Ableton Reference Manual Version 8
Live Version 8.
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...
CHAPTER 1. WELCOME TO LIVE 1.2 1.2.1 2 What's New in Live 8? New Warping Engine Live's warping engine has been dramatically overhauled, with more accurate transient detection and a redesigned interface that allows you to drag the waveform along a xed timeline. New transient loop and envelope controls in Beats Mode allow for higher quality warping, especially at slower tempos. New Complex Pro Mode for even higher quality warping.
CHAPTER 1. WELCOME TO LIVE 3 Live's interface can be magni ed to maximize visibility via the Zoom Display slider. A Preview Tab in the Browser provides a visual overview of the previewed le's contents, and allows you to scrub in the waveform or MIDI display. When multiple tracks are selected, adjusting one of their mixer or routing parameters will adjust the same parameter in the other selected tracks. 1.2.
CHAPTER 1. WELCOME TO LIVE 1.2.5 4 New Library Live's Library is now stocked with a large collection of new creative tools including numerous device presets, loops and samples, construction kits and template Sets. 1.2.6 Controllers Support for the APC40, APC20 and Novation Launchpad, which are dedicated controllers for Ableton Live. 1.2.7 More Improvements Macro Controls now automatically show the name and units of their mapped parameter whenever possible.
5 Chapter 2 First Steps When you install Live and run it for the rst time, you will be presented with an authorization dialog. Please see the chapter on authorizing Live should you have questions or concerns during the authorization process. If you do not (yet) own Live, you can still try out all of Live's features, but you will not be able to save or export your work. 2.1 Learn About Live Live comes with a set of interactive lessons to take you step by step through the key features of the program.
CHAPTER 2. FIRST STEPS 2.1.1 6 Using the Info View and Index Live's Info View tells you the name and function of whatever you place the mouse over. For certain items, you can create your own text and it will appear in this window. The Info View and its Show/Hide Button. If you require more information on a speci c user interface element or topic, please consult this reference manual.
CHAPTER 2. FIRST STEPS 7 text display and the color scheme, or skin, for the Live user interface. This is also where you can adjust the size of objects displayed on the screen: the Zoom Display slider allows you to zoom Live's screen to any percentage between 50% and 200% of the standard interface size. The Audio Preferences are used to set up Live's audio connections with the outside world via an audio interface.
CHAPTER 2. FIRST STEPS 2.3 8 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, which is the type of document that you create and work on in Live. Since screen space is usually limited, the Live views can't all be displayed at the same time.
CHAPTER 2. FIRST STEPS 9 Adjusting the Main Window Split.
10 Chapter 3 Authorizing 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. AUTHORIZING LIVE 3.1 3.1.1 11 Copy Protection FAQs Can I Use Live or Other Ableton Products Without a Serial Number? If you do not (yet) own Live or its add-on products, you can still try them out, but saving and exporting will be disabled. If trying Live or another product raises your interest in purchasing it, please visit the Ableton webshop1 . This site contains information about Ableton's distributor and dealer network. It also offers you the opportunity to buy Ableton products online.
CHAPTER 3. AUTHORIZING LIVE 12 To use Live on more than one computer at a time, you may require a secondary license or a site license. Ableton offers these licenses at special rates. 3.1.4 Can I Play my Set from a Computer That Is Not Authorized? Even if Live is not authorized, you can still load and perform a Live Set with no time limitation. You cannot, however, save or export your work. When you go on tour, consider taking along your Live program CD and a CD with the last state of your Live Set(s).
13 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 14 Selecting the Library bookmark in Live's File Browser will take you to the Live Library of creative tools. Depending on what content you have installed, there may be 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 15 The Arrangement View and the Session View interact in useful 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. A Track in the Arrangement View.
CHAPTER 4. LIVE CONCEPTS 16 The exclusivity of clips in a track also implies that, at any one 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 17 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. 4.5 Audio Clips and Samples An audio clip contains a reference to a sample (also known as a sound le or audio le ) or a compressed sample (such as an MP3 le).
CHAPTER 4. LIVE CONCEPTS 18 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 19 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 20 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.
CHAPTER 4. LIVE CONCEPTS 21 available from the Plug-In Device Browser. 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.
CHAPTER 4. LIVE CONCEPTS 22 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 23 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, Drum and Effect Racks allow saving combinations of devices and their settings as a single preset.
CHAPTER 4. LIVE CONCEPTS 24 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, to other programs that are connected to Live via ReWire or to other tracks or devices within Live. Tracks can also be combined into a Group Track which serves as a submixer for the selected tracks.
CHAPTER 4. LIVE CONCEPTS 25 Track Arm Buttons, as They Appear in the Session View. It is also possible to record into Session View slots on the y. This technique is very useful for the jamming musician, as Session recording does not require stopping the music. When a track is armed, its Session slots exhibit Clip Record buttons, and clicking one of these commences recording. Clicking the Clip Record button again de nes the end of the recording and launches the new clip.
CHAPTER 4. LIVE CONCEPTS 26 The Automated Pan Control and its Envelope. Practically all mixer and effect controls in Live can be automated, even the song tempo. Creating automation is straightforward: All changes of a control that occur while the Control Bar's Record switch is on become automation.
CHAPTER 4. LIVE CONCEPTS 27 An Envelope for Clip Transposition. 4.13 MIDI and Key Remote To liberate the musician from the mouse, most of Live's controls can be remote-controlled via an external MIDI controller. Remote mappings are established in MIDI Map Mode, which is engaged by pressing the MIDI switch in the Control Bar.
CHAPTER 4. LIVE CONCEPTS 4.14 28 Saving and Exporting Saving a Live Set saves everything it contains, including all clips, their positions and settings, and settings for devices and controls. An audio clip can, however, lose the reference to its corresponding sample if it is moved or deleted from disk. The links between samples and their clips can be preserved with a special command, Collect and Save, which makes a copy of each sample and stores it in a project folder along with the Live Set.
CHAPTER 4. LIVE CONCEPTS 29 MIDI sequences with matching instruments and effects, e.g., a MIDI drum pattern with the associated Impulse and effects settings; Different regions or loops referencing the same source le; Variations of a sample loop created by applying Warp Markers, clip envelopes and effects; Ideas that may not t your current project but could be useful in the future. 4.15 The Library The Live Library acts as a repository of sounds that are available to all projects.
CHAPTER 4. LIVE CONCEPTS 30 enjoy the Essential Instrument Collection 2, a multi-gigabyte library of meticulously sampled and selected instruments.
31 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 32 The File Browser Selector Buttons. Each Browser can point to a different disk location, which Live will remember across sessions. The Browser display is divided into columns corresponding to Name , Date, Live Pack, 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.
33 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 via the (PC) / (Mac) context menu, by double-clicking the folder, or by selecting it and pressing Ctrl Return . A Folder in the Browser.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 34 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 35 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.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 36 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. You can go back to the Browser's folder view at any time by closing the search eld.
37 CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS The Rotating Ring Means That a Search is in Progress. For mouse-free searching, we suggest the following sequence of shortcuts: 1) Ctrl F (PC) / F (Mac) to open the search eld; 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.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 38 The Preview Switch. Hint: You can preview les even when the Preview switch is not activated by pressing Return or . Click on a sample le (or use and ) to select it. Click in the Tab's scrub area to make playback jump to that point. (Note that it is not possible to scrub clips that have been saved with Warp turned off.) You can also select Live Clips in the Browser to load them into the Preview Tab, but they will not play automatically.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 39 To learn how to set up Live for cueing, please refer to the relevant section of the Mixing chapter. 5.1.5 Adding Clips from the Browser There are several ways to add clips to a Live Set: Files can be dragged and dropped from the File Browsers into tracks in the Session or Arrangement View.
40 CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS Rename les and folders using the Edit menu's Rename command or the R (Mac) shortcut. Cancel renaming with the Esc (PC) / key. Create folders by opening the context menu with selecting the Create Folder command. (PC) / Ctrl Ctrl R (Mac), and then Delete les and folders using the Edit menu's Delete command or your computer's or Delete key.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 41 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 click on the le's HotSwap icon to load it. The link between the Browser and the instrument will be broken if a different view is selected, or if the Hot-Swap button is pressed again.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 5.2 42 Sample Files A sample is a le that contains audio data. Live can play both uncompressed le formats (WAV, AIF, REX and Sound Designer II for Mac) and compressed le formats (MP3, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, Ogg FLAC and FLAC). 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 .
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 43 Preferences for the Decoding and Web Cache. 5.2.2 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.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 44 The analysis le's name is the same as that of the associated sample, with an added .asd extension. Live puts this analysis le in the same folder as the sample. Samples that have an .asd le are displayed like this in the Browser. Samples without an .asd le look like this. The analysis les themselves do not appear in Live's Browsers. Note that you can suppress the creation of .asd les by turning off the Create Analysis Files option in the File/Folder Preferences.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 45 Which Signal Will Be Rendered? The Rendered Track Chooser. The Export dialog's Rendered Track chooser offers several options for which audio signal to render: Master the post-fader signal at Live's Master output. If you are monitoring the Master output, you can be sure that the rendered le will contain exactly what you hear. All tracks the post-fader signal at the output of each individual track, including return tracks and MIDI tracks with instruments.
46 CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS Audio Rendering Options Audio Rendering Options. The Export dialog offers several audio 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 47 created. Convert to Mono le. If this is activated, Live will create a mono le instead of a stereo Dither Options If you are rendering at a bit depth lower than 32-bit, choose one of the dither modes. Dithering adds a small amount of noise to rendered audio, but minimizes artifacts when reducing the bit depth. By default, Triangular is selected, which is the safest mode to use if there is any possibility of doing additional processing on your le.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 48 Waiting for External Devices to Become Silent. Skip By default, Live will wait for ten seconds before starting a real-time render. This should allow any sound from external devices to fade out, but if you need more time (for example, if you're waiting for a long reverb tail), you can increase the wait time by typing a new number in the number box.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 49 Rendering Video Video Rendering Options. In addition to settings for audio rendering, the Export dialog provides additional options for rendering video: Create Video File If this is activated, a video le will be created in the same directory as your rendered audio. Note that this option is only enabled if you have video clips in the Arrangement View.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 50 For more information about working with video in Live, see the chapter on video. 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 51 Live Clips Individual clips can be exported to disk in the Live Clip format for easy retrieval and reuse in any project. Because they only contain references to samples on disk (rather than the audio data itself), Live Clips are very small, which makes it easy to develop and maintain your own collection. To save a clip from the open Live Set to disk, simply drag it to the File Browser and drop it into any folder.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 52 could create a number of variations from the same audio clip by using different warp, pitch, envelope and effect settings, and store them all as separate Live Clips. In the Browser, you could then independently sort and preview these clips, even though they are all referring to 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. Think of this as a single song.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 53 Session View Drop Area for Importing Live Sets. 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 Contents. You can now drag the individual tracks and drop them as described at the beginning of this section. Any grooves that were saved with your Set are also available as a folder within the unfolded Set.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 54 Revealing the Session View Clips Contained in a Set. 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 55 Template.als. In addition to the template Set that loads by default, the Live Library contains a folder called Templates. This is a collection of Sets with pre-con gured tracks and routing con gurations for a variety of common recording scenarios. 5.5.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 56 Edit a referenced sample using an external application (which can be chosen in the Preferences' File/Folder tab). Clicking the Edit button will open the referenced sample in the external application. The sample will remain of ine as long as the Edit switch is engaged. For samples used in audio clips, the current set of Warp Markers is retained only if the sample length remains the same as before.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 57 When you save a Live Set under a new name or in a new folder location, Live will create a new project folder and store the Live Set there unless you are saving the Live Set into an existing Live Project. Let's look at an example to illustrate this process: We have recorded some audio into a new Live Set. We now save the Live Set under the name Tango on the Desktop.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 58 A Second Version of the Live Set Has Been Added to the Project. The Tango Project now contains two Live Sets, and its Samples/Recorded folder contains the samples used by both of them. And now for something completely different: We choose the File menu's New command and record a samba tune. As this has nothing to do with our tango dabblings, we decide to save it outside the Tango Project folder, say on the Desktop.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 59 The piece evolves towards something entirely different, and we feel that it should live in a Project of its own. So, we Save As... under a new name and in some location outside the current Project, say the Desktop: 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.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 5.6.2 60 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 61 locating les that the Project is missing; collecting external les into the Project; listing unused les in the Project; 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 commonly used les, such as samples, clips and Live Device Presets, that are available to all Live Projects.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 62 A list of the currently installed Factory Live Packs is available from the Preferences' Library tab. Here you can select Live Packs from the list and click the Uninstall button to remove them. Multiple Live Packs can be selected and uninstalled at once. By default, the Live 8 Library contains the following sub-folders: Ableton Project Info contains les that Live uses to identify the Library and keep track of what Live Packs have been installed.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 5.7.1 63 Changing the Library Location, Upgrading an Old Library The Library can reside in the hard drive location of your choice. In the Preferences' Library tab, you will nd the Change Location button. The Change Location button. Clicking the Change Location button will allow you to create a new Library by pointing to an empty folder or creating a new one.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 64 To the right of the Change Location button is the Repair Library button. If you have modi ed your Library outside of Live, within another version of Live or on a different computer, or if you are missing some of the Ableton content, you can use this function to update the factory content and refresh the Library's metadata. Note that this may take some time. 5.7.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 65 The File Manager's List of Missing Files. 5.8.1 Manual Repair To manually x a broken le reference, locate the missing le 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 le you offer is really the le that was missing. 5.8.2 Automatic Repair Live offers a convenient automatic search function for repairing le references.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 66 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. For each missing le, the automatic search function may nd any number of candidates.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 5.9 67 Collecting External Files To prevent a Live Set from containing broken le references, Live provides the option of collecting (i.e., copying) them into the Set's project folder. This is accomplished via the File Manager: Choose the Manage Files command from the File menu Click the Manage Set button Unfold the triangular-shaped fold button in the External Files section. Options for Collecting External Files.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 68 A le count and the associated disk space used; A Show button that will list the les in the File Browser; A Yes/No toggle for engaging or disengaging collection. Note: Make sure to con rm your choices by clicking the File Manager's Collect and Save button! The File Manager's Collect and Save Button. The File menu's Collect All and Save command is a shortcut that collects and saves all external les referenced by the current Set, including those from the Library.
69 CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS The Library choose the Manage Files command from the File menu; then click the Manage Library button. The current Live Project choose the Manage Files command from the File menu; then click the Manage Project button. Any Live Project (PC) / Ctrl choose the Manage Project option.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 70 Manage Projects command, then see the Unused Files section. Live inspects each Project individually and labels a le unused even if another Projects in the same folder does use that le. To prevent losses, you may want to rst collect the les into their respective Projects and then purge the Projects of unused les. 5.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 5.13.2 71 How Can I Save Presets Into My Current Project? As long as you're working in a Project (meaning that you've saved your current Live Set), every device in the Device Browser will show a Current Project sub-folder. You can copy presets from other Browser locations to the current project by Ctrl (PC) / Alt (Mac)dragging them. You can also save presets directly to the current project by dragging from the device's title bar and dropping into the Current Project.
CHAPTER 5. MANAGING FILES AND SETS 5.13.6 72 Can I Use My Own Folder Structure Within a Project Folder? You can organize your les any way you want within a Project, but you'll need to use the File Manager to relink the les that you've moved around: 1) In Live's Browser or via your operating system, reorganize the les and folders within your Project folder. 2) Navigate to the Project folder in the Browser and choose Manage Project via the (PC) / Ctrl (Mac) context menu.
73 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, video and complete pieces of music.
74 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 75 and drag downwards to zoom in around that part. Note that you can also drag 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.
76 CHAPTER 6. ARRANGEMENT VIEW menu setting. While the mouse is held down over the scrub area, a portion of 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. When the Permanent Scrub Areas preference is off, you can still scrub by clicking anywhere in the scrub area or in the beat time ruler. - Scrubbing Arrangement Playback. 4.
CHAPTER 6. ARRANGEMENT VIEW 6.3 77 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 78 R (PC) / R (Mac) shortcut). You can also enter menu command (or use the Ctrl your own info text for a locator via the Edit Info Text command in the Edit menu or in the locator's (PC) / Ctrl (Mac) context menu. Locators can be removed with your computer's or Delete key, the Create 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.
CHAPTER 6. ARRANGEMENT VIEW 79 Any time signature with a one- or two-digit numerator and a denominator of 1, 2, 4, 8 or 16 can be used as a time signature marker value. The numbers must be separated by a delimiter such as a slash, comma, period, or any number of spaces. These marker values can also be set by adjusting the time signature elds in the Control Bar, either by typing in values or dragging the numerator and denominator sliders.
CHAPTER 6. ARRANGEMENT VIEW 80 changes the length of the entire Arrangement. If you import a MIDI le into the Arrangement, you'll be given an option to import any time signature information that was saved with the le. If you choose to do this, Live will automatically create time signature markers in the correct places. This makes it very easy to work with complex music created in other sequencer or notation software. 6.5 The Arrangement Loop The Control Bar's Loop Switch.
81 CHAPTER 6. ARRANGEMENT VIEW 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.
82 CHAPTER 6. ARRANGEMENT VIEW 6.7 Audio Clip Fades and Crossfades The beginning and end of audio clips in the Arrangement View have adjustable volume fades. Additionally, adjacent clips on the same audio track can be crossfaded. To access the fades for an audio track's clips: 1. Unfold the track by clicking the button next to the track name. 2. Select Fades in the Fades/Device chooser. 3. Click and drag the fade handle to change the length of the fade. 4.
CHAPTER 6. ARRANGEMENT VIEW 83 menu. Crossfaded Clips. Selecting a fade handle and pressing the Delete key deletes the fade, unless the Create Fades on Clip Edges option is enabled in the Record/Warp/Launch Preferences. In this case, pressing Delete returns the fade handle to a default length of 4 ms. With this option enabled, new clips in the Arrangement View will have these short declicking fades by default. Automatically Create Short Fades At Clip Edges.
CHAPTER 6. ARRANGEMENT VIEW 6.8 84 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. This editing method lends itself to an ef cient division of labor between the two hands: One hand operates the mouse or trackpad, while the other hand issues the keyboard shortcuts for the menu commands.
85 CHAPTER 6. ARRANGEMENT VIEW Holding while clicking extends an existing selection in the same track or across tracks. You can also hold and use the arrow keys to manipulate the selection. Clicking the Loop Brace to Select the Loop for Editing. 6.9 Using the Editing Grid To ease editing, the cursor will snap to grid lines that represent the meter subdivisions of the song tempo. The grid can be set to be either zoom-adaptive or xed.
CHAPTER 6. ARRANGEMENT VIEW 86 The current spacing between adjacent grid lines is displayed in the lower right corner of the Arrangement View or Clip View. You can hold down the Alt (PC) / (Mac) modi er while performing an action to bypass grid snapping. If the grid is already disabled, this modi er will temporarily enable it. 6.10 Using the ...Time Commands Whereas the standard commands like Cut, Copy and Paste only affect the current selection, their ...
CHAPTER 6. ARRANGEMENT VIEW 87 Insert Silence inserts as much empty time as is currently selected into the Arrangement, before the selection. 6.11 Splitting Clips The Split command can divide a clip or isolate part of it. To split a clip in two halves, do the following: 1. Unfold the track; 2. In the waveform or MIDI display, click at the position where you want the clip to be split; 3. Execute the Split command. To isolate a part of a clip, do the following: 1. Unfold the track; 2.
