, edit, and modify in various ways. They are great tools to explore ideas for song writing before committing them to an Arrangement View in linear fashion.
Each track in session view features an aligned grid of clip slots known as scenes, each containing different combinations of clips that can be simultaneously triggered using Scene Launch buttons located in the Master track. Furthermore, each column in session view features the traditional mixer controls such as level faders, pan pots and send effects in addition to solo, mute and record arm settings for that track column.
Once your clips have been recorded in session view and returned to Arrangement View, Live will copy them over into their appropriate tracks and song positions on the timeline. You can create groups of clips by assigning colors or labeling them; this helps keep your track layout organized and systematic.
The session view grid provides new possibilities for loop-based song writing. You can create sequences of clips and trigger them using grooves or patterns; for instance, creating a drum hit loop can then be applied with rhythm; this could range from something as basic as hi-hat looping to complex drum rolls and full step sequences.
Arrangement View
Ableton Live offers one of its many advantages to students: quickly switching between Session and Arrangement views. This enables students to experiment with ideas and sounds in Session View before dragging them over into Arrangement to structure and edit a track – an efficient process with flexible musical outcomes.
In Arrangement View, tracks are stacked vertically and aligned horizontally, and instruments play along a timeline with defined start/stop points – this resembles more traditional Digital Audio Workstations or DAWs.
Use your mouse in Arrangement View to drag clips between tracks and song positions with your mouse, enabling you to create new loops or modify existing ones.
Dragged left or right ends can double or halve a clip’s length; using the arrow keys can change its position without altering its size.
By clicking in the Arrangement background with the cursor selected, a locator is created that represents an exact time within a track or clip. Locators automatically align themselves to both Insert Markers and Selection Start points in real time.
In Arrangement View, tracks can be created by either clicking in the track header or using the Create Track menu. They can then be grouped by selecting them all and choosing Group from their context menus; this feature is helpful when creating groups of tracks that play similar parts like vocals or guitars that can then be treated as one instrument when playing them together as one unit.
Racks
Ableton Live may be best known for its use by DJs, but it also makes an invaluable tool for musicians using MIDI instruments. Ableton Live allows them to manipulate tracks quickly while using controllers to trigger the various MIDI instruments for live performances using backing “bands”.
One of the key features of Ableton is racks, which enable you to build whole chains of instruments and effects that can be routed in flexible ways. They may contain other racks and be configured to process audio either serially or parallel. There are various ways you can utilize racks; here Ableton Certified Trainer Scottie Dugan shows how you can get started creating and using them – outlining their four types and showing you their layout for Drum, Instrument Audio MIDI Effect racks.
He then shows you how to build a basic audio effects rack, complete with an EQ, reverb, and delay. Macros can help save you time as they let you simultaneously adjust multiple parameters at once instead of individually changing each parameter one-by-one. He also covers how the three selector buttons on the left of a rack control its functionality; and how their top button reveals eight macros you can map to devices within that rack.
MIDI
Ableton Live is an innovative digital audio workstation (DAW) designed to foster creative experimentation. Instead of following traditional DAW workflow, Ableton relies on its Session and Arrangement views for track construction, and the MIDI feature for virtual instrument control.
Utilizing MIDI, external MIDI controllers such as keyboards and pad controllers can be used to access Live functions. The Arrangement View’s MIDI Mapping area displays all currently-mapped functions; use Edit to make changes and edit mappings accordingly.
MIDI Clip Editor offers you an intuitive interface for cutting, copying, pasting, inverting and transposing MIDI clips which can then be played back with any MIDI device, such as an instrument or keyboard. Furthermore, this editor allows you to record performances just like tape recording or programming an instrument.
Live’s four MIDI conversion commands allow users to convert audio clips, such as monophonic melodies or polyphonic harmonies, into MIDI for editing and looping to generate new musical ideas. You can use transformation MIDI files to alter song tempo or sync up with another source such as live musicians while using Tempo Map to change track BPMs. Furthermore, Live features several buttons within its MIDI Toolbar that alter how triggered clips sound like they may mute them or fade it in and out before also using Rhythm section of Note Editor can alter song’s BPM accordingly.