Live LE for Windows and Mac OS Created by Bernd Roggendorf, Gerhard Behles, Robert Henke, Awi, Reiner Rudolph, Stefan Haller, Stefan Franke, Frank Hoffmann, Andreas Zapf, Ralf Suckow, Gregor Klinke, Matthias Mayrock, Friedemann Schautz, Ingo Koehne, Jakob Rang, Pablo Sara, Nicholas Allen, Henrik Lafrenz, Jan Buchholz, Kevin Haywood, Dominik Wilms, Christian Kleine, Amaury Groc, Daniel Buettner, Alex Koch, Henrik Hahn, Simon Frontzek, Torsten Wendland, Torsten Slama, Eduard Mueller, Jeremy Bernstein, Bernard
1 Chapter 1 Welcome to Live 1.1 The Ableton Team Says: Thank You Live is the result of musicians wanting a better way to create, produce and perform music using a computer. A great deal of effort has been put into making Live easy and fun to use, yet at the same time capable of helping you create music with unlimited depth and sophistication. This effort continues even as you read these lines...
2 Chapter 2 First Steps Note: This manual has been adapted for Live LE. Speci cally, this means that features which are not available in Live LE have not been included. To learn more about the differences between Live LE and the full version of Live, you can download the full version manual from the Ableton website1 . When you install Live and run it for the rst time, you will be presented with a dialog asking for your Live serial number.
CHAPTER 2. FIRST STEPS 3 directly in the program via the Help menu. We highly recommend following the lessons. Many users have told us that the lessons helped them become familiar with the program very quickly. We also recommend that you read the Live Concepts chapter, which encapsulates everything that Live is and can do, and is therefore a worthwhile read for both beginners and experienced users.
CHAPTER 2. FIRST STEPS 2.2 4 Setting up Preferences Live's Preferences window is where you can nd various settings that determine how Live looks, behaves and interfaces with the outside world. This window is accessed from the Options menu's (Windows)/Live menu's (Mac OS X) Preferences command, or with the Ctrl , (PC) / , (Mac) shortcut.
CHAPTER 2. FIRST STEPS 2.3 5 The Main Live Screen Most of your work in Live happens in the main Live screen. This screen consists of a number of views, and each view manages a speci c aspect of your Live Set. Since screen space is usually limited, the Live views can't all be displayed at the same time. Each one of the selector buttons at the screen borders calls up a speci c view; clicking this one, for instance, accesses the Live devices: The Device Browser Selector.
CHAPTER 2. FIRST STEPS 6 Adjusting the Main Window Split.
7 Chapter 3 Unlocking Live Live is protected against illegal use by a copy protection scheme. This scheme has been designed to meet the highest security standards while avoiding hassles for our customers. If you nd this procedure to be an inconvenience, please understand that the copy protection secures your investment: It allows Ableton to provide you with support and to continue developing Live.
CHAPTER 3. UNLOCKING LIVE 8 The Products Tab in the Preferences. Clicking on any product listed in the Products tab will give you the option of unlocking or buying that product. Please click the Unlock button here to complete the unlocking process in two steps. If you have not yet purchased the product, you can do so online by clicking the Buy button. You can always return to the Products Preferences tab later or visit the Ableton webshop1 to make a purchase.
CHAPTER 3. UNLOCKING LIVE 9 Selecting the Unlock Button in the Products Tab. 3.1 Step 1: Entering Your Serial Number As an owner of Live LE, you have received a serial number from Ableton, either via e-mail (if you ordered directly from Ableton), or on a card as part of the Live LE package. The Fields for Entering Your Serial Number. After clicking the Unlock button in the Products tab, you will be presented with six elds for typing in your serial number. Each eld holds four characters.
CHAPTER 3. UNLOCKING LIVE 10 technical support to help you get back your serial number if you lose it is via your registration data. Therefore, please register your product2 , as otherwise you might lose your property! 3.2 Step 2: Unlocking Live The second step of authorizing Live is called unlocking. Unlocking means associating your serial number with a speci c computer. Please be aware that the standard Live license grants you the right to use Live on only one computer at a time.
CHAPTER 3. UNLOCKING LIVE 3.2.3 11 Unlocking Online Unlocking Live Online. If the computer you want to unlock Live for is connected to the Internet, the only thing you need to do is press the Unlock Online button. Live will then create a connection to the Ableton server, send your serial number and challenge code, and receive the unlock key from the server. No information other than this is exchanged between your computer and the Ableton server. 3.2.4 Unlocking Of ine Unlocking Live Of ine.
CHAPTER 3. UNLOCKING LIVE 12 The Live Unlocking Web Site. If you have entered your serial number and challenge code correctly, another website will appear to provide you with the unlock key. There now are two options for transferring the unlock key to the computer that is to be unlocked: Follow the weblink to download the unlock key as a le. Transfer the le to the target computer via a diskette or CD-ROM. Then, press the Unlock dialog's Load Unlock Key button to load the unlock key le.
CHAPTER 3. UNLOCKING LIVE 3.3 3.3.1 13 Copy Protection FAQs Can I Use Live or Other Ableton Products Without a Serial Number? If you do not (yet) own Live, you can work with Live in Demo Mode. Demo Mode offers Live's complete functionality, but saving and exporting are disabled. Live LE will run in Demo Mode by default if it has not been authorized. You can try out other Ableton products, such as the Operator instrument, by individually switching them to Demo Mode in the Products tab of the Preferences.
CHAPTER 3. UNLOCKING LIVE 3.3.2 14 What if I Change My Computer's Components? If the challenge code of your computer changes for some reason, Live will indeed ask you to unlock the software another time. The challenge code does not change, however, when computer peripherals are replaced (audio or MIDI hardware, printers, modems). The challenge code may change if the motherboard, processor or network card is replaced. On some computers, reformatting a hard drive also changes the challenge code. 3.3.
CHAPTER 3. UNLOCKING LIVE 15 To use Live on more than one computer at a time, you require a secondary license or a site license. Ableton offers these licenses at special rates. Please contact the sales team8 for details. 3.3.4 Can I Play my Set from a Computer That Is Not Unlocked? In Demo Mode, you can load and perform a Live Set with no time limitation. You cannot, however, save or export your work.
CHAPTER 3. UNLOCKING LIVE 16 You can always choose to show a product again later, and then try out its features by using them in Demo Mode. 3.3.6 What Do I Do About Problems or Questions Regarding Copy Protection? Please contact technical support9 . They are happy to help! 9 support@ableton.
17 Chapter 4 Live Concepts This chapter introduces the essential concepts of Live. We advise you to read this chapter early in your Live career, as a solid understanding of the program's basic principles will help you fully exploit Live's potential for your music-making. 4.1 Live Sets The type of document that you create and work on in Live is called a Live Set.
CHAPTER 4. LIVE CONCEPTS 18 Selecting the Library bookmark in Live's File Browser will take you to the Live Library of creative tools. There are a number of Demo Sets here, and double-clicking a Live Set's name in the Browser will open that Live Set. 4.2 Arrangement and Session The basic musical building blocks of Live are called clips. A clip is a piece of musical material: a melody, a drum pattern, a bassline or a complete song.
CHAPTER 4. LIVE CONCEPTS 19 The Arrangement View and the Session View interact in useful (though potentially confusing) ways. One can, for instance, improvise with Session clips and record a log of the improvisation into the Arrangement for further re nement. This works because Arrangement and Session are connected via tracks. 4.3 Tracks Tracks host clips and also manage the ow of signals, as well as the creation of new clips through recording, sound synthesis, effects processing and mixing.
CHAPTER 4. LIVE CONCEPTS 20 The exclusivity of clips in a track also implies that, at any on time, a track will either play a Session clip or an Arrangement clip, but never both. So, who wins? When a Session clip is launched, the respective track stops whatever it is doing to play that clip. In particular, if the track was playing an Arrangement clip, it will stop it in favor of the Session clip even as the other tracks continue to play what is in the Arrangement.
CHAPTER 4. LIVE CONCEPTS 21 Audio signals are recorded and played back using audio tracks, and MIDI signals are recorded and played back using MIDI tracks. The two track types have their own corresponding clip types. Audio clips cannot live on MIDI tracks and vice versa. Information about inserting, reordering and deleting audio and MIDI tracks is found here. 4.
CHAPTER 4. LIVE CONCEPTS 22 An Audio Clip's Properties as Displayed in the Clip View. Many powerful manipulations arise from Live's warping capabilities. Warping means changing the speed of sample playback independently from the pitch so as to match the song tempo. The tempo can be adjusted on the y in the Control Bar's Tempo eld. The Control Bar's Tempo Field. The most elementary use of this technique, and one that usually requires no manual setup, is synchronizing sample loops to the chosen tempo.
CHAPTER 4. LIVE CONCEPTS 23 MIDI Files Are Dragged in from Live's File Browsers. As you'd expect, a MIDI clip's contents can be accessed and edited via the Clip View, for instance to change a melody or paint a drum pattern. A MIDI Clip's Properties as Displayed in the Clip View. 4.7 Devices and the Mixer A track can have not only clips but also a chain of devices for processing signals. Doubleclicking a track's title bar brings up the Track View, which shows the track's device chain.
CHAPTER 4. LIVE CONCEPTS 24 The Track View Displaying a MIDI Track's Device Chain. Live's built-in audio effects, MIDI effects and instruments are available from the Device Browser and can be added to tracks by dragging them from there into the Track View, or into a Session or Arrangement track. Live's Built-in Devices Are Available from the Device Browser. You can also use plug-in devices in Live. VST and Audio Units (Mac OS X only) Plug-ins are available from the Plug-In Device Browser.
CHAPTER 4. LIVE CONCEPTS 25 Plug-In Devices Are Available from the Plug-In Device Browser. Consider an audio clip playing in an audio track. The audio signal from the clip reaches the leftmost device in the chain. This device processes (changes) the signal and feeds the result into the next device, and so on. The number of devices per track is theoretically unlimited, (although there is a limit of eight instruments and twelve audio effects within a single set when using Live LE).
CHAPTER 4. LIVE CONCEPTS 26 The mixer has controls for volume, pan position and sends, which adjust the contribution each track makes to the input of any return tracks. Return tracks only host effects, and not clips. Via their sends, all tracks can feed a part of their signal into a return track and share its effects. The mixer also includes a crossfader, which can create smooth transitions between clips playing on different tracks.
CHAPTER 4. LIVE CONCEPTS 27 the track's mix and Send controls disappear from the mixer. The Mixer for a MIDI Track without an Instrument. 4.8 Presets and Racks Every Live device can store and retrieve particular sets of parameter values as presets. As presets are stored independently from Live Sets, new presets become part of a library that any project can draw from. Live's Instrument and Effect Racks allow saving combinations of devices and their settings as a single preset.
CHAPTER 4. LIVE CONCEPTS 28 Track Routing Is Set up Using the In/Out Section in the Arrangement (Left) or Session View (Right). Signals from the tracks can be sent to the outside world via the computer's audio and MIDI interfaces or to other tracks or devices within Live. Likewise, a track can be set up to receive an input signal to be played through the track's devices. Again, tracks can receive their input from the outside or from another track or device in Live.
CHAPTER 4. LIVE CONCEPTS 29 the recording and launches the new clip. As these actions are subject to real-time launch quantization, the resulting clips can be automatically cut to the beat. The Control Bar's Quantization Chooser. Session recording in conjunction with the Overdub option and Record Quantization is the method of choice for creating drum patterns, which are built up by successively adding notes to the pattern while it plays in a loop.
CHAPTER 4. LIVE CONCEPTS 4.12 30 Clip Envelopes Envelopes are found not only in tracks but also in clips. Clip envelopes are used to modulate the parameters of the clip itself. Audio clips have clip envelopes to in uence the clip's pitch, volume and more; these can be used to change the melody and rhythm of recorded audio. MIDI clips have clip envelopes to represent MIDI controller data.
CHAPTER 4. LIVE CONCEPTS 31 The Key/MIDI Map Controls. Session clips, switches, buttons and radio buttons can be mapped to computer keyboard keys as well. This happens in Key Map Mode, which works just like MIDI Map Mode. Live offers, in addition to this general purpose mapping technique, dedicated support for Mackie Control-compatible mixer surfaces, which allows for mouse-free operation of the program. 4.
CHAPTER 4. LIVE CONCEPTS 32 A Live Clip in the File Browser. Live Clips are a very powerful way of storing ideas, as they save not only the clip's Clip View settings, but also the corresponding track's instruments and effects chain. Live Clips in the Browser can be previewed and added to any open Live Set just like sample les. In the Live Set, they restore the original clip's creative options.
CHAPTER 4. LIVE CONCEPTS 33 Choosing the Library Bookmark. After installation the Library will already contain a few sound ideas, courtesy of Ableton. We encourage you to remove, change, augment or replace this content as you like. Ableton provides additional Library content in the form of Live Packs which are available from installation CDs, DVDs or the Ableton website2 .
34 Chapter 5 Managing Files and Sets Various types of les are used in making music with Live, from those containing MIDI and audio, to more program-speci c les such as Live Clips and Live Sets. This chapter will explain everything you need to know about working with each of these le types in Live. However, we should rst take a look at Live's File Browsers, through which most les arrive in the program. 5.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 35 The File Browser Selector Buttons. Each Browser can point to a different disk location, something that Live will remember across sessions. The Browser display is divided into columns corresponding to Name , Date, etc., which you can show and hide using the (PC) / Ctrl (Mac) context menu options. Showing/Hiding Browser Columns. Columns can be reordered by drag and drop. To resize the columns, drag their divider lines horizontally. Resizing Browser Columns. 5.1.
36 CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS Library Is this Browser's Root. The Browser root can easily be changed: The topmost Browser item, called Parent Folder, will move the Browser root up one step up in the disk hierarchy when double-clicked. The File Browser's Parent Folder Item. You can also set the Browser root to any folder in the Browser by double-clicking the folder, or by selecting it and pressing Return . A Folder in the Browser.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 37 File Browser's selector button will do the same. 5.1.2 Browser Bookmarks Using bookmarks, you can quickly save and recall frequently used folder locations in the Browser. Clicking in the Browser's title bar will open the Bookmark menu. The Bookmark Menu. The Bookmark menu lists a number of preset bookmarks such as Desktop and Library. Selecting the latter will bring you to the Live Library.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 38 Activating Browser Search Mode. After entering your search terms, begin the search by clicking the Go button or pressing Return on your computer keyboard. The Search Field and Go Button. Live will search the entire Browser root for your search terms. The results will include les that match all search terms, as opposed to any. For example, if you search for acoustic bass, the search will yield all acoustic bass sounds not all acoustic sounds and all bass sounds.
39 CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS The Rescan Button. Automatic rescanning for new searches can be activated and deactivated in the File/Folder Preferences. While a search/rescan is going on, the adjacent search button is labeled Stop. Rescanning happens in the background, and you can keep making music while Live does its work, but you can also abort the search with this button if the disk traf c is bothering you.
40 CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 2) Type your search terms; 3) Return to Go ; 4) to jump to the search results; 5) and 6) to scroll the search results; Ctrl F (PC) / back to the folder view. 5.1.4 F (Mac) to close the search eld and go Previewing Files The Preview Switch. Live allows you to preview les in the File Browser before they are imported into the program. Previewing is activated using the Browser's Preview switch.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 41 If your audio hardware offers multiple audio outs, you can privately audition, or cue, les via headphones connected to a separate pair of outs while the music continues to play. To learn how to set up Live for cueing, please refer to the relevant section of the Mixing chapter. 5.1.