CHAPTER 6. ARRANGEMENT VIEW 88 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. Selecting that part of the Arrangement, for instance by using the Edit menu's Select Loop command, and then executing the Consolidate command creates a new clip that can be treated as a loop. You can now, for instance, drag the clip edges to create more repetitions.
89 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 90 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 91 Slots in Group Tracks show a shaded area to indicate that at least one of the contained tracks contains a clip at that location. The color of the shading is the color of the left-most clip in the group. These group slots also contain launch buttons which will launch all of the respective clips. Group slots which have no corresponding clips contain stop buttons. Clicking in any group slot selects all of the clips it refers to. The Arrangement Position Fields and the Stop Button.
CHAPTER 7. SESSION VIEW 92 A Scene in the Session View. The horizontal rows are called scenes. The Scene Launch buttons are located in the rightmost column, which represents the Master track. To launch every clip in a row simultaneously, click on the associated Scene Launch button. This can be very useful in organizing the live performance of a song with multiple parts.
CHAPTER 7. SESSION VIEW 93 Tempo and time signature changes can coexist within a single scene name, and can appear in any position as long as they are separated from each other by at least one character. For example, 2/4+108 BPM , 72 BPM;7/8 and 60 BPM Chorus 3/4 are all scene names that will cause simultaneous meter and tempo changes. These Scenes Will Change the Tempo and Time Signature. Scenes with tempo and/or time signature changes in their names will have a colored Scene Launch button. 7.
CHAPTER 7. SESSION VIEW 94 ... 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. If the track is playing clips from the Arrangement, a miniature display representing the Arrangement clips being played appears. 7.4 Setting Up the Session View Grid Clips arrive in the Session View by being imported from the File Browsers or through recording.
CHAPTER 7. SESSION VIEW 7.4.1 95 Select on Launch By default, clicking a Session View clip's Launch button also selects the clip, since you will typically want the Clip View to show the newly launched clip. However, some power-users don't want the current focus (e.g., a return track's devices) to disappear just because a clip has been launched, especially when starting a clip in order to try it with the return track device settings.
CHAPTER 7. SESSION VIEW 7.5 96 Recording Sessions into the Arrangement Your Session View playing can be recorded into the Arrangement, allowing for an improvisational approach to composing songs and scores. The Control Bar's Record Button.
CHAPTER 7. SESSION VIEW 97 Arrangement playback does not resume until you explicitly tell Live to resume by clicking the Back to Arrangement button, which lights up to remind you that what you hear differs from the Arrangement. The Stop All Clips Button. To disable all Arrangement clips simultaneously, click on the Stop All Clips button in the Master Track Status eld.
98 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 99 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 100 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 effects, mixer, and 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.
CHAPTER 8. CLIP VIEW 101 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 8.1 102 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.
CHAPTER 8. CLIP VIEW 8.1.3 103 Clip Signature Using the Clip Signature elds, you can specify the time signature of a MIDI or audio clip. This setting is relevant only for display; it does not affect playback. Please note that Clip Signature is completely separate from the project's time signature, and can be set independently for each clip. This makes it easy to create complex polymetric textures by simultaneously triggering clips with different meters and/or loop lengths. 8.1.
CHAPTER 8. CLIP VIEW 8.1.5 104 Clip Offset and Nudging To jump within a playing clip in increments the size of the global quantization period, you can use the Nudge buttons in the Clip box. Using the Nudge Buttons to Jump Through a Clip. These buttons can also be mapped to keys or MIDI controllers. In MIDI Map Mode, a scrub control will appear between the Nudge buttons and can be assigned to a rotary encoder wheel for continuous scrubbing. The Scrub Control in MIDI Map Mode.
CHAPTER 8. CLIP VIEW 8.2 8.2.1 105 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 8.2.2 106 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. When Warp is disabled, zooming and scrolling can be done anywhere in the Sample Display. When Warp is enabled, however, scrolling only happens in the beat-time ruler and the bottom half of the waveform.
CHAPTER 8. CLIP VIEW 107 To have the Sample Display follow the play position and scroll automatically, turn on the Follow switch, or use the Follow command from the Options menu. 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.
CHAPTER 8. CLIP VIEW 108 You can also adjust the clip start and end numerically using the respective value elds to the left of the Sample Display. For warped clips, these elds display values as bars-beatssixteenths; 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.
109 CHAPTER 8. CLIP VIEW cannot be looped. You can click and drag to change the position and length of the loop brace in the Sample Display, or you can type exact values into the Loop Length and Position elds to the left of the display. 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.
CHAPTER 8. CLIP VIEW 110 Setting the Clip to Run Into a Loop. The Loop Length and Position elds are equipped with Set buttons, which can be used to create loops spontaneously during playback: 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.
CHAPTER 8. CLIP VIEW 8.2.3 111 Clip Pitch and Gain The Clip Pitch and Gain Controls. The Transpose control shifts the clip pitch in semitones. The Detune eld ne-tunes the clip in cents (100 cents = one semitone). The Clip Gain slider, calibrated in dB, changes the clip gain. 8.2.4 Destructive Sample Editing The Launch Sample Editor Button. The Edit button opens the sample in an external sample editing application, which you can specify in the File/Folder Preferences.
CHAPTER 8. CLIP VIEW 8.2.5 112 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. With multiple clips selected, this button will save them all simultaneously. 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 113 this reason, we have provided a Legacy Hi-Q Mode option, which is enabled by default in the Options menu whenever you load an old Set that has Hi-Q enabled for any clips. Simply disable this option if you wish to use the new mode. 8.2.7 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.
CHAPTER 8. CLIP VIEW 8.2.8 114 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. RAM Mode can help with these problems: Your computer's hard disk is too slow to deliver audio for as many tracks as desired in real time. For more information on disk-related problems, please refer to Managing the Disk Load .
CHAPTER 8. CLIP VIEW 115 Processed/Reverse. Until the Set is saved, new samples remain at the location speci ed by the Temporary Folder. There are a few rules for the reversing process. First, any Warp Markers will remain xed to their positions in the sample. This means that a Warp Marker on the downbeat of the second bar of a clip will end up on the downbeat of the second-to-last bar after reversal. Clip loop/region settings are similarly ipped.
CHAPTER 8. CLIP VIEW 116 be retained. The Warp Markers will be retained only if the new sample has the exact same length as the old sample. The Sample Display's (PC) / Ctrl (Mac) context menu includes the Manage Sample File command. This opens the File Manager for the current Set with the sample referenced by the clip selected. From there, you can replace and destructively edit the sample, in such a way that all clips and instruments referencing the sample will be affected.
CHAPTER 8. CLIP VIEW 8.3.2 117 Bank and Program Change Live can send MIDI bank/program change messages to external devices and plug-ins that support MIDI program change messages. According to the settings in these controls, launching a clip also sends its bank/program change message. If you are using Live to send MIDI to your synth, this means that each MIDI clip in your Live Set can play a different sound on your synth.
118 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 119 in hundredths of a BPM allows for enough precision to adjust to live performers or other unsynchronized sources. You can have an external sequencer (or drum machine) play along with Live or have Live play along with the sequencer. The respective settings are made in the MIDI/Sync Preferences, and the EXT switch next to the tempo control is activated to have Live follow an external MIDI clock source. Please refer to the section on synchronization for details. 9.1.
CHAPTER 9. TEMPO CONTROL AND WARPING 120 Although Live can be easily synchronized to external MIDI devices, you may nd yourself in situations in which you need to adjust to sources that aren't locked to one tempo, such as live musicians or turntables. As long as your Set's tempo is basically the same as that of the unsynchronized material, you can use the Nudge buttons to temporarily speed up or slow down Live's playback to match what you hear.
CHAPTER 9. TEMPO CONTROL AND WARPING 121 Preferences. If the Auto-Warp Long Samples preference is on, Live assumes that long samples contain music that should be played in sync with the Live Set's tempo. If you would rather have Live default to playing long samples as they are, disengage this preference. 9.2.1 Tempo Master/Slave All warped clips in the Arrangement View have one further option: They can be de ned as tempo masters by toggling their Master/Slave switches.
CHAPTER 9. TEMPO CONTROL AND WARPING 122 Warp Markers are set in the Clip View's Sample Display by double-clicking within the sample. They can then be dragged or moved with the arrow keys to different points in time. Warp Markers can also be deleted by double-clicking them, or by pressing the computer keyboard's or Delete key after selecting them. Double-Clicking In the Sample Creates a Warp Marker. When working with your sample, you can have Live scroll the Sample Display to follow playback.
CHAPTER 9. TEMPO CONTROL AND WARPING 123 Transient Markers. As you mouse over transients, temporary pseudo Warp Markers appear. These have the same shape as regular Warp Markers, but they're grey. Double-clicking or dragging a pseudo Warp Marker creates an actual Warp Marker or, if there are no Warp Markers later in the clip, changes the tempo for the clip segment. Holding the Ctrl (PC) / (Mac) modi er while creating a Warp Marker on a transient also creates Warp Markers at the adjacent transients.
CHAPTER 9. TEMPO CONTROL AND WARPING 9.2.3 124 Using Warp Markers In the following sections, we will look at a couple of applications for time-warping samples. Warping is, of course, an optional property of clips. Syncing Straight Loops When you import a sample that represents a well-cut musical loop of 1,2,4 or 8 bars in length, Live usually makes the correct assumptions to play the loop in sync with the chosen tempo. It creates two Warp Markers, one at the sample's beginning and one at the end.
CHAPTER 9. TEMPO CONTROL AND WARPING 125 you can eliminate silence after the actual loop end by placing a Warp Marker at the sample's right edge. 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 marker at the end of the sample needs to be at the beginning of bar eight, not bar nine.
CHAPTER 9. TEMPO CONTROL AND WARPING 126 If a single event in a percussion loop comes late, just pin a Warp Marker to it and drag the marker to the correct beat position. You may want to pin the adjacent events as well, to avoid affecting neighboring regions in the sample. Using Warp Markers to Manipulate the Groove.
CHAPTER 9. TEMPO CONTROL AND WARPING 127 Auto-Warp's Results in the Clip View. As long as Auto-Warp made the correct set of informed guesses, the clip will be ready to play in perfect sync with the Live Set's tempo. However, if Auto-Warp does not quite do what you want, you can control its results. The remainder of this section will focus on various ways of guiding Live's auto-warping. Remember that the metronome in the Control Bar will probably come in handy as you warp longer pieces.
CHAPTER 9. TEMPO CONTROL AND WARPING 128 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 129 The four Warp From Here commands provide various ways of resetting Warp Markers to the right of the selected grid marker or Warp Marker, leaving Warp Markers to the left untouched. These commands are also available from the start marker. Warp From Here runs the Auto-Warp algorithm on the material to the right of the selected marker. Warp From Here (Start At ...) directs Auto-Warp to use the current Live Set's tempo as a starting point for tempo tracking.
CHAPTER 9. TEMPO CONTROL AND WARPING 9.2.4 130 Quantizing Audio In the previous section, you learned how to adjust the timing of events in audio les by manually dragging Warp Markers along the timeline. But it is also possible to automatically snap the entire sample to the grid at once by using the Quantize command. To do this, click in the background of the sample editor and choose the Quantize command from the Edit U (PC) / U (Mac) hotkey.
CHAPTER 9. TEMPO CONTROL AND WARPING 131 The warp modes are different varieties of granular resynthesis techniques. Granular resynthesis achieves time compression and expansion by repeating and skipping over parts of 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.
CHAPTER 9. TEMPO CONTROL AND WARPING 132 The Transient Envelope slider applies a volume fade to each segment of audio. At 100, there is no fade. At 0, each segment decays very quickly. Long envelope times can help to smooth clicks at the end of segments, while short times can be used to apply rhythmic gating effects. 9.3.2 Tones Mode Tones Mode serves well for stretching material with a more or less clear pitch structure, such as vocals, monophonic instruments and basslines.
CHAPTER 9. TEMPO CONTROL AND WARPING 9.3.5 133 Complex Mode Complex Mode is a warping method speci cally designed to accommodate composite signals that combine the characteristics covered by other Warp Modes; it works well for warping entire songs, which usually contain beats, tones and textures. Complex Mode is a rather CPU-intensive function, using approximately ten times the CPU resources required by the other Warp Modes.
CHAPTER 9. TEMPO CONTROL AND WARPING 134 Although REX les are audio les, they can quickly be transformed into playable instruments via the Slice to New MIDI Track command, which is available in the Create Menu or the (PC) / Ctrl (Mac) context menu for the Clip. Warp Markers/parameters, Clip Envelopes that affect warping properties, and the Clip Nudge controls are not available for REX les.
135 Chapter 10 Editing MIDI Notes and Velocities A MIDI clip in Live contains notes and controller data for playing a MIDI instrument. This instrument can be a virtual instrument in a MIDI track's device chain or an external synth fed via the track's output routing. 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 10.2 136 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 divided into two editing windows: the upper Note Editor and the lower Velocity Editor.
CHAPTER 10. EDITING MIDI NOTES AND VELOCITIES 137 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. If the MIDI track is armed, activating Preview also allows you to step record new notes into the clip. Note velocity is adjusted in the Velocity Editor, by clicking and dragging on the associated markers.
CHAPTER 10. EDITING MIDI NOTES AND VELOCITIES 138 The MIDI Editor has both vertical and horizontal navigation. Along the horizontal axis lies a time ruler, which shows note position along a musical timeline. The vertical axis contains 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.
CHAPTER 10. EDITING MIDI NOTES AND VELOCITIES 139 It always shows the complete contents of the selected MIDI clip. The black rectangular outline represents the part of the clip that is currently displayed in the Editor above. To scroll, click within the outline and drag left or right; to zoom 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.
CHAPTER 10. EDITING MIDI NOTES AND VELOCITIES 10.4 Editing MIDI 10.4.1 Non-Destructive Editing 140 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 141 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. You can hold down the Alt (PC) / (Mac) modi er while performing an action to bypass grid snapping. Note movements will also snap to an offset, which is based on the original placement of the note relative to the grid.
142 CHAPTER 10. EDITING MIDI NOTES AND VELOCITIES Clicking and dragging in the background selects a timespan. To select all of the notes that begin during the timespan, press Return . After placing the insert marker, you can manipulate it using your computer keyboard. Press or to move the insert marker to the left or right, according to the grid settings. Ctrl (PC) / Alt (Mac) or moves the insert marker to the next note boundary.
CHAPTER 10. EDITING MIDI NOTES AND VELOCITIES 143 Selecting a note (or notes) makes it subject to commands from the Edit menu, such as Copy and Paste. Notes in the clipboard will be pasted starting at the location of the insert marker. You can also use the Ctrl (PC) / Alt (Mac) modi er to click and drag copies of notes to a new location.
CHAPTER 10. EDITING MIDI NOTES AND VELOCITIES 144 Cut Time cuts a selection of time from the MIDI clip, thereby moving any notes on either side of the cut area closer together in the timeline. A Gap Between MIDI Notes Has Been Cut by First Selecting It, Then Executing the Cut Time Command. Paste Time places copied time into the MIDI clip, along with any notes that were in the copied time. Duplicate Time places a copy of the selected timespan into the clip, along with any contained notes.
CHAPTER 10. EDITING MIDI NOTES AND VELOCITIES 145 Quantizing MIDI Notes. Using the options presented here, you can select either the current grid size or a speci c meter value for quantization and set either the note start or end (or both) to be quantized. Quantizing the note end will stretch the note so that it ends at the chosen meter subdivision.
CHAPTER 10. EDITING MIDI NOTES AND VELOCITIES 146 As in the Note Editor, you can select multiple velocity markers to change by clicking with the modi er held down. Tip: To set a group of notes so that they all have the same velocity, select their markers in the Velocity Editor, drag them up or down to either maximum or minimum velocity, and then adjust velocity to the desired value. As we saw earlier, Draw Mode allows drawing identical velocities for all notes within a grid tile.
CHAPTER 10. EDITING MIDI NOTES AND VELOCITIES 147 movement, Live will remember the change and use your new velocity on any notes that you draw afterward. Note-Off Velocity By default, the Velocity Editor allows you to adjust note-on velocities. But you can toggle the editor to show note-off velocities via options in the editor's (PC) / Ctrl (Mac) context menu. The Velocity Editor Showing Note-Off Velocities.
CHAPTER 10. EDITING MIDI NOTES AND VELOCITIES 148 When multiple notes are selected in the Note Editor, the Stretch Notes command becomes available from the context menu, if you invoke it with (PC) / Ctrl (Mac). Note Stretch markers will then appear in the Note Editor, allowing notes to be scaled proportionally in time. The markers are a pair of downward-pointing indicators that snap to the beginning of the rst and last notes in the selection.
149 Chapter 11 Using Grooves The timing and feel of each clip in your Set can be modi ed through the use of grooves. Live's Library includes a large selection of grooves, which appear as .agr les in the Browser. Groove Files in the Browser. The easiest way to work with Library grooves is to drag and drop them from the Browser directly onto clips in your Set. This immediately applies the timing characteristics of the groove le to the clip.
CHAPTER 11. USING GROOVES 150 the Browser while the clip plays. The Hot-Swap Groove Button. Grooves can be applied to both audio and MIDI clips. In audio clips, grooves work by adjusting the clip's warping behavior, and thus only works on clips with Warp enabled. 11.1 Groove Pool Once you've applied a groove le, you can modify its behavior by adjusting its parameters in the Groove Pool, which can be opened or closed via its selector button at the bottom of Browser. The Groove Pool Selector Button.
CHAPTER 11. USING GROOVES 151 The Groove Pool. 11.1.1 Adjusting Groove Parameters Grooves in the Groove Pool appear in a list, and offer a variety of parameters that can be modi ed in real time to adjust the behavior of any clips that are using them. You can also save and hot-swap grooves via the buttons next to the Groove's name. The Groove Pool's controls work as follows: Base The Base chooser determines the timing resolution against which the notes in the groove will be measured.
CHAPTER 11. USING GROOVES 152 to every voice in your clip, so notes that originally occurred together will now be randomly offset both from the grid and from each other. Velocity adjusts how much the velocity of the notes in clips will be affected by the velocity information stored in the groove le. Note that this slider goes from -100 to +100. At negative values, the effect of the groove's velocity will be reversed; loud notes will play quietly and vice versa.
CHAPTER 11. USING GROOVES 153 or Groove Pool into a MIDI track. This will create a new MIDI clip, which you can then edit, as you would with any other MIDI clip. You can then convert the edited clip back into a groove, via the process below. 11.2.1 Extracting Grooves The timing and volume information from any audio or MIDI clip can be extracted to create a new groove. You can do this by dragging the clip to the Groove Pool or via the Extract Groove command in the clip's (PC) / Ctrl (Mac) context menu.
CHAPTER 11. USING GROOVES 154 the voice that you want to independently groove. In this example, we'd extract the snare chain, creating a new clip and track that contained only the snare notes. Then we could apply a different groove to this new clip. 11.3.2 Non-Destructive Quantization Grooves can be used to apply real-time, non-destructive quantization to clips. To do this, simply set the groove's Timing, Random and Velocity amounts to 0% and adjust its Quantize and Base parameters to taste.
155 Chapter 12 Launching Clips The Live Session View is set apart by the fact that it gives you, the musician, a 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. 12.
CHAPTER 12. LAUNCHING CLIPS 156 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. 12.2 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 12. LAUNCHING CLIPS 12.3 157 Clip Launch 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.
CHAPTER 12. LAUNCHING CLIPS 158 The Velocity Amount control allows you to adjust the effect of MIDI note velocity on the clip's volume: If set to zero, there is no in uence; at 100 percent, the softest notes play the clip silently. For more on playing clips via MIDI, see the respective section. 12.5 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.
