TipsTricks Tutorials 2

Using Live's Looper to Create Unique BeatsStep 1 – How to Use the LooperLooper can be used to create ideas on the fly in a live context or even in a production setting where you wish to try out some ideas. Sometimes, you feel your beats are not that inspiring, or you wish to get a beat idea down quickly which is in your head. These are all scenarios where the Looper can come in real handy. First, I want to look at how you can use your voice, like a beat boxer to easily and quickly create new beats through the use of the Looper. You can build up and layer voiced drum elements until you have a full sounding vocal drum kit.

Set up an audio track (create a new track with Command-T) where you will be recording your vocals. Next add the Looper plug-in to the channel. Enable the metronome in Ableton. This will help you keep in time to your project tempo. Start playback and try out some beats ideas. Get comfortable with some Kick, Snare and Hats sounds. When you are ready you can launch the Looper plug-in, and start the looping process.

Make sure the following is set on the Looper first:

• Set the Song Control to None.• Set the Tempo Control to Follow song tempo. (In a live context you may want to choose None, as tempo can drift in a live

situation).

Record enable the Looper. Then press the big + when you wish to start your overdub.

Step 2 – Drag the Ideas to an Audio Track.Looper also has a very handy feature called Drag Me. This allows you at any time to drag an idea from the Looper onto an audio track. Instantly an audio file/loop will be created on the audio track. Once you are happy with your loop creation, simply drag it onto an audio track, and Voila! It is there for you to edit and process as you will at a later stage.

Step 3 – MIDI Map the ParametersA good idea is to map the big + to a button on your controller, or better yet a foot controller. This moves the loop function away from being so mouse-driven to a more performance driven task. Press Command-M to enable the MIDI Map. Select the big + sign on Looper, then select a button on your control. Now it is mapped to this button for easier use for overdubs.

Step 4 – !Other Uses for the LooperYou can try the same thing with other instruments, such as using a synth. Whilst recording your loops you can change presets with your overdubs and in the process build up a unique sounding synth loop. I have created a MIDI track. I have loaded up an instance of one of my favorite synths, Sylenth1. It’s a great sounding synth for some ‘analog-style’ sounds. Go through the same process of setting up the Looper on the track. Record a bit with a preset.!Change to a different preset on Sylenth1. Then press the big + to create an overdub, and record a new part with the new preset. Create further overdub layers with different presets. Now you have created a layered synth in the space of a few minutes. You can drag this newly created layered synth onto an audio track. Or better yet, right-click the file and choose Slice To New MIDI Track. A Simpler Intrument is created with the audio file mapped across the MIDI notes. Now you have a great new sounding Sampled Synth.

Try fiddling with the Speed setting. Changing the Speed settings gives you that classic-tape style effect. When you slow down the

time, the pitch is also altered. This could also be used in a live context to create variance in your performances.

The Reverse button is also a nice feature. This will flip your audio around and create a different swing on your looped ideas. In a performance, you could build up a loop, quickly reverse it for something different. Then flip it around again to carry on with the performance.

Archiving Projects in Ableton Live

This article is a step-by-step guide on what to do with your finished projects in order to get them into a state where they can be archived.

There are 4 steps involved:1. Naming tracks2. Freezing instruments!3. Collecting files4. Backing up

Step 1 - Naming

If you’re anything like me, your track naming may not be the best. I like to work quickly and don’t always take the time to rename tracks from their unhelpful defaults. The first job is to go through and rename every track in the project to something useful.

Step 2 - FreezingFreezing a track is the process of turning that track into an audio track. I highly recommend this step for any tracks which use virtual instruments. It’s not out of the realms of possibility that, in 6 months or a year when you reopen your project, some of the virtual instruments within have been updated or no longer work due to a system update. Your perfectly programmed track is now gone. Luckily freezing tracks in Live is a piece of cake:1. Right-click on a MIDI track and select “Freeze Track”.2. Wait whilst live renders the audio.3. Right-click on the track again and select “Flatten”.

The last step will complete the transformation from virtual instrument to audio track. All insert effects are also rendered down. If you repeat this process for every MIDI track, you will end up with a project made entirely from audio tracks, which hugely reduces the possibility of compatibility problems with plug-ins further down the road.

The same bass track. At the top it is a MIDI track playing a virtual instrument. In the middle, it has been “frozen”, and at the bottom it has been “flattened” into an audio track.

Step 3 - Collecting files

This step will collect all the files used in your project into one place so you can archive the folder safe in the knowledge that everything you need to re-open that project is in one folder:

1. Go to the file menu and select “Collect All and Save”.2. From the dialog box, select “Yes” to all options. You may not need them all, but it’s the

safest way.

Live’s “Collect All and Save” function ensures that all audio and video files referenced by the project are copied into the project folder.

Live will copy any audio and video files it needs into the project folder and save the project so that it references only the files within that folder. Any references to audio files anywhere else on your hard drive are replaced.

Step 4 - Backing up

The last step that remains is to backup your project folder. My personal method is simply to copy the project folder from my hard drive to an external backup drive. I have hard drives full of projects from the last 20 years. Some of them will never be opened again, but it’s good to know that they are there and available if the need ever arises.

MTF Navigation Vocal audio essentials

A bleton Live 9 is much like its predecessors in terms of recording and editing vocals, as very little has changed in this area of music production. Sure, there’s a fantastic new set of processing options such as Audio To Midi

that can be used for all sorts of creative, vocal-sourced ideas. And the new Glue compressor is another handy addition – great for achieving that smooth, commercial compression sound that is part of how a vocal should sound to most people’s ears. Last but not least, automation has also improved – it’s now available for clips in Session View, and you can also now work with linear or logarithmic shapes, making the smoothing-out of a vocal part much easier to implement.

However, there’s still no classic DAW way to record multiple lanes of takes for immediate access afterwards, or a simple click-and-mute function for auditioning multiple parallel takes in a heavily edited compiling session – all of which is frustrating for anyone who’s used Pro Tools, Cubase or pretty much any other DAW. On the

plus side, though, Live 9 does have basic functionality for compiling audio, and when you’ve explored it, you are actually reminded of the need to strive for better vocal performances in the first place rather than automatically assuming you’ll be editing the hell out of it later...

And although there’s plenty of software-based audio trickery that can be performed in Live (much of which outshines all other DAWS), it’s nice to be pushed into a more traditional approach for achieving a good vocal take in a track. However, as this relies more on the

performance itself, we’ll start by looking at a few Live-based issues you should check out before inviting any performers around.

Tune machineAlthough Live is quite economical in its use of computer resources, its ability to let you do a lot of creative processing in real time often leads to some very

Of all the tasks Live can perform, recording and editing vocals takes an approach that may feel less than intuitive. Liam O’Mullane shares his approach...

a CROSSFADINGWhen you’re performing

edits in the middle of a continuous vocal part, enable Show Fades and drag one edit over the other. You can then shape the fades as required.

d LEVEL CHANGING

The easiest way to create level changes is to highlight the area in question then click and grab the volume automation line while holding down [Shift].

b LOCATORSLocator markers are

useful for dividing your song into clear sections. Right/[Ctrl]-click to add them; name them so they make sense at a glance.

c FADESWhen editing out unwanted sounds from around your vocal parts, activate Live’s fade by pressing

[Ctrl]/[Cmd]+[Shift]+[F] on an expanded track to smooth out changes in volume.

useful for dividing your song into clear sections. Right/[Ctrl]-click to add them; name them so they

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Vocal tracking & compiling in Live 9

Ableton Live Step-by-Step

It’s nice to be pushed into a more traditional approach for achieving a good vocal take in a track

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MTF Technique Vocal tracking

MTF Step-by-Step Recording and editing vocal takes

PRO TIPIn Session View you can drag the top of the level meters on Live’s mixer to get a much more detailed picture of your input levels.

plug-in-heavy project work. If you’re already near to maxing out your CPU or hard drive performance limit, then, before you get started on vocals, export audio out of your project and import it in a specific project for vocal recording. There are a few ways to do this – see the Setting Up a Monitor Mix step-by-step for details.

If your computer struggles to perform at low latency irrespective of what you do to improve performance, look into any direct monitoring options your audio interface may have. Unless it has onboard DSP processing – like CueMix FX on MOTU’s devices – your artist will have to work with a completely dry foldback of their vocals. In this situation we recommend them having one side of their headphones off, so make sure that you pan their signal accordingly to avoid unnecessary spill. They will then have some room acoustics to hear, which can help them hit their pitch correctly.

Another option is to use direct monitoring for a dry vocal and add a Reverb device to the vocal track in Live at 100% wet. This won’t be recorded to the track; it helps the vocalist to perform and the delay from the latency will be perceived as pre-delay, which is a happy compromise.

Other aspects such as shared processing with other applications should also be minimised; you really don’t want unexpected update requests, pop-up notifications or other erratic behaviour causing you grief in the heat of a session. Tips on performance-optimising for Windows and OSX are best left to a Google search as they are too numerous to be listed here.

Before any session starts, you should consider room vibe. This is controlled by how you manage the session in terms of lighting, a good monitor mix and setting a pleasant room temperature. Live can help in the visual realm too, as its usual options of skin templates has been enhanced with control over Brightness, Color Intensity and Color Hue. These are available from the Look Feel tab in Preferences and do impact on the mood in the room, as well as being handy for your own eyes when working in low or zero light conditions.

Get set...When you’re setting up input gain, recording at 24-bit depth or higher (which can be set in Record Warp Launch tab in Preferences) allows you the luxury of leaving a large amount of headroom. Click the decibel reading to the upper left of the fader to reset it; this lets you see the

01 For recording in Arrangement View, set the loop brace to the desired area you

want to focus on. With Loop enabled, hit record and continue capturing takes until you think you have a few good ones to work with.

02 The audio clip will have an internal loop brace set to the duration of the last take.

After enabling Loop, move this brace to the first take. A quick way to do this is to press the up or down arrow keys after it’s highlighted.

03 Unless your vocal part falls completely in line with Live’s grid you’ll want to

disable Snap To Grid from the Options menu. Now split the vocal into as many sections as needed for compiling by clicking on the audio clip and selecting Split from the Edit menu.

04 Now you can audition each take for these newly split sections by moving

the loop brace forwards or backwards. Pressing up and down on the loop brace will move each clip’s content forwards and backwards from one take to another.

05 If you need to improve on the timing of parts, try moving the start marker within

an audio clip. This moves the clip’s content rather than the clip itself, so it is much quicker to work with.

06 Warp markers are another option for editing timing and are especially useful

within a busy section. Double-click around the area of focus so neighbouring content is unaffected, then move the audio between it as required.

If your computer struggles to perform, look into direct monitoring options on your audio interface

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MTF Step-by-Step Optimising a vocal take

01 Whether you have a large number of audio takes in front of you or a clear

single take with all the timing and pitch you’re after, you will want to remove certain non-performance-related sounds. To start, highlight and delete the areas between each vocal performance for true silence.

02 Now there’s no movement, rumble and other unwanted sounds to interfere with

a mixdown you’ll need to smooth out the fade in and out points to your edits. Select Show Fades from the Create menu and start to drag their anchor point to smooth out your clip’s start and end points.

03 The listener’s perceived level of breathing in a vocal can add energy

when increased in volume, or sound clinically perfect when set quite low or even removed. Highlight each breath and separate them using Split. Use Clip Gain to control levels.

04 Pitch can also be edited in Live and there are two main ways to implement

this. The first is by using a clip’s pitch control. For vari-speed pitch change (when duration is also affected), disable Warp mode and change the Transpose and Detune amounts. This is the most natural-sounding approach.

05 Another pitch-control option is to enable one of Live’s Warp modes – like Complex

Pro – then adjust Transpose and Detune. This will keep the timing of parts in place, so is best to use for multiple events that create a rhythm.