42 CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS Move les and folders by dragging and dropping, or by copying/cutting and pasting. Copying, cutting and pasting can be done with either Edit menu commands or keyboard shortcuts. A le can be moved from one File Browser to another by dragging it over the target Browser's button. Rename les and folders using the Edit menu's Rename command or the R (Mac) shortcut. Cancel renaming with the Esc (PC) / key.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 43 Clicking the Hot-Swap button engages Hot-Swap Mode: Live's Hot-Swap Browser opens, and the Hot-Swap icon appears next to one of the les shown. The Hot-Swap Browser. While in Hot-Swap Mode, pressing the Return key loads that le into the Impulse slot (presumably while Impulse is playing incoming MIDI notes); pressing , then Return loads the next sample, and so on. Instead of using the keys, we can also double-click on a sample to load it.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 44 A note on using Variable Bit Rate (VBR) les: Please install QuickTime for decoding purposes if you do not already have it on your system. It can be downloaded from the Apple website1 . As Live plays the samples directly from disk, you can work with a large number of (large) samples without running into RAM memory limitations. Live can combine uncompressed mono or stereo samples of any length, sample rate or bit depth without prior conversion.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 5.2.2 45 Analysis Files (.asd) An analysis le is a little le that Live creates when a sample le is brought into the program for the rst time. The analysis le contains data gathered by Live to help optimize the stretching quality, speed up the waveform display and automatically detect the tempo of long samples. When adding a long sample to a project, Live might tell you that it cannot play the sample before it has been analyzed.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 5.2.3 46 File Pre-Analysis To avoid waiting for longer samples to be analyzed the rst time they are imported into Live, you may want to pre-analyze them. To pre-analyze all the les contained in any folder in the Browser, use the (PC) / Ctrl (Mac) context menu's Analyze Audio command. This process can also be cancelled via the context menu. 5.2.4 Exporting Audio The File menu's Render to Disk command allows exporting Live's audio output as new samples.
47 CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS Rendering Options Rendering Options. The Render dialog offers several rendering options: Normalize If this is activated, the sample resulting from the render process will be normalized (i.e., the le will be ampli ed so that the highest peak attains the maximum available headroom). Render as Loop If this is activated, Live will create a sample that can be used as a loop. For example, suppose your Live Set uses a delay effect.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS Convert to Mono le. 48 If this is activated, Live will create a mono le instead of a stereo 5.3 MIDI Files A MIDI le contains commands that prompt MIDI compatible synthesizers or instruments, such as Live's Simpler, to create speci c musical output. MIDI les are exported by hardware and software MIDI sequencers.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 5.4 49 Live Clips Individual clips can be exported to disk in the Live Clip format for easy retrieval and reuse in any project. To save a clip from the open Live Set to disk, simply drag it to the File Browser and drop it into any folder. You can then type in a new name for the clip or con rm the one suggested by Live with Return . A Live Clip in the Browser.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 50 the same source sample. 5.5 Live Sets The type of document that you create and work on in Live is called a Live Set. 5.5.1 Creating, Opening and Saving Sets Use the File menu's New command to create new Live Sets, and the Open or Open Recent command to open existing ones. In the File Browser, you can double-click or press Return on a Live Set to open it. The File menu's Save command saves the current Live Set exactly as it is, including all clips and settings.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 51 Arrangement View Drop Area for Importing Live Sets. If you prefer to import individual tracks from a Set, you can unfold the Live Set in the File Browser just as if it were a folder. Unfolding a Set to Reveal its Tracks. You can now drag the individual tracks and drop them as described at the beginning of this section. Of the three tracks contained in the Tango Set shown in the following gure, two contain Session View clips.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 52 You can browse, preview and import Session View clips from the Set as if they had been stored as individual Live Clips. This, basically, means that any Live Set can serve as a pool of sounds for any other, suggesting creative reuse and crossover. 5.5.3 Exporting Session Clips as New Sets You can export a selection of Session View clips as a new Live Set by dragging them to the File Browser.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 53 many clips or instruments within the Live Set are using that sample. Here is what you can do: Replace a sample Dragging a sample from the File Browser and dropping it on a line in the list makes the Live Set reference the new sample instead of the old one. For samples used in audio clips, Live retains the clip properties; the Warp Markers are kept if the new sample has the same or a greater length as the old sample and discarded otherwise.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 54 The Sample Reference List's Location Column. 5.6 Live Projects A Live Project is a folder containing Live-related les that belong together. Consider, for example, work on a piece of music: You start out with an empty Live Set; you record audio and thereby create new sample les; you drag in samples from collections; you save different versions of the Live Set along the way so that you can go back and compare.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 55 A Live Set and its Recordings in a Live Project Folder. The project folder ( Tango Project ) contains the Live Set ( Tango.als ) and a Samples folder, which in turn contains a Recorded folder with two samples in it. Note that the current Project is also indicated in the title bar of Live's application window. Next, we record another track into our Project. We save the modi ed version of the Live Set under a new name so that we do not lose the previous version.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 56 to save it outside the Tango Project folder, say on the Desktop. Live creates a new project folder named Samba Project next to Tango Project. A New Project Was Added Next to Tango Project. So far we have seen how to create Live Projects and save versions of Live Sets into them. How do we open a Project? Simply by opening any of its contained Live Sets. Doubleclicking Tango with Piano.als opens that Set and the associated Project as displayed in Live's title bar.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 57 A New Project Was Added by Saving a Live Set Outside its Original Project. Note that the new project folder has no Samples folder (yet). Electro with Piano.als is still referencing the piano sample from the original Tango Project. There is nothing wrong with this except for when the Tango Project is moved away or deleted; then Tango with Piano.als will be missing samples. You can prevent this by collecting samples.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 5.6.2 58 Projects and Presets By default, new instrument and effect presets are stored in the Live Library, making them available to any project. At times however, it may make more sense to save a preset with the current Project. You might, for example, want to keep a number of alternative master EQ settings for a given piece. These EQ presets are speci c to the piece and of little use to other Projects.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 59 packing a Project in Live Pack format; exporting the Project's contents to the Library. 5.7 The Live Library The Live Library acts as a repository of sounds that are available to all Live Projects. In Live's File Browsers, the Library is accessible through a bookmark: Choosing the Library Bookmark. Clips can be conveniently saved in Live Clip format for later reuse by dragging them from the open Live Set into the desired folder in the Library.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 60 You can of course also move, remove or rename any les or folders residing in the Library, whether you have put them there yourself or they have been installed from a Factory Live Pack the Library is intended to be your own Live space. 5.7.1 Changing the Library Location, Upgrading a Live 5 Library The Library can reside in any hard disk location of your choice.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 5.7.2 61 Importing Projects into the Library You can merge the contents of a Live Project into the Library to make them available to any Project: 1) Open any of the Project's Live Sets to make this Project the current Project. 2) Choose the Manage Files command from the File menu. 3) Click the Manage Project button. 4) Unfold the Export to Library section by clicking the arrow on its left-hand side, and click the Export button.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 62 The File Manager's List of Missing Samples. 5.8.1 Manual Repair To manually x a broken sample reference, locate the missing sample in the File Browser, drag it over to the File Manager and drop it on the respective line in the list of missing les. Note that Live will not care if the sample you offer is really the sample that was missing. In fact, to Live, xing a broken sample reference is no different than replacing a working sample reference. 5.8.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 63 Automatic Repair Options in the File Manager. Search Folder includes a user-de ned folder, as well as any sub-folders, in the search. To select the folder, click the associated Set Folder button. Search Project includes this Set's project folder in the search. Search Library includes the Live Library in the search. Search nearby samples already found includes the neighborhood of samples that have already been xed, manually or automatically, in the search.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 64 For each missing sample, the automatic search function may nd any number of candidates. Let's consider the following cases: No candidate found you can either relax the search function's constraints and try again, or locate the sample manually. One candidate found Live accepts the candidate and considers the problem solved. Several candidates found Live requires your assistance: Click the Hot-Swap button (i.e.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 65 Options for Collecting External Samples. Separated by location (the Library, other Projects and elsewhere external drives, for example), the File Manager provides: sample collections from A sample count and the associated disk space used; A Show button that will list the samples in the File Browser; A Yes/No toggle for engaging or disengaging collection.
66 CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS The File menu's Collect All and Save command is a shortcut that collects and saves all external samples referenced by the current Set, including those from the Library. Note that this can cause a lot of copying, especially when the Library contains large multisample collections! 5.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 67 of the Live Sets, Live Clips or device presets in the Project. If not, the sample is regarded as unused even if other Projects or programs still use it. To nd the unused samples for the currently open Project, choose the Manage Files command from the File menu, click the Manage Project button, and then click on the triangularshaped fold button next to Unused Samples to access a summary and the Show button.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 68 Factory Live Packs (those provided by Ableton) will automatically be installed in the Live Library.
69 Chapter 6 Arrangement View The Arrangement View displays the Arrangement, which contains music laid out along a song timeline, like a multitrack tape. A Piece of Music in the Arrangement View. The Arrangement View is a powerful editing tool that easily lets you combine and arrange MIDI, loops, sound effects and complete pieces of music.
70 CHAPTER 6. ARRANGEMENT VIEW 6.1 Navigation Live offers several fast methods for zooming and scrolling the Arrangement display: 6 1 2 3 4 5 Navigating the Arrangement View. 1. To smoothly change the zoom level, click and drag vertically in the beat-time ruler at the top of the Arrangement View (you can also drag horizontally to scroll the display). 2. To zoom in and out around the current selection, use the computer keyboard's + Alt and - keys.
CHAPTER 6. ARRANGEMENT VIEW 71 horizontally to scroll the display. Using this method, you can zoom and scroll to focus around any part of the Arrangement with just one mouse motion. 6. To have the Arrangement display follow the song position and scroll automatically, turn on the Follow switch, or use the Follow command from the Options menu. 6.2 Transport There are a number of ways to control Live's transport with the computer keyboard and mouse: 1.
72 CHAPTER 6. ARRANGEMENT VIEW the Arrangement the size of the chosen quantization setting will be repeatedly played. With small quantization settings, or a setting of None, this allows you to scrub through the music. Scrubbing Arrangement Playback. 4. The song position can be adjusted numerically using the Control Bar's Arrangement Position elds. The Arrangement Position elds show the song position in bars-beats-sixteenths. To change the values: Click and drag up or down in any of these elds.
CHAPTER 6. ARRANGEMENT VIEW 6.3 73 Launching the Arrangement with Locators Using Locators to Launch Play in the Arrangement. Locators can be set at any point in the Arrangement. This can be done in real time during playback or recording with the Set Locator button, and will be quantized according to the global quantization value set in the Control Bar. Clicking the Set Locator button when the Arrangement is not playing will create a locator at the insert marker or selection start.
CHAPTER 6. ARRANGEMENT VIEW 74 To name a locator, select it by clicking its triangular marker, and choose the Rename Edit R (PC) / R (Mac) shortcut). Locators can be menu command (or use the Ctrl removed with your computer's or Delete key, the Insert menu, or the Delete Locator button. Note that the locator (PC) / Ctrl (Mac) context menu offers a quick way of looping playback between two locators with its Loop To Next Locator command.
75 CHAPTER 6. ARRANGEMENT VIEW The Arrangement's Loop Brace. The loop brace can be selected with the mouse and manipulated with commands from the computer keyboard: and nudge the loop brace to the left/right by the current grid setting. and shift the loop brace left/right in steps the size of its length. The Ctrl (PC) / (Mac) modi er used with the arrow left and right keys shortens or lengthens the loop by the current grid setting. The Ctrl (PC) / halves the loop length.
CHAPTER 6. ARRANGEMENT VIEW 76 Moving a Clip. Dragging a clip moves it to another song position or track. Changing a Clip's Length. Dragging a clip's left or right edge changes the clip's length. 6.6 Selecting Clips and Time With the exception of moving and resizing clips, Arrangement editing in Live is selectionbased: You select something using the mouse, then execute a menu command (e.g., Cut, Copy, Paste, Duplicate) on the selection.
CHAPTER 6. ARRANGEMENT VIEW 77 Adjusting an Unfolded Track's Height. Notice that you can adjust the height of the unfolded track by dragging the split line below the Unfold Track button. Clicking and dragging in the waveform display below the clip's horizontal strip allows you to select time within the clip. Note that you can actually unfold all of your tracks at once by holding down the Alt (PC) / Alt (Mac) modi er when clicking the button.
78 CHAPTER 6. ARRANGEMENT VIEW The following shortcuts to Options menu commands allow quickly working with the grid: 1 (PC) / 1 (Mac) to narrow the grid, doubling the density of the Use Ctrl grid lines (e.g., from eighth notes to sixteenth notes). 2 (PC) / 2 (Mac) to widen the grid, halving the density of the grid Use Ctrl lines (e.g., from eighth notes to quarter notes).
CHAPTER 6. ARRANGEMENT VIEW 79 Paste Time places copied time into the Arrangement, thereby increasing its overall duration by the length of time you have copied. Duplicate Time places a copy of the selected timespan into the Arrangement, thereby increasing its overall duration by the length of the selection. Delete Time deletes a selection of time from the Arrangement, thereby moving any audio or MIDI on either side of the deleted area closer together in the timeline.
CHAPTER 6. ARRANGEMENT VIEW 80 The Result of Splitting a Clip. 6.10 Consolidating Clips The Consolidate command replaces the material in the Arrangement View selection with one new clip per track. This is very useful for creating structure. Consolidating Several Clips Into a New Clip. Suppose you have, by editing or improvising, come up with a layout of clips that sound good in Arrangement Loop mode.
CHAPTER 6. ARRANGEMENT VIEW 81 When operating on audio clips, Consolidate actually creates a new sample for every track in the selection. The new samples are essentially recordings of the time-warping engine's audio output, prior to processing in the track's effects chain and mixer. Hence, the new sample incorporates the effects of in-clip attenuation, time-warping and pitch shifting, and of the respective clip envelopes; however, it does not incorporate the effects.
82 Chapter 7 Session View In Live's Arrangement View, as in all traditional sequencing programs, everything happens along a xed song timeline. For a number of applications, this is a limiting paradigm: When playing live, or when DJing, the order of pieces, the length of each piece and the order of parts within each piece is generally not known in advance. In the theatre, sound has to react to what happens on stage.
CHAPTER 7. SESSION VIEW 7.1 83 Session View Clips The Controls for a Session View Clip. 1. Each clip in the Session View has a triangular button at the left edge. Click the button with the mouse to launch clip playback at any time, or pre-select a clip by clicking on its name, and launch it using the computer's Return key. You can then move on to the neighboring clips using the arrow keys. Please refer the manual section on clip launch settings for details on how to customize this behavior. 2.
CHAPTER 7. SESSION VIEW 84 The Arrangement Position Fields and the Stop Button. 7.2 Tracks and Scenes Each vertical column, or track, can play only one clip at a time. It therefore makes sense to put a set of clips that are supposed to be played alternatively in the same columns: parts of a song, variations of a drum loop, etc. Resized Session View Tracks. For convenient access to more clips at once, you can resize Session View tracks by clicking and dragging at the edges of their title bars.
CHAPTER 7. SESSION VIEW 85 The scene below a launched scene will automatically be selected as the next to be launched unless the Select Next Scene on Launch option in the Launch Preferences is set to Off. This allows you to trigger scenes from top to bottom without having to select them rst. Computer keys or a MIDI controller can be used to launch scenes and scroll between them. Scenes can be renamed using the Edit menu's Rename command.
CHAPTER 7. SESSION VIEW 86 ... A One-shot Session Clip... The progress-bar icon represents a one-shot (non-looping) Session clip. The value displays the remaining play time in minutes:seconds. ... Monitoring the Input... A microphone icon appears in an audio track that is set to monitor its input. A keyboard icon appears in a MIDI track under these same circumstances. ... Playing the Arrangement.
CHAPTER 7. SESSION VIEW 87 If you are dragging multiple clips into the Session View, Live defaults to arrange them vertically, in one track. Hold down Ctrl (PC) / (Mac) prior to dropping them so as to lay the clips out in one scene. Clips can be moved around the Session grid by drag-and-drop. To move several clips at once, select them by using the - or Ctrl (PC) / (Mac)-modi er before dragging. You can also click into an empty slot and rubber-band select from there.
CHAPTER 7. SESSION VIEW 7.4.3 88 Editing Scenes There are a number of useful commands in the Edit and Insert menus that apply to scenes: Cut Scenes cuts out scenes with selected slots from the Session View, thereby reducing the total number of scenes. Please note that the Cut Scenes command affects all tracks, not only those containing selected slots. Paste Scenes works like Paste, but inserts blank scenes before pasting. Live inserts enough scenes to t the material from the clipboard.