CHAPTER 12. LAUNCHING CLIPS 159 same group after the clip plays. A group is de ned by clips arranged in successive slots of the same track. Tracks can have an unlimited number of groups, separated by empty slots. 1 2 The Follow Action Controls. 3 1. The Follow Action Time control de nes when the Follow Action takes place in bars-beats-sixteenths from the point in the clip where play starts. The default for this setting is one bar. 2.
CHAPTER 12. LAUNCHING CLIPS 160 Play First Clip launches the rst (top) clip in a group. Play Last Clip launches the last (bottom) clip in a group. Play Any Clip plays any clip in the group. Play Other Clip is similar to Play Any Clip, but as long as the current clip is not alone in the group, no clip will play consecutively. There is also the possibility to have no Follow Action by selecting No Action, or leaving the chooser blank.
CHAPTER 12. LAUNCHING CLIPS 161 2 3 Creating a Group With the Two Clips. 3. Set up Follow Actions for the rst clip. You will want to make Follow Action Time equal to the clip's length. Set the Follow Action A chooser to Play Next Clip, with a Chance setting of 1, leaving Follow Action B alone. Now this clip is set up to advance to the looping clip after it plays. 4. Activate the Loop switch for the second clip.
CHAPTER 12. LAUNCHING CLIPS 162 The default setting for Follow Action is actually a 1:0 chance that Nothing happens after the Follow Action Time, which means that there is effectively no Follow Action. But now, imagine a group consisting of one single clip. Follow Action A is set to Play Clip Again, with a Chance of 8. Follow Action B is set to None, with a Chance of 1. The clip uses a long sample, and Follow Time is set to one bar.
CHAPTER 12. LAUNCHING CLIPS 12.6.5 163 Mixing up Melodies and Beats You can let Follow Actions perform unpredictable remixes and solos for you: Use a clip containing a beat or melody, and copy it so that there are several instances of it forming a group. Alternatively, you can use several different beats or melodies that you want to mix together. The start and end for each clip can be set differently, as can clip envelopes and other clip settings.
164 Chapter 13 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). Most 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 13. ROUTING AND I/O 165 For every track that can play clips, 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. The lower chooser pair ( Audio/MIDI To ) selects the track's output.
CHAPTER 13. ROUTING AND I/O 166 Audio and MIDI Track Arm Buttons. To permanently monitor the track's input, regardless of whether the track is armed or clips are playing, choose In. This setting effectively turns the track into what is called an Aux on some systems: the track is not used for recording but for bringing in a signal from elsewhere (for instance, a ReWire slave program). With this setting, output from the clips is suppressed.
CHAPTER 13. ROUTING AND I/O 167 reached via the Input and Output Channel choosers' Con gure... option. Note that the Audio Preferences also provide access to the Channel Con guration dialogs, which determine which inputs and outputs are used, and whether they are available to Live as mono or stereo pairs. Essentially, the Channel Con guration dialog tells Live what it needs to know about how the computer is connected to the other audio components in your studio. 13.2.
CHAPTER 13. ROUTING AND I/O 168 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. For Live's tracks to receive/send MIDI from/to a speci c MIDI port, the corresponding switch in the Track column must be set to On. You can use any number of MIDI ports for track input and output; the mixer's In/Out choosers allow them to be addressed individually. 13.3.
CHAPTER 13. ROUTING AND I/O 169 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. 13.3.3 Connecting External Synthesizers Routing MIDI to an external synthesizer is straightforward: The Output Type chooser is set to whatever MIDI port the synthesizer is connected to; the Output Channel chooser is used to select which MIDI channel to send on.
CHAPTER 13. ROUTING AND I/O 170 2. MIDI messages that are used for remote-controlling Live's user-interface elements; 3. MIDI messages coming from and going to Live's MIDI tracks. MIDI messages that are mapped to remote-control Live's user-interface elements are eaten up by the remote control assignment and will not be passed on to the MIDI tracks. This is a common cause of confusion that can be easily resolved by looking at the indicators. 13.
CHAPTER 13. ROUTING AND I/O 171 4. The Output Channel chooser presents you with a list of the instruments that you currently have in your Reason rack; select the instrument you want to address. 5. Select Reason from the audio track's Input Type chooser. 6. From the audio track's Input Channel chooser, select the audio channel that corresponds to the instrument to which you are sending MIDI. 7. Set the audio track's Monitor radio button to In. 8. Select All Ins from the MIDI track's Input Type chooser. 9.
CHAPTER 13. ROUTING AND I/O 13.5 172 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 13. ROUTING AND I/O 173 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. In this scenario, soloing Track B will still allow you to hear the output of the tracks that are feeding it.
CHAPTER 13. ROUTING AND I/O 174 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. Soloing a track that taps another track Pre FX will allow you to hear the tapped track.
CHAPTER 13. ROUTING AND I/O 175 Routing Points in Racks Tap Points for Every Chain in a Track. If a track has one or more Instrument or Effect 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. If a track contains one or more Drum Racks, internal routing points will be available for any of the Rack's return chains.
CHAPTER 13. ROUTING AND I/O 13.6.2 176 Making Use of Internal Routing This section presents several internal routing examples in more detail. 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.
CHAPTER 13. ROUTING AND I/O 177 Recording MIDI as Audio When working with MIDI and complex software instruments, it is sometimes more useful to record the resulting audio than the incoming MIDI. A single MIDI note can prompt, for example, Native Instruments' Absynth to produce something that sounds more like a piece of music than a single tone. This output lends itself more to representation as an audio waveform than a single note in a MIDI clip, particularly when comparing the editing options.
CHAPTER 13. ROUTING AND I/O 178 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. In the mix, we can easily change the volumes of the individual drums, but adjusting the volume of the entire drum kit against the rest of the music is less convenient. Therefore, we add a new audio track to submix the drums.
CHAPTER 13. ROUTING AND I/O 179 Several MIDI Tracks Playing the Same Instrument Consider a MIDI track containing a virtual instrument a Simpler playing a pad sound, for example. We have already recorded MIDI clips into this track when we realize that we would like to add an independent, parallel take for the same instrument. So we add another MIDI track.
CHAPTER 13. ROUTING AND I/O 180 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 13. ROUTING AND I/O 181 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 13. ROUTING AND I/O 182 Tracks Feeding MIDI to and Tapping Audio From the Parts of a Multi-Timbral Instrument. Sending MIDI from the mixer 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 13. ROUTING AND I/O 183 placing each one in a Rack's device chain. Note that the main outputs of the multi-timbral instrument will still output to the track that contains the instrument - only auxiliary outputs are available to the External Instrument device. Feeding Sidechain Inputs Some effects have so-called sidechain inputs. A vocoder, for instance, imposes spectral characteristics taken from one signal (say, spoken word) onto another signal, for instance a string pad.
CHAPTER 13. ROUTING AND I/O 184 Layering Instruments Suppose that we have a MIDI track containing an instrument playing a string sound, which we would like to augment by adding a brass sound playing the same notes. This can be easily done by adding a MIDI track that contains an instrument playing the brass sound and setting its Input Type chooser to tap the string track's Post FX signal. Using an Auxiliary MIDI Track to Layer Instruments.
185 Chapter 14 Mixing 14.1 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. To display all mixer controls for a track, unfold the track using the its name, and adjust its height accordingly.
CHAPTER 14. MIXING 186 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.
187 CHAPTER 14. MIXING Let's look at the mixer controls: 5 6 4 3 1 2 4 5 6 1 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. With multiple tracks selected, adjusting the volume of one of them will adjust the others as well. 3. The Pan control positions the track's output in the stereo eld.
CHAPTER 14. MIXING 14.1.1 188 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 14. MIXING 14.2 189 Audio and MIDI Tracks Audio and MIDI tracks in Live are for hosting and playing clips, as explained earlier. You can add new audio and MIDI tracks to your Live Set's mixer at any time using the appropriate Create 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 14. MIXING 190 particular knob or slider parameter (volume, for example), this difference will be maintained as you adjust the parameter. If you drag a track's title bar to the Browser it will be saved as a new Set. If a track contains audio clips, Live will manage the copying of the referenced sampled into this new location based on the selection in the Collect Files on Export chooser. You can then type in a name for the newly created Set or con rm the one suggested by Live with Return .
CHAPTER 14. MIXING 191 than Master. ) You can also use a Group Track purely as a folder track by rerouting the outputs of the contained tracks to some other destination. ...and in Arrangement View. Once a Group Track has been created, tracks can be dragged into or out of the group. Deleting a Group Track deletes all of its contents, but a group can be dissolved back into individual tracks by executing the Edit Menu's Ungroup Tracks command.
CHAPTER 14. MIXING 192 in a return track lets it receive audio from any number of tracks and add echoes to them. The Send Controls and Pre/Post Toggle. A clip or group track's Send control regulates how much of the track's output feeds the associated return track's input. What's more, even the return track's own output can be routed to its input, allowing you to create feedback.
CHAPTER 14. MIXING 193 The Crossfader and Selector. The crossfader is accessed via the Session View's mixer selectors. It features seven different crossfade curves so that you can choose the one that ts your style the best. To change the curve, (PC) / Ctrl (Mac) on the crossfader, then select an entry from the context menu. Choose from Seven Crossfader Curves. The chart below details the power level and response of each crossfader curve.
194 CHAPTER 14. 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 14. MIXING 195 Each track has two Crossfade Assign buttons, A and B. The track can have three states with respect to the crossfader: If neither Assign button is on, the crossfader does not affect the track at all. If A is on, the track will be played unattenuated as long as the crossfader is in the left half of its value range. As the crossfader moves toward the right across the center position, the track fades out. At the crossfader's rightmost position, the track is muted.
196 CHAPTER 14. MIXING In order to set Live up for cueing, you must be using an audio interface with at least four dedicated outputs (or two dedicated stereo outputs). The respective settings are accessible in the Session View mixer. Make sure you have the Mixer and In/Out options checked in the View menu. 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.
CHAPTER 14. MIXING 14.7 197 Track Delays A Track Delay control is available for every track in Live. The control allows delaying or predelaying the output of tracks in milliseconds in order to compensate for human, acoustic, hardware and other real-world delays. This section of the interface can be shown or hidden using its respective Mixer Section selector. The Track Delay Control and Selector.
198 Chapter 15 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 15. RECORDING NEW CLIPS 199 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.
200 CHAPTER 15. RECORDING NEW CLIPS If you are using a natively supported control surface, arming a MIDI track will automatically lock this control surface to the instrument in the track. Clicking one track's Arm button unarms all other tracks unless the Ctrl (PC) / (Mac) modi er is held. If multiple tracks are selected, clicking one of their Arm buttons will arm the other tracks as well. Arming a track selects the track so you can readily access its devices in the Track View. 15.
CHAPTER 15. RECORDING NEW CLIPS 201 1. Recording commences when the Control Bar's Record button is activated and the Play button is pressed. 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.
202 CHAPTER 15. 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 15. RECORDING NEW CLIPS 15.3.3 203 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 15. RECORDING NEW CLIPS 15.3.4 204 MIDI Step Recording The MIDI Editor allows you to record notes with the transport stopped by holding down keys on your controller or computer MIDI keyboard and advancing the insert marker according to the grid settings. This process, known as step recording, allows you to enter notes at your own pace, without needing to listen to a metronome or guide track. 2 1 3 Step Recording in the MIDI Editor. 1.
CHAPTER 15. RECORDING NEW CLIPS 15.4 205 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 15. RECORDING NEW CLIPS 15.5 206 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 15. RECORDING NEW CLIPS 15.7 207 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 15. RECORDING NEW CLIPS 208 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. You can also map the step recording navigators. The Step Recording Arrows. This allows you to, for example, use MIDI foot pedals to move the clip's insert marker, thereby keeping both hands free for playing a keyboard.
209 Chapter 16 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 16. WORKING WITH INSTRUMENTS AND EFFECTS 210 Devices in the Track View. To save space in the Track View, a device can be collapsed by double-clicking on its title bar (PC) / Ctrl (Mac) context menu. or by choosing Fold from its Devices Can Be Folded. 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 16. WORKING WITH INSTRUMENTS AND EFFECTS 16.1 211 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 16. WORKING WITH INSTRUMENTS AND EFFECTS 212 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 16. WORKING WITH INSTRUMENTS AND EFFECTS 213 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 16. WORKING WITH INSTRUMENTS AND EFFECTS 214 Devices in Live's tracks have input and output level meters. These meters are helpful in nding problematic devices in the device chain: Low or absent signals will be revealed by the level meters, and relevant device settings can then be adjusted, or the device can be turned off or removed. The Level Meters Between Devices in a Chain. Note that no clipping can occur between devices because there is practically unlimited headroom.
215 CHAPTER 16. 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 16. WORKING WITH INSTRUMENTS AND EFFECTS 216 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 (including any custom info text) 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.
CHAPTER 16. WORKING WITH INSTRUMENTS AND EFFECTS 217 for all of Live's instruments, MIDI effects and audio effects (including the various types of Racks). If you have already saved a default preset for a particular device, Live will ask you before overwriting it.
CHAPTER 16. WORKING WITH INSTRUMENTS AND EFFECTS 218 tracks or following instruments. Please see the previous section, Using the Live Devices, for details. 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.
CHAPTER 16. WORKING WITH INSTRUMENTS AND EFFECTS 219 Live is running, so that newly installed devices become immediately available in the Plug-In Device Browser. 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. 16.2.1 Plug-Ins in the Track View A VST Plug-In in the Track View.
CHAPTER 16. WORKING WITH INSTRUMENTS AND EFFECTS 220 The X-Y control eld can be used to control two plug-in parameters at once and is therefore especially well-suited for live control. To assign any two plug-in parameters to the Live panel X-Y eld, use the drop-down menus directly beneath it. Showing Plug-In Panels in Separate Windows The Plug-In Edit Button. The Plug-In Edit button opens a oating window that shows the original VST or Audio Units Plug-in panel.
CHAPTER 16. WORKING WITH INSTRUMENTS AND EFFECTS 221 Plug-In Con gure Mode The Con gure Button. Con gure Mode allows you to customize Live's panel to show only the plug-in parameters that you need to access. To do this: Enter Con gure Mode by pressing the Con gure button in the device's header. Click on a parameter in the plug-in edit window to add it to Live's panel. (For some plug-ins, it may be necessary to actually change the parameter's value.
CHAPTER 16. WORKING WITH INSTRUMENTS AND EFFECTS 222 Adjusting a parameter in the plug-in's oating window creates temporary entries for that parameter in the clip envelope and automation choosers, as well as the choosers in the panel's X-Y eld. These entries are removed when you adjust another parameter.
CHAPTER 16. WORKING WITH INSTRUMENTS AND EFFECTS 16.2.2 223 Plug-In Performance Options The CPU Preferences contain a Plug-In Buffer Size setting for balancing plug-in latency and performance. Here you can set the number of samples processed at any one time by the plug-in. Higher settings may result in a noticeable performance increase but will also result in higher latencies.
CHAPTER 16. WORKING WITH INSTRUMENTS AND EFFECTS 224 2. Once you have selected a VST Custom Folder and Live has scanned it, the path will be displayed. Note that, on Windows, Live may have found a path in the registry without the need for browsing. 3. Make sure that the Use VST Plug-In Custom Folder option is set to On, so that your selected folder is an active source for VST Plug-ins in Live.
CHAPTER 16. WORKING WITH INSTRUMENTS AND EFFECTS 225 System folder on Mac OS X) selected in Live's File/Folder Preferences. The alias can point to a different partition or hard drive on your computer. Live will scan the set VST Plug-in folder as well as any alias folders contained therein. Some VST Plug-ins contain errors or are incompatible with Live. During the scanning process, these may cause the program to crash.
CHAPTER 16. WORKING WITH INSTRUMENTS AND EFFECTS 226 VST programs and banks can be imported from les. Clicking a VST's Load Program or Bank button brings up a standard le-open dialog for locating the desired le. The VST Load Program or Bank Button (Left) and Save Program or Bank Button (Right). Windows only: Please select from the File Type menu whether you want to locate VST Device Program les or VST Device Bank les.
CHAPTER 16. WORKING WITH INSTRUMENTS AND EFFECTS 227 on the Use Audio Units option activates Audio Units Plug-ins so that they appear in Live's Plug-In Device Browser. Note that you can always turn this option off later if you decide not to use Audio Units. Activating Audio Units Plug-Ins. Audio Units Plug-ins sometimes have a feature that allows choosing between different modes for the device. You might be able to choose, for example, between different levels of quality in the rendering of a reverb.
CHAPTER 16. WORKING WITH INSTRUMENTS AND EFFECTS 228 Device delay compensation is on by default and does not normally have to be adjusted in any way. However, Live Sets that were created with Live 4 or earlier will open without device delay compensation. To manually turn latency compensation on (or off), use the Delay Compensation option in the Options menu. Unusually high individual track delays or reported latencies from plug-ins may cause noticeable sluggishness in the software.
229 Chapter 17 Instrument, Drum and Effect Racks An Audio Effect Rack. 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 17. INSTRUMENT, DRUM AND EFFECT RACKS 17.1 An Overview of Racks 17.1.1 Signal Flow and Parallel Device Chains 230 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. Racks allow (among other things) additional device chains to be added to any track.
CHAPTER 17. INSTRUMENT, DRUM AND EFFECT RACKS 231 The Macro Controls are a bank of eight knobs, each capable of addressing any number of parameters from any devices in a Rack. How you use them is up to you whether it be for convenience, by making an important device parameter more accessible; for de ning exotic, multi-parameter morphs of rhythm and timbre; or for constructing a mega-synth, and hiding it away behind a single customized interface.
232 CHAPTER 17. INSTRUMENT, DRUM AND EFFECT RACKS on one of the title bars to reveal the Group and Group to Drum Rack commands in the context menu. Note that if you repeat one of these commands again on the same device, you will create a Rack within a Rack. You can also group multiple chains within a Rack using the same procedure. Doing this also creates a Rack within a Rack.
CHAPTER 17. INSTRUMENT, DRUM AND EFFECT RACKS 233 an Instrument, Drum or Effect Rack is being used. 2. Macro Controls 3. Chain List. In Drum Racks, this view can include both drum chains and return chains. 4. Devices 5. Racks are also identi able by their round corners, which bracket and enclose their content. When the Devices view is shown, the end bracket visually detaches itself to keep the Rack hierarchy clear. 6. Pad View. This is unique to Drum Racks.
CHAPTER 17. INSTRUMENT, DRUM AND EFFECT RACKS 234 Navigate Racks Quickly Via a Context Menu. 17.4 Chain List The Chain List in an Audio Effect Rack. As signals enter a Rack, they are rst greeted by the Chain List. We will therefore also choose this point for our own introduction. The Chain List represents the branching point for incoming signals: Each parallel device chain starts here, as an entry in the list.
CHAPTER 17. INSTRUMENT, DRUM AND EFFECT RACKS 235 or Arrangement View track will give that track focus; its Track View will open, allowing you to drop your chain into place. Since the Track View can show only one device chain at a time, the Chain List also serves as a navigational aid: The list selection determines what will be shown in the adjacent Devices view (when enabled).
CHAPTER 17. INSTRUMENT, DRUM AND EFFECT RACKS 236 Auto Select in a Drum Rack. When the Auto Select switch is activated, every chain that is currently processing signals becomes selected in the Chain List. In Drum Racks, this feature will select a chain if it receives its assigned MIDI input note. In Instrument and Effect Racks, Auto Select works in conjunction with zones, which are discussed next, and is quite helpful when troubleshooting complex con gurations. 17.