06 The second way of editing pitch is to use Envelope automation. This allows

you to alter pitch over the course of time without having to perform micro edits on your vocal. Select the E symbol from the lower left of Clip View, then edit the automation line to smooth out unwanted pitch changes.

highest peak encountered, so it’ll need a few clicks as you’re getting your input levels right. Aim for a good clearance of at least 10/20dB or more; it’s only if you’re working in 16-bit that you may have to get a bit closer to 0dB in order to capture a better dynamic range.

On the topic of audio settings, it’s worth seeing if your computer can cope with higher sample rates. As latency is measured in samples, if you run at a higher sampling frequency (rate) per second, samples will pass at a faster rate – ie, 128 samples at 44.1kHz takes around twice the time to happen than when running at 96kHz. It increases the load on your CPU and hard drive, however, so doing this needs to be thoroughly tested before your session.

A quick time-saver when preparing to record vocals is arming multiple duplicates of the same vocal track. This minimises the fuss of lining up different takes after you’re done recording (as long as you have the same number of tracks as takes). You then just need to move the loop brace around on each track rather than copying audio when working from one initial vocal track.

We’re not ignoring recording in Session View here, by the way – indeed, this approach is a very fluid way to get vocals alongside song ideas as they develop. The only potential issue with working in this way is that a large amount of vocal phrases will often run before or after a point when you might want to move from one Scene to another. This results in all sorts of issues while still in Session View in order to have smooth transitions from one Scene to the next.

Another option, of course, is to cue Scenes in Session View but remove clip recording from your vocal track(s). This will enable you to continuously record your vocals to Arrangement View irrespective of any Scenes you might choose to launch in Session View. It’s also considerably easier to subsequently edit the vocals so they’ll work as expected in Session View. To remove all clip slots from your vocal track, first highlight them, then right/[Ctrl]-click (PC/Mac) them and select Remove Stop

PRO TIPIt’s no surprise that Live offers a more performance-orientated way to compile vocals than conventional sequencers. In Session View you can assign each vocal take to a Key or MIDI note using the relevant Map mode from the Options menu. Set each clip’s Launch Quantization to zero and enable Legato mode. You can now move between your takes at any point and record it all to Arrangement View.

Working in Session View is a fluid way to get vocals alongside song ideas as they develop

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MTF Technique Vocal tracking

MTF Step-by-Step Setting up a monitor mix

01 Before you start recording, the stability of your setup can be compromised if

you’re running a big project with a lot of CPU consumption. Try a low latency setting by Opening Preferences>Audio and reduce the latency buffer size as much as possible.

02 If your computer can’t deliver at a sample value of 256 of less it is best to work on a

vocal-specific version of your project. First you need to export the project as a backing track to use in your vocal project. The simplest method is to use Export from the File menu.

03 Exporting the Master output may be the quickest approach but it will limit how

customised your monitor mix can be later on. We like to group our main instrumental sections like drums, bass and melody and export each group. They can then be imported into a new vocal project.

04 After your music is imported and you’ve set up your audio track to record, insert

a return track (if required) from the Create menu and name it Monitor Mix. Set its output to match the channel(s) your audio interface uses for headphones, then use the Sends to create a mix for your vocalist.

05 If your soundcard uses only the main stereo output (1+2) for headphones you

can work around it by feeding your studio’s monitors from another stereo out. You’ll need to change the Master output in Live as well or you’ll be feeding the vocalist the master mix and the monitor mix.

06 To use sends on your vocal track you need to make sure it’s set to In or Auto

with Arm enabled. Now add whatever processing you need, such as compression or reverb. Processing can be sent back to the singer to help them perform to a professional-sounding mix.

Button. This track will now record just to Arrangement View as long as you use Live’s Arrangement Record Button to get started.

Go!There are two ways to cue a performance: with a count-in or by utilising a part of the music before the section you’re going to focus on. If you intend to loop for continuous passes over the same section, make sure you set the loop brace in Arrangement View to a position and length that makes sense – even just an extra bar at the start and end is OK; just think of rounded measurements so a vocalist isn’t thinking too much about where they are in the song. If you’d prefer to use a count-in and drop in cold, the duration of the count-in can be set from a dropdown menu on Live’s Metronome icon.

The only thing left to say is that we strongly recommend the practice of making a note of good takes before you start. We like to jot down the last bar number (shown on Arrangement View’s timeline or under your clips in Session View) after a good take. This enables you to quickly edit and delete audio that doesn’t cut the mustard. It also helps you judge if you have sufficient good material before closing down a session. MTF

We strongly recommend the practice of making a note of good takes before you start

Using a MIDI controller to launch Scenes as you record to Arrangement View offers a lot of flexibility for jamming. It also obviates the need to use your keyboard and mouse when performing on your own.

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Vocal tracking Technique MTF

W ith the topic of this month’s lead feature being synths, we thought we’d show you around Live’s very own hybrid synth, Operator. Although its name comes from the FM synthesis-based

term for an oscillator, Operator can function both as an additive and subtractive synth. In fact, given the less than predictable nature of the alternative Analog synth (which is, of course, part of an analogue synth’s charm), we tend to reach for Operator to create any synth-like sounds when we want 100% predictability. On that note, we’ll look at it as a subtractive synth first to keep things simple while investigating its features.

Got ’rithmThe four divided sections to either side of Operator’s central display are called Shells. After clicking the bottom right-hand Shell this Global Shell will reveal 11 colourful algorithm symbols across the top of the central display. Although they look like the puzzle pieces from Tetris, they are in fact routing diagrams flowing from top to bottom. 1

All of the algorithms apart from the very last one on the right are either FM-based or a mixture of FM and subtractive synthesis, so we need to click the horizontal shape on the far right. This represents each oscillator running in parallel to each other (ie, not modulating each other like an FM synth).

Operator’s four oscillators are the four Shells to the left-hand side. The Coarse parameter sets ratios of the input MIDI note, so if you’re playing a concert-pitch A3 and the first oscillator is set to a ratio of 1/1 you will hear A3 being played back. The technique of layering up a second oscillator an octave above the first can therefore be achieved by turning up oscillator B and setting it to 2/1. As some ratios are odd, like 3/1, there’s also a predefined selection of harmonics on offer. To tune an oscillator to a specific note, use Coarse to find the nearest note below the one you’re after, then use Fine to sweep up to the desired semitone. Although it’s named Fine, it offers a full octave range and isn’t limited to semitone adjustments as it’s calibrated in cents, making it useful for detuning oscillators to thicken a sound.

You can view either oscillator or envelope info at the top of the central display; oscillator type is available to the lower right. Let’s go through the layout by making a Reese bass. Select a Saw D waveform for oscillators A and B from the dropdown waveform list (see Image 6, bottom right). Set their Level parameter to 0dB and raise the Fine control for oscillator B up towards 25 cents. As long as you’re playing MIDI notes between C1 and C2 this should already be quite nasty-sounding. To give it more bottom end, raise the level of oscillator C but leave it set to its default sine wave as this pure wave is perfect for reinforcing your existing sound. Need even more weight? Raise the level of oscillator D and set its Ratio to 0.5 for a lower octave of sine power. Now re-balance the sounds using the Level control on each oscillator. 2

The LFO Shell to the upper right is set up by default to control the pitch for all oscillators via its Dest.A section. To give this Reese more of a Hoover-esque ‘rave’ stab tone, set the LFO waveform to SwDown (Saw Down) from the first pop-down menu. Choose Sync from the next menu (LFO Range) and set a Rate of 1 bar. Now raise the Amount while pressing keys higher than C2 to get that familiar descending Hoover bass. 3

Operator offers a great deal more than just FM leads and pads. Liam O’Mullane has the low-down.

The central display is key to seeing more detail for each Shell when you click on them. This is also where you select MIDI and modulation assignments.

Subtractive and additive synthesis can usually benefit from some modulated filtering from the filter’s own envelope or the LFO (when assigned). For FM work, try using it as an EQ to hold back excessive top end with a low-pass filter.

PRO TIP

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We tend to reach for Operator to create synth-like sounds when we want 100% predictability

On the disc On the disc

Ableton Live project file included

on the DVD

Bass design with Operator

Ableton Live Tutorial

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MT Technique Bass design with Operator

PRO TIPMany sounds can be given an extra dimension through octave-based pitch-bending. Just set Pitch to +12 or +24 semitones from the central display for the Global Shell.

The LFO can be assigned to many other modulation destinations via Dest.B. In most cases you’ll want to disable its default assignment in Dest.B by clicking the A, B, C and D buttons. Although the filter cutoff can be assigned here, setting its Depth to 100% won’t move the cutoff from its minimum to full. A workaround to achieve a full-range cutoff sweep is to assign Dest.B to filter cutoff. With both assignments set to 100% and the LFO set to SwDown, you can achieve that tight and defined rhythmic modulation sound that has been recently made famous by the artist Datsik. 4

Returning to the Hoover-esque sound for a moment, you can get a more authentic upwards and downwards pitch change over time by using the Pitch Envelope in the next Shell down from Filter. With a positive setting between 10–50%, shape the envelope to create a medium attack slope and longer decay time. 5

Additive approachesIf you move the mouse over the central display when an oscillator Shell is in focus you can draw in harmonic partials on the Waveform Editor. This is where Operator behaves like an additive synth, letting you decide which harmonics are present and at what volume. Try setting the harmonic amount to 16 (the uppermost block to the right of the Editor) and draw in a combination of harmonics. We’ve gone for just a few lower harmonics as this will be our bottom-end oscillator. 6

We’ve then edited oscillator B and right/[Ctrl]-clicked on the waveform display to set it to odd harmonics only. We can now create an upper frequency layer that has the odd harmonic characteristic of a square wave. 7

As we’re still using the subtractive synthesis algorithm – meaning that oscillators aren’t modulating each other – you can choose to feed back oscillators on themselves. Explore the Feedback amount below the oscillator-type menu. Harmonically rich oscillators are sensitive to this control so small amounts will make a big difference between distortion and noise. We’ve gone for 6% before the sound breaks up too much. This is now a sonically interesting layer that we can modulate. 8

Perfect harmonyEach oscillator has an envelope that modulates its level like any normal synth, letting us slowly introduce this higher harmonic layer with a slow attack stage. These

two oscillators alone – with a little vibrato from the LFO – can create a nice, organ-style bass that gains a harder edge over time. 9

Envelopes can also be looped for creating rhythmic modulation shapes. The bottom right of the oscillator’s central display has a Loop pop-up menu: select Sync, then set Repeat to 1/12 for a triplet feel. 10

As long as Live’s main transport is playing, the envelope will now begin to repeat. Just make sure that the envelope’s shape is short enough so it can be heard changing before it loops around again. Experiment with the Time<Vel amount to the right of the envelope’s Release amount as this will shorten or lengthen the envelope duration via MIDI note velocity. A negative value will shorten the duration with lower velocities, which makes sense to us when playing expressively from a MIDI controller. 11

Frequency modulationOf all the available algorithms, the backwards-shaped ‘L’ is the most relevant for getting started with FM for creating bass parts. 12 The bottom part of the L holds the two oscillators you hear directly. The block colours correlate to the oscillator colour, so here, oscillator A in yellow is on its own, without any other oscillators above it. This means that no oscillators above are there to modulate it, so it’s a subtractive oscillator. We’ll use this for a bottom-end sine wave.

Modulation can be used for subtle or dramatic effects – like most audio parameter settings, use the most extreme settings to fine-tune parameters before backing off to a suitable amount.

extra dimension through octave-based pitch-bending.

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Bass design with Operator Technique MT

Assigning modulators to velocity enables you to easily program in variation within your General MIDI Editor page.

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Oscillator B, however, has two other oscillators wired into it in series. The pitch of oscillator D at the top will modulate oscillator C, then the resulting sound will be used to modulate oscillator B. In simple terms, oscillators D and C are acting like an LFO to the pitch of oscillator B, but the rates are very fast (in the audible musical range) so the rate is fast enough to add new, audible pitch changes to oscillator B.