CHAPTER 7. SESSION VIEW 89 the clips launched; changes of those clips' properties; changes of the mixer and the devices' controls, also known as automation. To nish recording, press the Record button again, or stop playback. The Arrangement Selector. To view the results of your recording, bring up the Arrangement View. As you can see, Live has copied the clips you launched during recording into the Arrangement, in the appropriate tracks and the correct song positions.
CHAPTER 7. SESSION VIEW 90 To disable all Arrangement clips simultaneously, click on the Stop All Clips button in the Master Track Status eld. The clips in the Arrangement and in the Session View exist independently from one another, which makes it easy to improvise into the Arrangement over and over again until it's right.
91 Chapter 8 Clip View The Clip View is where clip properties can be set and adjusted. The Clip View. The Clip View is opened by clicking on the Clip Overview or double-clicking a clip in the Session or Arrangement View.
CHAPTER 8. CLIP VIEW 92 Clicking the Clip Overview Opens the Clip View. In the Session View, clicking on a Track Status Field opens the Clip View for editing the clip that is currently running in the track. Clicking a Session View Track Status Field Opens the Clip View. The properties of more than one clip can be edited collectively in the Clip View as a multiselection.
CHAPTER 8. CLIP VIEW 93 in common: The Clip box contains basic clip settings. The Envelopes box and the Envelope Editor manage the clip's envelopes, which are used to modulate the clip or MIDI controls. Clip envelopes and their associated Clip View components are covered in detail in a separate manual chapter. The Launch box controls clip launch behavior and, as such, only appears for Session View clips. Setting Session View clip launch properties is covered in detail in a separate manual chapter.
CHAPTER 8. CLIP VIEW 94 The Clip View for a MIDI Clip. To make best use of the screen real estate, you can show or hide the Launch, Envelopes, and Sample or MIDI boxes using the Clip View Box selector in the Clips box. You can also toggle between the Sample Display/MIDI Editor and the Envelope Editor by clicking in the title bars of the Sample/Notes box and the Envelopes box, respectively. The Clip View Box Selector Shows and Hides Various Clip View Components.
CHAPTER 8. CLIP VIEW 8.1 95 The Clip Box The Clip Box. 8.1.1 Clip Activator Switch Using this switch, you can deactivate a clip so that it does not play when launched in the Session View or during Arrangement playback. Clips can also be activated/deactivated (PC) / Ctrl (Mac) context directly from the Session or Arrangement View with their menus. 8.1.2 Clip Name and Color The Clip Name eld allows naming the clip.
96 CHAPTER 8. CLIP VIEW 8.1.3 Clip Signature Using the Clip Signature elds, you can specify the signature of an audio clip's sample. This setting is relevant only for display; it does not affect sample playback. 8.1.4 Groove The Clip Groove chooser selects the type of groove used for the clip. example, applies an 8th-note groove. Swing 8, for The Control Bar's Global Groove Control. The Global Groove control de nes the amount of the groove for every clip in the Live Set.
CHAPTER 8. CLIP VIEW 97 Because of this feature's dependency on note timing, we recommend that you quantize MIDI clips prior to applying groove provided you want predictable results. For audio clips, any swing contained within the original sample can be removed by appropriately setting Warp Markers prior to applying the arti cial swing of the Groove setting. 8.1.
CHAPTER 8. CLIP VIEW 98 Clip Offset from Global Time as Shown in the Clip's Display. When clip play is offset from global time in this manner, a little dot will illuminate in the Sample Display or MIDI Editor to display the offset start position. Using the Keep and Revert Buttons to Manage Meter Offset. The current offset as indicated by the dot can be made permanent by moving the start marker to the dot's position and this is exactly what the Keep button, found just beneath the Nudge buttons, does.
CHAPTER 8. CLIP VIEW 8.2 8.2.1 99 The Sample Box Warp Controls The Sample Box Warp Controls. When the Warp switch is off, Live plays the sample at its original, normal tempo, irrespective of the current Live Set tempo. This is useful for samples that have no inherent rhythmic structure: percussion hits, atmospheres, sound effects, spoken word and the like. Turn the Warp switch on to play rhythmically structured samples (such as sample loops, music recordings, complete music pieces, etc.
CHAPTER 8. CLIP VIEW 8.2.2 100 Sample Loop/Region and Display Zooming and Scrolling The Clip Zoom/Scroll Area. Zooming and scrolling in the Sample Display work much like they do in the Arrangement View. Using the zoom/scroll area in the top half of the waveform, you can click and drag vertically to smoothly change the zoom level, and horizontally to scroll the display. The Clip Overview. The Clip Overview provides additional zoom/scrolling functionality.
CHAPTER 8. CLIP VIEW 101 The Follow Switch. Playing and Scrubbing Clips The section of the sample that plays when a clip is launched is set with the clip's region and loop controls. An unlooped clip will play from its start marker to its end marker or until it is stopped. The Clip Start and End Markers. These markers can be clicked and dragged to new positions in the Sample Display, or they can be moved with the and keys. To move the entire clip region (i.e., both the start , and use the arrow keys.
CHAPTER 8. CLIP VIEW 102 sixteenths; for unwarped clips, the display is in minutes-seconds-milliseconds. Notice that you can use the Set buttons here to place the markers during playback. Setting markers this way is quantized according to global quantization. Clicking in the scrub area in the lower half of the waveform or above the beat-time ruler will make clip playback jump to that point. The Clip Scrub Area.
103 CHAPTER 8. CLIP VIEW The Clip Loop Controls. The loop brace can be selected with the mouse and its position changed with commands from the computer keyboard: and nudge the loop brace to the left/right by the current grid setting. and shift the loop brace left/right in steps the size of its length. Ctrl (PC) / current grid setting. Ctrl (PC) / (Mac) shortens or lengthens the loop brace by the (Mac) doubles or halves the loop length.
CHAPTER 8. CLIP VIEW 104 Playing the clip and then clicking the Set Loop Position button moves the beginning of loop to the current playback position (rounded to the global quantization setting) and engages the loop. Then, clicking the Set Loop Length button moves the end of the loop to the current playback position. This lets you capture the music in a loop on the y.
CHAPTER 8. CLIP VIEW 8.2.4 105 Saving Default Clip Settings with the Sample The Save Default Clip Button. The Save Default Clip button saves the current clip's settings with the sample. Once saved, Live will restore the current clip settings whenever you drop the sample into a Live Set. This is especially useful with regards to the Warp Markers, which have to be set correctly for Live to play long les in sync.
CHAPTER 8. CLIP VIEW 8.2.6 106 Clip Start and End Fades The Clip Fade Switch. The Clip Fade switch, when enabled, applies a short fade to the clip start and end to avoid clicks at the clip edges. The length of the fade is signal-dependent and ranges from 0-4 milliseconds. 8.2.7 Clip RAM Mode The RAM Mode Switch. If the RAM Mode switch is on, Live is loading the audio referenced by the clip into the computer's memory rather than reading it from disk in real time.
CHAPTER 8. CLIP VIEW 8.2.8 107 Reversing Samples The Reverse Button. This function creates a new sample by reversing the sample referenced by the current clip. It then reapplies the old clip's settings (according to some rules that we will explain in a moment), and replaces the original sample with the reversal in the Clip View. The new sample can be found, after saving the Live Set, in the Set's Project folder, under Samples/Processed/Reverse.
CHAPTER 8. CLIP VIEW 108 the sample currently in use - but only the excerpt that is actually used plus a 50 millisecond safety margin on both ends. The new sample can be found, after saving the Live Set, in the Set's Project folder, under Samples/Processed/Crop. Until the Set is saved, the new sample remains at the location speci ed by the Temporary Folder. 8.2.
CHAPTER 8. CLIP VIEW 8.3.1 109 Tempo Controls The Orig. BPM eld displays Live's interpretation of the tempo at which the clip's MIDI was recorded. When dragging up or down in the Original BPM eld, or clicking the :2 and *2 buttons, you will see that the notes in the MIDI Editor are correspondingly stretched or compressed. This is useful for aligning notes that you have recorded without a tempo reference, like Live's metronome. 8.3.
CHAPTER 8. CLIP VIEW 110 the Record/Warp/Launch Preferences. Certain clip settings, such as Launch Mode and Warp Mode, can be set up as defaults for all new clips. This is also done in the Record/Warp/Launch Preferences.
111 Chapter 9 Tempo Control and Warping Unlike music stored on tape or in a traditional digital audio workstation, the music in Live remains elastic at all times. Live is capable of time-warping samples while streaming them from disk so as to synchronize them to the current Live Set's tempo. This happens without affecting the pitch, which can be changed independently. Mixing and matching audio from different origins is therefore extremely easy. 9.1 9.1.
CHAPTER 9. TEMPO CONTROL AND WARPING 9.1.2 112 Tapping the Tempo The Tap Button. You can use Live's Tap Tempo function to set the tempo at any time. As you click the Control Bar's Tap Tempo button once every beat, the tempo of the Live Set will follow your tapping. The Key Map Mode Switch. It is better to assign the Tap button to a computer key than using the mouse.
CHAPTER 9. TEMPO CONTROL AND WARPING 113 The Sample Box's Warping Controls. The most signi cant control here is the Warp switch, which toggles a clip's warping on or off. The Warp section of Live's Preferences will determine the default warp settings for new clips, but they can always be overridden here on a per-clip basis. When the Warp switch is off, Live plays the sample at its original, normal tempo, irrespective of the current Live Set's tempo.
CHAPTER 9. TEMPO CONTROL AND WARPING 114 This is achieved by adding tempo automation to the Master track for the duration of the tempo master clip. You will notice that the Tempo eld in Live's Control Bar becomes disabled in this state; this is because all tempo control is handed over to the tempo master clip. When toggling a clip's Master/Slave switch, or when deleting a clip that was set as tempo master, the Master track tempo automation is removed again, restoring the proper tempo to the region.
CHAPTER 9. TEMPO CONTROL AND WARPING 115 helpful to vertically resize the Sample Display by dragging on the split line between the Clip View and the Session View track area. The Follow Switch in the Control Bar. Saving Warp Markers Your Warp Markers will automatically be saved with the Live Set, but you may also want to save them with the sample le itself, so that they are reconstructed anytime you drag the le into Live. To do this, click the Clip View's Save button.
CHAPTER 9. TEMPO CONTROL AND WARPING 116 A One-Bar Loop as It Appears in the Clip View, by Default. The Orig. BPM eld displays Live's guess of the loop's tempo; if you happen to know the tempo of the loop, you can type it in here. Sometimes Live's guess of the original tempo is wrong by half or double. If so, correct this by clicking on the buttons labeled *2 and :2, respectively.
CHAPTER 9. TEMPO CONTROL AND WARPING 117 Setting the Warp Markers for a Poorly Cut Loop. Syncing Odd-Length Loops If you import a sample that contains a seven-bar loop, Live initially assumes the loop is eight bars long (or four, depending on its length) and plays it out of sync. For correct playback, the last marker needs to show an eight, not a nine. To achieve this do the following: 1. Double-click on the last Warp Marker to delete it. 2. Double-click on the eight to create a new Warp Marker. 3.
CHAPTER 9. TEMPO CONTROL AND WARPING 118 Manipulating Grooves You can now create any number of Warp Markers by double-clicking on one of the numeric grid markers. Drag in a straight looped sample, set a few Warp Markers, and move them around to see what happens. Warp Markers really serve two purposes: 1. to provide a correct interpretation of the ow of musical time in the sample; 2. to mess up the ow of time in the sample.
119 CHAPTER 9. TEMPO CONTROL AND WARPING Record/Warp/Launch Preferences). Note that, for the auto-warp mechanism to work, les which are being imported into the program for the rst time will need to undergo a rst-time analysis process and will not be immediately available for playing or editing. As explained in the section in this manual on analysis les, analysis can be batch-processed with the (PC) / Ctrl (Mac) context menu's Analyze Audio command.
CHAPTER 9. TEMPO CONTROL AND WARPING 120 Using the Context Menu to Direct Auto-Warp. Directing Auto-Warp is also relatively simple when you have imported a perfectly cut loop. You can tell Auto-Warp to work accordingly using the Warp As ...-Bar Loop command. Live will propose a loop length that makes the most sense given the current Live Set's tempo. Decreasing the Live Set's tempo can, for instance, lead Live to assume the loop is 8 bars at 90 BPM instead of 16 bars at 180 BPM.
CHAPTER 9. TEMPO CONTROL AND WARPING 121 2. Use the Control Bar's Tap Tempo button to tap along, thereby setting the Live Set's tempo to match that of the clip; 3. Turn warping on again and use the Warp From Here (Start At ...) command to tell Auto-Warp to use your tapped tempo as a reference. Warp From Here (Straight) tells Auto-Warp that this is a clip with no tempo variations (common in electronically produced works).
CHAPTER 9. TEMPO CONTROL AND WARPING 122 Three Selected Warp Markers. Here are the steps: 1. Select the Warp Markers that you wish to copy by clicking on them with the mouse. After the rst Warp Marker has been selected, hold while clicking another to select the range of Warp Markers in between, or Ctrl (PC) / (Mac)-click to add individual Warp Markers to your selection. 2. Once your selection is complete, choose the Copy command from the Edit menu. 3.
CHAPTER 9. TEMPO CONTROL AND WARPING 123 the sample (the grains ). The warp modes differ in the selection of grains, as well as in the details of overlapping and crossfading between grains. Let's investigate which warp modes work best for different types of signals and how to adjust the warping controls for clean stretching. It's also fun to misuse these controls to achieve interesting artifacts instead of accurate stretching. 9.3.
CHAPTER 9. TEMPO CONTROL AND WARPING 124 The Grain Size control determines the grain size used, but unlike in Tones Mode, this is a setting that Live will use unaltered, without considering the signal's characteristics. Fluctuation introduces randomness into the process. Larger values give more randomness. 9.3.4 Re-Pitch Mode In Re-Pitch Mode, Live doesn't really time-stretch or compress the music; instead, it adjusts the playback rate to create the desired amount of stretching.
125 Chapter 10 Editing MIDI Notes and Velocities A MIDI clip in Live contains notes and controller data for playing a virtual instrument in a MIDI track's device chain. The MIDI clip provides the device with a musical score to play, specifying note pitch, length, position and dynamics (referred to as velocity in the MIDI lexicon). MIDI is composed and edited in Live's MIDI Editor. 10.
CHAPTER 10. EDITING MIDI NOTES AND VELOCITIES 10.2 126 The MIDI Editor To bring up the MIDI Editor, double-click a MIDI clip to open the Clip View. You can use the Clip View Box selector to make sure the Notes box is showing, then click in the title bar of the Notes box to bring up the MIDI Editor on the right-hand side of the screen. The MIDI Editor. The MIDI Editor is comprised of two editing windows: the upper Note Editor and the lower Velocity Editor.
CHAPTER 10. EDITING MIDI NOTES AND VELOCITIES 127 Previewing MIDI Notes. Provided your MIDI track's device chain contains an instrument, activating the Preview switch in the MIDI Editor allows you to hear notes as you select and move them. Note velocity is adjusted in the Velocity Editor, by clicking and dragging on the associated markers. You can also use Draw Mode in the Velocity Editor: It will draw identical velocities for all notes within a grid tile.
CHAPTER 10. EDITING MIDI NOTES AND VELOCITIES 128 a time ruler, which shows note position along a musical timeline. The vertical axis contains both the note ruler, displaying octaves C0 C10, and a representation of a piano keyboard (the piano roll). Note that if the Preview switch at the top of the piano roll is activated, you can listen to the results of your piano roll playing. 2 1 3 5 6 MIDI Editor Navigation. 1. To smoothly change the time-zoom level, click and drag vertically in the time ruler.
CHAPTER 10. EDITING MIDI NOTES AND VELOCITIES 129 in and out, drag up and down. 6. Change the length of what is shown in the Editor by dragging the left or right edges of the outline in the Clip Overview. 7. To quickly change what is shown in the Editor, click on a section that you want to examine in the Clip Overview, then drag downwards to zoom in, or scroll by dragging left and right. 8. The Page Up and Page Down keys on your computer keyboard scroll the Note Editor vertically.