CHAPTER 17. INSTRUMENT, DRUM AND EFFECT RACKS 17.5.1 237 Signal Flow through Zones To understand how zones work, let's examine the signal ow in a MIDI Effect Rack. Our MIDI Effect Rack resides in the device chain of a MIDI track, and therefore processes MIDI signals. We will assume that it contains four parallel device chains, each containing one MIDI effect. 1. All MIDI data in the track is passed to its device chain, and therefore into the input of the MIDI Effect Rack. 2.
CHAPTER 17. INSTRUMENT, DRUM AND EFFECT RACKS 17.5.2 238 Key Zones The Key Zone Editor. When the Key button is selected, the Key Zone Editor appears to the right of the Chain List, illustrating how each chain maps to the full MIDI note range (nearly 11 octaves). Chains will only respond to MIDI notes that lie within their key zone. The zones of individual chains may occupy any number of keys, allowing for exible keyboard split setups.
CHAPTER 17. INSTRUMENT, DRUM AND EFFECT RACKS 239 spans the top of the editor. Otherwise, the functionality here is identical to that of the Key Zone Editor. Velocity zone fade ranges attenuate the velocities of notes entering a chain. 17.5.4 Chain Select Zones The Chain Select Editor. Activating the Chain button in an Instrument or Effect Rack displays the Chain Select Editor. These Racks have chain select zones, which allow you to lter chains spontaneously via a single parameter.
CHAPTER 17. INSTRUMENT, DRUM AND EFFECT RACKS 240 is not attenuated, allowing the chain's effects (like long reverb tails or delays) to fade out according to their own settings. Let's consider how we can make use of chain select zones in a performance situation: Making Preset Banks Using Chain Select Using Chain Select Zones to Create Effects Presets. Unlike the other zone types, the default length of a chain select zone is 1, and the default value is 0.
CHAPTER 17. INSTRUMENT, DRUM AND EFFECT RACKS 241 Crossfading Preset Banks Using Fade Ranges Crossfading Between Effects Presets Using Chain Select Zones. Taking the previous example one step further, we can tweak our chain select zones to produce a smooth transition between our presets. To accomplish this, we will make use of our zones' fade ranges. To create some room for fading, let's extend the length of our zones a bit.
242 CHAPTER 17. INSTRUMENT, DRUM AND EFFECT RACKS 2 3 4 1 1. In addition to the standard selectors found on all Racks, Drum Racks have four additional controls in the view column. From top to bottom, these are the Auto Select button and toggles for the Input/Output, Send, and Return sections. 2. Input/Output Section. The Receive chooser sets the incoming MIDI note to which the drum chain will respond. The list shows note names, MIDI note numbers and standard GM drum equivalents.
CHAPTER 17. INSTRUMENT, DRUM AND EFFECT RACKS 243 Drum Racks that are nested within other Drum Racks, both drum chains and return chains can route upwards to the returns of any of the Drum Racks that contain them. 17.6.1 Pad View Pad View. The Pad View is unique to Drum Racks and offers an easy way to map and manipulate samples and devices. Each pad represents one of the 128 available MIDI notes.
CHAPTER 17. INSTRUMENT, DRUM AND EFFECT RACKS 244 a single pad, by creating a nested Drum Rack with all of its chains set to receive that pad's note. Dragging a pad to another pad swaps the note mapping between the pads. This means that any MIDI clips triggering the affected notes will now play the wrong sounds although this might be exactly what you want. Alt (PC) / (Mac)-dragging one pad to another will layer any chains from both pads in a nested Drum Rack.
CHAPTER 17. INSTRUMENT, DRUM AND EFFECT RACKS 17.6.2 245 Slicing Although Live automatically warps audio les to match your Set's tempo, you can get even more exibility out of your loops via a process called slicing. Slicing involves dividing the audio into small chunks and assigning each chunk to a single MIDI note, leaving your original audio le unaffected. The Drum Rack provides an ideal environment for working with sliced les, and most of the setup happens automatically.
CHAPTER 17. INSTRUMENT, DRUM AND EFFECT RACKS 246 3. The Drum Rack's Macro Controls will be pre-assigned to useful parameters for the Simplers, as determined by the settings in the selected slicing preset. In the factory Slicing presets, these include basic envelope controls and parameters to adjust the loop and crossfade properties of each slice. Adjusting one of these Macros will adjust the mapped parameter in each Simpler simultaneously.
CHAPTER 17. INSTRUMENT, DRUM AND EFFECT RACKS 247 Using Effects on Slices Because each slice lives in its own chain in the Drum Rack, you can easily process individual slices with their own audio effects. To process several slices with the same set of effects, multi-select their chains in the Drum Rack's chain list and press Ctrl -G to group them to their own nested Rack. Then insert the effects after this new sub-Rack. For even more creative possibilities, try inserting MIDI effects before the Drum Rack.
CHAPTER 17. INSTRUMENT, DRUM AND EFFECT RACKS 248 Map buttons will appear beneath each Macro Control dial; The Mapping Browser will open. The following steps will get you started mapping: 1. Enable Macro Map Mode by clicking the Map Mode button; 2. Select a device parameter for mapping by clicking it once; 3. Map the parameter by clicking on any Macro Control's Map button. The details will be added to the Mapping Browser.
CHAPTER 17. INSTRUMENT, DRUM AND EFFECT RACKS 249 a button in its title bar, which will fold the Rack's mixer in or out. Likewise, any nested chains within the Rack will also have this button. This makes it easy to get an overview of your Rack's hierarchy or hide it when you just want to work on your mix. Mixing Rack Chains in the Session View. Chains in the Session View mixer look similar to tracks, but they have no clip slots.
CHAPTER 17. INSTRUMENT, DRUM AND EFFECT RACKS 17.8.1 250 Extracting Chains All chains can be dragged from their parent Racks and placed into other tracks or Racks, either from the chain list or from the Session View mixer. A Drum Rack's return chains can also be extracted, and will create new return tracks if dragged to the mixer. Drum chains have an additional feature: when dragged from the mixer to a new track, they take their MIDI notes with them.
251 Chapter 18 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. 18.
CHAPTER 18. AUTOMATION AND EDITING ENVELOPES 252 Volume, Pan and the Track Activator Switch Have Been Automated. 18.2 Deleting Automation To delete automation data, (PC) / Ctrl (Mac) on an automated control to open its context menu and select Delete Automation. The automation LED disappears, and the control's value stays constant across the entire song. You can also delete automation by editing breakpoint envelopes. 18.
253 CHAPTER 18. 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. 18.4 Drawing and Editing Automation In the Arrangement View, automation curves can be viewed and edited as breakpoint envelopes. 3 5 8 1 4 6 2 7 1. To show a track's envelopes, unfold the track by clicking the button next to the track name.
CHAPTER 18. AUTOMATION AND EDITING ENVELOPES 254 of the track's devices or None to hide the envelope. It also provides you with an overview of which devices actually have automation by showing an LED next to their labels. You can make things clearer still by selecting Show Automated Parameters Only from the bottom of the chooser. 5. The Automation Control chooser selects a control from the device chosen in the Fades/Device chooser. The labels of automated controls have an LED.
CHAPTER 18. AUTOMATION AND EDITING ENVELOPES 255 Drawing an Envelope. Drawing creates steps as wide as the visible grid, which you can modify using a number of handy shortcuts. For freehand drawing, you can hide the grid using the Snap to Grid 4 (PC) / 4 (Mac) shortcut. To temporarily enable Options menu entry or the Ctrl freehand drawing while the grid is shown, hold down Alt (PC) / Alt (Mac) while drawing. 18.4.
256 CHAPTER 18. AUTOMATION AND EDITING ENVELOPES them. Holding down the to a ner resolution. Ctrl (PC) / (Mac) modi er while dragging switches Click and drag a line segment between two breakpoints to move it vertically, without affecting the breakpoint's horizontal position. If the line segment is in the current selection, the envelope is moved vertically across the selected timespan.
CHAPTER 18. AUTOMATION AND EDITING ENVELOPES 257 To copy, cut, delete or duplicate automation from a track, independent of the associated clip, make sure the parameter you want to work with is in its own lane. Any edit commands applied to an envelope selection within a single lane will only apply to this envelope. The clip itself will be unaffected. You can also work with envelopes in multiple lanes simultaneously.
258 Chapter 19 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; clip envelopes can do anything from representing MIDI controller data to modulating device 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. 19.
CHAPTER 19. CLIP ENVELOPES 259 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.
260 CHAPTER 19. CLIP ENVELOPES 1. Enclose the desired selection in the loop brace, and click the brace so that it is selected. This will execute the Edit menu's Select Loop command, which selects all material in the loop. 2. Copy the envelope with Ctrl C (PC) / C (Mac). 3. Shift the loop brace to the right by one loop length with 4. Paste the envelope with Ctrl V (PC) / V . (Mac).
261 CHAPTER 19. CLIP ENVELOPES 19.2.2 Changing Pitch and Tuning per Note Drop a sample loop from the Browser into Live and play it. Click on the Transpose quickchooser button. You can now alter the pitch transposition of individual notes in the sample as you listen to it. The fast way to do this is by enabling Draw Mode and drawing steps along the grid. Deactivate Draw Mode to edit breakpoints and line segments. This is useful for smoothing the coarse steps by horizontally displacing breakpoints.
262 CHAPTER 19. CLIP ENVELOPES (Mac) modi er while drawing or moving breakpoints to obtain a ner resolution. To scroll the display, hold down the dragging. Ctrl Alt (PC) / Alt (Mac) modi er while Pitch is modulated in an additive way. The output of the transposition envelope is simply added to the Transpose control's value. The result of the modulation is clipped to stay in the available range (-48..48 semitones in this case). 19.2.
CHAPTER 19. CLIP ENVELOPES 263 Try sample offset modulation with a one-bar drum loop: Make sure Beats Mode is chosen; in the Envelopes box, choose Clip from the Device chooser and Sample Offset from the Clip Envelope Control chooser. The Envelope Editor appears with a vertical grid overlay. In envelope Draw Mode, set steps to non-zero values to hear the loop scrambled. What is going on? Imagine the audio is read out by a tape head, the position of which is modulated by the envelope.
CHAPTER 19. CLIP ENVELOPES 19.2.5 264 Using Clips as Templates As you are making creative use of clip envelopes, the clips containing them develop a life of their own, independent of the original sample. You might wonder at a point: What does this clip sound like with a different sample? This is easy to nd out by selecting the clip so that it is displayed in the Clip View and dragging the desired sample from one of the File Browsers, or the Session or Arrangement View, onto the Clip View.
CHAPTER 19. CLIP ENVELOPES 265 Modulating the Mixer Volume. The Little Dot Below the Volume Slider Thumb Represents the Modulated Volume Setting. As you raise and lower the Volume slider, you can observe the dot following your movement in a relative fashion. Modulating the track's Send controls is just as easy. Again, the modulation is a relative percentage: The clip envelope cannot open the send further than the Send knob, but it can reduce the actual send value to minus in nite dB. 19.3.
CHAPTER 19. CLIP ENVELOPES 19.4 266 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 Clip Envelope Control chooser below it to select a speci c MIDI controller.
267 CHAPTER 19. CLIP ENVELOPES will present in the rest of this chapter. 19.5.1 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 19. CLIP ENVELOPES 268 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. 19.5.2 Creating Long Loops from Short Loops Let us take this a step further.
CHAPTER 19. CLIP ENVELOPES 269 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. 19.5.3 Imposing Rhythm Patterns onto Samples So far, we have been talking about imposing long envelopes onto small loops.
270 Chapter 20 Working with Video Live's exible architecture makes it the perfect choice for scoring to video. You can trim video clips to select parts of them and use Warp Markers to visually align music in the Arrangement View with the video. You can then render your edited video le along with your audio. Before diving in, you will want to be familiar with the concepts presented in the Tempo Control and Warping chapter.
CHAPTER 20. WORKING WITH VIDEO 20.2 The Appearance of Video in Live 20.2.1 Video Clips in the Arrangement View 271 A video clip in the Arrangement View looks just like an audio clip, except for the sprocket holes in its title bar. A Video Clip with a QuickTime Marker. Live also displays a movie le's QuickTime markers, if present, in the Arrangement View and Clip View.
CHAPTER 20. WORKING WITH VIDEO 20.2.2 272 The Video Window The Video Window is a separate, oating window that always remains above Live's main window. It can be dragged to any location you like, and it will never get covered up by Live. You can toggle its visibility with a command in the View menu. The Video Window can be resized by dragging its bottom right-hand corner. The size and location of this window are not speci c to the Set, and will be restored when you open a video again.
CHAPTER 20. WORKING WITH VIDEO 20.2.3 273 Clip View Soundtrack composers will want to note the Tempo Master option in Live's Clip View. When scoring to video, video clips are usually set as tempo masters, while audio clips are left as tempo slaves. These are, therefore, the default warp properties of clips in the Arrangement View. In this scenario, adding Warp Markers to a video clip de nes hit points that the music will sync to.
CHAPTER 20. WORKING WITH VIDEO 20.3 274 Matching Sound to Video In Live, it takes just a few steps to get started with video. Let's look at a common scenario matching a piece of music to edits or hit points in a video: 1. Make sure that Live's Arrangement View is visible. Your computer keyboard's key will toggle between the Session View and Arrangement View. 2. Drag a QuickTime movie from Live's File Browser and drop it into an audio track in the Arrangement View.
CHAPTER 20. WORKING WITH VIDEO 20.4 275 Video Trimming Tricks Commonly, composers receive movie les with a few seconds of blank space before the real beginning of the action. This pre-roll ( two-beep ) serves as a sync reference for the mixing engineer, who expects that the composer's audio les will also include the same pre-roll. While working on music, however, the pre-roll is in the composer's way: It would be more natural for the movie action to start at song time 1.1.1 and SMPTE time 00:00:00:00.
CHAPTER 20. WORKING WITH VIDEO 276 In the Arrangement View, we select all materials (Edit menu/Select All), then drag the entire composition a few seconds to the right: The Video Clip and the Final Clip of Music. Now, we click on the video clip's title bar (to deselect everything else), then drag the video clip's left edge to the left as far as possible to reveal the pre-roll again. The Video Clip with Pre-Roll Restored.