With oscillator A remaining at a Coarse ratio of 1, raise the Level to full for oscillator B after setting its Coarse ratio to 2. You’ll now have two sine waves an octave apart. Next, increase the Level of oscillator C and you’ll start to hear a dramatic change to oscillator B’s output. Change the Coarse ratio to be lower and you’ll hear a watery, super-fast tremolo effect; move it upwards and the sound will become increasingly metallic in tone. Now explore the Level control to hear how this acts more like a timbre control than a simple fade-in and out. Using this oscillator’s envelope for Level control or the LFO suddenly opens up a lot of drastic tonal change. Welcome to the wonderful world of FM synthesis!

Know your limitationsFM can create some incredibly high frequencies – so high, in fact, that they reach the limitations of the device’s sample rate. These are pushed back into the audible spectrum in a non-harmonically related way – this is called aliasing. When set up correctly this can create dense clusters of information, which is great for cymbal sounds, bells and anything else that isn’t

particularly musically tuneful. For bass, try copying these settings with only sine waves to shape the aliasing effect into a vowel-like sound. 13

Down and dirtyFM synthesis can also generate some really nasty bass tones if you carefully tune each modulator by ear to create a non-harmonic that has a slightly discernible pitch. This time we’ll use the very left algorithm to create a layer for higher frequencies that we can run in parallel with a sine wave from another instance of Operator for the low end.

The first thing to do is to choose an interesting waveform for oscillator A as this is where your sound begins. We’ve gone for the SW8 wave (saw wave) to provide a bright sound, then we’ve chosen an odd-harmonics-based sound for oscillator B with the Sq8 wave. This creates a very demonic beehive-type of sound when detuned a little and applied with a low Level. We’ve then added a sine very high up in the register with a ratio of 39 to create a very high, buzzy tone. Finally, to lose a little definition we’ve added a noise oscillator for D and applied it very lightly. 14

Of all the options here, FM needs to be approached with some restraint, adding one oscillator at a time as it’s very easy to go from a solid, desirable sound to something that’s just fatiguing to the ear. So take the time to switch oscillators on and off as you go, checking that you’re not going too far. Then, when you’ve made a sound, explore switching algorithms as this can often yield some very surprising results. MT

The Algorithm menu lets you choose from various oscillator routing options. Just click the different shape and immediately hear a difference in your patch.

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MT Technique Bass design with Operator

Understanding MIDI EFFECTS "Chord" + "Scale"

Lets start with the chord effect. First of all, drop in a new midi track. Then, put in an instrument of your liking, preferable something with less resonation for the purpose of understanding this tutorial. In the future, you can use nice long voilins or even pads to make spacy chorded sounds. After you have put in the sound, just before it in your rack, toss in a CHORD midi effect.

Now you will see options for up to 6 extra notes to create chords off of the one you are pressing on your midi keyboard. This is pretty simple to understand, and not very useful unless you have an understanding of chords. When you turn on one of the shift options, it adds another note depending on how far your shifted that note. A shift of +1 semi tones will add another note one half note above the one you are pressing (example white key to the nearest black key). You can play around within this to find some nice chords on your own. The little box below each shift button determines how loud you will hear that note when compared to the original note you are pressing, incase you want less dramatic chord. Also be sure to play around with the built in presets that come within this midi effect to find nicely made chords with excellent velocities already there for your disposal.Now, lets go on to the next step. If you dont understand chords, this next step can be SO useful. Even if you do understand chords, it is impossible for you to know ALL of them, so you can build your knowledge chords by using this. Start by SHUTTING OFF THE CHORD effect for now, we will get back to it. Go into midi effects, and drop in a SCALE effect in between your CHORD & INSTRUMENT, like this -

It looks like a small sequencer right? Think of it a little bit like that, where as from left to right are keys within ONE OCTAVE of your midi keyboard (ex. C to C). For some reason there are 13 squares (not 12) up and down. I dont know why this is, but the top one does not get used. Lets look at the options now within this. The BASE knob is for the BASE of your grid. It will not change sound, only the VIEW that you see the grid. If you are making a track in C, its good to leave it in C to see the whole range of C-C. The transpose will transpose the actual SOUND in semitones up or down based on how far you move it. If you have a midi keyboard, the range and lowest note options are not really useful. Now, what you are telling your controller to do, is to CHANGE what note is actually being played. You can only have 1 square activated per vertical column. So now, if you were to select note C in column 1, 2, & 3...then press keys C, C sharp, & D....they will now all play C. This makes it so, if you were to build a chord, you cannot press a WRONG button. This can be nice for improv jamming. Now the key to this feature is to use the built in presets that come with ableton. Just click the little arrow below the SCALE midi effect within your browser to see the options. You will see options like MAJORS, MINORS, PENTATONIC, etc etc. Just drag on of those on top of the scale effect within your effects rack, and it will be preset to that chord. Start touching all over your keyboard, and you will notice that ANY note you hit will be in that correct progression.Now, go back to your chord effect and turn it on. Toss in a nice preset for the time being. Now play your midi keyboard. You will hear AMAZING chord sounds in a perfect chord progression based off of what your are playing on your keyboard. Just play around with all the parameters until you get something you like! If you want, you can even put an arpeggio before all of this.

L ove it or hate it, but in the world of club music it’s a necessity to give tracks a certain degree of loudness. For many, professional mastering isn’t an option as you may not be signed to a label yet, but if you want to get exposure, you

still need to get your tracks to club and radio DJs for a possible lucky break. This month we’ll show you how to use specific mastering techniques on your mix buss to get a polished, loud track for promotional use. You can also apply these to pre-mixed audio files, but working while the mix is still live can be an education in how your mix changes when mastered and how it can be shaped to work better with your mastering chain. But before any processing begins, let’s look at using reference material to help keep you on track.

Reference materialA/B referencing between released material and your own work is useful both at the mastering stage and during the song-creation process. It provides you with constant goals to aim for and helps you stay on course for completing your track. We’ve all lost perspective on a

mix after listening to a hi-hat in solo mode for too long, so alongside regular breaks, reference material is essential.

Drag two or more reference tracks into Live on their own audio tracks, Warp them to fit Live’s tempo, then highlight the tracks and select Group from the Edit menu. Mute the tracks in this group so nothing but your own track can be heard. 1

You need to route these tracks directly to your audio interface so that any master buss processing isn’t affecting them. In Session View, select your soundcard

Getting your tracks ready for playing to the public is something we all need to do from time to time. Liam O’Mullane shares his tips on making the best-sounding master possible.

Live can be set up for real-time use of reference material at any given moment by hitting assigned keys for each reference track.

mix after listening to a hi-hat in solo mode for too long, so alongside regular breaks, reference material is essential.

his tips on making the best-sounding master possible.

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Mastering music for club and radio play

Ableton Live Tutorial

PRO TIPFor more detail when working For more detail when working with EQ Eight, double-click on with EQ Eight, double-click on the analyser to see a much the analyser to see a much larger view. This also adds a larger view. This also adds a frequency and musical pitch frequency and musical pitch info box to the lower left, which helps when you need to focus on certain notes.

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PRO TIPIf you need more frequency content in the 2–5kHz area of your mix but are pushed for time to tweak this during the mixing stage, Live’s Overdrive can help fill in the gap, with careful use of Drive and Tone along with a narrow band-pass filter. Use a very low dry/wet balance – from 1% upwards.

output from the Audio To menu after first selecting Ext Out. 2 Finally, assigning key commands to each solo button lets you jump from your work to any reference point for immediate feedback. Use Edit Key Map from the Options menu to assign these keys. 3

EQ workBefore applying any dynamic processing, start with an EQ Eight for surgical work to knock things into better shape. As a general rule, select Oversampling by right/[Ctrl]-clicking (PC/Mac) on the device’s title bar. This allows for a higher internal sampling rate and reduces the chance of aliasing being introduced as you work. 4

The first task with surgical EQ work is to reduce/ remove any non-musical resonances. These may not be immediately obvious, so an additive sweeping technique is usually required. EQ bands 3–6 are parametric by default, so start with one of these. Increase the gain to around 10dB, the Q (width) to 2–3 for a narrow band, and sweep the Freq dial until a specific frequency starts to sing out in a nasty manner when boosted. 5 Now explore either direction for the Q amount so only the nasty area is being boosted. The Q needs to be as narrow as it can be without being so narrow that it doesn’t boost the whole problem area. 6

To reset your ears, click on the Gain control and hit backspace to return it to zero. Apply sufficient gain reduction to reduce the problem area as much as possible without leaving a hole in the overall sound. 7

You can repeat this process as required, but if you’re applying more than three or so cuts it may be worth looking at your mix elements to find the sound that is responsible for the problem and apply this technique to that sound directly so the whole mix isn’t EQ’ed as much.

Bracketing your song’s frequency range with low- and high-cut filtering is the next step with EQ Eight. Sit a filter just below and above the visible energy of the track to remove any content that doesn’t aid the sound of the track. This is especially important in the low end

as bass eats up headroom, which in turn makes it hard to get a tight, loud mix. Try both the normal and the x4 filters to determine which suits the content best. 8

You should audition all treatments to your mix buss by turning the processing chain on and off at regular intervals. This also makes it easier to set your output level by ear so you’re auditioning changes even-handedly. The simplest way to set this up is by Grouping devices via the Edit menu and assigning the newly created Audio Rack’s Activator button to a key for immediate auditioning at any point. 9

Dynamic shapingThe next step is to process the dynamic range of your track to firm it up and give it more impact. The first device can be used for average signal level-based compression, pulling the level of the track’s body and the higher peaks closer together. A second device can then be used for more rhythm-based peak compression

to add punch to the drums as the whole track is compressed in response to them. Either a Compressor or Glue device can be used for average-based work, and it pays to try them both as they do sound different. This technique requires a fairly deep threshold setting but light ratio from 1.01:1 upwards. Compressor needs to be set to RMS for an averaging behaviour and Makeup Gain should be disabled so you can use the Out fader for manual level matching. This prevents you from being fooled into thinking your changes are better simply because they are louder! There’s no

Surgical EQ is the best place to start for getting a more professional-sounding mix before moving onto other types of processing.

mixing stage, Live’s Overdrive

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If your drums don’t stick out in the mix sufficiently to trigger Compressor, use the EQ so it reacts to the specific frequencies of certain drums and not others.

rule for the amount of gain reduction to apply here and the attack and release settings are also content-specific – explore them until you can hear backing sounds coming further forwards in the mix while avoiding any pumping artefacts. 10

For peak-based compression, Compressor set to Peak mode is your best bet. To have only the main, louder drums trigger the compression, set the ratio quite high, with the threshold low enough to let only the highest drum peaks trigger the compressor. Dial in fast attack and release times so the track gets slightly squashed with each louder drum hit. This will give the drums a feeling of being heavier as the mix gets slightly squashed in response to them. If necessary, mix your drums a little too loud to take this effect a bit further. Alternatively, if the drums aren’t loud enough use the EQ on the left-hand side to help Compressor ‘hear’ the frequencies specific to the kick and snare. 11

Mid and sideAnother way to tighten up a mix is to EQ the mid and side elements separately. High-passing the side from around 200Hz or higher will help focus the bottom end as you’re forcing it to be mono through the mid signal only. Boosting the top end on the sides at this point can also give a wider sense of stereo (don’t overdo it or it may become less mono-compatible). To do this, switch an instance of EQ Eight from stereo mode to M/S via the Mode menu. 12 Use the Edit toggle button to change the EQ controls from adjusting the mid or side signal.