CHAPTER 10. EDITING MIDI NOTES AND VELOCITIES 130 Enlarge the MIDI Editor by Dragging the Window Split Between Session and Clip Views. 10.4 Editing MIDI 10.4.1 Non-Destructive Editing You can always return your MIDI clip to its previous state by using the Edit menu's Undo command. Furthermore, if the MIDI clip being edited originated in a MIDI le on your hard drive, none of your editing will alter the original MIDI le, as Live incorporates its contents into your Live Set when importing. 10.4.
CHAPTER 10. EDITING MIDI NOTES AND VELOCITIES 131 When editing MIDI, you might nd that you want to change which part of the clip you are listening to, or loop the clip in order to listen to it repeatedly. You can use the loop/region markers for this. Use the Loop/Region Markers to Select a Speci c Region of the Clip to Play. 10.4.3 Grid Snapping Most functions in the MIDI Editor are subject to grid snapping.
CHAPTER 10. EDITING MIDI NOTES AND VELOCITIES 132 or downward to enclose the notes in the dotted line that appears. You can use the modi er to click and add individual notes or additional rubberband selections to your current selection. You can also remove a single note from your selection by holding down and clicking on it. Holding and clicking on the piano roll selects all notes in a single key track. There are two options for quantizing MIDI notes in Live.
CHAPTER 10. EDITING MIDI NOTES AND VELOCITIES 133 The Edit menu's Select Loop command selects all notes that begin within the loop brace. The Select Loop command can also be executed without the menu by simply clicking the loop brace. This command can speed up editing when coupled with the loop brace's shortcuts. Let's say you have arranged a nice 1-bar loop in the Note editor, and you want to duplicate it a couple of times.
CHAPTER 10. EDITING MIDI NOTES AND VELOCITIES 10.4.6 134 Changing Note Length Clicking and dragging on a note's left or right edges changes its length. Note length can only be changed when Draw Mode is inactive, and will be quantized unless the Alt (PC) / (Mac) modi er is held down while dragging. Changing Note Length. Tip: To set a group of notes to the same length, select them all, grab the end of the longest one, drag them all down to zero length and then extend them.
135 CHAPTER 10. EDITING MIDI NOTES AND VELOCITIES lines unless the grid is not shown, or the dragging. Alt (PC) / (Mac) modi er is held while If one marker is dragged beyond the boundary of the other, then the order of the stretched notes will be re ected in relation to their initial sequence; this is sometimes referred to as retrograde behavior. Any changes occurring to the notes included in the Note Stretch before the mouse button is released will cancel the stretch operation.
CHAPTER 10. EDITING MIDI NOTES AND VELOCITIES 136 modi er is held. To draw markers individually (as you would want to with a crescendo, 4 (PC) / 4 (Mac) shortcut, or for instance) deactivate grid snapping with the Ctrl simply hold down the Alt (PC) / (Mac) modi er. Drawing Identical Velocities (Left) and a Crescendo (Right).
137 Chapter 11 Launching Clips The Live Session View is set apart by the fact that it gives you, the musician, an spontaneous environment that encourages performance and improvisation. An important part of how you take advantage of the Session View lies within how you con gure your various Session View clips. This chapter explains the group of settings used to de ne how each Session View clip behaves when triggered, or launched. 11.
CHAPTER 11. LAUNCHING CLIPS 138 Use the Clip View Box Selector to Bring up the Launch Box. Note that you can edit the launch settings of more than one clip at the same time by rst selecting the clips and then opening the Clip View. 11.2 Launch Modes The Clip Launch Mode Chooser. The Launch Mode chooser offers a number of options for how clips behave with respect to mouse clicks, computer keyboard actions or MIDI notes: Trigger: down starts the clip; up is ignored.
CHAPTER 11. LAUNCHING CLIPS 11.3 139 Clip-Level Quantization The Clip Quantization Chooser. The Clip Quantization chooser lets you adjust an onset timing correction for clip triggering. To disable clip quantization, choose None. To use the Control Bar's Global Quantization setting, choose Global. Global quantization 6 (PC) / 6 (Mac), 7 , 8 , 9 and 0 can be quickly changed using the Ctrl shortcuts. 11.4 Velocity The Velocity Amount Field.
CHAPTER 11. LAUNCHING CLIPS 140 clip silently. For more on playing clips via MIDI, see the respective section. 11.5 Legato Mode The Legato Mode Switch. Suppose you have gathered, in one track, a number of looping clips, and you now want to toggle among them without losing the sync. For this you could use a large quantization setting (one bar or greater), however, this might limit your musical expression.
141 Chapter 12 Routing and I/O In the context of Live, routing is the setup of the tracks' signal sources and destinations (i.e., their inputs and outputs). Routing happens in the mixer's track In/Out section, which offers, for every track, choosers to select a signal source and destination. The mixer's In/Out section is Live's patchbay. The In/Out section can be independently shown or hidden from the Session and Arrangement Views.
CHAPTER 12. ROUTING AND I/O 142 The Mixer's In/Out Section and Mixer Section Selectors. For every track (except the Master), the In/Out section has the same layout: The upper chooser pair ( Audio/MIDI From ) selects the track's input. Audio tracks have an audio input, and MIDI tracks have a MIDI input. Return tracks receive their input from the respective sends. The Monitor radio button selects the monitor mode: the conditions under which the track's input is heard through the track.
CHAPTER 12. ROUTING AND I/O 143 track's output, via the track's device chain. If the track's output is set to Master, you can hear the guitar signal, processed by whatever effects are used (and delayed by whatever latency the audio hardware interface incurs), over your speakers.
CHAPTER 12. ROUTING AND I/O 12.2 144 External Audio In/Out An audio interface's inputs are selected by choosing Ext. In from the Input Type chooser of an audio track. The Input Channel chooser then offers the individual input channels. Entries in this chooser each have meters next to their names to help you identify signal presence and overload (when the meter ashes red). Setting up the audio interface's outputs works the same way via the output chooser pair.
CHAPTER 12. ROUTING AND I/O 145 the case with audio inputs, the Input Channel chooser also has meters next to every entry to represent activity on the respective input channel. 12.3.1 The MIDI Ports List in the Preferences The MIDI Ports List in the Preferences. You can con gure which MIDI ports are made available to Live using the MIDI Ports section of the MIDI/Sync Preferences. All available input and output ports are listed here.
CHAPTER 12. ROUTING AND I/O 146 the Impulse percussion sampler's sample slots. This means that you can play and record drum patterns right off the computer keyboard. Note that when the computer MIDI keyboard is activated, it will steal keys that may have otherwise been assigned to remote-control elements of the Live interface. To prevent this, you can turn the computer MIDI keyboard off when it is not needed. 12.3.
CHAPTER 12. ROUTING AND I/O 12.5 147 Resampling Live's Master output can be routed into an individual audio track and recorded, or resampled. Resampling can be a fun and useful tool, as it lets you create samples from what is currently happening in a Live Set that can then be immediately integrated. It can be used to record tracks that include processor-intensive devices, so as to delete the devices, or for quickly previewing before rendering to disk.
CHAPTER 12. ROUTING AND I/O 148 Two Ways to Route Track A into Track B. Both approaches result in Track A's output being fed into Track B. Approach 1 leaves Track B's in/out settings alone, and we can, at any time, add more tracks that feed their output into Track B. This is the method of choice for many-to-one routings such as submixes or several MIDI tracks playing the same instrument. Approach 2, on the other hand, leaves Track A unaffected except for Track B tapping its output.
CHAPTER 12. ROUTING AND I/O 149 Tap Points for Track Routing. Pre FX taps the signal that is coming directly from a track, before it has been passed on to the track's device chains (FX) or mixer. Therefore, changes that are made to the tapped track's devices or mixer have no effect on the tapped signal. Post FX taps the signal at the output of a track's device chains (FX), but before it has been passed back to the track mixer.
CHAPTER 12. ROUTING AND I/O 150 Routing Points in Racks Tap Points for Every Chain in a Track. If a track has one or more Racks in its device chain, internal routing points (Pre FX, Post FX and Post Mixer) will also be available for every chain within the Rack. In this case, each Rack will also be listed in the Input Channel chooser: (Rack Name) | (Chain Name) | Pre FX The signal will be tapped from the point that it enters the Rack, before it reaches the chain's devices.
CHAPTER 12. ROUTING AND I/O 151 Post-Effects Recording Let's say that you are feeding a guitar into Live, building up a song track by track, overlaying take onto take. It is certainly powerful to have a separate effects chain per track for applying different effects to different takes after the fact. You might, however, want to run the guitar signal through effects (a noise gate or an amp model, for instance) before the recording stage, and record the post-effects signal.
CHAPTER 12. ROUTING AND I/O 152 Recording the Output of a Complex Instrument in Audio Tracks. A setup similar to the one described above accomplishes the task. We have one MIDI track hosting the virtual instrument, and we use additional audio tracks to record the audio result of playing the instrument. Creating Submixes Submixing the Individual Drums of a Drum Kit. Suppose we have the individual drums of a drum kit coming in on separate tracks for multitrack recording.
CHAPTER 12. ROUTING AND I/O 153 Therefore, we add a new audio track to submix the individual drums. The drum tracks are all set to output to the submix track, which outputs to the Master. The submix track gives us a handy volume control for the entire drum kit. Several MIDI Tracks Playing the Same Instrument Consider a MIDI track containing a virtual instrument a Simpler playing a pad sound, for example.
CHAPTER 12. ROUTING AND I/O 154 The Instrument Has Been Isolated in a Dedicated Track. We might be bothered by the fact that muting the pad track (by turning off its Activator switch) also mutes the other MIDI track. To be precise, the other track keeps playing, but its MIDI is played by an instrument that is out of the mix. This can be easily remedied by cutting the clips from the pad track and pasting them into a third track that can be independently muted (and that can hold its own MIDI effects).
CHAPTER 12. ROUTING AND I/O 155 Using Impulse's Individual Outs to Separately Process Sample Slots. We simply create an audio track and select from its Input Type chooser the track with the Impulse. The Input Channel chooser now offers, in addition to Pre FX, Post FX and Post Mixer, Impulse's eight individual outputs, labeled according to the sample used in each slot.
CHAPTER 12. ROUTING AND I/O 156 Tracks Feeding MIDI to and Tapping Audio From the Parts of a Multi-Timbral Instrument. Sending MIDI to a multi-timbral instrument is a variation of a case described above. One MIDI track hosts the multi-timbral instrument, and additional MIDI tracks are used to feed its individual parts. Each additional MIDI track has its Output Type chooser pointed to the track that contains the instrument, and its Output Channel chooser referencing the target MIDI channel.
CHAPTER 12. ROUTING AND I/O 157 Routing a Speech Signal Into a Vocoder's Sidechain Input. Some vocoder plug-ins include a built-in synthesizer to generate the carrier signal. In this case, the only difference from the above procedure is that the vocoder instrument is dragged into a MIDI track. Feeding the side-chain audio input works as described above.
CHAPTER 12. ROUTING AND I/O stage, which is after any MIDI Effects, and just before the instrument.
159 Chapter 13 Mixing 13.1 The Live Mixer Live includes a mixer section that is accessible from two views: The Arrangement View Mixer. In the Arrangement View, the mixer appears as a horizontal strip to the right of the track button next to area.
CHAPTER 13. MIXING 160 its name, and adjust its height accordingly. The Session View Mixer. The Session View is a standard vertical mixer layout. You'll likely nd the Session View mixer more intuitive than the Arrangement mixer, which comes in handy when you work with automation. Note that the Tab key toggles between the Arrangement and Session Views. The View menu options listed below show or hide mixer components.
161 CHAPTER 13. MIXING Let's look at the mixer controls: 5 6 4 3 1 2 4 5 1 6 2 3 The Mixer Controls. 1. The Meter shows the track's RMS (average) and peak output level. While monitoring, however, it shows the input level. 2. The Volume control adjusts the track's output level. 3. The Pan control positions the track's output in the stereo eld. To reset the Pan control to center, click on its associated triangle. 4. To mute the track's output, turn off the Track Activator switch. 5.
CHAPTER 13. MIXING 13.1.1 162 Session Mixer Features The Session Mixer's Possibilities. The Mixer section of the Session Mixer has several additional features that are not visible by default. The mixer is resizable, and dragging upwards on the top of the mixer will extend the height of the track meters, adding tick marks, a numeric volume eld and resettable peak level indicators. Increasing a track's width in this state will add a decibel scale alongside the meter's tick marks.
CHAPTER 13. MIXING 13.2 163 Audio and MIDI Tracks Audio and MIDI tracks in Live are for hosting and playing clips, as explained earlier. You can add up to 64 audio tracks and an unlimited number of MIDI tracks to your Live Set's mixer using the appropriate Insert menu commands. Tracks can also be created by double-clicking or pressing Return on les in the Browser to load them, or by dragging objects from the Browser into the space to the right of Session View tracks or below Arrangement View tracks.
CHAPTER 13. MIXING 164 Note that you can hide and show the return tracks using the Returns command in the View menu. Like the normal clip tracks, the returns and the Master can host effects devices. However, whereas a clip track's effect processes only the audio within that track, return tracks can process audio sent to them from numerous tracks. For example, suppose you want to create rhythmic echoes with a delay effect.
CHAPTER 13. MIXING 13.4 165 Using Live's Crossfader Live includes a crossfader that can create smooth transitions between clips playing on different tracks. Live's crossfader works like a typical DJ-mixer crossfader, except that it allows crossfading not only two, but any number of tracks including the returns. The Crossfader and Selector. The crossfader is accessed via the Session View's mixer selectors.
166 CHAPTER 13. MIXING A+B Power Level Crossfader Response Transition Dipped Intermediate Constant Power Slow Fade Slow Cut Fast Cut Crossfader Curve Properties. The crossfader can be mapped to any continuous MIDI controller (absolute or incremental). In addition to the crossfader's central slider, its absolute left and right positions are separately available for MIDI or keyboard mapping.
CHAPTER 13. MIXING 167 position, the track fades out. At the crossfader's rightmost position, the track is muted. Likewise, if B is on, the track's volume will be affected only as the crossfader moves left across its center position. It is important to understand that the Crossfade Assign buttons do not affect the signal routing: The crossfader merely in uences the signal volume at each track's gain stage. The track can be routed to an individual output bus regardless of its crossfade assignment.
168 CHAPTER 13. MIXING 4 5 3 2 1 The Cueing-Related Session Mixer Controls. 1. The Master Out chooser selects the output on your interface to be used as the main output. 2. The Cue Out chooser selects the output on your hardware interface to be used for cueing. This has to be set to an output other than that selected for the Master. If the desired outputs don't show up in these choosers, please check the Audio Preferences. 3. Activate cueing by setting the Solo/Cue Mode switch to Cue. 4.
169 Chapter 14 Recording New Clips This chapter is about recording new clips from audio and MIDI input signals. Note that this is a different kind of recording than the capturing of Session clips into the Arrangement. For successful audio recording, please make sure the audio preferences are set up properly. For more on this, please see the built-in program lesson on setting up Audio Preferences.
CHAPTER 14. RECORDING NEW CLIPS 170 The Track In/Out Section in the Arrangement (Left) and Session View (Right). Audio tracks default to recording a stereo signal from the external input pair 1/2. MIDI tracks default to recording all MIDI that is coming in through the active external input devices. The computer keyboard is, by default, activated as a pseudo-MIDI input device, allowing you to record MIDI even if no MIDI controller hardware is currently available.
171 CHAPTER 14. RECORDING NEW CLIPS Clicking one track's Arm button unarms all other tracks unless the Ctrl (PC) / (Mac) modi er is held. Arming a track selects the track so you can readily access its devices in the Track View. 14.3 Recording Recording can be done in both the Session and the Arrangement Views. If you want to record onto more than one track simultaneously and/or prefer viewing the recording linearly and in-progress, the Arrangement View may be the better choice.