277 Chapter 21 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. 21.1 Amp The Amp Effect. Amp is an effect that emulates the sound and character of seven classic guitar ampli ers.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 278 vide a range of authentic and usable ampli er tones, with a simple and consistent set of controls. The full version of Amp is not included with the standard version of Live, but is bundled with the Cabinet effect as a special feature available for purchase separately. There are seven amp models to choose from: Clean is based on the Brilliant channel of a classic amp from the '60s. This amp was widely used by guitarists of the British Invasion.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 279 rest of Amp's parameters - in non-linear and sometimes unpredictable ways. For example, increasing EQ levels can, in some cases, also increase the amount of distortion. Presence is an additional tone control for mid/high frequencies in the power amp stage. Its in uence on the sound varies considerably depending on the amp model used but can add (or subtract) edge or crispness. The Output switch toggles between mono and stereo (Dual) processing.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 280 More than guitars While Amp and Cabinet sound great with guitars, you can get very interesting results by feeding them with drums, synthesizers or other sound sources. For example, try using Amp with Operator or Analog to add analog grit to your digital sounds. 21.2 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 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 281 The Envelope section controls how the envelope modulation affects the lter frequency. The Amount control de nes the extent to which the envelope affects the lter frequency, while the Attack control sets how the envelope responds to rising input signals. Low Attack values cause a fast response to input levels; high values integrate any changes gradually, creating a looser, slower response. Think of it as adding inertia to the response.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 282 phase with each other, creating stereo movement. Set to 180 , the LFO outputs are 180 degrees apart, so that when one LFO reaches its peak, the other is at its minimum. 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 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 283 Though both LFOs run at the same frequency, the Phase control lends the sound stereo movement by offsetting their waveforms relative to each other. Set this to 180 , and the 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.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 284 Gate de nes the total length of all repetitions in sixteenth notes. If Gate is set to 4/16 , the repetitions will occur over the period of one beat, starting at the position de ned by 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.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 285 create gradually fading repetitions. 21.5 Cabinet The Cabinet Effect. Cabinet is an effect that emulates the sound of ve classic guitar cabinets. Developed in collaboration with Softube, Cabinet uses physical modelling technology to provide a range of authentic sounds, with optimized mics and mic positioning.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE Near Off-Axis 286 Near On-Axis Far The switch below the Microphone chooser toggles between a Dynamic and Condenser mic. Dynamic mics are a bit grittier and commonly used when close-micing guitar cabinets because they are capable of handling much higher volumes. Condenser mics are more accurate, and are commonly used for micing from a distance. Of course, Cabinet's virtual condenser mic won't be damaged by high volume levels, so feel free to experiment.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 287 exotic sounds by using Amp and Cabinet separately. Multiple mics A common studio technique is to use multiple mics on a single cabinet, and then adjust the balance during mixing. This is easy to do by using Live's Audio Effect Racks.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 288 Delay 2 can switch among three different modes. When off, only Delay 1 is audible. In Fix Mode, only Delay 1's delay time will be modulated. When Mod is activated, Delay 2 will receive the same modulation as Delay 1. To set both delay lines to Delay 1's delay time, turn on the link button ( = ). This is especially useful if you want to change both delays with a single gesture. The Modulation X-Y controller can impart motion to the sounds.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 21.7 289 Compressor The Compressor Effect. A compressor reduces gain for signals above a user-settable threshold. Compression reduces the levels of peaks, opening up more headroom and allowing the overall signal level to be turned up. This gives the signal a higher average level, resulting in a sound that is subjectively louder and punchier than an uncompressed signal.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 290 high ratios, this so-called hard knee behavior can sound harsh. With higher (or soft ) knee values, the compressor begins compressing gradually as the threshold is approached. For example, with a 10 dB knee and a -20 dB threshold, subtle compression will begin at -30 dB and increase so that signals at -10 dB will be fully compressed.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 291 A compressor can only react to an input signal once it occurs. Since it also needs to apply an attack/release envelope, the compression is always a bit too late. A digital compressor can solve this problem by simply delaying the input signal a little bit. Compressor offers three different Lookahead times: zero ms, one ms and ten ms. The results may sound pretty different depending on this setting.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 21.7.1 292 Sidechain Parameters The Compressor Device With Sidechain Section. Normally, the signal being compressed and the input source that triggers the compressor are the same signal. But by using sidechaining, it is possible to compress a signal based on the level of another signal or a speci c frequency component. To access the Sidechain parameters, unfold the Compressor window by toggling the button in its title bar.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 293 fed to the output, and is only a trigger for the compressor, this temporary listening option can make it much easier to set sidechain parameters and hear what's actually making the compressor work. 21.7.2 Compression Tips This section presents some tips for using Compressor effectively, particularly with the sidechain options. Mixing a Voiceover Sidechaining is commonly used for so-called ducking effects.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 294 Note that mastery of these techniques may result in a noticeable increase in drink tickets, remix offers and dates. 21.8 Corpus The Corpus Effect. Corpus is an effect that simulates the acoustic characteristics of seven types of resonant objects. Developed in collaboration with Applied Acoustics Systems, Corpus uses physical modelling technology to provide a wide range of parameters and modulation options.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 295 Enabling Off Decay causes MIDI note off messages to mute the resonance. The slider below the switch determines the extent to which MIDI note off messages mute the resonance. At 0%, note offs are ignored, and the decay time is based only on the value of the Decay parameter, which is located under the Resonance Type selector. This is similar to how real-world mallet instruments such as a marimbas and glockenspiels behave.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 296 The resonance type chooser allows you to select from seven types of physically modeled resonant objects: Beam simulates the resonance properties of beams of different materials and sizes. Marimba, a specialized variant of the Beam model, reproduces the characteristic tuning of marimba bar overtones which are produced as a result of the deep arch-cut of the bars. String simulates the sound produced by strings of different materials and sizes.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 297 Ratio is only available for the Membrane and Plate resonators, and adjusts the ratio of the object's size along its x and y axes. The Brightness control adjusts the amplitude of various frequency components. At higher values, higher frequencies are louder. This parameter is not used with the Pipe or Tube resonators. Inharm. (Inharmonics) adjusts the pitch of the resonator's harmonics.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 298 Gain boosts or attenuates the level of the processed signal, while the Dry/Wet control adjusts the balance between the dry input signal and the signal sent to Corpus's processing. Turning Dry/Wet down will not cut resonances that are currently sounding, but rather stop new input signals from being processed. Corpus contains a built-in limiter that automatically activates when the audio level is too high.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 299 signal into the celebrated realms of nonlinear distortion. With very high amounts of Bias, the signal will really start to break apart. The Bias parameter can be positively or negatively modulated by an envelope follower, which is controlled with the Envelope knob. The more deeply the envelope is applied, the more the Bias point will be in uenced by the level of the input signal.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 300 mode uses a single curve to lter both channels of a stereo input equally. L/R mode provides an independently adjustable lter curve for the left and right channels of a stereo input; M/S mode (Mid/Side) provides the same functionality for signals that have been recorded using M/S encoding. When using the L/R and M/S modes, both curves are displayed simultaneously for reference, although only the active channel is editable.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 301 Enabling Hi-Quality mode via the (PC) / Ctrl (Mac) context menu can improve the sound quality, particularly with low frequency signals or when working at high sample rates. There is a slight increase in CPU usage in Hi-Quality mode. 21.11 EQ Three The EQ Three Effect. 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.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 302 ltering, but needs more CPU. Note: The lters in this device are optimized to sound more like a good, powerful analog lter cascade than a clean digital lter. The 48 dB Mode especially does not provide a perfect linear transfer quality, resulting in a slight coloration of the input signal even if all controls are set to 0.00 dB. This is typical behavior for this kind of lter, and is part of EQ Three's unique sound.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 303 Noise and Sine use a single modulation generator. However, Wide Noise has independent noise generators for the left and right channels, which creates a subtle stereo enhancement. 21.13 External Audio Effect The External Audio Effect. The External Audio Effect is a bit different than Live's other effects devices. Instead of processing audio itself, it allows you to use external (hardware) effects processors within a track's device chain.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 304 Since hardware effects introduce latency that Live cannot automatically detect, you can manually compensate for any delays by adjusting the Hardware Latency slider. The button next to this slider allows you to set your latency compensation amount in either milliseconds or samples.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 305 Each of the three delays can be switched on and off independently. The Filter Delay device assigns delay 1 to the input signal's left channel, delay 2 to the left and right channels and delay 3 to the right channel. The Pan controls at the right can override the delay channels' outputs; otherwise each delay outputs on the channel from which it derives its input. Each delay channel's lter has an associated On switch, located to the left of each X-Y controller.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 21.15 306 Flanger The Flanger Effect. Flanger uses two parallel time-modulated delays to create anging effects. Flanger's delays can be adjusted with the Delay Time control. The Feedback control sends part of the output signal back through the device input, while the Polarity switch ( + or - ) sets the polarity. Delay Time and Feedback can be changed simultaneously using the effect's X-Y controller.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 307 Adjusting the HiPass control will cut low frequencies from the delayed signal. The Dry/Wet control adjusts the balance between the processed and dry signals. Set it to 100 percent if using Flanger in a return track. Hi-Quality mode can be toggled on or off via a (PC) / Ctrl (Mac) context menu entry. Enabling Hi-Quality results in a brighter sound, but there is a very slight increase in CPU usage. 21.16 Frequency Shifter The Frequency Shifter Effect.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 308 The Drive button enables a distortion effect, while the slider below it controls the level of the distortion. Drive is only available in Ring mode. Enabling the Wide button creates a stereo effect by inverting the polarity of the Spread value for the right channel. This means that increasing the Spread value will shift the frequency down in the right channel while shifting it up in the left. Note that Wide has no effect if the Spread value is set to 0.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 21.16.1 309 Frequency Shifter Tips Frequency shifting and ring modulation can produce some very interesting sounds. Here are some tips for using the Frequency Shifter device. Drum tuning Tuning sampled acoustic drums can be tricky. Using a sampler's transposition controls often changes the character of the sounds in unrealistic ways, resulting in pinched or tubby samples. Frequency shifting can be a useful alternative.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 21.17 310 Gate The Gate Effect. The Gate effect passes only signals whose level exceeds a user-speci ed threshold. A gate can eliminate low-level noise that occurs between sounds (e.g., hiss or hum), or shape a sound by turning up the threshold to where it cuts off reverb or delay tails or truncates an instrument's natural decay. The Threshold slider sets the gate's sensitivity. If the gate is open and passing signal (i.e.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 311 Normally, the signal being gated and the input source that triggers the gate are the same signal. But by using sidechaining, it is possible to gate a signal based on the level of another signal. To access the Sidechain parameters, unfold the Gate window by toggling the button in its title bar. Enabling this section with the Sidechain button allows you to select another track from the choosers below.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 312 source. Randomizing pitch and delay time can create complex masses of sound and rhythm that seem to bear little relationship to the source. This can be very useful in creating new 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.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 313 Grain Delay now also has a dry/wet control; it can be routed to the vertical axis of the X-Y controller. 21.19 Limiter The Limiter Effect. The Limiter effect is a mastering-quality dynamic range processor that ensures that the output does not exceed a speci ed level. Limiter is ideal for use in the Master track, to prevent clipping. A limiter is essentially a compressor with an in nite ratio.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 314 and sets an appropriate release time automatically. The meter gives a visual indication of how much gain reduction is being applied to the signal. Note that any devices or channel faders that appear after Limiter may add gain. To ensure that your nal output will never clip, place Limiter as the last device in the Master track's device chain and keep your Master fader below 0 dB. 21.20 Looper The Looper Effect.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 315 audio that are the length of the originally recorded material. The Play button plays back the current state of Looper's buffer without recording any new material. The Stop button stops playback. The behavior of the transport controls changes depending on whether or not Live's playback is running. With the transport running, Looper behaves like a clip, and is subject to launch quantization as determined by the Quantization chooser.
316 CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE Stopped Clear Record Empty Click Play Overdub Undo/Redo Doubleclick Hold Looper's Multi-Purpose Transport Button is optimized for use with a MIDI footswitch. To assign a footswitch, enter MIDI Map Mode, click the button and then press your attached footswitch. Then exit MIDI Map Mode. The Tempo Control chooser affects how Looper determines the tempo of recorded material: None: Looper's internal tempo is independent of Live's global tempo.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 317 speci ed time and then switch to Play or Overdub, as determined by the button next to this chooser. Song not running: If Looper's Record Length chooser is set to the default x bars, Looper will make a guess about the tempo of the material you've recorded as soon as you press Overdub, Play or Stop. But this might result in a tempo that's twice or half as fast as you'd like.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 318 will then swap this behavior; the original material will play forward again, while the material that was overdubbed while Reverse was enabled will play backwards. Engaging the Reverse button is subject to the Quantization chooser setting. Feedback sets the amount of previously recorded signal that is fed back into Looper when overdubbing. When set to 100%, the previously recorded material will never decrease in volume.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 319 2. Record at least one pass of material into Looper. 3. Create another audio track. 4. In the new track's top Audio From and Audio To choosers, select the track containing the Looper. 5. In the new track's bottom Audio From and Audio To choosers, select Insert-Looper. 6. Switch this track's Monitoring to In. 7. Add additional effects devices to the device chain of the new track. 8. Put Looper into Overdub mode.
320 CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 21.21.1 Dynamics Processing Theory To understand how to use the Multiband Dynamics device, it helps to understand the four different methods of manipulating dynamics. When we use the term compression, we're typically talking about lowering the level of signals that exceed a threshold. This is how Live's Compressor works, and is more accurately called downward compression because it pushes loud signals down, thus reducing the dynamic range.
321 CHAPTER 21.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 322 Hz, the mid band from 500 Hz to 2000 Hz and the high band from 2000 Hz up to whatever your soundcard or sample rate supports. Each band has activator and solo buttons. With the activator button disabled for a given band, its compression/expansion and gain controls are bypassed. Soloing a band mutes the others.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 323 between displaying the Time (attack and release), Below (threshold and ratio) and Above (threshold and ratio) for each band. For the Above thresholds, Attack de nes how long it takes to reach maximum compression or expansion once a signal exceeds the threshold, while Release sets how long it takes for the device to return to normal operation after the signal falls below the threshold.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 324 Basic Multiband Compression By using only the upper thresholds, Multiband Dynamics can be used as a traditional downward compressor. Adjust the crossover points to suit your audio material, then apply downward compression (by dragging down in the upper blocks in the display or by setting the numerical ratios to values greater than 1.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 21.22 325 Overdrive The Overdrive Effect. Overdrive is a distortion effect that pays homage to some classic pedal devices commonly used by guitarists. Unlike many distortion units, it can be driven extremely hard without sacri cing dynamic range. The distortion stage is preceded by a bandpass lter that can be controlled with an X-Y controller. To de ne the lter bandwidth, click and drag on the vertical axis.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 21.23 326 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 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 327 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. 21.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 328 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 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 21.25 329 Redux The Redux Effect. Nostalgic for the famed low-resolution sound quality of the Ensoniq Mirage, Fairlight CMI or Commodore-64 computer? Redux returns us to the Dark Ages of digital by reducing a signal's sample rate and bit resolution. The Downsample section has two parameters: switch. Downsample and a downsample Mode If the downsample dial is set to 1 , every input sample passes to the output and the signal does not change.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 330 Turning off Bit Reduction results in modest CPU savings. 21.26 Resonators The Resonators Effect. This device consists of ve parallel resonators that superimpose a tonal character on the input source. It can produce sounds resembling anything from plucked strings to vocoderlike effects. The resonators are tuned in semitones, providing a musical way of adjusting them.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 331 Resonators provides two different resonation modes. Mode A provides a more realistic sounding resonation, while Mode B offers an effect that is especially interesting when Resonator I's Note parameter is set to lower pitches. The brightness of the resulting sound can be adjusted using the Color control. All of the resonators have an On/Off switch and a Gain control. A resonator that is turned off does not need CPU.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 332 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. One's impression of the size of a real room depends partly on this delay. Typical values for natural sounds range from 1ms to 25ms. 21.27.2 Early Re ections These are the earliest echoes that you hear after they bounce off a room's walls, before the onset of the diffused reverberation tail.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 333 other (this is also a property of the diffusion in real rooms). The lowest setting mixes the output signal to mono. 21.27.4 Diffusion Network The Diffusion network creates the reverberant tail that follows the early re ections. The decay time control adjusts the time required for this tail to drop to 1/1000th (-60 dB) of its initial amplitude. High and low shelving lters provide frequency-dependent reverberation decay.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 21.28 334 Saturator The Saturator Effect. Saturator is a waveshaping effect that can add that missing dirt, punch or warmth to your sound. It can coat input signals with a soft saturation or drive them into many different avors of distortion. 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.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 335 Period. Drive determines how much the input signal will be in uenced by the Waveshaper parameters. Setting Drive to zero will negate the effect entirely. Lin works together with the Curve and Depth parameters to alter the linear portion of the shaping curve. Curve adds mostly third-order harmonics to the input signal. Damp attens any signal near the grid's origin. It behaves like an ultra-fast noise gate.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 21.29 336 Simple Delay The Simple Delay Effect. The Simple Delay provides two independent delay lines, one for each channel (left and right). With Link engaged, the right channel's delay setting is disabled, thus applying the left channel's settings to both sides. 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.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 337 Repitch causes a pitch variation when changing the delay time, similar to the behavior of old hardware delay units. Fade creates a crossfade between the old and new delay times. This sounds similar to time stretching if the delay time is gradually changed. Fade mode is the default option. Jump immediately jumps to the new delay time. Note that this will cause an audible click if the delay time is changed while delays are sounding.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 338 Block parameter, this allows for a tradeoff between accuracy and CPU load. A fast response time is more accurate, but also more CPU intensive. The Avg slider allows you to specify how many blocks of samples will be averaged for each update of the display. With a setting of one, each block is shown. This results in much more activity in the display, which can be useful for nding the spectrum of short peaks.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 21.31 339 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 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 340 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. 21.32 Vinyl Distortion The Vinyl Distortion Effect. The Vinyl Distortion effect emulates some of the typical distortions that occur on vinyl records during playback. These distortions are caused by the geometric relationships between the needle and the recorded groove.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 341 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. The Volume control adjusts the amount of gain applied to the noise. 21.33 Vocoder The Vocoder Effect.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 342 sample rate of the carrier's output. The vertical axis adjusts the density of the noise. Click and drag downward to decrease the density. External allows you to select any available internal routing points from the choosers below. This is the option you'll want for classic robot voice applications. Modulator uses the modulator itself as the carrier.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 343 if the sound becomes too piercing or bassy. The BW control sets the bandwidth of the lters. At low percentages, each lter approaches a single frequency. As you increase the bandwidth, you increase the overlap of the lter bands. A bandwidth of 100% is the most accurate, but higher or lower settings can create interesting effects. The Precise/Retro switch toggles between two types of lter behavior. In Precise mode, all lters have the same gain and bandwidth.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 344 Singing Synthesizer The classic vocoder application is the singing synthesizer. To set this up in Live: 1. Insert Vocoder in the track that contains your vocal material. You can either use a clip that contains a prerecorded voice clip or, to process a live vocal signal, connect a microphone to a channel on your audio hardware and choose this as the input source for the track. 2. Insert a synthesizer such as Analog in another track.
CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 345 Now experiment with different settings of the Formant knob to alter the character of the source. For even more sound-sculpting possibilities, try adjusting the various lterbank parameters as well.
346 Chapter 22 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. 22.1 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 22. LIVE MIDI EFFECT REFERENCE 347 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. 22.1.
CHAPTER 22. LIVE MIDI EFFECT REFERENCE 348 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.
CHAPTER 22. LIVE MIDI EFFECT REFERENCE 349 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. The Offset parameter shifts the sequence of notes in the pattern by the number of places selected with the control.
CHAPTER 22. LIVE MIDI EFFECT REFERENCE 350 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 22. LIVE MIDI EFFECT REFERENCE 351 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. 22.3 Note Length The Note Length Effect.
CHAPTER 22. LIVE MIDI EFFECT REFERENCE 352 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. The value at the time of Note Off will become the velocity of the output MIDI note. Key Scale The pitch of incoming notes can be used to alter the length of the output notes. With positive values, notes below C3 will be made progressively longer, and notes above C3 will be made shorter.
CHAPTER 22. LIVE MIDI EFFECT REFERENCE 22.5 353 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 22. LIVE MIDI EFFECT REFERENCE 354 C3 once will trigger C3, and each successive C3 will trigger the next semitone higher until the device reaches C4, at which point it will start over at C3. But with Chance set to 100 percent, Choices set to 2 and Scale set to 2, incoming C3s will alternate between C3 and D3. This setting is perfect for simulating upbow and downbow alternation with stringed instruments, or alternating right- and left-hand drum samples.
CHAPTER 22. LIVE MIDI EFFECT REFERENCE 355 You could, for example, shift a melody written in C major to G major by setting Transpose to +7 st. Fold makes it more convenient to create scales by automatically folding back notes if their offset to the original note is greater than six semitones. For example, if Scale normally maps an incoming C3 to A3, enabling Fold will map C3 to A2 instead. The Range and Lowest controls work together to de ne the note range within which scale mapping will take effect.
CHAPTER 22. LIVE MIDI EFFECT REFERENCE 356 Out Low to 127, the slope of the line will be reversed, and softly played notes will actually produce the loudest output. What happens to incoming notes that are outside of the range set with the Range and Lowest controls? This depends on which Mode is selected. Clip Mode does just what it says: It clips incoming note velocities so that they stay within the range. Gate Mode removes incoming notes altogether if their velocities are outside of the range.
357 Chapter 23 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 8 ships with the Essential Instrument Collection 2, a multi-gigabyte library of meticulously sampled and selected instruments ready for use in either Simpler or Sampler. Learn how to access the EIC sounds at the end of this chapter. 23.1 Analog The Analog Instrument.