After working on the sides, try an additive sweeping technique on the mid to find and then reduce any muddy lower-mid frequencies. This can be anywhere between 250–800Hz and you’ll generally need a broad Q setting as the area can be quite wide. If you haven’t removed too much bottom-to-mid frequency information on your side signal, try this on the sides as well. 13

Peak limitingPeak limiting is the final element in the processing chain. This limits the range of any momentary peaks, which enables more volume to be squeezed out of your master. Although the Limiter might be the most obvious choice for this task, we often opt for Saturator or Glue instead. These often have a more musical sound than the Limiter, which can pump when pushed hard. For both Glue and Saturator you need to enable soft clipping and increase Drive until the signal starts to break up. Once there, simply back off a little (or a lot, depending on how ‘in your face’ you want the mix to sound). 14 Saturator’s output level can be set to keep everything in check, but Glue needs a Utility device adding afterwards as it can be quite loud at its output. 15

At this point you should have a polished-sounding track that you can export and distribute. If you have time, though, come back to it with fresh ears and apply any minor tweaks that perhaps didn’t seem so obvious during the previous session. MT

EQ’ing the middle and side signals separately is a very effective way of tightening the bass end and widening existing stereo elements. When it comes to peak limiting, Saturator and Glue are just as worthy as Live’s Limiter device.

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W hen it comes to starting any kind of work in Live, there has always been a variety of ways to kick things off. Live can be used for traditional songwriting with a traditional sequencing approach in Arrangement View,

or used as an interactive jamming tool for experimental work in Session View. Live is also capable of being a ‘live’ performance tool, too, so there’s no wonder many people struggle to find a good workflow with this deceptively simple yet incredibly open-format tool.

In this series we’ll take a thorough look at the various aspects of Live 9, Live 9 Suite and Push. Although these all present different options for creating music, we will have a

single aim in a bid to accommodate them all – to make music that is creative, unique and well produced. Numerous new tools have been introduced in Live 9, and the inclusion of Max for Live within Live 9 Suite opens up an expansive creative playground to all. And although Push is still in its infancy, we’re already finding some very enjoyable ways of using it to interact with music. So irrespective of the level of investment you’ve made in your Live 9 setup, we’ve got you covered.

Although we’re catering for all ability levels, we’ll assume that you at least understand the very basics of Live. And remember that there are some extremely useful built-in lesson packs that integrate very well into the program, so if you find yourself out of your comfort zone at any point in this series, just go to the View menu and select Help View. The selection of lessons will then appear to the right-hand side of everything else in Live.

To begin, this month we’re looking at various ways to create and manipulate an initial idea through the use of MIDI or audio. Your audio can be single sounds, loops or something you’ve recorded yourself. MIDI can be used to control a huge variety of instruments, but at this stage it doesn’t matter whether it’s bass, pads, drums or lead lines as we’ll start by focusing on MIDI note data. If you can competently manipulate sounds at this level, you’ll have very tight control over how the sound can then be varied throughout your work before getting tangled in a web of automation, layering effects and so on.

Although a power user needs good ideas and an ear to produce, workflow is also important, so with audio, MIDI and workflow in mind, let’s get started. MT

Irrespective of the investment you’ve made in your Live setup, we’ve got you covered

New Series Programming technique & workflow

On the disc

Accompanying project file included

on the DVD

Both audio and MIDI can trigger that creative spark and get the ball rolling when it comes to composition. Liam O’Mullane sets you off on the right track.

FOCUS ON… RECORDINGMany of you will want to record your own sounds – a single event to treat like a sample, a short sequence to turn into a loop, or a full musical passage which may or may not be edited subsequent to recording. Recording to either Session or Arrangement Views starts in the same way: select the correct input on an audio track that’s armed to record, expand the level indicator by dragging it upwards with your mouse in Session View for a more detailed look at your input levels, then hit record. If you want to set up effects to help the performer, be sure to get the lowest possible latency time so that the effects aren’t delayed too much, which will throw off the performance. This is done in Preferences by adjusting the latency buffer size so you have low latency without any break-up in the audio signal.

Ableton Live Become a Live Power User

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MT Technique Programming & workflow

New Series Programming technique & workflow

MT Step-by-Step Fast, creative MIDI editing

01 If you’re inputting MIDI by hand, try to double-click and hold down your mouse/trackpad button to create a note and set its

length in one movement. A highlighted note can then be moved from left to right with the arrow keys; pitch can be altered using up/down.

02 To move from one note to the next using the arrow keys, hold down [Alt] at the same time. You can be looping around while

editing to hear your changes, or use the MIDI Editor preview button (the headphone icon above the vertical piano) so you hear each change in pitch as you make it.

03 If you’re struggling to get an idea started or just want to explore a different approach from usual, try inputting successive notes by

holding down the [B] key to momentarily engage Draw mode. This starts you off in a step sequencer-like way. Now use the key commands already covered to change a note’s pitch and press [0] to mute any unwanted notes.

05 The Invert (Inv) and Reverse (Rev) buttons to the left of the MIDI Note Editor will flip all highlighted MIDI notes upside down or

back to front respectively. Both are easy ways to create variation in your parts. A reverse of a beat or half/a full-bar’s worth of notes is useful for creating variation at the end of a phrase. Alternatively, highlight random sections to alter for a less predictable outcome.

04 No matter how your MIDI part has been created, there are some great editing tools available in Live, but you’ll first need to

highlight two or more notes. The mouse is the obvious choice for this task, but for quick keyboard work, hold down [Shift]+[Alt] while using the arrow keys. You can alter this section or duplicate your work and alter the second to extend the phrase.

06 Two other useful functions for creative editing are the half- and double-tempo functions (these are the :2 and *2 buttons above

Inverse and Reverse). These let you change your MIDI, and double-tempo is especially useful for creating small flourishes within a piece. You can stretch highlighted content for more control over this type of change – just drag the stretch marker above the notes.

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Programming & workflow Technique MT

MT Step-by-Step Audio sequencing and editing

01 There are three ways to manipulate audio: using smaller, sequenced individual events, manipulating from within a loop or

recording of a performance, or by using Live’s Slice To New MIDI Track function (from right-click menu) to get audio into a MIDI-controllable form. The latter can utilise techniques from the previous set of steps here, but our recommendation is to fully explore the presets available.

02 The first few variables for an audio file can be discovered quite easily with single sounds. Starting with Warp mode disabled,

Transpose will let you pitch the audio up and down with vari-speed. Extreme settings of an octave or more in either direction will cause great sonic changes which can generate very interesting textures and sounds to start an idea with.

03 As soon as Warp mode is enabled you open up a whole new world of possibilities, the first being an overall time-stretch effect

which, like vari-speed transpose, can create dramatic tonal changes at more extreme settings. Hit the half-time button a few times for an immediate granular-type effect.

05 To quickly explore the effects of warp markers, use the half- and double-time buttons. Warp modes can be chosen from the

dropdown menu below the :2 & *2 buttons and all but re-pitch modes will generate a unique, stretched timbre. Warp markers themselves can be moved around for an in-loop variation of time-stretch and compress effects.

04 Warp-based time-stretching and pitch change are easily applied to loops or recordings, but in order for single sounds to benefit

from this you first need to turn them from a sequence into a new single audio file. To do this, highlight all parts on a track and select Consolidate from the Edit menu.

06 Transpose is another useful tool for broad variation. First open the Envelope box by pressing the small E button underneath the

Clip box, then select Transposition Modulation and alter the envelope over time. All stretch modes can have their other parameters changed as well, so explore the new tones these can offer you.

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H ouse music is a perfect candidate to start with if you’re just beginning to get to grips with the key concepts of music-making. While any piece of music can be complicated, it’s house, more than perhaps any other genre, that can sound

superb despite comprising only a few very simple elements. As long as you have a great lead, a fat bass line and a good collection of rhythmic percussion – and as long as you’re willing to spend a little time getting your mix right – you’ll have a winner.

Much of producing house is actually about sound design – specifically, sound design using synths. An understanding of the fundamental concepts of synthesis – how oscillators

make sound, how you can modulate them, what filters do and so on – is absolutely crucial. You’ll also need to have a good understanding of how MIDI data works and how it’s different from audio (put simply, a MIDI note is just a signal to the instrument it’s attached to in order to play a sound; unlike audio, it doesn’t actually contain any sound itself).

We’re going to produce a house track in 12 steps, using various techniques to create our lead, bass

line and percussion, as well as covering a couple of mixing principles such as sidechaining. We’re using Ableton Live to do this, but the principles we discuss can easily be transferred to other DAWs. Live is ideal for this job mainly because of its Session View, which enables you to create Clips, each containing a loop or a selection of audio. You can fire off the loops at any time, and when you bring in others, Ableton keeps things perfectly in time. Session View is a giant sketchpad for your track, letting you add in and remove things on-the-fly and craft the perfect beat. Once you’ve mastered it, it’s just as good for live performances as it is in the studio.

But if you want to produce house music, the most important thing you can learn is something not covered in this guide: listening. You need to hear as much house as you possibly can – pour as much of it into your ears as you can handle. Try to isolate the individual sounds and, if possible, reverse-engineer them. Not only will this help you get a deeper understanding of your synths, but also a deeper understanding of the music itself. MT

This tutorial has been endorsed by The Academy of Contemporary Music. ACM delivers programmes for serious students looking to become music industry professionals. Its faculty includes lecturers who have performed and recorded alongside some of the biggest names in music and worked in every area of the industry. See more at: www.acm.ac.uk

An understanding of the fundamental concepts of synthesis is absolutely crucial

How to produce authentic house

On the disc

Accompanying project file included

on the DVD

Welcome to a new series that focusses on different genres of music production across every DAW. We kick off with house, the simplest of dance genres. ‘Or is it?’ asks Rob Boffard…

FOCUS ON… ORIGINALITYA couple of months ago, Swedish DJ duo Daleri did something interesting. They took the top 100 tracks on dance music site Beatport, isolated the drop from each one, then blended the drops into a one-minute mix. It was scary just how similar most of them were, using the same leads, percussion and techniques. Bottom line? It’s very easy to get caught up in mimicking what everyone else is doing and create a track that doesn’t sound all that creative or unique. Once you’ve nailed the basics of Operator (or whatever synth you use), spend a good deal of time delving into its inner workings – come up with something no one has heard before and you’ll have a winner.

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How to produce authentic house Technique MT

MT Step-by-Step How to produce authentic house

01 A good house track depends on a kick-ass lead. We’re going to build one using Ableton Live’s Operator synth. Drag it onto a track,

then double-click the Clip Slot to open a new MIDI track. Lay down a four-bar sequence – doesn’t have to be anything fancy, as you can always change it later. When you’re done, press [Shift]+[Tab] to switch back to Instrument View.

02 First things first: pick a wave. The current Sin wave isn’t really strong enough, so select Oscillator A (by clicking in the grey box

surrounding it) and then open the pop-up menu in the main instrument window. Pick one of the Saw waves – this will give you a much grittier, more interesting tone. Dial down Osc A’s Coarse knob a little, too.

03 Right now, if you introduce more oscillators – and you’ll certainly want to – each will be modulating the other, which will give a very

odd sound. Click the bottom-right grey box (the one with Time, Tone and Volume in it) and you’ll see a bunch of colourful patterns appear. Select the right-most one, with the boxes – each representing an oscillator – lined up.

05 Filter time. You’ll automate this later when you’re building your track, but for now, play around with the various values to see how

it affects your sound (remember to click the square button to activate it). We suggest playing with the envelope value in the main display – a setting of 60–70% can give some real character.

04 Push up the level of Osc B, set the wave to the shape you picked for Osc A, and use the Coarse knob to detune it to your liking.

Already, you’re getting something more interesting. Play around with the Fine knobs on each Osc to get just the tone you like. This part of the process all comes down to personal taste.

06 There are a couple of other things you can do to give your lead more life. Adjust the Spread control to maximum – you’ll instantly

hear the stereo spread widen – then activate the LFO. The low-frequency oscillator is going to give your sound a bit of wobble, which will really make it stand out.