CHAPTER 14. RECORDING NEW CLIPS 172 2. Recording creates new clips in all tracks that have their Arm button on. 3. When the Overdub switch is on, the new clips contain a mix of the signal already in the track and the new input signal. The Overdub option only applies to MIDI tracks. 4. To prevent recording prior to a punch-in point, activate the Punch-In switch. This is useful for protecting the parts of a track that you do not want to record over and allows you to set up a pre-roll or warm-up time.
173 CHAPTER 14. RECORDING NEW CLIPS 4 3 2 1 Recording a New Clip Into the Session View. 1. Set the Global Quantization chooser to any value other than None to obtain correctly cut clips. 2. Activate the Arm button for the tracks onto which you want to record. Clip Record buttons will appear in the empty slots of the armed tracks. 3. Click on any of the Clip Record buttons to commence recording. A new clip will appear in the slot with a red Clip Launch button that shows it is currently recording.
CHAPTER 14. RECORDING NEW CLIPS 14.3.3 174 Overdub Recording MIDI Patterns Live makes pattern-oriented recording of drums and the like quite easy. Using Live's Impulse instrument and the following technique, you can successively build up drum patterns while listening to the result. Or, using an instrument such as Simpler, which allows for chromatic playing, you can build up melodies or harmonies, note by note. 1. Set the Global Quantization chooser to one bar. 2.
CHAPTER 14. RECORDING NEW CLIPS 14.4 175 Recording in Sync Live keeps the audio and MIDI you have recorded in sync, even when you later decide on a different song tempo. In fact, Live allows you to change the tempo at any time before, after and even during recording. You could, for instance, cheat a bit by turning down the tempo to record a technically dif cult part, and pull it up again afterwards. It is important to record in sync to make sure everything will later play in sync. The Metronome Switch.
CHAPTER 14. RECORDING NEW CLIPS 14.5 176 Recording Quantized MIDI Notes If you will be recording MIDI, you have the option of automatically quantizing MIDI notes while recording. The Record Quantization chooser in the Edit menu allows selecting the meter subdivisions with which your recorded notes will align. When recording into Session slots or into the Arrangement, record quantization is an independent step in Live's Undo history.
CHAPTER 14. RECORDING NEW CLIPS 14.7 177 Setting up File Types The following Preferences from the Record/Warp/Launch tab are relevant to the sample les that are created by recording: The sample le type you would like Live to create can be chosen from the File Type chooser in the Record/Warp/Launch Preferences. The bit depth of the sample le you will create by recording can be chosen from the Bit Depth chooser in the Record/Warp/Launch Preferences.
CHAPTER 14. RECORDING NEW CLIPS 178 The Scene Up/Down Buttons. One key is used to jump to the next scene... A Track Launch Button. ... and another key to start and end recording in the respective track.
179 Chapter 15 Working with Instruments and Effects Every track in Live can host a number of devices. These devices can be of three different sorts: MIDI effects act upon MIDI signals and can only be placed in MIDI tracks. Audio effects act upon audio signals and can be placed in audio tracks. They can also be placed in MIDI tracks as long as they are downstream from an instrument. Instruments are devices that reside in MIDI tracks, receive MIDI and output audio.
CHAPTER 15. WORKING WITH INSTRUMENTS AND EFFECTS 180 Devices in the Track View. The Track View is where you insert, view and adjust the devices for the selected track. To select a track and open the Track View to access its devices, double-click the track's name. The Track View appears in the bottom area of the Live screen. To learn about a particular device and how to operate it, consult the Live Audio Effect Reference, Live MIDI Effect Reference or the Live Instrument Reference.
CHAPTER 15. WORKING WITH INSTRUMENTS AND EFFECTS 15.1 181 Using the Live Devices The Live Device Browser. Click on the Device Browser selector to access the palette of Live's built-in devices. You will notice that MIDI effects, audio effects and instruments each have their own folders in the Browser. The easiest way to place a device in a track is to double-click on it in the Browser, which creates a new track to hold the device.
CHAPTER 15. WORKING WITH INSTRUMENTS AND EFFECTS 182 MIDI and Audio Track Arm Buttons This is how you would play live instruments through effects on a track, for example, or use a MIDI keyboard's input to play a track's instrument. Note that you can easily move from this setup into recording new clips for further use in Live. If you have alternative monitoring preferences, please see the Monitoring section to learn how to make these settings.
CHAPTER 15. WORKING WITH INSTRUMENTS AND EFFECTS 183 A MIDI Track's Device Chain Can Contain All Three Device Types. To remove a device from the chain, click on its title bar and press your computer's or Delete key, or select Delete from the Edit menu. To change the order of devices, drag a device by its title bar and drop it next to any of the other devices in the Track View. Devices can be moved to other tracks entirely by dragging them from the Track View into the Session or Arrangement Views.
CHAPTER 15. WORKING WITH INSTRUMENTS AND EFFECTS 184 The Level Meters Between Devices in a Chain. Note that no clipping can occur between devices because there is practically unlimited headroom. Clipping can occur when an overly strong signal is sent to a physical output or written to a sample le. Further information about track types in Live can be found in the Routing and I/O chapter, including information on using return tracks to distribute the effect of a single device amongst several tracks. 15.1.
185 CHAPTER 15. WORKING WITH INSTRUMENTS AND EFFECTS Presets in the Device Browser. You can browse and load presets quickly with the computer keyboard: Scroll up and down using the and Close and open device folders using the Press Return keys. and keys. to load a device or preset. The Hot-Swap Presets Button. Clicking a device's Hot-Swap Presets button will temporarily link the Browser to a device, calling up its presets in the Device Browser.
CHAPTER 15. WORKING WITH INSTRUMENTS AND EFFECTS 186 Saving Presets You can create and save any number of your own presets in the Device Browser. The Save Preset Button. Click the Save Preset button to save a device's current settings as a new preset. You will be redirected to the Browser, where you can press Return to use Live's suggested name, or you can type one of your own. For detailed information on what can be done with the Browser, please see the Managing Files and Sets chapter.
CHAPTER 15. WORKING WITH INSTRUMENTS AND EFFECTS 187 The Plug-In Device Browser. Audio Units and VST Plug-ins are browsed and imported using the Plug-In Device Browser, which is accessed via its selector. Plug-in instruments can be differentiated from plug-in effects in the Browser, as they appear with a keyboard icon. The Browser's search functionality is only available for Audio Units Plug-ins, as is loading presets directly from Track View devices via the Hot-Swap button.
CHAPTER 15. WORKING WITH INSTRUMENTS AND EFFECTS 188 You can also rescan if you believe that your plug-in database has somehow become corrupted. Holding down the Alt (PC) / Alt (Mac) modi er while pressing Rescan will delete your plug-in database altogether and run a clean scan of your plug-ins. 15.2.1 Plug-Ins in the Track View A VST Plug-In in the Track View. Once a plug-in is dragged from the Browser into a track, it will show up in the Track View.
CHAPTER 15. WORKING WITH INSTRUMENTS AND EFFECTS 189 Once a plug-in is placed in a track, you can use it just like a Live device: You can edit all of its parameters and drag it to different locations in the device chain or to other tracks, according to the rules of audio effects and instruments. You can map MIDI controller messages to its parameters. You can modulate its continuous parameters with clip envelopes.
CHAPTER 15. WORKING WITH INSTRUMENTS AND EFFECTS 190 Alt P You can use the View menu's Show/Hide Plug-In Windows command or the Ctrl Alt P (Mac) shortcut to hide and show your open plug-in windows. Notice (PC) / that the name of the track to which the plug-in belongs is displayed in the title bar of the plug-in editor window. Macintosh only: The oating editor windows of some VST Plug-ins do not receive computer key strokes. This is generally an implementation error in the plug-in itself.
CHAPTER 15. WORKING WITH INSTRUMENTS AND EFFECTS 191 have to tell Live about the location of the VST Plug-in folder containing the devices you want to use. In order to set up your VST sources, press the Activate button in the Plug-In , (PC) / , Device Browser, or open the File/Folder Preferences by pressing Ctrl (Mac). There you will nd the Active Sources section. Setting up VST Plug-In Sources for Windows. For Windows, proceed as follows: 1.
CHAPTER 15. WORKING WITH INSTRUMENTS AND EFFECTS 192 and local directories: /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST. You can turn Live's use of these plug-ins on or off with the Use VST Plug-ins in System Folders option. 2. You may have an alternative folder in which you store your VST Plug-ins (perhaps those that you use only with Live). You can use VST Plug-ins in this folder in addition to, or instead of, those in the System folders.
CHAPTER 15. WORKING WITH INSTRUMENTS AND EFFECTS 193 The VST Plug-In Program Chooser. To select a program from the plug-in's bank, use the chooser below the title bar. The number of programs per bank is xed. You are always working in the currently selected program, that is, all changes to the plug-in's controls become part of the selected program.
CHAPTER 15. WORKING WITH INSTRUMENTS AND EFFECTS 15.4 194 Audio Units Plug-Ins Audio Units Plug-ins are only available in Mac OS X. In most respects, they operate just like VST Plug-ins. An Audio Units Plug-In. The rst time you open Live, Audio Units Plug-ins will not appear in the Plug-In Device Browser. In order to activate your Audio Units as a plug-in source, please press the Activate button in the Plug-In Device Browser, or go to the File/Folder Preferences by pressing Ctrl , (PC) / , (Mac).
CHAPTER 15. WORKING WITH INSTRUMENTS AND EFFECTS 195 Opening an Audio Units Plug-In Window. Audio Units have presets that function just like those for the Live effects. However, some AU presets cannot be dragged to different locations in the Browser, as they are read-only. Audio Units presets have an .
196 Chapter 16 Instrument and Effect Racks A Rack is a exible tool for working with effects, plug-ins and instruments in a track's device chain. Racks can be used to build complex signal processors, dynamic performance instruments, stacked synthesizers and more. Yet they also streamline your device chain by bringing together your most essential controls.
CHAPTER 16. INSTRUMENT AND EFFECT RACKS 16.1 An Overview of Racks 16.1.1 Signal Flow and Parallel Device Chains 197 Inside An Audio Effect Rack (As It Appears in the Full Version of Live). In any of Live's tracks, devices are connected serially in a device chain, passing their signals from one device to the next, left to right. By default, the Track View displays only a single chain, but there is actually no limit to the number of chains contained within a track.
CHAPTER 16. INSTRUMENT AND EFFECT RACKS 16.1.2 198 Macro Controls The Macro Controls. One unique property of Racks are their Macro Controls. The Macro Controls are a bank of eight knobs, each capable of addressing any number of parameters from any devices in a Rack.
199 Chapter 17 Automation and Editing Envelopes Often, when working with Live's mixer and devices, you will want the controls' movements to become part of the music. The movement of a control across the song timeline is called automation; a control whose value changes in the course of this timeline is automated. Practically all mixer and device controls in Live can be automated, including the song tempo. 17.
CHAPTER 17. AUTOMATION AND EDITING ENVELOPES 200 Volume, Pan and the Track Activator Switch Have Been Automated. 17.2 Deleting Automation To delete automation data, simply select an automated control by clicking on it, and choose the Edit menu's Delete Automation command. The automation LED disappears, and the control's value stays constant across the entire song. Note that this will not work with controls that are switches, like the Track Activator switch, because they cannot be selected by clicking.
201 CHAPTER 17. AUTOMATION AND EDITING ENVELOPES 2. You can click on it to reactivate all automation and thereby return to the automation state as it is written on tape. 17.4 Drawing and Editing Automation In the Arrangement View, automation curves can be viewed and edited as breakpoint envelopes. 3 5 1 4 2 An Automation Envelope in the Arrangement View. 1. To access a track's envelope, unfold the track by clicking the to the track name. button next 2.
CHAPTER 17. AUTOMATION AND EDITING ENVELOPES 17.4.1 202 Drawing Envelopes With Draw Mode enabled, you can click and drag to draw an envelope curve. The Draw Mode Switch. To toggle Draw Mode, select the Draw Mode option from the Options menu, click on the B (PC) / B (Mac). Control Bar's Draw Mode switch, or press Ctrl Drawing an Envelope. Drawing creates steps as wide as the visible grid, which you can modify using a number of handy shortcuts.
CHAPTER 17. AUTOMATION AND EDITING ENVELOPES 203 To Move all Breakpoints Within the Selection, Drag Any One of Them. Your movement is constrained by the neighboring breakpoints unless you hold down the modi er while dragging, which will eliminate breakpoints as you wipe over (PC) / (Mac) modi er while dragging switches them. Holding down the Ctrl to a ner resolution. Click and drag a line segment between two breakpoints to move it vertically, without affecting the breakpoint's horizontal position.
CHAPTER 17. AUTOMATION AND EDITING ENVELOPES 204 The Lock Envelopes Switch. 17.4.4 Edit Menu Commands There are a number of useful Edit menu commands for editing envelopes. To cut or copy automation from a track, independent of the associated clip, use the Edit menu's Cut Envelope and Copy Envelope commands, respectively. To simultaneously copy and paste a selection of envelope into a track's future, use the Duplicate Envelope command.
CHAPTER 17. AUTOMATION AND EDITING ENVELOPES 205 minimum, and the right box sets the maximum tempo displayed, in BPM. Note that these two controls also determine the value range of a MIDI controller assigned to the tempo.
206 Chapter 18 Clip Envelopes Every clip in Live can have its own clip envelopes. The aspects of a clip that are in uenced by clip envelopes change depending upon clip type and setup; MIDI clip envelopes can represent MIDI controller data while audio clip envelopes can modulate various playback parameters. In this chapter, we will rst look at how all clip envelopes are drawn and edited, and then get into the details of their various applications.
CHAPTER 18. CLIP ENVELOPES 18.1 207 The Clip Envelope Editor Use the Clip View Box Selector to Bring up the Envelopes Box. To work with clip envelopes, bring up the Clip View's Envelopes box by activating the rightmost Clip View Box selector panel. The Envelopes box contains two choosers for selecting an envelope to view and edit. The Clip View's Envelopes Box. The top menu is the Device chooser, which selects a general category of controls with which to work.
208 CHAPTER 18. CLIP ENVELOPES next to their names. You can simplify the appearance of these choosers by selecting Show Modulated Parameters Only from either of them. The quick-chooser buttons below the menus select commonly edited controls. Clicking the menus or the quick-chooser buttons brings up the Envelope Editor showing the selected envelope, instead of the Sample Display or MIDI Editor. You can toggle the display by clicking on the title bars of the Sample/Notes and Envelopes boxes.
CHAPTER 18. CLIP ENVELOPES 18.2.1 209 Clip Envelopes are Non-Destructive Using clip envelopes, you can create new sounds from a sample without actually affecting the sample on disk. Because Live calculates the envelope modulations in real time, you can have hundreds of clips in a Live Set that all sound different, but use the same sample. You can, of course, export a newly created sound by rendering, or by resampling. In the Arrangement View, you can use the Consolidate command to create new samples.
210 CHAPTER 18. CLIP ENVELOPES The Transposition Envelope with Steps (Top) and Ramps (Bottom). Note that the warp settings determine how accurately Live's time-warping engine tracks the envelope shape. To obtain a more immediate response, reduce the Grain Size value in Tones and Texture Mode or choose a smaller value for the Transients control in Beats Mode.
CHAPTER 18. CLIP ENVELOPES 18.2.3 211 Muting or Attenuating Notes in a Sample Click on the Volume quick-chooser to access an audio clip's volume envelope. By drawing steps in Draw Mode or creating shapes with breakpoints, you can impose an arbitrary volume shape onto the sample. Imposing a Volume Envelope on a Sample. The volume envelope's output is interpreted as a relative percentage of the clip volume slider's current value.
CHAPTER 18. CLIP ENVELOPES 212 than centimeters: A vertical grid line is worth a sixteenth note of offset and the modulation can reach from plus eight sixteenths to minus eight sixteenths. Sample offset modulation is the tool of choice for quickly creating interesting variations of beat loops. We discourage using this technique for analytical cut-and-splice tasks; they are much easier to perform using Live's Arrangement View, and the results can easily be consolidated into new clips.