358 CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE Analog is a virtual analog synthesizer, created in collaboration with Applied Acoustics Systems. With this instrument, we have not attempted to emulate a speci c vintage analog synthesizer but rather to combine different features of legendary vintage synthesizers into a modern instrument. Analog generates sound by simulating the different components of the synthesizer through physical modeling.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 359 These sources can be independently routed to two different multi-mode lters, which are each connected to an ampli er. Furthermore, the signal ow can be run through the lters in series or in parallel. Analog also features two low-frequency oscillators (LFOs) which can modulate the oscillators, lters and ampli ers. Additionally, each lter and ampli er has its own envelope generator.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 360 The Shape chooser selects the oscillator's waveform. The choices are sine, sawtooth, rectangular and white noise. When rectangular is selected, the Pulse Width parameter is enabled in the display, which allows you to change the pulse width of the waveform. Low Width values result in a very narrow waveform, which tends to sound tinny or pinched. At 100%, the waveform is a perfect square, resulting in only odd harmonics.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 361 oscillator whose frequency is set by the Ratio slider. At 0%, the frequency of the internal oscillator and the audible oscillator match, so sync has no effect. As you increase the Ratio, the internal oscillator's rate increases, which changes the harmonic content of the audible oscillator. For maximum analog nastiness, try mapping a modulation wheel or other MIDI controller to the Sync ratio. 23.1.3 Noise Generator Analog's Noise Generator.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 23.1.4 362 Filters Display and Shell Parameters for the two Filters. Analog's two multi-mode lters come equipped with a exible routing architecture, multiple saturation options and a variety of modulation possibilities. As with the oscillators, all parameters can be set independently for each lter. The Fil 1 and Fil 2 switches in the shell toggle the respective lter on and off.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 363 The three Sym options apply symmetrical distortion, which means that the saturation behavior is the same for positive and negative values. The Asym modes result in asymmetrical saturation. For both mode types, higher numbers result in more distortion. Drive can be switched off entirely by selecting Off in the chooser. Experiment with the various options to get a sense of how they affect incoming signals. 23.1.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 23.1.6 364 Envelopes Analog's Envelope Parameters. In addition to the pitch envelopes in the oscillator sections, Analog is equipped with independent envelopes for each lter and ampli er. All four of these envelopes have identical controls, which are housed entirely within the display. Each envelope is a standard ADSR (attack, decay, sustain, release) design and features velocity modulation and looping capabilities. The attack time is set with the Attack slider.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 365 Normally, each new note triggers its own envelope from the beginning of the attack phase. With Legato enabled, a new note that is played while another note is already depressed will use the rst note's envelope, at its current position. Enabling the Free switch causes the envelope to bypass its sustain phase and move directly from the decay phase to the release phase.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 366 Analog's two LFOs can be used as modulation sources for the oscillators, lters and ampliers. As with the other sections, each LFO has independent parameters. The LFO 1 and LFO 2 switches in the shell toggle the respective LFO on and off, while the Rate knob sets the LFO's speed. The switch next to this knob toggles the Rate between frequency in Hertz and tempo-synced beat divisions. The Wave chooser in the display selects the waveform for the LFO.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 367 The Volume control in the shell adjusts the overall output of the instrument. This is the instrument's master level, and can boost or attenuate the output of the ampli er sections. The Vib switch turns the vibrato effect on or off, while the percentage slider next to it adjusts the amplitude of the vibrato. Analog's vibrato effect is essentially an additional LFO, but is hardwired to the pitch of both oscillators. The Rate slider sets the speed of the vibrato.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 368 priority to the most recently played notes, cutting off the oldest notes as necessary. The Octave, Semi and Tuning controls function as coarse and ne tuners. Octave transposes the entire instrument by octaves, while Semi transposes up or down in semitone increments. The Tuning slider adjusts in increments of one cent (up to a maximum of 50 cents up or down). PB Range sets the range in semitones of pitch bend modulation.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 23.2 369 Collision The Collision Instrument. Collision is a synthesizer that simulates the characteristics of mallet percussion instruments. Created in collaboration with Applied Acoustics Systems, Collision uses physical modeling technology to model the various sound generating and resonant components of real (or imagined) objects.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 370 In addition to serving as organizational aids, Collision's tabs contain LEDs that light up to indicate that their contained sections are active. Disabling unused sections can save CPU. 23.2.2 Excitator Tab The Excitator tab contains parameters for the Mallet and Noise sections. These model the behavior of a mallet striking a surface, and provide Collision's fundamental sound.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 371 The Color knob sets the frequency of the noise component. At higher values, there are less low frequencies in the noise. This parameter has no effect if Noise is set to 0. The Mallet section can be toggled on or off via the switch next to its name. The Noise Section Collision's Noise Section. The Noise section can be used instead of, or in addition to, the Mallet section. Like the Mallet, the Noise section produces Collision's initial impulse sound.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 372 decay phase to the release of the key. When this slider is set to 0, there is no sustain phase. With it set to 100, there is no decay phase. Finally, the release time is set with the R (Release) slider. This is the time it takes for the envelope to reach zero after the key is released. The Noise section can be toggled on or off via the switch next to its name. 23.2.3 Resonator Tabs Collision's Resonators.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 373 Tuning Section Resonator Tuning Parameters. The Tune and Fine knobs function as coarse and ne tuning controls. Tune moves up or down in semitone increments, while Fine adjusts in increments of one cent (up to a maximum of one quarter tone (50 cents) up or down). The Key slider below the Tune knob controls how much the resonator's tuning is adjusted by changes in MIDI note pitch.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 374 The type chooser allows you to select from seven types of physically modeled resonant objects: Beam simulates the resonance properties of beams of different materials and sizes. Marimba, a specialized variant of the Beam model, reproduces the characteristic tuning of marimba bar overtones which are produced as a result of the deep arch-cut of the bars. String simulates the sound produced by strings of different materials and sizes.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 375 the radius of the pipe or tube. As the radius increases, the decay time and high frequency sustain both increase. At very large sizes, the fundamental pitch of the resonator also changes. The Decay and Material/Radius parameters can also be controlled with the X-Y controller, and modulated by note pitch and velocity via the sliders below the X-Y panel.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 376 Mixer Section Resonator Mixer. Each resonator has its own Volume and Pan controls. Pan can also be modulated by note pitch via the K (Key) slider below the knob. The Bleed control mixes a portion of the original oscillator signal with the resonated signal. At higher values, more of the original signal is applied. This is useful for restoring high frequencies, which can often be damped when the tuning or quality are set to low values. 23.2.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 377 sawtooth down and two types of noise. The rst noise type steps between random values while the second uses smooth ramps. The switch next to the waveform chooser toggles the LFO's rate between frequency in Hertz and tempo-synced beat divisions. Depth sets the overall intensity of the LFO, while Rate adjusts its speed. The sliders below these parameters allow for additional modulations; Depth can be modulated by velocity while Rate can be modulated by note pitch.
378 CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE The Global Section Collision's Global Section. The global section contains the parameters that relate to the overall behavior and performance of Collision. The Volume knob acts as Collision's master output control. Collision contains a built-in limiter that automatically activates when the audio level is too high. This is indicated by the LED above Collision's global Volume control.
379 CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE Mallet Noise Resonator 1 Resonator 2 The Voices chooser sets the available polyphony. Since each voice that's used requires additional CPU, you may need to experiment with this chooser to nd a good balance between playability and performance, particularly on older machines. With Retrig. enabled, notes which are already sounding will be immediately stopped when retriggered, rather than generating an additional voice.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 380 try using the Noise excitator, particularly with long envelope times, to create washy, quasi-granular textures. These parameters can also be used to simulate special acoustic effects such as bowed vibraphones or crystal glasses. experiment with the resonators in parallel (1 + 2) con guration. use the LFOs and MIDI controllers to modulate Collision's parameters. A word of caution: in many ways, Collision's models are idealized versions of real-world objects.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 23.3.2 381 Accessing the Drum Machines After installation, the Drum Machines presets are accessed through Live's Device Browser, in exactly the same way as Live's other built-in instruments. You will nd them as categorized presets within the Drum Rack folder. Drum Machines presets are therefore loaded just like any other device, by dragging a preset from the Browser into an empty MIDI track.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 382 parameters can be tweaked to values not possible with the real instruments to get some truly amazing new sounds that still retain a warm acoustic quality. The full version of Electric is not included with the standard version of Live, but is a special feature available for purchase separately. 23.4.1 Architecture and Interface The mechanism of the electric piano is actually quite simple. A note played on the keyboard activates a mallet that hits a fork.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 383 The Noise subsection simulates the impact noise caused by the mallet striking the fork. The Decay knob adjusts how long it takes for this noise to fade to silence, while the Pitch control sets the center frequency. Level adjusts the overall volume of the noise component. An additional Key scaling control adjusts how much the noise volume is determined by note pitch. 23.4.3 Fork Section The Fork section is further divided into Tine and Tone subsections.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 384 hardness of the dampers, producing a brighter sound. The overall amount of damper noise is adjusted with the Level control. The Att/Rel knob adjusts whether or not damper noise is present when the dampers are applied to the fork or when they are released. When turned to the left, damper noise is only present during the attack phase of the note. When turned to the right, the noise is present only during the release phase.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 385 The Volume knob sets Electric's overall output level. The Voices chooser sets the available polyphony. Since each voice that's used requires additional CPU, you may need to experiment with this chooser to nd a good balance between playability and performance, particularly on older machines. The Semi and Detune controls function as coarse and ne tuners.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 386 allows you to easily integrate external (hardware) synthesizers, ReWire devices and multitimbral plug-ins into your projects. It sends MIDI out and returns audio. The two MIDI To choosers select the output to which the device will send MIDI data. The top chooser selects either a physical MIDI port, a ReWire slave destination or a multitimbral plug-in.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 387 next to this slider allows you to set your latency compensation amount in either milliseconds or samples. If your external device connects to Live via a digital connection, you will want to adjust your latency settings in samples, which ensures that the number of samples you specify will be retained even when changing the sample rate.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 388 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. 23.6.1 Sample Slots Drag and drop samples into any of Impulse's sample slots from the Browser or the Session and Arrangement Views. Alternatively, each sample slot features a Hot-Swap button for hot-swapping samples.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 23.6.2 389 Start, Transpose and Stretch The Start control de nes where Impulse begins playing a sample, and can be set up to 100 ms later than the actual sample beginning. The Transp (Transpose) control adjusts the transposition of the sample by +/- 48 semitones, and can be modulated by incoming note velocity or a random value, as set in the appropriate elds. The Stretch control has values from -100 to 100 percent.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 23.6.5 390 Pan and Volume Each sample has Volume and Pan controls that adjust amplitude and stereo positioning, respectively. Both controls can be modulated: Pan by velocity and a random value, and Volume by velocity only. 23.6.6 Global Controls The parameters located to the right of the sample slots are global controls that apply to all samples within Impulse's domain.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 23.7.1 391 Latin Percussion Installation Latin Percussion is installed separately from the main Live installation. To install, drag the Latin Percussion Live Pack into the Live application window, either from your operating system or from Live's Browser. After you have installed Latin Percussion, you will need to authorize it. Further details can be found at the Ableton website2 . 23.7.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 392 to navigate to the selected conga preset folder. Then drag the entire folder to the Drum Rack's pad view. This will replace all of the currently loaded conga components, leaving all other pads alone. You can also unfold these preset folders to access individual instruments within. Latin Percussion also includes a collection of Live Sets, which are installed to your Library's Clips folder.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 23.8.1 393 General Overview The interface of Operator consists of two parts: the display surrounded on either side by the shell. The shell offers the most important parameters in a single view and is divided into eight sections. On the left side, you will nd four oscillator sections, and on the right side from top to bottom, the LFO, the lter section, the pitch section and the global parameters.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 394 Operator's Global Display. 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 two types of noise. You can also draw your own waveforms via a partial editor. The instrument is made complete with an LFO, a pitch envelope and a lter section.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 395 Built-in Waveforms The oscillators come with a built-in collection of basic waveform types sine, sawtooth, square, triangle and noise which are selected from the Wave chooser in the individual oscillator displays. The rst of these waveforms is a pure, mathematical sine wave, which is usually the rst choice for many FM timbres.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 396 offers an option to toggle Normalize on or off. When enabled, the oscillator's overall output level is maintained as you draw additional harmonics. When disabled, additional harmonics add additional level. Note that the volume can become extremely loud if Normalize is off. You can export your waveform in .ams format to the Library/Samples/Waveforms folder via an option in the (PC) / Ctrl (Mac) context menu.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 397 The phase of each oscillator can be adjusted using the Phase control in its display. With the R (Retrigger) button enabled, the waveform restarts at the same position in its phase each time a note is triggered. With R disabled, the oscillator is free-running. As explained earlier oscillators can modulate each other when set up to do so with the global display's algorithms.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 23.8.3 398 LFO Section Operator's LFO Parameters. The LFO in Operator can practically be thought of as a fth oscillator. It runs at audio rates, and it modulates the frequency of the other oscillators. It is possible to switch LFO modulation on or off for each individual oscillator (and the lter) using the Dest. A buttons in the LFO's display. The intensity of the LFO's modulation of these targets can be adjusted by the Dest. A slider.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 399 display's Amt
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 400 Mode, an envelope will restart after the beat time selected from the Repeat chooser. In Beat Mode, the repeat time is de ned in fractions of song time, but notes are not quantized. If you play a note a bit out of sync, it will repeat perfectly but stay out of sync. In Sync Mode however, the rst repetition is quantized to the nearest 16th note and, as a result, all following repetitions are synced to the song tempo.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 23.8.5 401 Filter Section Operator's Filter Section. Operator's lters 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. The lter section offers 14 different lter types including multiple varieties of lowpass, bandpass, highpass and notch lters.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 402 called Play by Key. This automatically con gures the lter for optimal key tracking by setting Freq
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 23.8.7 403 Glide and Spread Operator's Pitch Section. Operator includes a polyphonic glide function. When this function is activated, new notes will start with the pitch of the last note played and then slide gradually to their own played pitch. Glide can be turned on or off and adjusted with the Glide Time control in the pitch display.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 404 For the sake of saving CPU resources, you will also usually want to reduce the number of voices to something between 6 and 12, and carefully use the Spread feature. The Interpolation and Antialias modes in the global display can also be turned off to conserve CPU resources. Note that turning off the oscillators will not save CPU power. 23.8.9 Finally...
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 405 Tone Operator is capable of producing timbres with very high frequencies, which can sometimes lead to aliasing artifacts. The Tone setting controls the high frequency content of sounds. Higher settings are typically brighter but also more likely to produce aliasing. Volume This sets the overall volume of the instrument. Algorithm An oscillator can modulate other oscillators, be modulated by other oscillators, or both.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 406 Modulation Targets These modulation targets are available as MIDI routing destinations in the global display, and also as modulation targets for the LFO and pitch envelope. Off Disabled this controller's modulation routing. OSC Volume A-D Modulates the volume of the selected oscillator. OSC Crossfade A/C Crossfades the volumes of the A and C oscillators based on the value of the modulation source.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 407 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 overall 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.
408 CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE Filter Shell and Display Filter On This turns the lter on and off. Turning it off when it is unused saves CPU power. Filter Type This chooser selects one of 14 lter types, including a variety of lowpass, highpass, bandpass and notch lters. The lter names imply the part of the spectrum they affect. A notch lter passes everything apart from its center frequency and is more audible with low resonance settings.
409 CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE LFO Shell and Display LFO On This turns the LFO (low-frequency oscillator) on and off. Turning it off when it is unused saves some CPU power. LFO Waveform Select from among several typical LFO waveforms. Sample and Hold (S&H) creates random steps, and Noise supplies bandpass- ltered noise. All waveforms are band-limited to avoid unwanted clicks. LFO Range The LFO covers an extreme frequency range.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE LFO Amount
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE Osc Phase (Phase) whole cycle. 411 This sets the initial phase of the oscillator. The range represents one Retrigger (R) When enabled, the oscillator restarts at the same position in its phase each time a note is triggered. With R disabled, the oscillator is free-running. Repeat Higher harmonics can be generated by repeating the drawn partials with a gradual fadeout, based on the settings in the Repeat chooser.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 412 Envelope Release Time (Release) This is the time it takes for a note to reach the end level after a note-off message is received. For the oscillator envelopes, this level is always -inf dB and the shape of the segment is exponential. For the lter and pitch envelopes, the end level is determined by the End Level parameter and the shape of the segment can be adjusted.
413 CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE Attack Slope (A.Slope) Adjusts the shape of the Attack envelope segment. Decay Slope (D.Slope) Adjusts the shape of the Decay envelope segment. Release Slope (R.Slope) Adjusts the shape of the Release envelope segment. Context Menu Parameters Certain operations and parameters in Operator are only available via the (Mac) context menu.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 23.9.1 414 Installation The orchestral libraries are installed separately from the main Live installation. To install, drag the relevant Live Packs into the Live application window, either from your operating system or from Live's Browser. After you have installed the libraries of your choice, you will need to authorize them. Further details can be found at the Ableton website3 . 23.9.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 23.10 415 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 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 416 captures an instrument at multiple points within its critical sonic range. This typically means capturing the instrument at different pitches as well as different levels of emphasis (played softly, moderately, loudly, etc.). The resulting multisample is a collection of all the individually recorded sample les.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 417 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. On a Mac, click on the title bar of Live's File Browser and select All Volumes. On a PC, navigate Live's File Browser to the Workspace by clicking on the Browser's title bar and selecting Workspace. 3.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 23.10.3 418 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 three types of 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 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 419 Zone Editor View (Key/Vel/Sel) These buttons toggle the display of the Key Zone, Velocity Zone and Sample Select Editors. 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).