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How to produce authentic house Technique MT

MT Step-by-Step How to produce authentic house, cont’d

07 With the loop playing, pick the shape of your LFO. You’ll be able to hear how each shape affects the sound differently – a triangle

will make it rise and fall evenly, while a square will be choppy. You can probably leave the Range and Retrigger controls alone for the time being, although feel free to experiment.

08 Rate and Amount will determine how much LFO actually gets injected into your sound. For something subtle, try turning

Amount up to almost completely full and set the Rate very low (no higher than 10%). You’ll instantly hear that another element has been injected into the sound.

09 That’s the lead sorted – time for some drums. Actually, getting a basic drum pattern going is pretty straightforward: put a Drum

Rack into a track, open a MIDI clip, then use the Browser to start auditioning kicks, snares, hats and cymbals. For house beginners, we’d recommend a 707 kick for that classic vibe.

11 Sidechain compression is something you’ll use again and again. It lowers the volume of a chosen sound every time a drum (or

whatever you specify) hits. Load a compressor onto your lead track, click Sidechain, select your drum sub-mix, then adjust the compression values with the main loop playing. This will create loads of room in your mix.

10 You may want to think about putting each drum element into its own track – you can then create a sub-group, allowing you finer

control over the mix. Lay down your drum pattern as you like (we’ve gone four-to-the-floor here) and spend a little time processing and mixing your drums with EQ and some light compression.

12 After adding a bass line (Operator again, just tweaked differently) it’s time to mix it all together and actually lay down your track.

Once you’ve got a balance you’re happy with, start recording it to Arrangement View. The beauty of Ableton is that everything stays in time, no matter when you fire off your clips.

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CONSOLIDATING TIME TO NEW SCENE

One of the most underrated new features of Ableton Live 9, is a very simple technique called “Consolidate Time to New Scene.” This allows you to select an amount of time from a finished track’s Arrangement and turn all of the song elements in said selection into a playable, loopable series of clips set up in a brand new Session View scene.

Most Ableton users are aware of Live’s two different views, so I won’t go into too much detail about them. First, we have the more “traditional” linear sequencing view known as the Arrangement View. Second, Ableton has it’s trademark, less linear, more “sandbox” style view called the Session View. This is where we see musical ideas set up in simple block-like Clips, that we can play around with, mix-and-match, and rearrange in various ways without committing them to a particular sequence.

The Session View has become the main live performance tool for several of the most popular DJs and producers as of late. Why? Because instead of just finishing a track, creating a stereo bounce, and pressing the “play” button to play their music out, producers and DJs can take the pieces of music from their tracks (the kick drum, the bass, the snare, the vocals, etc.), and play around with them live. As a DJ, I am no longer bound to just “play” a track that I finished up yesterday. I can take the stems, add more effects to them, or even re-edit or remix my song on the fly during my live set! With Live 9, it really couldn’t be easier to get your own tracks “live performance ready.”

So, for this quick example, I’m using a very simple four-stem song I’m working on (see image 1). I have four different instrument parts featured this track – kick drum, percussion, bass, and arpeggio. The song is currently contained all in the Arrangement View, and my Session View is completely blank.

Image 1

What I’m going to do next is create a Scene (or a series of clips lined up horizontally) in the Session View that corresponds to all of the instrument parts I have playing during the INTRO of my song (which I have set up as the first eight bars). In order to achieve this, I am going to use my mouse to select those eight bars of time in my Arrangement (see image 1 – the selection is highlighted in blue).

Once I have selected this amount of time (and note that you can select time from ANY ONE of the tracks in your Arrangement, no need to highlight all of them), I am going to click the “CREATE” drop-down menu from the task bar at the top of my screen. Then, I am going to select the option to “Consolidate Time to New Scene” (see image 2).

Image 2

Ableton takes a second to do it’s thing, and then viola, you’re done! But wait a minute, why does it look like nothing happened!? Well, let’s flip back over to the Session View (press the Tab key). As you can see, a new Scene, or group of Clips arranged HORIZONTALLY, has been created (see image 3). I can now use the Scene launch button to play back all of these clips simultaneously, or I can launch them one at a time.

Image 3

Notice two things:1) Only the clips that were playing in the eight bars of time that I selected are present in the Scene (there is no Clip for the ARP track, because it was not playing in the Arrangement during the Intro).2) All of the clips have been set up to play back for eight bars (the duration that I previously selected) AND they are all set up to loop (see the bottom Clip View window in image 3).

All I have to do now is go though my song’s Arrangement and select different sections of time – maybe highlight my verses, choruses (drops), and outro – where different elements of my track are playing. Every time you select an amount of time and choose “Consolidate Time to New Scene,” you will have a brand new Scene created that you can work with in Session View!

As a final tip, it’s always good practice to rename your Scenes so you know what part of your song you intend to play back when launching them (see image 4).

Image 4

T he time has come to have a talk about sound abuse. I’m not talking about blasting your neighbours with loud music all night, I mean trashing your samples and programmed sounds, adding the necessary dirt and sleaze to make them sound more like they belong in the real world. A good way to start is with sample manipulation, and in our walkthrough we take a single, not very interesting, sample,

and use it to build a drum rack with four different percussion sounds. Hopefully this will give you some ideas about recording, squeezing, and stretching, samples of your own, to make percussion or instrument sounds. This will give you a source instrument to play with while you’re thinking about the effects processing we’re interested in as well. Programmed music, with software instruments, tends to sound very clean, to the point of being sterile. Sometimes this is a good thing, and for some instrument parts within a mix, it’s exactly what you want. But personally, for an entire track, for an entire mix, I find it boring.

Dirt is goodThe good news is that there are a lot of tools we can use, inside and outside of Live, to add dirt and grit to our otherwise highly polished tunes 1 . A lot of people reading this probably do these kind of things routinely anyway, but as a Live trainer, I know for sure there are also people who are working with exclusively programmed music, and they are concerned that their mixes end up sounding too clean. This applies more to some genres than others, especially some so-called ‘urban’ styles, but you can improve the texture of any mix by dirtying the water a bit. In the old days, this would be less of a problem because people were recording onto tape, with analogue gear, and there would be plenty of dirt introduced along the way naturally. Now we have to do it ourselves!

You can get texture by using different sounds, from different sources, recorded in different ways (and by not using presets... but don’t get me started on that one today). There’s no reason why a tune can’t contain really nasty lo-fi noise as well as flashy state of the art synths! All you really need to make this happen is Ableton Live, some software instruments (the ones inside Live are great), a microphone (even your computer’s built-in mic will do), 2 and anything with a speaker.

(Almost) any sound will doLet’s start with that beat. It’s an old-school sampling technique to take one sample and manipulate it to create an entire drum kit or instrument, and I’ve

talked about it here before, but it usually gets cool results; at the very worst it’s a good exercise in using Live’s sampling tools.

Our example Live set contains a sample that’s ready to go, as well as the finished drum rack that was made with it, so you have something to compare to and keep you on track. Sure, you have to go off and use your own sample as well, but stick to ours while you’re following the steps, or it’ll sound all wrong! Our sample was recorded in a coffee shop, with the mic on my MacBook Pro, straight into Live, capturing some ambient sound. It’s a ‘good’ sound, as much as it’s useable as-is, and it doesn’t need too much processing to make it work.

There’s not much point in working with collected samples if you need to change and process them so far that they could’ve been anything. I try to restrict myself to using the basic sampling controls inside Simpler, and only add a couple of ‘feature’ effects if necessary. What I will do, is use a lot of EQ and compression – these are the most important sampling tools of all. EQ is used mostly for filtering out the low end of samples that have too much low ‘rumble’, and compression is applied to each sound in the kit separately, to maximise volume, but also clip and contain the levels. Compression can also change the tone of a sample, bringing out different textures that weren’t so obvious beforehand.

For the kit in the tutorial I used Live’s Glue Compressor, because it’s widely available 3 , although usually I go to PSP’s Vintage Warmer 4 . You can put another compressor in the track after the rack, so it applies to the entire kit.

Getting DestructiveLive has the worst guitar amp simulations of any DAW – it’s like they’re not even trying! Seriously. But there is an upside to the downside – these same lousy guitar amp models are great for downgrading beats, synths, and vocals. There are the Amp Simulations in the Audio Effect Rack section of the Browser, but you can also find the separate Cabinet and Amp devices in the Audio Effects section, so you can get a little bit more specific with your destructive tendencies. I have used the 1x12 Cab preset a few times... but never, never, with guitars!

Live’s dirt devicesSo now we’ve built our kit, and we’ve got other sounds in a track, let’s think about how we can dirty things up. As far as that kit goes, we can add bitcrushers like Redux 5 , and distortions to specific sounds in the kit; the Dynamic Tube/Tube Trash preset should sound good on the ‘snare’ we’ve made in our drum kit 6 . Live has Dynamic Tube, Redux, Erosion, and Saturator. It also has the guitar amp and speaker cabinet models – so you should be good for distortion!

Ableton Live Noise, Sleaze and Dirt For some genres, you can’t have everything clean and shiny – it’s plain wrong. So this month Martin Delaney shows you how to corrupt and degrade your precious compositions

The ExpertMartin Delaney,Performer, Producer

Artist and instructor Martin, aka mindlobster,

has produced Live training material and was one of the UK’s first certified Ableton Live trainers.

Technique | Ableton Live

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VIDEO ON THE DVDWatch the tutorial movie on the DVD

Live’s Dirt Devices

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(Almost) Any Sound Will Do

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Dirt is Good

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You can make a really nasty sound by using EQ, distortion, and then compression. The good thing about compressors that limit is that you can boost them really hard, into overdrive, but the signal is still limited at the end.

Live’s Operator synth has a role to play, as I mention elsewhere on these pages. Operator’s cool because you can dial up white noise as a waveform, then use a rack to layer that noise under an instrument or drum track. You can use the chain’s volume control to mix the noise volume level, and adjust Operator’s release time to fit in what’s happening in your main instrument part.

Max For Live’s Convolution Reverb effect is a monster noise tool because you can load any type of sample into it, including noises that you’ve just generated in Operator, or, well, all kinds of things – machine sounds, voices, guitar chords – whatever, it all sounds good. I like putting vocal samples in there; you can use words, but long breathy sounds work – put the reverb on a return track and solo it, so that all you can hear is the ghostly noise imprint of whatever tracks are being fed to the return 7 .

Sometimes I resample a section of a song into a new audio track, and use that short loop instead of the original separate tracks. This gives your mixing process a different vibe, and gets further away from your original parts – it feels more like working with a loop you’ve cut from another record. The easiest way to do this is with Live’s Resampling audio input option in the In/Out View. Select Resampling, arm the track, and play back the tracks you want to resample from, then record them into a new clip 8 . Now you can treat this sample in new ways – apply different warp modes to it, use Beats warp mode to gate the transients, transpose the clip, reverse it; it’s all good.

You can even then load your new resampled clip into Simpler, so you can play it back off a keyboard or arpeggiator, and apply even more processing to it. Very often I convert these samples to mono, which adds to the old-school sampling vibe. Because resampling happens after the returns and master, you could use this method to capture the solo’d reverbs I talked about earlier. A non-standard plug-in that’s effective for lo-fi sounds is Izotope’s free Vinyl. I use this to bind resampled sections together and make them sound different again from the original parts.

Convolution ReverbIf you have Max For Live, which is included in the Live 9 Suite as well as being available separately, you have a Convolution Reverb in the Max Audio Effect section of your Live Library. The Convolution Reverb is great for applying samples of real-world spaces to your reverb palette, but it’s important to realise that you can put any kind of sound in

there. Noises of all kinds work really well; you can treat them like any other source sound – the reverb’s controls make a lot of difference to how they behave – subtle or more obvious.

Get some outside dirtYou can reach another level of degradation by sending your sounds outside the computer, and bringing them back in. Anything with a speaker, a line-in, or a microphone, can work. If you’ve got nothing else, you probably have a voice memo type application on your phone. Just play a sound through your studio monitors and record it onto your phone; then sync that recording across and load it into your set.