CHAPTER 18. CLIP ENVELOPES 18.3 213 MIDI Controller Clip Envelopes Whether you are working with a new MIDI clip that was recorded directly into Live, or one from your les, Live allows you to edit and create MIDI controller data for the clip in the form of clip envelopes. Choose MIDI Ctrl from a MIDI clip's Device chooser and use the Control chooser below it to select a speci c MIDI controller. You can create new clip envelopes for any of the listed controllers by drawing steps or using breakpoints.
214 CHAPTER 18. CLIP ENVELOPES will present in the rest of this chapter. 18.4.1 Programming a Fade-Out for a Live Set Let us start with a straightforward example. Suppose you are setting up a Live Set and wish to program a fade-out over eight bars to occur when a speci c clip is launched but all you have is a one-bar loop. 2 1 4 3 1. Choose the Clip Volume envelope, and unlink it from the sample.
CHAPTER 18. CLIP ENVELOPES 215 Now, as you play the clip, you can hear the one-bar loop fading out over eight bars. Please note: toggling Linked Mode changes the envelope data. Toggling back and forth effectively deletes the envelope data. To return to the previous state, please use the Edit menu's Undo command. 18.4.2 Creating Long Loops from Short Loops Let us take this a step further.
CHAPTER 18. CLIP ENVELOPES 216 To keep this complexity under control, it is important to have a common point of reference. The start marker identi es the point where sample or envelope playback depart from when the clip starts. Note that the start/end markers and loop brace are subject to quantization by the zoomadaptive grid, as is envelope drawing. 18.4.3 Imposing Rhythm Patterns onto Samples So far, we have been talking about imposing long envelopes onto small loops.
217 Chapter 19 Live Audio Effect Reference Live comes with a selection of custom-designed, built-in audio effects. The Working with Instruments and Effects chapter explains the basics of using effects in Live. 19.1 Auto Filter The Auto Filter Effect. The Auto Filter effect provides classic analog lter emulation. It can be modulated by an envelope follower and/or an LFO to create moving lter effects.
CHAPTER 19. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 218 There are four different lter types: lowpass, highpass, bandpass and notch. For each type, the X-Y controller adjusts frequency (to adjust, click and drag on the X-axis) and Q (also called resonance; to adjust, click and drag on the Y-axis). You can also click on the Freq and Q numeric displays and type in exact values. Low Q values create a broad lter curve, while higher values introduce a narrow, resonant peak to the sound.
CHAPTER 19. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 219 Spin detunes the two LFO speeds relative to each other. Each stereo channel is modulated at a different frequency, as determined by the Spin amount. For sample and hold, the Phase and Spin controls are not relevant and do not affect the sound.
CHAPTER 19. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 220 LFOs will be perfectly out of phase (180 degrees apart), so that when one reaches its peak, the other is at its minimum. Phase is particularly effective for creating vibrato effects. The Offset control shifts the start point of each LFO along its waveform. The device's in uence on incoming signals is set with the Amount control. 19.3 Beat Repeat The Beat Repeat Effect.
CHAPTER 19. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 221 Interval and Offset. Activating the Repeat button bypasses all of the above controls, immediately capturing material and repeating it until deactivated. The Grid control de nes the grid size the size of each repeated slice. If set to 1/16 , a slice the size of one sixteenth note will be captured and repeated for the given Gate length (or until Repeat is deactivated). Large grid values create rhythmic loops, while small values create sonic artifacts.
CHAPTER 19. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 19.4 222 Chorus The Chorus Effect. The Chorus effect uses two parallel time-modulated delays to create chorus (thickening) and anging effects. Each delay has its own delay time control, calibrated in milliseconds. Delay 1 has a highpass lter that can remove low frequencies from the delayed signal. Greater highpass values let only very high frequencies pass through to Delay 1. Delay 2 can switch among three different modes. When off, only Delay 1 is audible.
CHAPTER 19. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 223 while the Polarity switch sets (surprise!) the polarity. Polarity changes have the most effect with high amounts of feedback and short delay times. The Dry/Wet control adjusts the balance between the processed and dry signals. Set it to 100 percent when using Chorus in a return track. 19.5 Compressor I The Compressor I Effect. A Compressor reduces gain for signals above a user-settable threshold.
CHAPTER 19. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 224 capable of destroying its dynamic structure. This is something that cannot be undone in later production steps. Keep this in mind especially when using a compressor, limiter or sound loudness-maximizing tool in the master channel. Less is often more here. Because compression reduces the volume of loud signals and opens up headroom, you can use the Out slider so that the peaks once again hit the maximum available headroom.
CHAPTER 19. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 225 dynamic processing applications including limiting and loudness maximization. Compressor II's design is a lot more sophisticated and capable than Compressor I's. It includes frequencyselective compression using a sidechain EQ, variable look-ahead times and two response modes, Peak and RMS. Compressor I is still a valuable sound design tool in spite of, or rather because of, its simplicity and roughness, which can add interesting avors to your sounds.
CHAPTER 19. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 19.7 226 Dynamic Tube The Dynamic Tube Effect. The Dynamic Tube effect infuses sounds with the peculiarities of tube saturation. An integrated envelope follower generates dynamic tonal variations related to the level of the input signal. Three tube models, A, B and C, provide a range of distortion characteristics known from real ampli er tubes.
CHAPTER 19. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 227 to volume changes in the input signal. Together, they shape the dynamic nature of the distortions. Note that if Envelope is set to zero, they will have no effect. Cut or boost the device's nal signal level with the Output dial. 19.8 EQ Eight The EQ Eight Effect. The EQ Eight effect is an equalizer featuring up to eight parametric lters per input channel, useful for changing a sound's timbre.
CHAPTER 19. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 228 Bell curve (boosts or cuts over a range of frequencies); Low shelf (boosts or cuts frequencies lower than the speci ed frequency); Low cut (cuts frequencies below the speci ed frequency). Each lter band can be turned on or off independently. Turn off bands that are not in use to save CPU power. To edit the lter curve, click and drag on the lter dots in the display.
CHAPTER 19. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 229 If you have ever used a good DJ mixer you will know what this is: An EQ that allows you to adjust the level of low, mid and high frequencies independently. Each band can be adjusted from -in nite dB to +6 dB using the gain controls. This means that you can completely remove, for example, the bass drum or bassline of a track, while leaving the other frequencies untouched.
CHAPTER 19. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 19.10 230 Erosion The Erosion Effect. The Erosion effect degrades the input signal by modulating a short delay with ltered noise or a sine wave. This adds noisy artifacts or aliasing/downsampling-like distortions that sound very digital. To change the sine wave frequency or noise band center frequency, click and drag along the X-axis in the X-Y eld. The Y-axis controls the modulation amount.
CHAPTER 19. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 19.11 231 Filter Delay The Filter Delay Effect. The Filter Delay provides three independent delay lines, each preceded by linked lowpass and highpass lters. This allows applying delay to only certain input signal frequencies, as determined by the lter settings. The feedback from each of the three delays is also routed back through the lters. Each of the three delays can be switched on and off independently.
CHAPTER 19. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 232 value. The Feedback parameter sets how much of the output signal returns to the delay line input. Very high values can lead to runaway feedback and produce a loud oscillation watch your ears and speakers if you decide to check out extreme feedback settings! Each delay channel has its own volume control, which can be turned up to +12 dB to compensate for drastic ltering at the input. The Dry control adjusts the unprocessed signal level.
CHAPTER 19. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 233 The LFOs have six possible waveform shapes: sine, square, triangle, sawtooth up, sawtooth down and random. The extent of LFO in uence on the delays is set with the Amount control. LFO speed is controlled with the Rate control, which can be set in terms of hertz. Rate can also be synced to the song tempo and set in meter subdivisions (e.g., sixteenth notes).
CHAPTER 19. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 234 The Threshold slider sets the gate's sensitivity. If the gate is open and passing signal (i.e., the signal exceeds the gate threshold), the green LED lights. The Floor parameter, located beneath the Threshold fader, can allow attenuating signals below the threshold rather than just cutting them off. If set to -inf dB, a closed gate will mute the input signal. A setting of 0.00 dB means that even if the gate is closed, there is no effect on the signal.
CHAPTER 19. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 235 sounds and textures, as well as getting rid of unwelcome house guests, or terrifying small pets (just kidding!). To refer delay time to the song tempo, activate the Sync switch, which allows using the Delay Time beat division chooser. The numbered switches represent time delay in 16th notes. For example, selecting 4 delays the signal by four 16th notes, which equals one beat (a quarter note) of delay.
CHAPTER 19. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 19.15 236 Phaser The Phaser Effect. Phaser uses a series of all-pass lters to create a phase shift in the frequency spectrum of a sound. The Poles control creates notches in the frequency spectrum. The Feedback control can then be used to invert the waveform and convert these notches into peaks (or poles). Filter cutoff frequency is changed with the Frequency control, which can be adjusted in tandem with Feedback using the effect's X-Y controller.
CHAPTER 19. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 237 LFOs will be perfectly out of phase (180 degrees apart), so that when one reaches its peak, the other is at its minimum. Spin detunes the two LFO speeds relative to each other. Each lter frequency is then modulated using a different LFO frequency, as determined by the Spin amount. The Dry/Wet control adjusts the balance between the processed and dry signals. Set it to 100 percent if using Phaser in a return track. 19.
CHAPTER 19. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 238 time, click and drag up or down in the Delay Time eld, or click in the eld and type in a value. The Feedback parameter controls how much of the right channel output signal returns to the delay line input. The feedback loop also includes a lter that can color the feedback sound, thus producing different timbres with successive echoes.
CHAPTER 19. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 239 and the more deconstructed the sound. Downsampling is like applying a mosaic effect to an image: There's a loss of information and sharp edges occur between the blocks. The Downsample Mode switch de nes if the downsampling either interpolates over a smaller range ( soft, down to 20.0 samples) or does not interpolate over a larger range ( hard, down to 200 samples).
CHAPTER 19. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 240 The input signal passes rst through a lter, and then into the resonators. There are four input lter types to select from: lowpass, bandpass, highpass and notch. The input lter frequency can be adjusted with the Frequency parameter. The rst resonator is fed with both the left and right input channels, while the second and fourth resonators are dedicated to the left channel, and the third and fth to the right channel.
CHAPTER 19. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 19.19 241 Reverb The Reverb Effect. 19.19.1 Input Processing The input signal passes rst through high and low cut lters, whose X-Y controller allows changing the band's center frequency (X-axis) and bandwidth (Y-axis). Either lter may be switched off when not needed to save CPU power. Predelay controls the delay time, in milliseconds, before the onset of the rst early re ection. This delays the reverberation relative to the input signal.
CHAPTER 19. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 242 higher value can sometimes improve the source's intelligibility, while a lower value may give a smoother decay. Spin applies modulation to the early re ections. The X-Y control accesses the depth and frequency of these modulations. A larger depth tends to provide a less-colored (more spectrally neutral) late diffusion response. If the modulation frequency is too high, doppler frequency shifting of the source sound will occur, along with surreal panning effects.
CHAPTER 19. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 243 adding to the frozen reverberation; when off, the input signal will contribute to the diffused amplitude. Flat bypasses the high and low shelf lters when freeze is on. If Flat is off, the frozen reverberation will lose energy in the attenuated frequency bands, depending on the state of the high and low shelving lters.
CHAPTER 19. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 244 An X-Y grid helps to visualize Saturator's shaping curve. The shaper's input and output values are mapped to the X and Y axes, respectively. The curve de nes the transfer function, which is the extent to which output values uctuate in relation to input values. Because this is usually a nonlinear process, the incoming signal is reshaped to a greater or lesser degree depending upon its level at each moment in time.
CHAPTER 19. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 245 The second lter, essentially an equalizer, is used for controlling higher frequencies. It is shaped with the Freq (cutoff frequency), Width and Depth controls. The Output control attenuates the level at the device output. When the Soft Clip switch is activated, Saturator will also apply an instance of its Analog Clip curve to the output. The Dry/Wet control adjusts the balance between the processed and dry signals.
CHAPTER 19. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 246 The Dry/Wet control adjusts the balance between the processed and dry signals. Set it to 100 percent when using Simple Delay in a return track. 19.22 Utility The Utility Effect. Utility can perform some very useful tasks, especially in combination with other devices. The Mute button simply silences the incoming signal when enabled. Note: The active/mute controls of a track are always placed at the very end of the signal chain.
CHAPTER 19. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 247 either Left or Right have been chosen in the Channel Mode chooser, the Width control has no function and is therefore disabled. At the bottom of the device you will nd two Phase controls, one for each channel. As their names imply, they invert the phase of each channel. 19.23 Vinyl Distortion The Vinyl Distortion Effect. The Vinyl Distortion effect emulates some of the typical distortions that occur on vinyl records during playback.
CHAPTER 19. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 248 Tracing Model and Pinch. There are two distortion modes: Soft and Hard. The Soft Mode simulates the sound of a dub plate, while Hard Mode is more like that of a standard vinyl record. The stereo/mono switch determines whether the Pinch distortion occurs in stereo or mono. Set it to stereo for realistic simulation of vinyl distortions. The Crackle section adds noise to the signal, with noise density set by the Density control.
249 Chapter 20 Live MIDI Effect Reference Live comes with a selection of custom-designed, built-in MIDI effects. The Working with Instruments and Effects chapter explains the basics of using effects in Live. 20.1 Arpeggiator The Arpeggiator Effect. Live's Arpeggiator effect takes the individual MIDI notes from a held chord (or single note), and plays them as a rhythmical pattern.
CHAPTER 20. LIVE MIDI EFFECT REFERENCE 250 controlled by the device, which also provides a full complement of both classic and original arpeggiator features. Arpeggiators are a classic element in Eighties synth music. The name originates with the musical concept of the arpeggio, in which the notes comprising a chord are played as a series rather than in unison. Arpeggio is derived from the Italian word arpeggiare, which refers to playing notes on a harp. 20.1.
CHAPTER 20. LIVE MIDI EFFECT REFERENCE 251 Con & Diverge . Pinky Up and Pinky UpDown . Thumb Up and Thumb UpDown . Play Order places notes in the pattern according to the order in which they are played. This is therefore only recognizable when more than one chord or note has been played. In addition to the Arpeggiator styles above, there are a number of random styles. Random randomly selects incoming MIDI notes for playback.
CHAPTER 20. LIVE MIDI EFFECT REFERENCE 252 pressed. When Hold is active and any of the original keys also remain physically held, notes can be added to the pattern simply by playing them. Notes can also be removed from the pattern in this scenario by playing them a second time, allowing the gradual buildup and rearrangement of the pattern over time. Tip: If you want the pattern to stop playing, momentarily deactivate Hold.
CHAPTER 20. LIVE MIDI EFFECT REFERENCE 253 The dynamics of Arpeggiator are controlled using the velocity section. With Velocity set to On and Target set to 0, for example, the sequence will gradually fade out, eventually reaching 0 velocity. The Decay control sets the amount of time Arpeggiator takes to reach the Target velocity. With Retrigger activated, retriggering of the sequence will also retrigger the velocity slope.
CHAPTER 20. LIVE MIDI EFFECT REFERENCE 254 semitone shift added with the Shift 6 control. Note that no two notes of the same pitch can contribute to the chord, and that selecting the same shift value twice (e.g., +8 semitones on both Shift 2 and Shift 3) will result in the latter control appearing disabled, indicating that it is a duplicate and therefore not in use. Actually, there is no such thing as two notes with the same pitch playing at the same time within the entire Live universe. 20.
CHAPTER 20. LIVE MIDI EFFECT REFERENCE 255 On/Off Balance This determines the velocity of the output note. It is a balance between the incoming note's Note On and Note Off velocities. If your MIDI keyboard does not support MIDI Note Off velocity, you can just set this to zero. Decay Time This is the time needed for an incoming note's velocity to decay to zero. The decay begins immediately from the moment the device receives a MIDI Note On message.
CHAPTER 20. LIVE MIDI EFFECT REFERENCE 20.5 256 Random The Random Effect. Random adds an element of the unknown to the otherwise commonplace pitch parameter. The Chance control de nes the likelihood that an incoming note's pitch will be changed by a random value. You can think of it as being something like a dry/wet control for randomness.