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 420 Velocity Zones The Velocity Zone Editor. Velocity zones determine the range of MIDI Note On velocities that each sample will respond to. The timbre of most musical instruments changes greatly with playing intensity. Therefore, the best multisamples capture not only individual notes, but also each of those notes at different velocities. The Velocity Zone Editor, when toggled, appears alongside the sample layer list.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 421 found in Racks, in that only samples with sample select values that overlap the current value of the sample selector will be triggered. The Sample Select Editor, when toggled, appears alongside the sample layer list. The editor has a scale of 0-127, similar to the Velocity Zone Editor. Above the value scale is the draggable indicator known as the sample selector.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 422 Snap Snaps all start and end points to the waveform zero-crossings (points where the amplitude is zero) to avoid clicks. As with Simpler, this snap is based on the left channel of stereo samples, so a small Crossfade value may be necessary in some cases to completely eliminate clicks. 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.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 423 No Sustain Loop Playback proceeds linearly until either the Sample End is reached or the volume envelope completes its release stage. 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.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 424 the pitch of samples may shift within a loop, relative to the loop's duration. With Detune, the pitch of these regions can be matched to the rest of the sample. Interpolation (Interpol) This is a global setting that determines the accuracy of transposed samples. Be aware that raising the quality level above Normal will place signi cant demands on your CPU. RAM Mode (RAM) This is also a global control that loads the entire multisample into RAM.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 425 The Pitch Envelope The pitch envelope modulates the pitch of the sample over time, as well as of the Modulation Oscillator, if it is enabled. This is a multi-stage envelope with Initial, Peak, Sustain and End levels. The time needed to travel between the levels is determined by the Attack, Decay and Release settings. The values of the envelope parameters can be adjusted via the sliders, or by dragging the breakpoints in the envelope's display.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 426 Four different curves can be chosen for the waveshaper, and its overall intensity can be controlled with the Amount slider. In addition, the signal ow direction can be adjusted with the button above the waveshaper area. With the triangle pointing up, the signal passes from the shaper to the lter. With the triangle pointing down, it passes from the lter to the shaper. The Filter/Shaper Order Button.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 427 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. Use this, for example, to gradually introduce vibrato as a note is held.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 23.11 428 Session Drums Session Drums is a multisampled library of acoustic drumkits recorded by Chocolate Audio. The collection consists of both stereo and multimic presets, programmed as Drum Racks for easy editing and performance possibilities. The stereo presets are production-ready kits, carefully processed to re ect modern production techniques while keeping CPU and memory usage to a minimum. These kits come in both Full (24-bit) and LE (16-bit) versions.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 23.11.2 429 Accessing the Session Drums Presets After installation, the Session Drums presets are accessed through Live's Device Browser, in exactly the same way as Live's other built-in instruments. You will nd them as categorized presets within the Drum Rack folder. Session Drums presets are therefore loaded just like any other device, by dragging a preset from the Browser into an empty MIDI track.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 430 Velocity Sensitivity this Macro adjusts the dynamic range of the drumkit. As you turn up this control, the kit will play louder at high velocity and softer at low velocities. In the stereo presets, the additional Macros control tuning and decay times for the individual drums in the kit. In the multimic presets, they control the ambience and room characteristics of the return chains in the Drum Rack.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 23.12 431 Simpler The Simpler Instrument. Simpler is an instrument that integrates the basic elements of a sampler with a set of classic synthesizer parameters. A Simpler voice plays a user-de ned sample section, which is in turn processed by envelope, lter, LFO, volume and pitch components. Presets created in Simpler can be converted for use in Sampler, and vice-versa. To do (PC) / Ctrl (Mac) on Simpler's title bar and choose the Simpler -> Sampler this, command.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 23.12.2 432 Sample Controls Simpler plays a speci c region or loop of the sample, as determined by a group of sample controls. The Start and Length controls work together to specify where Simpler begins and ends its sweep of the sample. As the name implies, Start de nes where sample playback starts. The sample will play for the length de ned by the Length parameter.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 433 vertically to zoom, and drag horizontally to pan different areas of the sample into view. 23.12.4 Envelope Simpler contains three classic ADSR envelopes, as seen in most synthesizers, for shaping the dynamic response of the sample. Volume-, lter frequency-, and pitch modulation are all modi able by toggling their respective buttons in the envelope section.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 434 30 Hz, or sync to divisions of the Set's tempo. LFOs are applied individually to each voice, or played note, in Simpler. The Key parameter scales each LFO's Rate in proportion to the pitch of incoming notes. A high Key setting assigns higher notes a higher LFO rate. If Key is set to zero, all voices' LFOs have the same rate and may just differ in their phase.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 435 The Voices parameter sets the maximum number of voices that Simpler can play simultaneously. If more voices are needed than have been allocated by the Voices chooser, voice stealing will take place, in which the oldest voice(s) will be dropped in favor of those that are new. For example, if your Voices parameter is set to 8, and ten voices are all vying to be played, the two oldest voices will be dropped.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 23.13 436 Tension The Tension Instrument. Tension is a synthesizer dedicated to the emulation of string instruments, and developed in collaboration with Applied Acoustics Systems. The synthesizer is entirely based on physical modeling technology and uses no sampling or wavetables. Instead, it produces sound by solving mathematical equations that model the different components in string instruments and how they interact.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 437 a hammer, a pick or a bow. The frequency of the oscillation is determined by the effective length of the string, which is controlled by the nger/fret interaction or termination. A damper can be applied to the strings in order to reduce the decay time of the oscillation. This is the case on a piano, for example, when felt is applied to the strings by releasing the keys and sustain pedal.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 438 The modelled string can be played using different types of excitators in order to reproduce different types of instruments and playing techniques. The excitator is selected using the Type chooser, and the choices available are Bow, Hammer, Hammer (bouncing) and Plectrum. Bow - this excitator is associated with bowed instruments such as the violin, viola or cello. The bow sets the string in sustained oscillation.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 439 string into motion. The Protrusion knob adjusts how much of the plectrum's surface area is placed under the string. Lower values results in a thinner, smaller sound, as there is less mass setting the string into motion. The Stiffness, Velocity and Damping knobs behave similarly to the Hammer mode. Protrusion, Stiffness, Velocity and Position can be modulated by velocity or note pitch via the Vel and Key sliders.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 440 The String Section Tension's String Section. The vibration of the string is the main component of a stringed instrument's sound. The effective length of the string is also responsible for the pitch of the sound we hear. The theoretical model of a resonating string is harmonic, meaning that the string's partials are all exact multiples of the fundamental frequency.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 441 The Vibrato Section Tension's Vibrato Section. The Vibrato section uses an LFO to modulate the string's pitch. As with all of Tension's parameters, the controls in this section can be used to enhance the realism of a stringed instrument model or to create something never heard before. The two most important parameters in this section are the Rate and Amount sliders.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 442 The Damper Section Tension's Damper Section. All string instruments employ some type of damping mechanism that mutes the resonating string. In pianos, this is a felt pad that is applied to the string when the key is released. In instruments such as guitars and violins, the player damps by stopping the string's vibration with the ngers.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 443 The Mass, Stiffness and Velocity parameters can be further modulated by note pitch, via the sliders below. The stiffness of the damper mechanism is adjusted with the Damping knob, which affects the overall amount of vibration absorbed by the damper. Lower values result in less damping (longer decay times.) But this becomes a bit less predictable as the Damping value goes over 50%. At higher values, the mechanism becomes so stiff that it bounces against the string.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 444 adjusted with the Fing Mass and Fing Stiff knobs, which set the force the nger applies to the string and the nger's stiffness, respectively. The Mass amount can be additionally modulated by velocity or note pitch via the sliders. The stiffness of the fret is modelled with the Fret Stiff parameter. The Pickup Section Tension's Pickup Section. The Pickup section models an electromagnetic pickup, similar to the type found in an electric guitar or electric piano.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 445 The Body Section Tension's Body Section. The role of the body or soundboard of a string instrument is to radiate the vibration energy from the strings. The body also lters these vibrations, based on its size and shape. In some instruments, such as guitars, the body also includes an air cavity which boosts low frequencies. The body type chooser allows you to select from different body types modelled after physical instruments.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 23.13.3 446 Filter/Global Tab The Filter/Global tab contains the lter parameters for the instrument, as well as global controls. The Filter Section Tension's Filter Section. Tension's Filter section features a highly con gurable multi-mode lter that sits between the String and Body sections. In addition, the lter can be modulated by a dedicated envelope generator and low-frequency oscillator (LFO). The lter's chooser allows you to select the lter type.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 447 The time it takes for the envelope to reach the sustain level after the attack phase is set by the Decay knob. The Sustain knob sets the level at which the envelope will remain from the end of the decay phase to the release of the key. When this knob is turned all the way to the left, there is no sustain phase. With it turned all the way to the right, there is no decay phase.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 448 Global and Keyboard Parameters Tension's Global and Keyboard Parameters. The remaining section contain all of the parameters that adjust how Tension responds to MIDI data, as well as controls for performance parameters such as tuning and portamento. The Keyboard section contains all of Tension's polyphony and tuning parameters.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 449 The Error slider increases the amount of random tuning error applied to each note. Try very high values if you would like to relive your experiences from junior high school orchestra. The Unison section allows you to stack multiple voices for each note played. The switch next to the name toggles the section on or off. The Voices switch selects between two or four stacked voices, while Detune adjusts the amount of tuning variation applied to each stacked voice.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 450 To get a sense of what's possible, it may help to study how the presets were made. You'll soon realize that Tension can do far more than just strings. 23.14 The Essential Instrument Collection 2 The boxed version of Live 8 ships with the Essential Instrument Collection 2, a multi-gigabyte library of meticulously sampled instruments created in cooperation with SONiVOX, Chocolate Audio and Puremagnetik.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 451 The EIC presets are available in Full and Lite versions, allowing you to choose the right balance of delity and polyphony for your needs. The Lite version reduces CPU, RAM and disk requirements by reducing the number of zones and sample layers used. Both the normal and Lite presets use 24-bit multisamples. There is also an EIC LE Pack available which contains very ef cient versions of the EIC instruments suitable for sketching out ideas.
CHAPTER 23. LIVE INSTRUMENT REFERENCE 452 Special Features of the Guitar and Bass Banks The EIC's guitar instruments have additional banks for single-key chords with strumming, and the PBass instrument has a similar bank for down- and up- strokes played with a pick. In all cases, lower octaves play down strums, while upper octaves play up strums.
453 Chapter 24 Max for Live Max for Live, an add-on product co-developed with Cycling '74, allows users to extend and customize Live by creating instruments, audio effects, and MIDI devices. Max for Live can also be used to extend the functionality of hardware controllers and even modify clips and parameters within a Live Set. In addition to providing a comprehensive toolkit for building devices, Max for Live also comes with a collection of pre-made instruments, effects and tutorials.
CHAPTER 24. MAX FOR LIVE 454 on authorizing Live contains more information about this process, and in-depth instructions can be found at the Ableton website2 . If you've installed Max to somewhere other than the default location, you will rst need to point to it in Live's File/Folder Preferences: The Path to the Max Installation. Once authorization is complete and Live has found the Max application, Max for Live should be ready for use.
CHAPTER 24. MAX FOR LIVE 455 To avoid these issues, we recommend always storing Max devices and their presets in the same folder. Live's Library is the preferred location. A Max Device and its Presets in the Device Browser. 24.3 Editing Max for Live Devices Max devices (or patches ) are constructed of objects that send data to each other via virtual cables.
CHAPTER 24. MAX FOR LIVE 456 To load an empty Max device, drag a Max Instrument, Max MIDI Effect or Max Audio Effect from the Device Browser into your Set. What a Max device actually does depends on the objects that it contains, and the way in which they're connected together. The area where you work with Max objects is called the editor (or patcher ), and can be accessed by pressing the Edit button in the Max device's title bar. The Edit Button for a Max Device.
CHAPTER 24. MAX FOR LIVE 457 location. Note: unlike Live's native devices, Max devices are not saved inside Live Sets, but rather as separate les. 24.4 Max Dependencies As mentioned earlier, there are some special le management considerations when creating presets for Max devices. Additionally, Max devices themselves may depend on other les (such as samples, pictures, or even other Max patches) in order to work properly.
458 Chapter 25 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 25. MIDI AND KEY REMOTE CONTROL 25.1 459 MIDI Remote Control Live can be controlled remotely by external MIDI control surfaces, such as MIDI keyboards or controller boxes. Live also offers dedicated control via the Akai APC40, Akai APC20 and Novation Launchpad. Before we explain how remote control assignments are made and implemented, let's rst make the distinction between MIDI remote control and a separate use of MIDI in Live: as the input for our MIDI tracks.
CHAPTER 25. MIDI AND KEY REMOTE CONTROL listed here, don't fret Surface Setup. 460 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 25. MIDI AND KEY REMOTE CONTROL 461 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 25. MIDI AND KEY REMOTE CONTROL 462 Note: Some control surfaces do not support locking to devices. This capability is indicated for individual controllers in the Control Surface Reference lesson. Select the Lessons option from the View menu to access Live's built-in lessons. 25.1.2 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.
CHAPTER 25. MIDI AND KEY REMOTE CONTROL 25.1.3 463 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 25. MIDI AND KEY REMOTE CONTROL 25.2 464 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 25. MIDI AND KEY REMOTE CONTROL 465 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. If your Browser is Alt Alt B (PC) / B (Mac) will open it for you. closed, Ctrl 2.
CHAPTER 25. MIDI AND KEY REMOTE CONTROL 25.2.3 466 Mapping to Absolute MIDI Controllers Absolute MIDI controllers send messages to Live in the form of absolute values ranging from 0 to 127. These values lead to different results depending on the type of Live control to which they are assigned. A value message of 127, for example, might turn the Volume control on a Live track all the way up or play a Session View clip.
467 CHAPTER 25. MIDI AND KEY REMOTE CONTROL Live to pan right, causing an abrupt jump in the track's panning. A pan knob sending relative messages would prevent this, since its incremental message to Live would simply say, Pan slightly to the left of your current position. There are four types of relative controllers: Signed Bit, Signed Bit 2, Bin Offset and Twos Complement. Convention (Mode) Relative (Signed Bit) Relative (Signed Bit 2) Relative (Bin Offset) Relative (2's Comp.
468 CHAPTER 25. MIDI AND KEY REMOTE CONTROL Relative Session View Navigation Notice that you can make not only absolute mappings to individual slots and scenes, but also relative mappings to move the highlighted scene and operate on the highlighted clips. In both MIDI Map Mode and Key Map Mode, a strip of assignable controls appears below the Session grid: 4 3 1 2 The Relative Session Mapping Strip. 1. Assign these buttons to keys, notes or controllers to move the highlighted scene up and down. 2.
CHAPTER 25. MIDI AND KEY REMOTE CONTROL 469 Clip View interface could potentially affect any clip in the Live Set. For this reason, we recommend mapping Clip View controls to relative MIDI controllers to prevent undesirable jumps in parameter values. 25.2.5 Computer Keyboard Remote Control The Key Map Mode Switch. Creating control surface assignments for your computer keyboard is straightforward: 1. Enter Key Map Mode by pressing the KEY switch in the upper right-hand corner of the Live screen.
CHAPTER 25. MIDI AND KEY REMOTE CONTROL computer keystrokes for use with instruments.
471 Chapter 26 Using the APC40 The APC40 (Ableton Performance Controller) is a dedicated controller for Ableton Live, codesigned by Ableton and Akai Professional1 . This chapter will help you set up your APC40, and introduce its capabilities. 26.1 Setup Once the APC40 has been powered on and connected to your computer's USB port, you will need to select the APC40 in Live's Preferences. The APC40 is one of Live's natively supported control surfaces, so setup is quite easy: 1.
CHAPTER 26. USING THE APC40 472 Setting Up The APC40. 26.2 Clip Launch Matrix The APC40's matrix of buttons gives you physical access to the clips in your Session View. The matrix has 40 three-color buttons arranged in a ve-scene-deep-by-eight-track-wide grid. The color-coding system lets you know exactly what is happening in each clip, and directional controls let you move around inside your Session View.
CHAPTER 26. USING THE APC40 473 Session View Clip and Navigation Controls. Pressing a Clip Launch button triggers the clip in the corresponding clip slot in Live. If the track is armed to record, pressing the button records a new clip. The buttons in the matrix light up in different colors so you know what's going on: Amber: this slot contains a clip. Green: this clip is playing. Red: this clip is recording. Many aspects of the Live interface are replicated in the APC40.
CHAPTER 26. USING THE APC40 474 APC's button matrix are shown in Live with a red border. The directional arrows and Shift button increase the scope of the eight-by- ve grid: Pressing Up or Down moves you up or down one scene at a time. Hold the Shift button while hitting Up or Down to move ve scenes up or down. The Left and Right arrow keys move you left or right one track at a time. Hold the Shift button while hitting Left or Right to move eight tracks at a time. 26.
CHAPTER 26. USING THE APC40 26.4 475 Mixer Section The APC40 features eight tracks, each with its own fader, solo/pre-cue, activator and record arm buttons. A Master fader controls the master volume and a Cue Level knob controls cue volume, so you can pre-listen to a clip or the metronome without your audience hearing it. Mixer Controls. You can shift these eight tracks around the Session View using the directional controls. Press the right or left arrows to move incrementally, one track at a time.
CHAPTER 26. USING THE APC40 26.5 476 Device Control The APC40 features eight endless dials and four control buttons that map to your devices automatically for exibility and speed on stage or in the studio. Device Controls. The Track Selection buttons route the eight endless encoders to the rst device or Rack on that track, with LED rings to automatically show you the levels on the selected parameter. Four buttons below the dials give you additional control options.
CHAPTER 26. USING THE APC40 477 the Shift button, these eight buttons let you select eight banks of eight device parameter controls. For more information, see the Control Surface Reference Lesson. 26.6 Transport and Global Buttons Live's Play, Stop and Global Record buttons are all easily accessible, and four global buttons access Live's functions, cleaning up your screen view onstage and freeing you from the mouse in the studio: Transport and Global Controls.
CHAPTER 26. USING THE APC40 478 MIDI Overdub lets you overdub on a MIDI clip. Metronome turns the metronome on and off. 26.7 Track Control The Track Control section covers pan settings or send levels for whichever eight tracks are currently selected. It consists of eight endless dials with LED rings and four buttons: Pan, Send A, Send B and Send C. Track Controls.
CHAPTER 26. USING THE APC40 26.8 479 Tempo Control Tap Tempo and Nudge Left/Right buttons are essential for live performance, helping you to stay in sync with turntables, other musicians or a live band, and correct timing issues quickly. Tempo Control. As you hit the Tap Tempo button once every beat, the tempo of the Live Set will follow your tapping. You can also use tapping to count in: If you are working in a 4:4 signature, it takes four taps to start song playback at the tapped tempo.
CHAPTER 26. USING THE APC40 26.9 480 Crossfader The APC40's replaceable crossfader is an essential DJ control, and is also handy for controlling effect, volume and modulation curves. Crossfader. In Live, you can set any track as an A or B destination, and then crossfade between the A and B selections. Normal wear and tear can render a crossfader obsolete. The APC40's crossfader is fully replaceable from the bottom of the device, so you can extend the lifetime of this already durable unit.
CHAPTER 26. USING THE APC40 26.10 481 Customizing the APC40 Controls You can change the assignment of all of the knobs, faders and buttons on the APC40 by enabling the Remote switches in the MIDI/Sync Preferences, as described in the section on manual control surface setup. Setting Up The APC40 For Custom Assignments. Now, by entering Live's MIDI Map Mode, you can override the pre-assigned functions of all of the APC40's knobs, faders and buttons.
482 Chapter 27 Using the APC20 The APC20 (Ableton Performance Controller) is a dedicated controller for Ableton Live, codesigned by Ableton and Akai Professional1 . This chapter will help you set up your APC20, and introduce its capabilities. 27.1 Setup Once the APC20 has been powered on and connected to your computer's USB port, you will need to select the APC20 in Live's Preferences. The APC20 is one of Live's natively supported control surfaces, so setup is quite easy: 1.
CHAPTER 27. USING THE APC20 483 Setting Up The APC20. 27.2 Clip Launch Matrix The APC20's matrix of buttons gives you direct access to the clips in your Session View. The matrix has 40 three-color buttons arranged in a ve-scene-deep-by-eight-track-wide grid. The color-coding system lets you know exactly what is happening in each clip, and directional controls let you move around inside your Session View.
CHAPTER 27. USING THE APC20 484 Session View Clip and Navigation Controls. Pressing a Clip Launch button triggers the clip in the corresponding clip slot in Live. If the track is armed to record, pressing the button records a new clip. The buttons in the matrix light up in different colors so you know what's going on: Amber: this slot contains a clip. Green: this clip is playing. Red: this clip is recording. No color: this slot is empty.
CHAPTER 27. USING THE APC20 485 re ects what's happening on the controller. The clip slots currently being controlled by the APC's button matrix are shown in Live with a red border. The cursor controls allow you to navigate around the Session View: Pressing Up or Down moves you up or down one scene at a time. The Left and Right arrow keys move you left or right one track at a time. 27.
CHAPTER 27. USING THE APC20 486 Transport and Global Controls. 27.5 Mixer The Mixer section gives you control of your mix, as well as all soloing, pre-cueing, muting, pans, sends and more. The APC20 features eight tracks and a master fader, all of which can be expanded with the Session Overview. A Cue Level knob controls cue volume, so you can pre-listen to a clip or the metronome without your audience hearing it. You can shift these eight tracks around the Session View.
CHAPTER 27. USING THE APC20 487 Mixer Controls. The Vol, Pan, Send A, Send B, Send C, User 1, User 2 and User 3 buttons provide additional control possibilities, by re-assigning the eight faders to the selected function. Selecting Pan, for example, lets you use the eight faders to control track pan setting. To change the functionality of the faders, simply hold down the Shift button and select the parameter you want to control.
CHAPTER 27. USING THE APC20 27.6 488 Note Mode Pressing the Note Mode button changes the functionality of the clip launch matrix. When Note Mode is on (i.e., when the button is lit), the buttons on the grid send MIDI notes instead of controlling Live's Session View. Note Mode Button. 27.7 Combination Mode The real power of the APC20 comes through when you combine it with additional APC20s or the Akai Professional APC40.
CHAPTER 27. USING THE APC20 489 topmost controller selected in your preferences will control tracks 1-8, the second controller selected will control tracks 9-16, and so on. When an APC40 and an APC20 are connected at the same time, the APC20's buttons will default to Track Selection, and its faders will default to volume, allowing swift access to an expanding array of clips and tracks.
490 Chapter 28 Using the Launchpad The Launchpad is a dedicated controller for Ableton Live, co-designed by Ableton and Novation1 . Launchpad has 64 square-shaped pads and 16 round buttons, all of which are pre-con gured to integrate perfectly with Live. This chapter will help you set up your Launchpad, and introduce its capabilities. 28.1 Setup Once the Launchpad has been connected to one of your computer's USB ports, you will need to select the Launchpad in Live's Preferences.
CHAPTER 28. USING THE LAUNCHPAD 491 Setting Up The Launchpad. 28.2 Launchpad's Four Modes Launchpad's Mode Buttons. The row of buttons on the top of Launchpad includes four directional arrow buttons to navigate through the Session View, and four mode buttons which switch between Session mode, User mode 1, User mode 2 and Mixer mode. These modes are explained in more detail below. 28.
CHAPTER 28. USING THE LAUNCHPAD 492 Launchpad Session Mode Button. 28.3.1 Launching Clips Session Mode. When Launchpad is chosen as an active control surface, a ring appears on the Session View in Live to indicate which clips are currently controlled by the pad matrix. This ring is red if Launchpad is enabled in the rst of Live's six control surface choosers. Each chooser has a different colored ring, allowing you to assign multiple Launchpads at the same time.
CHAPTER 28. USING THE LAUNCHPAD 493 The Left and Right arrow keys move you left or right one track at a time. Hold the Session button while hitting Left or Right to move eight tracks at a time (bank shifting). Pressing a Clip Launch pad triggers the clip in the corresponding clip slot in Live. Hitting an empty clip slot in a track that is not armed will stop the clip playing in this track. If the track is armed to record, pressing the button records a new clip.