You can do the same thing with those little digital dictation recorders, if your phone doesn’t do it. I’ve also used toy voice recorders – I have a little thing that records a few seconds; I’ll record into that, then hold that up against a microphone to record it back into Live. I like dynamic microphones better for these activities. The reissued Stylophone is one of the best things around for these projects – not only does it have a horrible little speaker, it has a convenient ‘MP3’ input, which you can use to connect your computer, or synth, or guitar,

and then mic it up to get the resulting grungy sound back into your computer. If the sound is too thin or just too nasty, double it up with the original, and mix them together.

Like I said before, EQ and compression are very useful! Small guitar amps are also good for resampling; the good thing about them, compared to toys like the Stylophone, is that you can experiment more with mic placement around the larger speakers – even a slight change in position will affect the resulting tone. I don’t personally like using guitar amps and effects on synths, because they come out sounding too... guitary... but I do love to use them on drums and vocals.

It’s like I said – you don’t want to use these techniques on every sound, but they’re great for adding more texture and glue to your mix!

Real Speaker Beats Fake SpeakerPlug-ins are okay, but nothing equals the sound of running beats through a real speaker, and mic’ing it up, then routing it to another track in Live. After that, mix the clean and dirty signals for maximum impact. EQs and compressors are your best friends.

Put Some Noise In ThereIf you have a track with a software instrument or drums, rack it, then add a chain with Operator. Create a noise patch using Operator’s White Noise waveform, and mix it in with your original sound, so you get a nasty lurking noise behind your track.

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04Snare time. Drag the sample onto the D1 pad. Set volume to 8dB, filter to HP12, and Freq 800Hz, Res 2.50. Set Start: 11.9%, Length 10%. Transpose +5. Set Decay 300ms, Sustain -8.6, Release 7.00s, Spread 10%. Rename the chains as you go. Now add two percussion sounds, on E1 and F1. For Perc 1, set filter to LP12, Freq 22.0kHz, Res 0.70...

Build a Drum Kit with Sample Manipulation Let’s take this poor little audio sample around the back and beat it around for a while

02>Create an empty drum rack in a new MIDI track. Drag the cropped sample into the rack’s C1 pad. This automatically loads an instance of Simpler, with the sample’s waveform displayed. Let’s make a kick drum. Inside Simpler, turn on the filter and set it to low pass. Set the Freq to 150Hz and the Res to 2.00. Keep testing the sounds by triggering them from your keyboard. 05 >

Set Start to 28.6%, Length to 10%. Set Decay to 300ms, Sustain -8.0dB, Release 267ms. Transpose +12, and Pan 15R. Volume to 6.00dB. Duplicate this chain to create Perc 2. Change Transpose to +24, Sustain to -5.4dB, Release to 8.00ms, and Pan to 15L. Refer to our body text for more about compression, and our example set for ‘before/after’ versions of the sample.

03 >Transpose the sample to -12 semitones. Go to the volume envelope controls and set decay to 60ms, sustain to -22dB, and release to 200ms. Set Length to 4%. Raise the Simpler volume to 18dB. Compressors are useful to add to each of our kit sounds – see the body text for suggested settings. Now we have a reasonable kick drum sound, quite soft, with a little bit of a tail on it.

01 >Start with our example clip called ‘source’. We only want the beginning of this. Turn off loop, and make sure the start marker is at 1.3, the beginning of the waveform, and move the end marker to 3.3. Now right-click in the waveform, in-between those markers, and choose ‘crop sample’. This will discard the unwanted sections of the sample.

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If you would like to import a large number of audio samples in Ableton Live and keymap them to individual keys , do these things.

1. Open up an instance of the Sampler instrument

2. Select all the audio files you would like to keymap at one time and drag them to the sampler.You can either do this by dragging samples from Lives session or arrange view or from a directory on your computer.

3. Select Zone and then select every zone by using Command A for Mac or CTRL A for Windows

4. Move the ends of the keymap display so the number of spanned keys is equal to the number of samples.

5. Right click and choose Distribute Ranges Equally

The result should be each sample keymapped to it's own individual note.

Much of the mixer’s power lies in its ability to interrupt, route and re-route signals for practical or creative purposes. Each channel strip has a pan control, allowing a sound to be ‘positioned’ between the left and right speakers, replicating instruments’ locations on a (virtual) soundstage.

To achieve this, each channel’s output is divided into two ‘left’ and ‘right’ outputs behind the scenes. If a pan control is set fully left, the right side’s gain will be reduced, and output of the left side will be raised by a certain amount to compensate for the overall drop in level (usually +3dB). This means a stereo sound isn’t truly moved across the stereo !ield, so an external plugin (eg, Logic’s Directional Mixer) must be used if you want to truly ‘reposition’ a stereo sound without just turning down one side of it.

Insert punInsert slots allow you to place a plugin e!fect at a certain point in the channel’s signal !low to alter the audio’s characteristics at that point. When positioned pre-fader, the e!fect will occur before the channel’s volume fader in the signal path, so level changes will not a!fect the inserted device’s e!fect. This is the most common insert type and is useful for level-dependent plugins such as compressors, noise gates or distortion.

When a plugin is inserted post-fader, changes to the volume slider’s position a!fect the input level of that e!fect. This can be useful, say, if you want a frequency analyser’s display to alter when that channel’s volume is changed. Be aware of this di!ference, otherwise you may painstakingly tweak a compressor post-fader, then turn up the fader, causing it to be compressed much harder and ruining the e!fect you carefully dialled in.

By default, each of a mixer’s channels will travel directly to the master output fader, but sometimes it may be more practical to take a group of similar tracks for processing together using one channel strip. Drum elements, for

example, are often processed as a whole. Some DAWs can now create a group channel at the click of a mouse, but a more hands-on method is to create a new channel and set its input as the outputs of the tracks you wish to group. The exact method varies from DAW to DAW, so again, break out that manual and read up on it.

Grouping tracks becomes even more !lexible when routing groups to other groups. Route ten vocal channels as appropriate to two groups named ‘Lead Vocals’ and ‘Backing Vocals’, then send those two groups to a !inal ‘Vocals’ group.

Sends and returnsAnother feature of a mixing desk is the auxiliary

send. This creates a ‘copy’ of your signal either pre- or post-fader, routing as much or as little of it as you wish (controlled by the send knob) to a return channel. This routing can be sent from multiple channels and is commonly used to apply reverb, delay, etc, to a mix.

We could, say, send vocals, guitar and snare to Buss 1 in varying amounts, and set Buss 1 as the input to a new return channel. This channel will play the three elements balanced in relation to the send levels we set. If we add a reverb insert e!fect to the return channel, and set that reverb to 100% wet, the return channel enables us to adjust the reverb signal for the vocals, guitar and snare using a single channel strip.

Signal paths, routing and grouping

MASTER

GROUP

RETURNS

PRE-FADER SEND

POST-FADER SEND

The signal !low of a virtual mixer is practically the same as that of a physical mixing desk, but it’s more customisable

November 2013 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 69

mixer basics / make music now <

> Step by step 2. Exploring the difference between pre and post-fader sends

Let’s look at the di!ference between using sends and returns in pre-fader

and post-fader mode – a concept featured in most DAWs. We’ve imported a loop onto a new track in Ableton Live 9 and set up a Reverb on a new Return track. The reverb’s Dry/Wet is set to 100% so that only its e!fected signal can be heard coming out of the return, as is standard practice for e!fects on a return channel.

1 Let’s now send our loop’s signal in parallel to the return track using the

track’s Send amount. By default, Live’s returns are set up in Post Fader mode, shown by the yellow Post button on the master channel. If we pull down our loop’s channel fader, we can hear the reverb drop in level with it. This is because the loop’s signal is sent after the level fader in the signal path.

2 We now switch our send mode to Pre-Fader. As we pull down the loop’s

Volume fader, this time the volume of our return track remains at a high level, una!fected by the position of our channel’s fader. This is because the send signal is sent to the return before the volume fader, ie, pre-fader.

3

T here are many moments in music composition when you might feel the need for experimenting, or using tools you might not normally turn to. You could be suffering from writer’s block and not know where to take your work next, or perhaps

you’re stuck on the first idea and need something to kick start it all off. Or maybe you are nearing the end of your song writing and feel the track still needs something better within it. There’s always the option to step away from your work and think about new ideas, but the only problem with

this is that it might not take you into any new territories – it is still you and probably the same thought processes you always use, after all! Experimenting is a much better way and opens up many new possibilities and could result in some of your most unique work yet. This doesn’t mean that your musical integrity is compromised in any way. You’re simply leaving an interpretation of your work in the hands of somewhere else, just as you would if you collaborated with another person. The

main different is that you’re collaborating with your computer, but like working with other people, you still get to approve, dismiss or amend any ideas put on the table.

There are many times I’ve completely re-worked an idea to see where it could go and I’ve rarely found the efforts to be worthless. These changes might transform a lifeless idea into something much more upbeat, or create various other instances of an idea I can use for variations or fills at the end of a phrase. So try not to be too precious when going through the techniques covered in this workshop. You should instead see this as a challenge: how far can you take an idea to create a completely new one? The process can be quite inspirational and potentially give you a new key part to your latest work. MT You should see this as a

challenge: how far can you take an idea to create a new one

NewSeriesPart 3 Compose & experiment

On the disc On the disc

Accompanying project file included

on the DVD

What do you do when you run out of ideas and hit that brick wall in composition? Experiment! Liam O’Mullane guides you through Live’s tools for experimental work…

FOCUS ON… MAKING THE MOST OF YOUR EFFORTSLive has one of the simplest ways of dealing with the individual contents of a project. At any given time you can search the contents of another project in the Live browser and drag any tracks or individual clips out and into your currently loaded session. This also works in reverse, so if you have a good idea but it may not suit the current project you’re working on, grab the top of the track or a clip respectively, then drag it to a sensible place for easy access in the future. I have a folder called song ideas which I drag every unused idea into. Live also lets you preview these ideas in tempo with your project, meaning you can audition your own ideas in the same context as you would with audio loops.

how far can you take an idea to create a new one new one new one

What do you do when you run out of ideas and hit that brick wall in composition? Experiment!

Ableton Live Become a Live Power User

MT Technique Composition & Experimentation in Live

44 | November 2013 MAGAZINE

MT Step-by-Step Experimental MIDI

01 We’ll start with some of the most musical forms of manipulation, for when you don’t want to move too far away from a musical

structure you may have already created. Under the MIDI effects tab you will find many tools to play with. We’re starting with the Arpeggiator which is useful for quickly transforming simple ideas into something more animated.

02 We’ve gone from an incredibly simple melody with a single note per beat to a flourish of notes using two arpeggiators. This

arpeggiator began its life from the C Major Walk 16th Grooved preset which we then modified through changing the rate for faster runs and transpose was changed from major to minor to suit the existing melody more.

03 We then placed a second arpeggiator device and tweaked this to produce more movement to the melody. For further changes to

this set-up you can feed the arpeggiator more notes using a chord device. You then just move the Pitch dials for each note you add and tweak until you like the results.

05 To record the results of any experimentation with MIDI effects, add a new MIDI Track, select the output of the track you want to

record from the top MIDI From menu, then select Post FX so all your processing is captured. New MIDI clips will be created when you record with all the new content as notes, meaning you can manually edit these parts to perfection.

04 Another way to explore new possibilities is to use a Random device which, as you’d expect, creates random events from your

existing MIDI material. Tweak its settings so the Chance amount is high for less repetition, then experiment with other parameters.

06 Don’t think that this type of experimentation is only reserved for melodic work. Try dragging these effects to your drum ideas.

Because drum kit layouts rarely use all of the MIDI notes available, you’ll need to bare this in mind when you tweak parameters otherwise the majority of the notes being created could be triggering nothing.