CHAPTER 20. LIVE MIDI EFFECT REFERENCE 20.6 257 Scale The Scale Effect. Scale alters incoming note pitch based on a scale mapping. Each incoming note is given an outgoing equivalent on the X-Y scale map of the effect: All incoming Cs, for example, might be converted to outgoing Ds. The X-Y scale map is 12 squares in length and width, corresponding to the 12 notes in a full octave. Darker squares represent the black keys on a keyboard.
CHAPTER 20. LIVE MIDI EFFECT REFERENCE 20.7 258 Velocity The Velocity Effect. Velocity re-maps the 127 MIDI note velocity values. It can function on MIDI Note On or Note Off messages, or both, depending on the setting of the Operation chooser. The Out Low and Out Hi knobs control the outgoing velocity (from 1 to 127), which is represented by the Y-axis of the X-Y display.
CHAPTER 20. LIVE MIDI EFFECT REFERENCE 259 pand is a simultaneous expanding and compressing tool. When set to values greater than zero, it forces incoming notes to the outer boundaries of the curve, making them play either loudly or softly. Compand values of less than zero, on the other hand, force outgoing velocity toward the mid-range. Drive pushes all values in the curve to the outer extremes. Use these two controls together to sculpt or even rede ne the dynamic structure of a piece.
260 Chapter 21 Live Instrument Reference Live comes with a selection of custom-designed, built-in instruments. The Working with Instruments and Effects chapter explains the basics of using instruments in Live. The boxed version of Live LE ships with the Essential Instrument Collection LE Edition, a multi-gigabyte library of meticulously sampled and selected instruments ready for use in either Simpler or our newest add-on instrument, Sampler. Learn how to access the EIC sounds at the end of this chapter.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 21.1 261 Impulse The Impulse Instrument. Impulse is a drum sampler with complex modulation capabilities. The eight drum samples loaded into Impulse's sample slots can be time-stretched, ltered and processed by envelope, saturation, pan and volume components, nearly all of which are subject to random and velocity-based modulation. 21.1.1 Sample Slots Drag and drop samples into any of Impulse's sample slots from the Browser or the Session and Arrangement Views.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 262 that this behavior also de nes how Impulse reacts to parameter changes from automation, which are applied once a new note starts. If you want to achieve continuous changes as a note plays, you may want to use the Simpler. Slot 8's parameters also include a Link button, located in the lower left corner, which links slot 8 with slot 7. Linking the two slots allows slot 7's activation to stop slot 8's playback, and vice versa.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 21.1.4 263 Saturator and Envelope The Saturator gives the sample a fatter, rounder, more analog sound, and can be switched on and off as desired. The Drive control boosts the signal and adds distortion. Coincidentally, this makes most signals much louder, and should usually be compensated for by lowering the sample's volume control. Extreme Drive settings on low-pitched sounds will produce the typical, overdriven analog synth drum sounds.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 264 this signal to a separate track. Please see the Routing chapter to learn how to accomplish this for Impulse's overall signal or for Impulse's individual sample slots. 21.2 Operator The Operator Instrument. Operator is an advanced and exible synthesizer that combines the concept of frequency modulation (FM) with classic subtractive synthesis.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 265 from top to bottom, the LFO, the lter section, the pitch section and the global parameters. If you change one of the shell parameters, the display in the center will automatically show the details of the relevant section. When creating your own sounds, for example, you can conveniently access the level and frequency of all oscillators at once via the shell, and then adjust each individual oscillator's envelope, waveform and other parameters in its display.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 266 Typically, FM synthesis makes use of pure sine waves, creating more complex waveforms via modulation. However, in order to simplify sound design and to create a wider range of possible sounds, we designed Operator to produce a variety of other waveforms, including noise. The instrument is made complete with an LFO, a pitch envelope and a lter section.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 267 included in the displayed name (e.g., Square 6 ) de ne how many harmonics are used for the resynthesis. Lower numbers sound mellower and are less likely to create aliasing when used on high pitches. Hint: Oscillator waveforms can be copied and pasted from one oscillator to another using the (PC) / Ctrl (Mac) context menu. Aliasing distortion is a common side effect of all digital synthesis and is the result of the nite sample rate and precision of digital systems.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 268 or inharmonic sounds (which very well could be exactly what you want...). The amplitude of an oscillator depends on the Level setting of the oscillator in the shell and on its envelope, which is shown in its display and can be adjusted from there. It can also be modi ed by note velocity and note pitch with the Level
CHAPTER 21. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 269 steps useful for typical retro-futuristic sci- sounds. The noise waveform is simply bandpassltered noise. Tip: FM synthesis can be used to create fantastic percussion sounds, and using the LFO with the noise waveform is the key to great hi-hats and snares. The frequency of the LFO is determined by the LFO Rate control in the shell, as well as the low/high setting of the adjacent LFO Range switch.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 270 Loop Time parameter. (Note that envelopes in Loop Mode can loop very quickly and can therefore be used to achieve effects that one would not normally expect from an envelope generator.) While Loop Mode is good for textures and experimental sounds, Operator also includes Beat and Sync Modes, which provide a simple way of creating rhythmical sounds. If set to Beat Mode, an envelope will restart after the beat time selected from the Repeat chooser.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 21.2.5 271 Filter Section Operator's Filter Section. As mentioned earlier, the lters are not the main focus of this instrument. However, they can be very useful for modifying the sonically rich timbres created by the oscillators. And, since the oscillators also provide you with the classic waveforms of analog synthesizers, you can very easily build a subtractive synthesizer with them.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 272 means that the envelopes will not be retriggered from voice to voice, and only pitch will change. A high quality setting (HiQ) can be switched on and off in the global display, controlling the interpolation algorithm of the oscillators and LFO. This setting will affect the sound of some waveforms more than others (especially the noise waveform) and also affects CPU resources.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 273 Tip: Whether or not spread is applied to a particular note depends upon the setting of the Spread parameter during the note-on event. To achieve special effects, you could, for instance, create a sequence where Spread is 0 most of the time and turned on only for some notes. These notes will then play in stereo, while the others will play mono. 21.2.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 274 Operator) directly from the software by placing the mouse over the control and reading the text that appears in the Info View. Parameters in this list are grouped into sections based on where they appear in Operator. Global Shell and Display Time This is a global control for all envelope rates. Tone Operator is capable of producing timbres with very high frequencies, which can sometimes lead to aliasing artifacts.
275 CHAPTER 21. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE Pitch Shell and Display Pitch Envelope On This turns the pitch envelope on and off. Turning it off if it is unused saves some CPU power. Pitch Envelope Amount (Pitch Env) This sets the intensity of the pitch envelope. A value of 100% means that the pitch change is exactly de ned by the pitch envelope's levels. A value of -100% inverts the sign of the pitch envelope levels.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 276 Filter Type Lowpass, bandpass and highpass are second order lters with resonance. Their names imply the part of the spectrum they affect. The notch lter passes everything apart from its center frequency and is more audible with low resonance settings. The 24 dB lter modes attenuate the ltered frequencies to a much greater degree than the 12 dB modes. Filter Frequency (Freq) This de nes the center or cutoff frequency of the lter.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 277 LFO Rate (Rate) This sets the rate of the LFO. The actual frequency also depends on the setting of the LFO Range and the LFO Rate
CHAPTER 21. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 278 Osc Output Level (Level) This sets the output level of the oscillator. If this oscillator is modulating another, its level has signi cant in uence on the resulting timbre. Higher levels usually create bright and/or noisy sounds. Osc Waveform (Wave) Choose from a collection of carefully selected waveforms, including slight derivations of sine waves that are especially useful for creating emulations of vintage digital hardware synthesizers.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 279 Envelope Release Time (Release) This is the time it takes for a complete fade-out of a note after a note-off message is received. The shape of this segment is exponential. The note will fade out from the value of the envelope at the moment the note-off message occurs, regardless of which segment is currently active. Envelope Initial Level (Initial) Envelope Peak Level (Peak) This sets the initial value of the envelope.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 21.3 280 Sampler The Sampler Instrument. Sampler is a sleek yet formidable multisampling instrument that takes full advantage of Live's agile audio engine. It has been designed from the start to handle multi-gigabyte instrument libraries with ease, and it imports most common library formats.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 21.3.1 281 Multisampling Before going on, let's introduce the concept of multisampling. This technique is used to accurately capture the complexity of instruments that produce dynamic timbral changes. Rather than rely on the simple transposition of a single recorded sample, multisampling captures an instrument at multiple points within its critical sonic range.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 282 Mounting AKAI Multisample CDs To import multisamples from AKAI-formatted CD-ROMs, you rst have to mount the CDROM so that Live can see its contents. This is only necessary because the legacy AKAI CD format cannot be processed by the operating system like standard CD-ROM formats, which are mounted automatically upon inserting and can be browsed as usual with Live's File Browser. Here are the steps: 1. Insert the AKAI-formatted sample CD. 2.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 21.3.3 283 The Zone Tab The Key Zone Editor. Clicking on the Zone tab toggles the display of Sampler's Zone Editor, which offers a handson interface for mapping any number of samples across key and velocity ranges. The Zone Editor opens in its own dedicated view, directly above the Track View. When used in conjunction with Sampler's other tabs, this layout greatly accelerates the creation and editing of multisamples.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 284 The Sample Layer List All samples contained in the currently loaded multisample are listed here, with each sample given its own layer. For very large multisamples, this list might be hundreds of layers long! Fortunately, layers can be descriptively named (according to their root key, for example). Selecting any layer will load its sample into the Sample tab for examination. Key Zones Key zones de ne the range of MIDI notes over which each sample will play.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 285 The Velocity Zone Editor, when toggled, replaces the Key Zone Editor alongside the sample layer list. Velocity is measured on a scale of 1-127, and this number range appears across the top of the editor. The functionality of the Velocity Zone Editor is otherwise identical to that of the Key Zone Editor. 21.3.4 The Sample Tab The Sample Tab. The playback characteristics of individual samples are set within the Sample tab.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 286 Sample Displays the name of the current sample layer, and can be used to quickly select from among the sample layers of the loaded multisample. Root Key (RootKey) De nes the root key of the current sample. Detune The sample tuning can be adjusted here by +/- 50 cents. Volume A wide-range volume control, variable from full attenuation to a gain of +24 dB. Pan Samples can be individually panned anywhere in the stereo panorama.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 287 Sustain Loop Enabled Playback proceeds linearly until Loop End is reached, when it jumps immediately to Loop Start and continues looping. If Release Mode is OFF, looping will continue inside the Sustain Loop until the volume envelope has completed its release stage. Back-and-Forth Sustain Loop Enabled Playback proceeds to Loop End, then reverses until it reaches Loop Start, then proceeds again towards Loop End.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 288 demands on your CPU. RAM Mode (RAM) This is also a global control that loads the entire multisample into RAM. This mode can give better performance when modulating start and end points, but loading large multisamples into RAM will quickly leave your computer short of RAM for other tasks. In any case, it is always recommended to have as much RAM in your computer as possible, as this can provide signi cant performance gains. 21.3.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 21.3.6 289 The Filter/Global Tab The Filter/Global Tab. The Filter Sampler features a polyphonic lter with an optional integrated waveshaper. The Morph lter types can morph continuously from lowpass to bandpass to highpass to notch and back to lowpass. Naturally, lter morphs can be automated. Classic 24 dB lowpass, bandpass and highpass modes supplement the morphable lter's 12 dB and 24 dB modes.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 21.3.7 290 The Modulation Tab The Modulation Tab. The Modulation tab offers an additional loopable envelope, plus three LFOs, all capable of modulating multiple parameters, including themselves. Each LFO can be free running, or synced to the Live Set's tempo, and LFOs 2 and 3 can produce stereo modulation effects. LFO Attack (Attack) This is the time needed for the LFO to reach maximum intensity.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 21.3.8 291 The MIDI Tab The MIDI Tab. The MIDI tab's parameters turn Sampler into a dynamic performance instrument. The fundamental MIDI controllers Key, Velocity, Release Velocity, Channel Pressure and Pitch Bend can be mapped to two destinations each, with varying degrees of in uence. 21.4 Simpler The Simpler Instrument. Simpler is an instrument that integrates the basic elements of a sampler with a set of classic synthesizer parameters.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 292 title bar and choosing the Simpler -> Sampler command. 21.4.1 Sample View The Sample View displays the sample waveform. Samples can be dragged into Simpler either directly from the Browser, or from the Session or Arrangement View in the form of clips. In the latter case, Simpler will utilize only the section of the sample demarcated by the clip's start/end or loop markers.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 293 points in the sample (points where the amplitude is zero). Note: Snapping is based on the left channel of stereo samples. It is therefore still possible, even with Snap activated, to encounter glitches with stereo samples. The transition from loop end to loop start can be smoothed with the Fade control, which crossfades the two points. This method is especially useful when working with long, textural samples. 21.4.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 294 the typical synth controls Frequency and Resonance. Frequency determines where in the harmonic spectrum the lter is applied; Resonance boosts frequencies near that point. The best way to understand the effects of these controls is simply to play with them! The Frequency parameter can be modulated by an LFO, note velocity and an envelope each of which have an amount control in the Filter section.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 295 Tip: Whether or not spread is applied to a particular note depends upon the setting of the Spread parameter during the note-on event. To achieve special effects, you could, for instance, create a sequence where Spread is zero most of the time and turned on only for some notes. These notes will then play in stereo, while the others will play mono. 21.4.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 296 Use lter types that are less expensive when possible. A lter's cost correlates with the steepness of its slope LP24 is more expensive than LP12. Turn off the LFO for a slightly positive in uence on CPU. Stereo samples need signi cantly more CPU than mono samples, as they require twice the processing. Decrease the number of simultaneously allowed voices with the Voice control. 21.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 297 All of the EIC presets are conveniently mapped to Macro Controls for greater expression. 21.5.
298 Chapter 22 MIDI and Key Remote Control To liberate the musician from the mouse, most of Live's controls can be remote-controlled with an external MIDI controller and the computer keyboard. This chapter describes the details of mapping to the following speci c types of controls in Live's user interface: 1. Session View slots Note that MIDI and computer key assignments are bound to the slots, not to the clips they contain. 2.
CHAPTER 22. MIDI AND KEY REMOTE CONTROL 22.1 299 MIDI Remote Control Live can be controlled remotely by external MIDI control surfaces, such as MIDI keyboards or controller boxes. Live also supports the Mackie Control, a topic that is covered in its own section, for completely mouse-free program operation.
CHAPTER 22. MIDI AND KEY REMOTE CONTROL listed here, don't fret Surface Support. 300 it can still be enabled manually in the next section, Manual Control Depending on the controller, Live may need to perform a preset dump to complete the setup. If this is the case, the Dump button to the right of your control surface's choosers in the Live Preferences will become enabled. Before pressing it, verify that your control surface is ready to receive preset dumps.
CHAPTER 22. MIDI AND KEY REMOTE CONTROL 301 Control Surfaces Can Follow Device Selection. In addition to following device selection, natively supported control surfaces can be locked to speci c devices, guaranteeing hands-on access no matter where the current focus is in your Live Set. To enable or disable locking, (PC) / Ctrl (Mac) on a device's title bar, and then select your preferred controller from the Lock to... context menu.
CHAPTER 22. MIDI AND KEY REMOTE CONTROL 22.1.2 302 Manual Control Surface Setup If your MIDI control surface is not listed in the MIDI/Sync Preferences' Control Surface chooser, it can still be enabled for manual mapping in the MIDI Ports section of this tab. De ning Control Surfaces Manually. The MIDI Ports table lists all available MIDI input and output ports. To use an input port for remote control of Live, make sure the corresponding switch in its Remote column is set to On.
CHAPTER 22. MIDI AND KEY REMOTE CONTROL 22.1.3 303 Takeover Mode MIDI Controller Takeover Mode. When MIDI controls that send absolute values (such as faders) are used in a bank-switching setup, where they address a different destination parameter with each controller bank, you will need to decide how Live should handle the sudden jumps in values that will occur when moving a control for the rst time after switching the bank.