CHAPTER 28. USING THE LAUNCHPAD 494 The Launchpad's Session Overview lets you navigate through large Live Sets quickly without looking at your computer screen. Hold down the Session button and the matrix zooms out to reveal an overview of your Session View. In the Session Overview, each pad represents an eight-by-eight block of clips, giving you a matrix of 64 scenes by 64 tracks. Hit a pad to focus on that section of the Session View.
CHAPTER 28. USING THE LAUNCHPAD 28.4.1 495 Customizing the Launchpad Controls You can change the assignment of all of the Launchpad's controls by enabling the Remote switches in the MIDI/Sync Preferences, as described in the section on manual control surface setup. Setting Up The Launchpad For Custom Assignments. Now, by entering Live's MIDI Map Mode, you can override the pre-assigned functions of all of the Launchpad's controls.
CHAPTER 28. USING THE LAUNCHPAD 28.5 496 Mixer Mode Launchpad Mixer Buttons. Launchpad's Mixer mode gives you access to essential mixing controls in Live: volume, pan, sends, clip stop, track activation, solo and record/arm. The directional arrows to change the focus of the ring are still accessible in Mixer mode.
CHAPTER 28. USING THE LAUNCHPAD 28.5.1 497 Mixer Overview Launchpad Mixer Overview. This is the view displayed when pressing the Mixer button. It provides an overview of the main mixing controls in Live. The top four rows of pads indicate the status of track volume and track pan, as well as sends A and B, for each track: if the parameter is at its default value, the pad is dimmed if the parameter is NOT at its default value, the pad is fully lit.
CHAPTER 28. USING THE LAUNCHPAD 498 pads in the arm row will arm this track The bottom four buttons on the right provide additional control for each track: the stop button will stop all clips currently playing the trk on button will mute all tracks (all pads turn off) the solo button will un-solo all soloed tracks the arm button will un-arm all armed tracks 28.5.2 The Volume Page Launchpad Volume Page. Press the vol button to enter the Volume page.
CHAPTER 28. USING THE LAUNCHPAD 28.5.3 499 The Pan Page Launchpad Pan Page. Press the pan button to enter the Pan page. In the Pan page, all eight pads of a column turn into a track panorama knob for the selected track, with left at the bottom and right at the top. The pads have the following values, from bottom to top: 50L, 30L, 15L, center, center, 15R, 30R, 50R. The pan control is centered when the two pads in the middle are fully lit.
CHAPTER 28. USING THE LAUNCHPAD 28.5.4 500 The Send Pages Launchpad Send Page. Press the snd A or snd B button to enter a Send page. In the two Send pages (for Send A and Send B), all eight pads of a column turn into a send knob for the selected track. The pads have the following values in dB, from bottom to top: -inf, -48, -24, -18, -12, -6, 0, +6. All pads below (and including) the selected value light up in full brightness to indicate the knob position.
501 Chapter 29 Synchronization and ReWire 29.1 Synchronizing via MIDI The MIDI protocol de nes two ways to synchronize sequencers, both of which are supported by Live. Both protocols work with the notion of a sync master, which delivers a sync signal that is tracked by the sync slave(s). MIDI Clock. MIDI Clock works like a metronome ticking at a fast rate. The rate of the incoming ticks is tempo-dependent: Changing the tempo at the sync master (e.g.
CHAPTER 29. SYNCHRONIZATION AND REWIRE 502 are explained later in this chapter. With respect to MIDI Timecode, Live can only act as a MIDI sync slave, not a master. 29.1.1 Synchronizing External MIDI Devices to Live Live can send MIDI Clock messages to an external MIDI sequencer (or drum machine). After connecting the sequencer to Live and setting it up to receive MIDI sync, turn the device on as a sync destination in Live's MIDI/Sync Preferences. Choosing a MIDI Slave for Live.
CHAPTER 29. SYNCHRONIZATION AND REWIRE 503 The External Sync Switch. When Live is synced to an external MIDI device, it can accept song position pointers from this device, syncing it not only in terms of tempo but in terms of its position in the song. If the master jumps to a new position within the song, Live will do the same. However, if the Control Bar's Loop switch is activated, playback will be looped, and song position pointers will simply be wrapped into the length of the loop. 29.1.
CHAPTER 29. SYNCHRONIZATION AND REWIRE 504 pronounced percussive sounds. While listening to the output from both, adjust the Sync Delay control until both sounds are in perfect sync. Adjusting Sync Delay. 29.2 Connecting via ReWire Live supports the ReWire interface for connecting with another ReWire-compatible audio program running on the same computer.
CHAPTER 29. SYNCHRONIZATION AND REWIRE 29.2.1 505 Running Live in ReWire Master Mode The step-by-step procedure for sending MIDI to and receiving audio from a ReWire slave program is presented in the routing chapter. 29.2.2 Running Live in ReWire Slave Mode In ReWire slave mode, Live can both receive MIDI from, but also send audio to the master application.
CHAPTER 29. SYNCHRONIZATION AND REWIRE 29.2.3 506 More on ReWire You can nd tutorials on connecting Live to speci c ReWire master programs at the Ableton tutorial website1 . The Ableton FAQ website2 is the rst place to go if you encounter ReWire-related problems. If you cannot seem to nd an answer there, please contact the Ableton support team3 . 1 http://www.ableton.com/tutorials 2 http://www.ableton.com/faq 3 http://www.ableton.
507 Chapter 30 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. 30.
CHAPTER 30. COMPUTER AUDIO RESOURCES AND STRATEGIES 508 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 30. COMPUTER AUDIO RESOURCES AND STRATEGIES 30.1.2 509 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 30. COMPUTER AUDIO RESOURCES AND STRATEGIES 510 device or clip settings. On slower machines, you can unfreeze processor-intensive tracks one at a time to make edits, freezing them again when you are done. Many editing functions remain available to tracks that are frozen. Launching clips can still be done freely, and mixer controls such as volume, pan and the sends are still available.
CHAPTER 30. COMPUTER AUDIO RESOURCES AND STRATEGIES 511 For frozen Session clips, only two loop cycles are included in the frozen clip, which means that clips with unlinked clip envelopes may play back differently after two loop cycles when frozen. The samples generated by the Freeze Track command are stored in your temporary recording folder until you save your Live Set, at which point they are moved to the following project folder sub-directory: Samples/Processed/Freeze.
CHAPTER 30. COMPUTER AUDIO RESOURCES AND STRATEGIES 512 Do the following to avoid disk overload: 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.
513 Chapter 31 Audio Fact Sheet Prior to the release of Live 7, much of Ableton's development effort was focused on carefully and objectively testing Live's fundamental audio performance. As a result of this testing, we have implemented a number of low-level improvements to the audio engine.
CHAPTER 31. AUDIO FACT SHEET 514 we will never release an update unless it passes every test. 31.2 Neutral Operations Procedures in Live that will cause absolutely no change in audio quality are referred to as neutral operations. You can be sure that using these functions will never cause any signal degradation. Applying neutral operations to audio that was recorded into Live ensures that the audio will be unchanged from the point of analog-to-digital conversion.
CHAPTER 31. AUDIO FACT SHEET 515 rendering to a le with the same bit depth as the original results in complete phase cancellation. rendering to a le with a higher bit depth than the original results in complete phase cancellation. rendering to a le with a lower bit depth than the original results in the smallest amount of distortion possible within a 32-bit system. 31.2.
CHAPTER 31. AUDIO FACT SHEET 31.2.4 516 Summing at Single Mix Points Since version 7, Live uses double precision (64-bit) summing at all points where signals are mixed, including Clip and return track inputs, the Master track and Racks. Mixing in Live is thus a neutral operation for signals mixed at any single summing point.
CHAPTER 31. AUDIO FACT SHEET 31.2.7 517 Freeze, Flatten When tracks are frozen, the audio les that are created are 32 bit, which ensures that they will not be lower quality than the audio heard prior to freezing. But there are some special cases involving Freeze that result in non-neutral behavior and should be noted: Frozen Arrangement View tracks can include audio material that extends beyond the end of the clip itself, such as reverb tails and delay repetitions.
CHAPTER 31. AUDIO FACT SHEET 31.2.8 518 Bypassed Effects Bypassed effects in Live are removed from the signal ow. This is true for both Live's built-in effects devices and third-party VST and AU plug-ins. Consequently, audio at the output of a bypassed effect is identical to the audio at the input. Please note, however, that effects devices with parameters that inherently require delay (e.g.
CHAPTER 31. AUDIO FACT SHEET 519 In all cases, output is rendered and compared with the output of an unsplit version of the same source. Phase cancellation testing of the two les con rms that they are identical. 31.3 Non-Neutral Operations Procedures in Live that will cause a change in audio quality are referred to as non-neutral operations. Users can be guaranteed that using these operations will cause at least some change to the signal.
CHAPTER 31. AUDIO FACT SHEET 520 sample rate that you plan to use in Live, the les can be imported without any loss of quality. Rendering audio from Live with a sampling rate other than the one that was used while working on the project is also a non-neutral operation, and may result in a loss of sound quality.
CHAPTER 31. AUDIO FACT SHEET 31.3.5 521 Recording external signals (bit depth < A/D converter) Recording audio signals into Live is a non-neutral operation if the bit depth set in Live's Preferences window is lower than that of the A/D converters used for the recording. This is not recommended. 31.3.6 Recording internal sources below 32 bit Audio that is recorded via internal routing will lose quality if the recording is made at a bit depth below 32 bits.
CHAPTER 31. AUDIO FACT SHEET 31.3.9 522 Panning Live uses constant power panning with sinusoidal gain curves. Output is 0 dB at the center position and signals panned fully left or right will be increased by +3 dB. In order to minimize this volume change, it may be helpful to narrow the overall stereo width before doing extreme panning. This can be done via the Width control in the Utility device. 31.3.
CHAPTER 31. AUDIO FACT SHEET 523 convert your rendered les in an of ine application that is optimized for these tasks, rather than in Live. Please note that these practices, while ensuring optimal audio quality, disable some of Live's functionality in particular, stretching and synchronization. 31.5 Summary and Conclusions Ableton wrote this paper in order to help users understand exactly how audio is affected when performing various procedures in Live.
524 Chapter 32 MIDI Fact Sheet In conjunction with our work on the audio engine, Ableton has spent additional effort analyzing Live's MIDI timing and making improvements where necessary. We wrote this fact sheet to help users understand the problems involved in creating a reliable and accurate computer-based MIDI environment, and to explain Live's approach to solving these problems.
CHAPTER 32. MIDI FACT SHEET 525 environment would capture this incoming information with perfect timing accuracy in relation to the timeline of the song as accurately as an audio recording. 2) Playback refers to two related scenarios when dealing with DAWs. The rst involves sending MIDI note and controller information from the DAW to a hardware device such as a synthesizer.
CHAPTER 32. MIDI FACT SHEET 526 data into a plug-in's playback, for example. Jitter-free MIDI timing involves accurate conversion between different clocks within the system's components the MIDI interface, audio interface, and the DAW itself. The accuracy of this conversion depends on a variety of factors, including the operating system and driver architecture used. Jitter, much more so than latency, creates the feeling that MIDI timing is sloppy or loose. 32.
CHAPTER 32. MIDI FACT SHEET 527 For playback of hardware devices, Live also generates timestamps that it attempts to communicate to the MIDI interface drivers for scheduling of outgoing MIDI events. Windows MME drivers cannot process timestamps, however, and for devices that use these drivers, Live schedules outgoing events internally. Even during high system loads that cause audio dropouts, Live will continue to receive incoming MIDI events.
528 CHAPTER 32. MIDI FACT SHEET 32.5 Tests and Results Our procedure for testing the timing of incoming MIDI events is represented in the following diagram: Live MIDI Source MIDI Splitter MIDI Clip MIDI-to-Audio Converter Audio Clip The output of a MIDI Source (a keyboard or other DAW playing long sequences of random MIDI events) is fed to a zero-latency hardware MIDI Splitter. One portion of the splitter's output is recorded into a new MIDI clip in Live.
529 CHAPTER 32. MIDI FACT SHEET At 44.1 kHz and 512 sample buffer, occasional events with +/- 6 ms occurred. In all cases, the majority of the jitter occurred at +/- 1 ms. Interface C: For most of the tests, the maximum jitter was +/- 5 ms. At 96 kHz and 512 sample buffer, there were a small number of events with between +/- 6 and 8 ms of jitter. At 44.1 kHz and 1024 sample buffer, there were a small number of events with jitter as high as +/- 10 ms.
CHAPTER 32. MIDI FACT SHEET 32.6 530 Tips for Achieving Optimal MIDI Performance In order to help users achieve optimal MIDI performance with Live, we have provided a list of recommended practices and program settings. Use the lowest possible buffer sizes available on your audio hardware, thereby keeping latency to a minimum. Audio buffer controls are found in the Audio tab of Live's Preferences, and vary depending on the type of hardware you're using.
CHAPTER 32. MIDI FACT SHEET 32.7 531 Summary and Conclusions Ableton wrote this paper in order to help users understand a variety of related topics: the inherent problems in computer-based MIDI systems; our approach to solving these problems in Live; additional variables that we cannot account for. As mentioned before, the best way to solve MIDI timing issues in your studio is to use the highest-quality hardware components available.
532 Chapter 33 Live Keyboard Shortcuts 33.
533 CHAPTER 33. LIVE KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS Windows Close Window/Dialog 33.2 Esc Macintosh Esc Accessing Menus and the rst letter of the Under Windows, you can access each menu by pressing Alt 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 33.3 to choose a menu item. Adjusting Values Windows Decrement/Increment Finer Resolution for Dragging Return to Default Type in Value Go to Next Field (Bar.beat.
534 CHAPTER 33. LIVE KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS 33.4 Browsing In addition to the shortcuts shown here, editing shortcuts can also be used in the Browser. Windows Scroll Down/Up Close/Open 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 33.
535 CHAPTER 33. LIVE KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS 33.
536 CHAPTER 33. LIVE KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS 33.7 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 Halve/Double 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 33.8 Session View Commands See also the editing commands.
537 CHAPTER 33. LIVE KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS 33.9 Arrangement View Commands The shortcuts for zooming, snapping/drawing and loop/region settings also work in the Arrangement View. See also the editing commands.
538 CHAPTER 33. LIVE KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS 33.10 Commands for Tracks See also the editing commands. Windows Insert Audio Track Insert MIDI Track Insert Return Track Rename Selected Track While Renaming, Go to next Track Group Selected Tracks Ungroup Tracks Show Grouped Tracks Hide Grouped Tracks Move Nonadjacent Tracks Without Collapsing Arm/Solo Multiple Tracks Add Device from Browser 33.
539 CHAPTER 33. LIVE KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS 33.12 Key/MIDI Map Mode and the Computer MIDI Keyboard Windows Toggle MIDI Map Mode Toggle Key Map Mode Computer MIDI Keyboard 33.
540 CHAPTER 33. LIVE KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS 33.14 Clip View Sample Display The shortcuts for zooming and loop/region settings also work in the Sample Display. Windows Quantize Quantize Settings... Move Selected Warp Marker Select Warp Marker Scroll Display to Follow Playback Move Clip Region with Start Marker 33.15 Ctrl Macintosh U Ctrl U U U Ctrl Ctrl F F Clip View MIDI Editor The shortcuts for zooming, snapping/drawing and loop/region settings also work in the MIDI Editor.
541 CHAPTER 33. LIVE KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS 33.16 Grid Snapping and Drawing Windows Toggle Draw Mode Narrow Grid Widen Grid Triplet Grid Snap to Grid Fixed/Zoom-Adaptive Grid Bypass Snapping While Dragging 33.
542 CHAPTER 33. LIVE KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS 33.18 Working with Sets and the Program Windows New Live Set Open Live Set Close Live Set Save Live Set Save Live Set As... Quit Live Hide Live Export Audio/Video Export MIDI le 33.
CHAPTER 33. LIVE KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS 33.20 543 Using the Context Menu A context menu is available in Live for quick access to many commonly used menu items. To access the context menu, (PC) / Ctrl (Mac) on the part of the interface where you would like to execute a particular command. It is worth noting that Live's context menu may sometimes contain applicable settings from the Preferences.
544 Index A Ableton e-mail addresses sales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 technical support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 web addresses FAQs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506 tutorials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506 webshop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Adaptive Grid options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Add/Remove Stop Button command . . . . 95 agr les . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
545 INDEX Audio Fact Sheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 513 neutral operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 514 non-neutral operations . . . . . . . . . . . . 519 testing and methodology . . . . . . . . . . 513 tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 522 audio les . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . see samples audio interface setup . . . . . . . . . . . . see Audio Preferences, see routing Audio Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
INDEX general editing of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258 imposing rhythm with . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269 loop/region settings for . . . . . . . . . . . 266 mixer control modulation with . . . . . 264 scrambling beats with . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262 unlinking from clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267 using for fade-outs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266 Clip Fade switch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Clip Gain slider . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
INDEX control surfaces and takeover mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .463 instant mappings for . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 460 locking to devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461 manual setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 462 natively supported . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 459 copy protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Corpus effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294 count-in for recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
INDEX using Audio Units Plug-ins . . . . . . . . . 226 using Live devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 using plug-in devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 using VST Plug-ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223 dither . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 Double/Halve Original BPM buttons . . . 116, 124 Draw Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254 and drawing MIDI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 with clip envelopes . . . . . . .
549 INDEX File Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 opening Sets with the . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 le management . . . . . . . . . see Manage Files command File Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 File Type preference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 File/Folder Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 and VST Plug-ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223 Filter Delay effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
INDEX effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .211 instrument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .211 plug-ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 Insert Audio Track command . . . . . . . . . . . 189 insert marker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Insert MIDI Clip command . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 Insert MIDI Track command . . . . . . . . . . . .
INDEX M Macro Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230 Macro Map Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247 Manage Files command and changing le references . . . . . . . . 55 and collecting external les . . . . . . . . . 67 and collecting external samples . . . . .68 and nding unused les . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 and importing projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 and locating missing les . . . . . . . . . . . 64 and packing Live Projects . . . . . . . . . . .
INDEX 552 clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 Original BPM eld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116, 124 Overdrive effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325 N Overdub Switch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201, 203 Overdubbing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203 Narrow Grid command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 New command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 P Next Locator button . . . . . . . . . . . .
INDEX converting Simpler to Sampler . . . . .431 Defaults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216 for speci c Live Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 saving with les . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Preview switch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37, 137 Preview Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Preview Volume knob . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 previewing in the Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
INDEX Output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333 Reverse button . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 ReWire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .504 Live as master . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170 Live as slave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 505 recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .see recording tutorials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . see Ableton REX Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
555 INDEX Search In Folder command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 searching in the File Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 rescan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Select Loop command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 and clip envelopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 and exporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Select Next Scene on Launch option . . . . 92 Select Next Scene on Launch preference 468 Select on Launch preference . . . . . . . . . . . .
556 INDEX tempo and scene names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92, 96 automating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 MIDI mapping ranges . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257 nudging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 tapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 Tempo eld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105, 118 Tempo Nudge buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
557 INDEX and recording MIDI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .206 Unfold Track button . . . . . . . . . . . . 82, 84, 253 Unfreeze Track command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 509 unlocking the program see copy protection updates . . see Check for Updates command Use Audio Units preference . . . . . . . . . . . . 226 Use Plug-In Custom Folder . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223 Use VST Plug-In System Folders . . . . . . . . 223 User Account/Licenses Preferences . . . 7, 10 Utility effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
INDEX Z Zoom Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Zooming in Arrangement View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 in Clip View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