Composition & Experimentation in Live Technique MT

MAGAZINE November 2013 | 45

MT Step-by-Step Creative audio processing

01 Certain aspects of audio processing are considered mixing aids, like compression, EQ and so on. But other effects can become

part of your creative process. For instance an immediate and drastic way to change your ideas into something rhythmic is to add an Auto Pan device.

02 You can take this a step further by automating its sync value so rhythmic changes become an integral part of your idea. For quick

automation either hit the Arrangement Record Button in arrangement view or the Session Record Button for session view. Then tweak away to record your movement.

03 Auto Pan works best on sounds with a constant output whereas delays can be useful for the opposite situation when you have

more sporadic notes. Try adding a Simple Delay device and exploring the Delay Time values, press Link if you don’t want a stereo effect and, of course, explore automation too.

05 For musical pitch changes to an audio file over time you need to automate the clip’s Tranpose control. But for sound-design

styles of pitch change, try Frequency Shifter as this doesn’t keep the harmonic relationships intact which adds a nastier tone to your sounds.

04 The time aspect of your ideas can also be manipulated through the use of Live’s Beat Repeat device. This can add a mash-up/edit

like aspect to your work so it saves the need for you to get heavily into editing for a quick re-work. Explore the library presets, especially Decontruct which will heavily change your current sound.

06 Thankfully turning any audio processed into a new, rendered clip is much simpler than working with MIDI effects. Just Right [PC] /

Ctrl [Mac] + Click the top of a track in session view or its header to the right in arrangement view. Select Freeze Track from the menu, then right click again and select Flatten.

MT Technique Composition & Experimentation in Live

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MT Step-by-Step Max For Live devices

01 For those who own Live Suite, you can use many of the Max for Live devices for experimental work as well. A good starting point

is Mono Sequencer if you don’t have anything created already. It’s a monophonic step sequencer but its Random button is the real winner for unexpected results.

02 The Random button randomizes whichever of the five tabs are selected at anytime - Pitch, Velocity, Octave, Duration and

Repeat. If you’re close to getting something you like, keep Random set to a lower percentage, but if you want complete change with each click, set this to 100%.

03 Drunk Again is an interesting device as it adds Random’s rapid repeats of notes within the playback of your MIDI clip. It’s best

recorded for a while to capture the magic moments. We like this on percussion parts to help them get the glitch treatment.

05 When it comes to adjusting parameters over time there are a few tools with Max that allow you to do this, with an added twist of

being able to use another sound as the trigger for the sound you’re focussing on. Alongside your melody idea, set up a drum source. Here we’re using a simple drum loop.

04 Instant Haus is another interesting device as it’s designed to drive kick, snare/clap, hi-hat and percussion parts for immediate

house music. Run this into an instrument and you might get results similar to Mono Sequencer, but the random section includes groove if you want to explore timing.

06 Under Audio Effects in the Max for Live folder, grab an Envelope Follower and drag this to the drum track. This will follow the

rhythmic amplitude changes of the drum sound. You can then click Map followed by clicking the parameter you wish to control to connect them together.

MT Technique Composition & Experimentation in Live

48 | November 2013 MAGAZINE

Since part one of this Become a Power Userseries,we’ve covered programming techniques,getting themost out of Push and compositionand experimentation.But althoughwe coveredthe ins and outs of setting up low-latency

performance in Live in part one, it’s not until now thatwe’ve focused specifically on the recording process itself.

Likemany aspects of Live, there’smore than oneway toskin a cat,andwhen it comes to recording audio, themainoption is whether to record in Arrangement or SessionView.The first twowalkthroughswill guide you through

both approaches,but like the different approaches toediting described in the third step-by-step,one size doesnot fit all.So take the techniques discussed onboard,butit’s only through repeated use that you’ll gain a personalcontext for their use.This time is needed to decidewhichapproach best suits your own preferences for workflowand the tasks youwill typically undertake.For instance,pitch-correction (covered in the third walkthrough) can beapplied by usingmany of the excellentWarpmodesavailable.While thesewill allow you to preserve the timingof your recordings,a side effect can be that the soundquality is compromised as it stretches or condenses your

audio to keep it in-time after re-pitching.You canminimisethis by using differentWarpmodes on either a global oredit-by-edit basis as required,but the good,old-fashionedvari-speed approach can also come in handywhen youwant to completely avoid any time-stretch-basedartefacts.But this isn’t artefact-free,either, as the soundwill suffer from timing distortions as you alter pitch.Soafter hearing the differences between the two,you’ll have abetter idea of which approach is themost appropriate forthe task at hand.

Before hitting record,alsomake sure that you’re set upfor the desired bit-depth and sample rate.Bit-depthdictates the available dynamic range in your recordings,with 24-bit being a typical choice.Sample rates representthe highest frequency limit (once halved) of yourrecordings,and there are all sorts of arguments as towhich setting is best. In general, the higher the fidelity youwant, the higher the sample rate needs to be.Orchestralrecordings tend to be recorded at 88.2kHz or above.Mostelectronicmusic can be set to anywhere from 44.1kHz andabove.Sample rate can be altered after openingPreferences from the Options/Live (PC/Mac)menu andselecting Audio from the left-hand tab.For bit-depth,clickthe Record LaunchWarp tab.MT

It’snotuntilnowthatwe’vefocusedspecificallyontherecordingprocessitself

NewSeriesPart4 AudiorecordingandeditinginLive

Accompanyingprojectfileincluded

ontheDVD

Whetheryouintendtorecordamulti-mic’edperformanceor justtheoddfoundsound,you’llneedtounderstandhowrecordingandeditingworksinLive.LiamO’Mullaneexplains...

FOCUSON…CUEMIXINGWhenrecording,youmayneed tocreateacustomheadphonemix foraperformer thatdiffers fromthemixyouwant to listen toasyou record.Thisheadphonemixcould include lotsof reverb foravocalist,helping themto feelcomfortablewhileperforming,andperhapsa loudmelodic instrument tohelpthemstay in-tune.Adrummermaywanteverythingbut themselves in theirheadphonesas theirdrumsarealready loudenough.Whateveryourrequirements,youwillmost likelyneed to route theCueoutputofLive to therelevantoutputonyour interface to feed theheadphones.Thisneeds tobeadifferentoutput fromthatused for theMasteroutputofLive,otherwise itwillmerelycopy themainmix.TheCueoutputwill playbackanypre-countand themetronome,if required,but it canalsosendotheraudio fromyourproject to theperformer’sheadphones.ACueoptionappearsabove theCue level control afterselecting its separateaudiooutputsettings.Whenenabled,thiswill turnallsolobuttons intoaheadphone icon.Forquickset-upyoucansimplyenable therelevant icon tosend thosechannels to theheadphones.Foran independentmixof tracks,sendonlyasingle return track to theCueoutand insteaduse theother tracks’sendcontrols toblend thedesiredbalanceof instruments to theheadphonesvia this return track.

AbletonLive BecomeaLivePowerUser

MTTechniqueAudiorecording&editing inLive

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MTStep-by-Step RecordinginArrangementView

01 You can choose to record in bothSession andArrangementViews.This canbewhen Live is already in themiddle of playback

or you canuse apre-count to count in the start of both recording andplayback at the same time.Themetronomebutton has amenu fortailoring the duration of pre-count for the performers’needs.

02 To capture a natural performance, it’s best not to focus onsmaller sections and loop around them. Instead,use Live in a

purely linearmodebymaking sure that LoopSwitch is disabled,thenrecord the performance fromstart to finish.Thiswill result in amuchmore natural-sounding recording thanworking in small sections.

03 If youwant to recordmultiple takeswith this non-loopingapproach, it’s best to record eachnew take to a different track.

You can then accurately split eachpart by disablingSnapToGrid fromtheOptionsmenuandusingSplit from theEditmenu.The [0] key canbeused to disable takeswhendetermining the best ones.

05 Another approach is to trackmultiple recordings by cycling over asmall section repeatedly.This is useful if youwant to ad-lib and

try outmultiple different ideas.Start by looping around the area offocus, then record various timesuntil you think there are sufficientdecent parts toworkwith.

04 If a performer can’t quite nail a full take or did a good jobbutsmall sectionsmight benefit froma re-take,you canuse Live’s

punch-in/-out function.Click andhighlight the area to focus on andselect LoopSelection tomove the LoopBrace.Press thePunch-In/-Out Switch (in yellow) tomap to the LoopBraces’start and endpoints.Recordingwill now takeplace only between these twopoints.

06 The audio clip that you’ve recordedwill have an internal LoopBrace that’s the length of your clip.To audition the other takes,

simplymove the LoopBrace around to change the content of the clip.This avoids the alternative, lengthy approach ofmoving and extendingthe clip to gain access to the other takes.

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Audiorecording&editing inLiveTechniqueMT

MTStep-by-Step RecordinginSessionView

01 SessionViewcanbeuseful for ArrangementView-like cyclerecording,except that clips are recorded to separate slots,which

keeps things easier to dealwith visually. If you intend towork in alinearway you can simply hit record in an empty clip slot and recordcontinuously, thendrag thefile into ArrangementView for editing.

02 Multiple takes canbe recorded separately by creatingmultipletrackswith their Armbuttons enabled.Then,as long asStart

Recording onScene Launch is enabled from thePreferencesmenu,you just trigger a scene to start playback and recording of yourmultiple takes.Alter each clip’s LoopBraceposition as in Step 6 of thepreviouswalkthrough so that they represent each take.

03 Now that youhave your recordings,you can either drag them intoArrangementView for editing,or use an exclusivemethodwithin

SessionView.This technique ismuchmore hands-on and lessgraphically-based.Once you’ve set up your LoopBraces to representeach take,drag the recordings to one track so you canplay back onlyone take at a time.

05 Next,assign computer keys orMIDI notes to each clip usingeither KeyMapmodeorMIDIMapmode from the top right of the

screen.Nowyou can launch the takeswith your fingers and jamoutpotential edits of the recordings.Wefind that this helps you listen tohow the edits alter the performance,and you canpractice until youthink it sounds right.

04 Highlighting your recordings,open the LaunchBox,enable Legatomodeand setQuantization to none.Legato allows you tomove

fromplaying one clip to anotherwithout losing the playbackposition.This lets you jumpbetweenone take and the other like amanual edit.The lack of Quantizationmeans launching of clipswill be immediate.

06 When you’re ready to commit your compiling to Live,hit theArrangementRecordButton to capture your performance in

ArrangementView.Fromhere you canfine-tune andedit betweenparts.Drag the takes back toSessionView if necessary afterconsolidating it to a newaudio file via theEditmenu.

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MTTechniqueAudiorecording&editing inLive

MTStep-by-Step Editingtechniques

01 There are several key tools you’ll need toworkwithwheneditinga performance. If you’ve already comped fromvarious takes you’ll

havemultiple clips sequenced one after another.Livewillautomatically smooth-out the edits you’vemadewith a crossfade.Toviewandedit these,select ShowFades from theCreatemenu.Fade-ins/-outs can also be controlled in thisway.

02 When trying to improve the timing of smaller edits, rather thantrying tomove the clips,move their content instead– just grab

theStartMarker in theSampleEditorwindow tomove the content anddisable SnapToGrid formore accuracy.Re-size the clip to avoidabruptly chopping off the sound’s start or endpoints.

03 DisablingWarpmode from theSampleViewallows you tore-pitch your audio clips for correction purposes using vari-

speed.Thismeans that the audio’s durationwill expandor contract asyou godownor up in pitch respectively.Use theTranspose andDetuneamounts to correct your audio’s pitch.

05 Like tuning a non-warped clip,Transpose andDetune canbeusedwithWarpmodeenabled as long as it’s set to anything but

Re-Pitchmode.Finer tuning throughDetune is best forminorcorrections,but this canhave only a static setting per clip,soSpliteach area to be corrected and set theDetune on apart-by-part basis.