CHAPTER 22. MIDI AND KEY REMOTE CONTROL 22.2 304 The Mapping Browser The Mapping Browser and Selector. All manual MIDI, computer keyboard and Macro Control mappings are managed by the Mapping Browser. The Mapping Browser is hidden until one of the three mapping modes is enabled. It will then display all mappings for the current mode. For each mapping, it lists the control element, the path to the mapped parameter, the parameter's name, and the mapping's Min and Max value ranges.
CHAPTER 22. MIDI AND KEY REMOTE CONTROL 22.2.1 305 Assigning MIDI Remote Control The MIDI Map Mode Switch. Once your remote control setup has been de ned in the MIDI/Sync Preferences, giving MIDI controllers and notes remote control assignments is simple: 1. Enter MIDI Map Mode by pressing the MIDI switch in Live's upper right-hand corner. Notice that assignable elements of the interface become highlighted in blue, and that the Mapping Browser becomes available.
CHAPTER 22. MIDI AND KEY REMOTE CONTROL 306 note is assigned a discrete value, equally spaced over the parameter's range of values. Hint: Session View slots can be assigned to a MIDI note range for chromatic playing: First play the root key (this is the key that will play the clip at its default transposition), and then, while holding down the root key, hold one key below the root and one above it to de ne the limits of the range. 22.2.
307 CHAPTER 22. MIDI AND KEY REMOTE CONTROL 22.2.4 Mapping to Relative MIDI Controllers Some MIDI controllers can send value increment and value decrement messages instead of absolute values. These controls prevent parameter jumps when the state of a control in Live and the corresponding control on the hardware MIDI controller differ. For example, imagine that you have assigned the pan knob on your control surface to the pan parameter of a track in Live.
308 CHAPTER 22. MIDI AND KEY REMOTE CONTROL available option. Decrement messages make it jump backward. Continuous Controls Each type of relative MIDI controller uses a different interpretation of the 0...127 MIDI controller value range to identify value increments and decrements: Please consult the documentation that came with your MIDI controller if you need further information on relative MIDI controllers.
CHAPTER 22. MIDI AND KEY REMOTE CONTROL 309 Mapping to Clip View Controls The Clip View displays the settings for whichever clip happens to be currently selected, but it will also display the settings of multi-selected clips. To avoid unpleasant musical surprises, it is important to remember that creating remote control mappings for any control in the Clip View interface could potentially affect any clip in the Live Set.
CHAPTER 22. MIDI AND KEY REMOTE CONTROL 310 Keys assigned to switches will toggle switch states. Keys assigned to radio buttons will toggle through the available options. Please be sure not to confuse this remote control functionality with Live's ability to use the computer keyboard as a pseudo-MIDI keyboard that can generate MIDI notes from computer keystrokes for use with instruments. 22.
CHAPTER 22. MIDI AND KEY REMOTE CONTROL 22.3.1 311 Channel Strips The Eight Channel Strips and the Master Strip. The Mackie Control's eight channel strips and master strip are automatically assigned to tracks in Live. Each of these strips has a set of track controls, including a motorized fader and a V-Pot, for controlling any number of track parameters. The Mackie Control's bank/channel controls allow reassigning the channel strips to access an unlimited number of Live tracks.
CHAPTER 22. MIDI AND KEY REMOTE CONTROL 1. Arm By default, this arms the track for recording in exclusion of all other tracks. To arm the track nonexclusively (i.e., in addition to other tracks), hold down the Mackie Control's Control button while pressing this. Note that a Misc Preference setting in Live allows deactivating exclusive track arming. When this setting is deactivated, the behavior of this knob with respect to exclusive and nonexclusive arming is reversed. 2.
CHAPTER 22. MIDI AND KEY REMOTE CONTROL 22.3.2 313 V-Pots and Assignment Switches The V-Pots and Assignment Switches. The Mackie Control's V-Pots have dual functionality in many cases, as they can be both rotated and pressed. When being used to adjust single parameters (those belonging to track devices, for example), pressing a V-Pot returns a control to its default value.
CHAPTER 22. MIDI AND KEY REMOTE CONTROL 314 switch) pressing a V-Pot toggles the options. There are six assignment switches to the right of the channel strips on the Mackie Control. These select which parameters are displayed in the main display, and set these parameters to be available for control with the V-Pots. The two-character display above the assignment switches shows the currently selected assignment mode. 1. I/O Switches the V-Pot and main display to I/O mode.
CHAPTER 22. MIDI AND KEY REMOTE CONTROL 22.3.3 315 Bank/Channel and Flip/Return Bank, Channel, Flip and Return Buttons. 1. Bank If more than eight tracks are being used in Live, these buttons can be used to page through the additional tracks and set them to the Mackie Control's eight channel strips. The bank + and - buttons page the channel strips in increments of eight (or more, if a fader extension is installed) to the right or left, respectively.
CHAPTER 22. MIDI AND KEY REMOTE CONTROL button while pressing these. 2. Channel You can use the channel + and - buttons to scroll through the additional tracks singly, setting them to the Mackie Control's eight channel strips. To go to the rst/last track, hold down the Mackie Control's Shift button while pressing these. 3. Flip When ip mode is enabled (as shown by the illuminated LED above the button), the functionality of the V-Pots and faders is switched.
CHAPTER 22. MIDI AND KEY REMOTE CONTROL 22.3.4 317 Transport The Transport Controls. 1. Previous/Next Locator Using these buttons, you can skip forward or backward through the Arrangement from locator to locator. Note that the Arrangement start and end are also marked with invisible locators to which you can navigate using these buttons. The LEDs above these buttons are illuminated when a previous/next locator is available in the respective direction.
CHAPTER 22. MIDI AND KEY REMOTE CONTROL 2. Loop On/Off Toggles the Arrangement Loop switch on/off. 3. Punch-In/Punch-Out 4. Home 5. End Toggles Live's Punch-In/Punch-Out switches on/off. Jumps to the Arrangement start, 1.1.1. Jumps to the Arrangement end. 6. Rew/Forw When pressed once, these buttons will move the play position one beat backward/forward. When held down, the buttons move forward/backward in increments of one bar during Arrangement playback, one beat if the Arrangement is stopped.
CHAPTER 22. MIDI AND KEY REMOTE CONTROL Control's Options button while pressing this. 12. Jog Wheel In the Session View, the jog wheel scrolls through the scenes. In the Arrangement View, the jog wheel moves the play position. To change global quantization, hold down the Mackie Control's Control button while turning the jog wheel. You can also use the Mackie Control's Alt button in the Arrangement View to move the play position in smaller increments.
CHAPTER 22. MIDI AND KEY REMOTE CONTROL 22.3.5 320 Software-Speci c Controls The Software-Speci c Controls. 1. Shift, Option, Control, Alt Used to access additional Mackie Control options. 2. SMPTE/Beats display. Toggles between displaying beats/bars and SMPTE in the time 3. Name/Value Switches the meters in the main display on/off.
CHAPTER 22. MIDI AND KEY REMOTE CONTROL meters appear only when pan assignment mode is active. 4. F-Keys These keys can be mapped freely to controls in Live. 5. ViewArr (On) Toggles Arrangement View and Session View. When the Mackie Control's Shift key is held down, this sets the program focus to the Arrangement View or Session View, whichever is currently on screen. 6. ToggleDetail (Rec/Rdy) Toggles Clip View and Track View.
322 Chapter 23 Computer Audio Resources and Strategies Real-time audio processing is a demanding task for general-purpose computers, which are usually designed to run spreadsheets and surf the Internet. An application like Live requires a powerful CPU and a fast hard disk. This section will provide some insight on these issues, and should help you avoid and solve problems with running audio on a computer. 23.
CHAPTER 23. COMPUTER AUDIO RESOURCES AND STRATEGIES 323 Fortunately, Live supports multicore and multiprocessor systems, allowing the processing load from things like instruments, effects and I/O to be distributed among the available resources. Depending on the machine and the Live Set, the available processing power can be several times that of older systems. If you are working on a multicore or multiprocessor system, you will want to enable support for it in the CPU tab of Live's Preferences.
CHAPTER 23. COMPUTER AUDIO RESOURCES AND STRATEGIES 23.1.2 324 CPU Load from Tracks and Devices Generally, every track and device being used in Live incurs some amount of CPU load. However, Live is smart and avoids wasting CPU cycles on tracks and devices that do not contribute anything useful. For example, dragging devices into a Live Set that is not running does not signi cantly increase the CPU load. The load increases only as you start playing clips or feed audio into the effects.
CHAPTER 23. COMPUTER AUDIO RESOURCES AND STRATEGIES 325 Reduce the amount of audio channels being written by choosing mono inputs instead of stereo inputs in the Audio Preferences' Channel Con guration dialog. Use RAM Mode for selected clips. Reduce the number of audio channels playing by using mono samples instead of stereo samples when possible. You can convert stereo samples to mono using any standard digital audio editing program, which can be called up from within Live.
326 Chapter 24 Live Keyboard Shortcuts 24.
327 CHAPTER 24. LIVE KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS Windows Hide/Show Crossfader Open the Preferences Close Window/Dialog Ctrl Alt Ctrl , Macintosh Alt F F , Esc Esc 24.2 Accessing Menus Under Windows, you can access each menu by pressing Alt and the rst letter of the F for File, for instance). While a menu is open, you can use: menu ( Alt to navigate the menu items; to open the neighboring menu; Return 24.3 to choose a menu item.
328 CHAPTER 24. LIVE KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS 24.4 Browsing In addition to the shortcuts shown here, editing shortcuts can also be used in the Browser. Windows Scroll Up/Down Open/Close Folders Set Selected Folder as Browser Root Load Selected Item from Browser Macintosh Return Return or Double- Return Click Preview Selected File Activate Browser Search Mode Jump to Search Results or Double- Return Click Return Ctrl Return F F 24.
329 CHAPTER 24. LIVE KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS 24.
330 CHAPTER 24. LIVE KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS 24.7 Loop Brace and Start/End Markers The loop brace and start/end markers must rst be selected before any of the following commands will apply to them. Move Start Marker to Position Nudge Loop Left/Right Move Loop By Loop Length Double/Halve Loop Length Shorten/Lengthen Loop Select Material in Loop Windows Click Macintosh Click Ctrl Ctrl Click Loop Brace or Ctrl Click Loop Brace or L L 24.8 Session View Commands See also the editing commands.
331 CHAPTER 24. LIVE KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS 24.9 Arrangement View Commands The shortcuts for zooming, snapping/drawing and loop/region settings also work in the Arrangement View. See also the editing commands. Windows Split Clip at Selection Consolidate Selection into Clip Loop Selection Insert Silence Pan Left/Right of Selection Unfold all Tracks Scroll Display to Follow Playback 24.
332 CHAPTER 24. LIVE KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS 24.11 Commands for Breakpoint Envelopes The shortcuts for zooming, snapping/drawing and loop/region settings also work in the Envelope Editor and Arrangement View. See also the editing commands. Windows Finer Resolution for Dragging Enable Dragging Over Breakpoints 24.
333 CHAPTER 24. LIVE KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS 24.13 Zooming, Display and Selections Windows Zoom In Zoom Out Drag/Click to Append to a Selection Click to Add Adjacent Clips to Multi-Selection Click to Add Nonadjacent Clips to a Multi-Selection Follow (Auto-Scroll) Pan Left/Right of Selection 24.14 Macintosh + + - - Ctrl Ctrl F F Ctrl Alt Alt Clip View Sample Display The shortcuts for zooming and loop/region settings also work in the Sample Display.
334 CHAPTER 24. LIVE KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS 24.15 Clip View MIDI Editor The shortcuts for zooming, snapping/drawing and loop/region settings also work in the MIDI Editor. Windows Quantize Scroll Editor Vertically Scroll Editor Horizontally Copy Note Change Velocity From Note Editor Add/Delete Note in Edit Mode Scroll Display to Follow Playback Move Clip Region with Start Marker 24.
335 CHAPTER 24. LIVE KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS 24.17 Global Quantization Windows Sixteenth-Note Quantization Eighth-Note Quantization Quarter-Note Quantization 1-Bar Quantization Quantization Off 24.18 Ctrl Macintosh 6 6 Ctrl 7 7 Ctrl 8 8 Ctrl 9 9 Ctrl 0 0 Working with Sets and the Program Windows New Live Set Open Live Set Close Live Set Save Live Set Save Live Set As...
336 CHAPTER 24. LIVE KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS 24.19 Working with Plug-Ins and Devices Windows Show/Hide Plug-In Windows Open Second/Multiple Windows with Plug-In Edit Button Open Mac Keystroke Plug-In Window with Plug-In Edit Button Group/Ungroup Devices Activate/Deactivate All Devices in Group Click to Append Devices to a Selected Device Load Selected Device From Browser Ctrl P P Ctrl Ctrl G Alt Device Activa- G tor Return Click 24.
337 Chapter 25 Index
338 Index A Ableton e-mail addresses sales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15 technical support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 web addresses registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 unlocking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 webshop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Adaptive Grid options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Add/Remove Stop Button command . 87 analysis les . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
INDEX editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202 overriding/reactivating . . . . . . . . . 200 recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 Automation Control chooser . . . . . . . . 201 Automation Device chooser . . . . . . . . . 201 B Back to Arrangement button 20, 89, 200 Beat Repeat effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220 beat-time ruler and Arrangement editing . . . . . . . . 70 and editing envelopes . . . . . . . . . . 214 and editing MIDI . . . . . . . . . .
340 INDEX adding fades to . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 arranging/editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 as templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212 audio clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 clip multi-selections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 deactivating/muting . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 editing MIDI notes/velocities . . . 125 importing from les . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 in Arrangement View . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 in audio/MIDI tracks . . . . . . . . .
341 INDEX Detune eld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 Device Activator switch . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 Device chooser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . see Automation Device chooser, see Clip Envelope Device chooser devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 presets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184 the Live audio effects . . . . . . . . . . . 217 the Live instruments . . . . . . . . . . . . 260 the Live MIDI effects . . .
342 INDEX G Gate effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233 Gate Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 Global Quantization chooser . . . . . . . . . 29 and Session recording . . . . . . . . . . 172 Grain Delay effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234 Grain Flux eld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 Grain Size eld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 Grain Size knob . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
343 INDEX Legato Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 lessons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32, 59 migrating from Live 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Library Path preference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Link/Unlink Envelope switch . . . . . . . . . 214 Live Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49 Live Device Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
344 INDEX editing velocities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 loop/region settings for . . . . . . . . .130 MIDI note stretch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 rearranging notes in . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 MIDI effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . see devices MIDI les . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 MIDI interface setup . . . . . . . . . see routing MIDI Map Mode switch . . . . . . . . . . . . .
345 INDEX pencil tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . see Draw Mode Phaser effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236 Ping Pong Delay effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Pitch Bend quick-chooser button . . . . see quick-chooser buttons Pitch effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255 Play button . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 plug-ins, using . . . . . . . . . . . . . . see devices Plug-In Buffer Size preference . . . . . . .
INDEX Repeat Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 resampling . . . . . . . . . . . 147, see recording Rescan Plug-Ins preference . . . . . . . . . . 187 Resonators effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239 return tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25, 163 Reverb effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .241 Diffusion Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242 Early Re ections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241 Global Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
347 INDEX in the Arrangement View . . . . . . . . .71 in the Clip View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .102 Search button . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Search In Folder command . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Search In Metadata option . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Search In Path option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38 searching in the File Browser . . . . . . . . . 37 rescan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Select Loop command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
348 INDEX automating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204 MIDI mapping ranges . . . . . . . . . . 205 setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .111 tapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .112 Tempo eld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99, 111 Temporary Folder preference . . . . . . . .177 Texture Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 Toggle Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 Tones Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
INDEX Sends option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25, 160 view selector buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 views, working with . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . see View menu commands, see view selector buttons Vinyl Distortion effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247 Volume control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 Volume quick-chooser button . . . . . . . see quick-chooser buttons VST Plug-ins, using . . . . . . . . . . see devices VST Plug-In Custom Folder button . .