04 Live’sWarpmode canbeusedwhen youwant to edit the timingwithin an audio clip but leave the pitch information intact.

PseudoWarpMarkerswill appear above thewaveform in theSampleEditor.These canbedouble-clicked anddragged to condense orexpand the clip’s content.

06 If you plan onwarping amulti-audio recording like drummics orvarious instruments froma live performance,first ensure that all

audio to be edited is the same length (Consolidate all pieces to a newlength from theEditmenu if needed).Highlight the parts,edit oneclip’sWarpMarkers and the otherswill follow.The stripedpatternacross the top of the clip confirms you are in a groupedWarpmode.

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Audiorecording&editing inLiveTechniqueMT

Alongside genres such as techno and trance,drum&bass is one of themoremature stylesthat has constantly pushed the boundaries ofelectronicmusic production.And althoughmany people regard dubstep to be themost

innovative and perhaps less rules-driven genres ofmoderntimes,D&B started its life inmuch the sameway.

During the first half of the 90s,a large part of the ravescenewas splintering off to become hardcore,and asanother offshoot of this development, junglewas born.Fromjungle through to its evolution into D&B in the early-to-mid-90s, the genre has always pushed the boundaries in termsof how technology can be used creatively.

In this two-part serieswewill be looking at the four coreelements that apply to all the sub-genres that have emergedover the years – bass design,drumproduction,decorativesounds/melodies and arrangement dynamics.Unless youare planning to produce yet another forto competewith the existing big comme

youwill be aiming to createmusic thatwill have thenecessary production values to sit happily in your list ofrespected artists.But in a genre thismature,many stylesand ideas have already been done to death,so youwill alsoneed to strive for originality in yourwork.

Your key focus should be to experiment until you stumbleon something unique,so the bass and drum techniqueswe’re about to discusswill give you the baseline knowledgeneeded to successfully take an exploration into sound, thenpackage that into a balancedmusical production. It can takean artist years to craft and perfect the sound that ends updefining them,so don’t expect to bang out deep,detailedtrackswhich conjure up vivid imagery to the listener afterjust reading this.But do note that although there aremanytutorials out there that aim to teach you how to sound likebig-name artists –who already own the rights to the soundthey’ve carved in the genre – if you stickwith thefundamentalswe cover here you’ll find itmuch easier to takeexperimentation andmake it work as a finished track.So setyour sequencer’s tempo to between 170–180BPM(depending on yourmood!) and let’s get started.MT

This tutorialhasbeenendorsedbyACM,TheAcademyofContemporaryMusic,world leaders inmusic industryeducation.ACM’sAudioProductionSchoolprovidesDiploma(one-year)andDegree (two-year)courses inContemporaryMusicProduction,ElectronicMusicProduction,CreativeSoundDesignandTourProduction&Management.www acm ac ukT:01483500800

Yourkeyfocusshouldbetoexperimentuntilyoustumbleonsomethingunique

Authenticandoriginaldrum&bassPart1

Accompanyingprojectfileincluded

ontheDVD

Arguablyoneofthemostdifficultelectronicgenrestomaster,D&BveteranLiamO’Mullaneexplainsthecoretechniquesforachievinganauthenticproductionsound.

FOCUSON…PROGRAMMINGDETAILSAlthoughcopyandpasteare functions thatareembedded inmoderncomputing life,using themoraduplicate-part functionasageneralwritingandarranging techniqueisn’t thekey toachieving trackswithadeepsenseofdetail.However,we’renotsayingthatyoucan’t start ageneral ideaasa loop,butyoushoulddefinitelykeep the loopminimally short–1,2or4bars–beforeextending the idea.Anything longerwillinviteyou tobe lazywhen it comes toaddingvariationanddetail toyourworkatalater stage.Instead,try toexpandan ideabywritingnewpartsoneafteranother.Youcancopysmaller sections fromthecontentofpreviousparts,just try toavoidglobalcopyingofall partsand their content.Abetterapproach is topinchandborrowlittlebitshereand there,thenvary themasyouprogress.

PoweredbyTechnique Genrefocus

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Producingauthenticdrum&bassTutorialMT

MTStep-by-Step Drumwork

01 The only requirement for themain drumsounds inD&B is thatthey need enoughpresence to sound strong enough on their own

before you adddecorative sounds.For the kick and snarewe’re startingwith two samples chosen for theirweight and good transient snap.We’ve thenprogrammed four barswith variation.

02 Fromherewe’re going to explore layering possibilities to lend anindividual tone to our drums.Due to the faster tempo inD&B than

other genres, it’s important to keep the lower-frequency elementsquite short in duration.Keep a keen ear on this by using fades or ADSRamplitude control.These canbeused to carefully tighten eachnewsoundas you add it.

03 Whenadding newdrum layers,utilise high-pass,band-pass or anEQfilter to remove any unnecessary frequencies thatmay clash

with other drumsounds andmix elements as the songprogresses.We’ve achieved awoody-sounding kick andpiccolo snare tonewe’rehappywith by creating a few layers,but don’t be opposed to changingsounds as your song andmix demand.

05 As youmayhave guessed, layering is going to play a pretty largepart here too.We’ve duplicated our lead track,which gives us six

sawwaves to playwith. It’s sounding really nice andbuzzy now,sowedial in a little reverb to give it evenmore space and character.Wedon’tactually have our leadplaying all the time– rather, it kicks in everysecondbar or so.

04 Anything fromhi-hats to slicedbreakbeats canbeused to addmore rhythmic information to your core sounds.Afilteredbreak

slice is often used as a textural layer to the kick and snare,butwe’veused it between themain hits in a sparing fashion andfiltered themsothey don’t sound toodominating.Also try high-pass-filtering longsounds to give a sense of space to your drumsoundas awhole.

06 Although the commercial side of D&Bbecame very loud over thelast decade,modern underground releases allowmore room for a

mix to breathe.Sodon’t overdoprocessing like limiting,hard-clippingor any other effects designed tomax-out a signal.Try achievingmorepower by sidechaining sounds other than your kick and snare–havingthesedropby just 2–4dB is enough for a solid yet dynamic sound.

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Producingauthenticdrum&bassTechniqueMT

MTStep-by-Step Bassdesignandre-sampling

01 Whether youplan to keep an instrument live throughout theproduction process or intend to re-sample it (which tends to be

the case inD&B),both approaches startwith a sound source ofdiscernible pitch ormore noise-like andpitchless character.The lattercanbe achievedwith drastic pitch variations or heavy use of FM,ring-modulation or any other heavily discordant processing.

02 There’s no set rules for the type ofwaveforms you can select here,but you’ll generally find that a bigger sound is achievedby using

squarewaveswithin yourmix of synth layers.Sawwaves offer a lot ofedge that cuts across amix;highly pitched sine or trianglewaves areuseful for achieving softer tones.Make sure that you also explore thebest octave for each layer as you stack synths or oscillators.

03 Thenext step is to addmovement to your sound.Thebeststarting point is to playwith any controls as you listen for

something interesting.Use themore coarse-sounding changes todevelop a unique character.At this stage, try to assign an envelope orLFO to theseparameters so they canbe triggered as youplay.

05 Re-sampling is themost practicalway to dealwith these largeeffects chains andautomation recordings.Before sampling,

explore the best note to record as somewill have a certain sonicsweetness over others.After recording them into yourDAW,drag theaudio into a sampler and explore the possibilitieswith this (and anyother re-sampledbass sounds you’ve created).

04 If you plan on re-sampling your sound,this is the point atwhichyou canpile onprocessing effectswithoutworrying about getting

in a tanglewith automation later on.Explore parameter changeswitheffects as youdid in the last step and record themasautomation.Commoneffect choices are phaser,notch-filtering and stereowidth/widening tools.But here,anything goes.

06 Adesignated sub-layer is essential for the low-endweightneeded inD&B.These are often stacked sinewaveswith

octave- or harmonic-based intervals.Alternatively, trianglewaves canbequite usefulwhen low-pass-filtered for a thicker sound.Keep thesubas a separate instrument rather than a layerwith other sounds soit can either play in unison or be varied from the other parts.

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MTTechniqueProducingauthenticdrum&bass

MTStep-by-Step Keyelements

01 Looking at the elements of the original,we’re back in classic-gear-land.Orbital famously triggeredhardware such as the

RolandTB-303 andTR-909 live via AlesisMMT8 sequencers.Thesesequenceswere then triggered aroundparticular bar lengths,and thisapproach canquite easily be replicated in software like…

02 …Ableton Live.Here, the various tracks of the song are brokendown from left to right (drums,chords, two bass lines) while the

aforementioned sequences sit as clipswithin each one.The track’sbass line follows the chord progression throughout,sowe need towork outwhat that is,but first, let’s get the key of the tune.

03 Tofind this out it’s a good idea to load in anmp3of the originaland simply play along,butwe’ve done the hardwork and can

reveal that it is Eflatmajor (notesEflat,F,G,Aflat,Bflat,C,D,Eflat).Now to look at the song’s structure in a littlemore depth...

05 Themain bass soundwas createdwith a classicYamahaFMmodule, theTX81Z,using a preset called the LatelyBass. If you

want to re-create this it sounds rather like a pluckedbass soundwithrich andmellow tones–a sound that underpinnedmany adance trackback in the day.

04 The opening sequence is a set of chordal stabs.The easiestwayto re-create this is to sample the sequence and loop it as it plays

solo at the start.But that’s cheating,so you could sample an individualstab and trigger it in Live’s sampler as shownhere (the pattern repeatsover a couple of bars). If youwant to re-create the original chords,gofor a string-like soundwith a short attack based aroundEflatmajor.

06 The sound is available in software instruments likeNI’s FM8(shownand from theFM7bank) or a freeware synth forWindows

calledOXEFM (fromwww.oxesoft.com).Any bass soundwith aplucked attack andmiddling decaywill do.Over thefirst part of thetrack the only notes the bass plays are Eflat andBflat,which followthe chord progression over two changes.

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OrbitalChimeDeconstructionMT

MTStep-by-Step Keyelements...cont’d

07 The second section of the song follows a longer progression ofthe chords,however.These six chords are:G,Bflat,Eflat;D,F,B

flat;C,Eflat,Aflat;A,C,F;B,D,G;andG,Bflat,Eflat.Rhythmically,think of each of the six chords in the above order as numbered 1–6andplay and record themas1,1,1,2,2,3,2,4,4,5,6.

08 Asbefore, theTXbass line follows these chords as the followingsequence of single notes:Eflat,Bflat,Aflat,F,G,Eflat (one

octave down).You’ll notice this is the topnote of each chord above.Rhythmically,again think of eachbass note numbered 1–6andplayand record themagain as the 1,1,1,2,2,3,2,4,4,5,6 combination.

09 That’s themain chord sequence andbass line sorted.There’s alsoa squelchy 303bass in there–as therewas on just about every

track back then.There aremany free synths thatwill give you thissoundand you’ll probably find it in the arsenal of synths that comewith yourDAW,but herewe’ve used theAnalog synth in Live.

11 More on the sounds.Thebeats in a lot of classic dance (andindeedmodern dance!) come viaTR-808 and909drumsamples,

andwe’d be very surprised if youdon’t have these kicking (sorry)around in your sample library orwithin a drum instrument.

10 This squelchy line initially follows thefirst bass line over EflatandBflat,but instead of falling just goes up to noteC.To be

honest, this iswhere you can freestyle a little,and as you record, feelfree to record automating the frequency onwhatever synth you areusing for extra acid squelchiness.

12 Finally, themain chordal sound comesbyway of an analoguelead and Live’s Chord device,which fattens it out into chords

following theEflatmajor.And that’s it.The great thing about using Liveis that you cannow trigger these sequences in prettymuch the sameway asOrbital did originally – the perfectmarriage of old andnew.

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OrbitalChimeDeconstructionMT