1 Ableton Reference Manual Version 9 for Windows and Mac OS Reference Manual by Dennis DeSantis, Ian Gallagher, Kevin Haywood, Rose Knudsen, Gerhard Behles, Jakob Rang, Robert Henke, Torsten Slama. Schönhauser Allee 6-7 | 10119 Berlin, Germany Contact Support: www.ableton.
2 Copyright 2013 Ableton AG. All rights reserved. Made in Germany. This manual, as well as the software described in it, is furnished under license and may be used or copied only in accordance with the terms of such license. The content of this manual is furnished for informational use only, is subject to change without notice, and should not be construed as a commitment by Ableton. Every effort has been made to ensure that the information in this manual is accurate.
Welcome to Live 3 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...
Welcome to Live 4 1.2.2 Envelope Editing Improvements •Envelope breakpoints are now created by single-clicking on the envelope. When hovering over the envelope, a pseudo-breakpoint appears to show where the breakpoint will be placed after clicking. Hovering near the envelope or holding the [Shift] modifier while clicking on an envelope segment (a portion of the envelope between breakpoints) now selects the entire segment.
Welcome to Live 5 brace is selected, pressing [Enter] will switch the selection to the time within the loop brace. •[Q] toggles Hot-Swap mode (page 40). •[D] toggles the Hot-Swap selection between a Drum Rack and its last selected pad. 1.2.6 Redesigned Browser •Live’s new browser (page 33) features a two-pane view that shows all of Live’s devices and Packs clearly separated. •A search field in the browser filters results as you type.
Welcome to Live 6 1.2.9 Default Presets for MIDI and Audio Tracks Newly-created MIDI and Audio tracks can now come with devices already loaded (page 224). 1.2.10 Device Improvements •The Glue Compressor (page 325) is a new analog-modeled compressor based on the classic bus compressor from a famous ‘80s mixing console.
First Steps 7 Chapter 2 First Steps 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. The lessons are organized in a table of contents, which can be opened directly in the program via the Help menu. We highly recommend following the lessons. Many users have told us that the lessons helped them become familiar with the program very quickly.
First Steps 8 The Info View and its Show/Hide Button. If you require more information on a specific user interface element or topic, please consult this reference manual. The index, found at the end of the manual, contains the names of all user interface elements and will lead you to the relevant section. 2.2 Setting up Preferences Live’s Preferences window is where you can find various settings that determine how Live looks, behaves and interfaces with the outside world.
First Steps 9 the settings for any given system. To access the lesson, use the Help View command from the Help menu. •The MIDI/Sync Preferences are used to help Live recognize MIDI devices for three separate and distinct purposes: ―Playing MIDI notes. To learn how to route an external device into Live for MIDI input, or how to send MIDI to an external device, please see the Routing and I/O chapter (page 174). ―Controlling parts of the interface remotely.
First Steps 10 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. Each one of the selector buttons at the screen borders calls up a specific view; clicking this one, for instance, opens and closes Live’s browser: The Browser Selector. You can run Live in Full Screen Mode by selecting the Full Screen command from the View menu. To leave Full Screen Mode, click the button that appears in the lower right corner of the screen.
Authorizing Live 11 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 find 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.
Authorizing Live 12 If trying Live or another product raises your interest in purchasing it, please visit the Ableton webshop2. This site contains information about Ableton’s distributor and dealer network. It also offers you the opportunity to buy Ableton products online. 3.1.2 What if I Change My Computer’s Components? If you change your computer components for some reason, Live may indeed ask you to authorize the software another time.
Authorizing Live 13 3.1.5 What Do I Do About Problems or Questions Regarding Copy Protection? Please visit Ableton’s technical support page.
Authorizing Live 14
Live Concepts 15 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.
Live Concepts 16 4.2 Live Sets The type of document that you create and work on in Live is called a Live Set (page 51). Live Sets reside in a Live Project — a folder that collects related materials — and can be opened either through the File menu’s Open command or via Live’s browser. A Live Set in the Browser. 4.3 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.
Live Concepts 17 or their respective selectors. Because the two views have distinct applications, they each hold individual collections of clips. However, it is important to understand that flipping the views simply changes the appearance of the Live Set and does not switch modes, alter what you hear or change what is stored. The Arrangement and Session View Selectors. The Arrangement View and the Session View interact in useful ways.
Live Concepts 18 Therefore, one usually puts clips that should play alternatively in the same Session View column, and spreads out clips that should play together across tracks in rows, or what we call scenes (page 89). A Scene in the Session View. At any one time, a track can be playing either 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.
Live Concepts 19 The Back to Arrangement Button in the Session View. The Back to Arrangement Button in the Arrangement View. We can click this button to make all tracks go back to playing the Arrangement. Each track in the Arrangement View also has its own Back to Arrangement button, allowing you to resume Arrangement playback of only certain tracks. A Single Track’s Back to Arrangement Button. We can also capture the current state into the Arrangement by activating the Arrangement Record button.
Live Concepts 20 4.5 Audio and MIDI Clips represent recorded signals. Live deals with two types of signals: audio and MIDI. In the digital world, an audio signal is a series of numbers that approximates a continuous signal as generated by a microphone or delivered to a loudspeaker. A MIDI signal is a sequence of commands, such as “now play a C4 at mezzo piano.“ MIDI is a symbolic representation of musical material, one that is closer to a written score than to an audio recording.
Live Concepts 21 Samples Are Dragged in from Live’s Browser. Live offers many options for playing samples in exciting new ways, allowing you to create an abundance of new sounds without actually changing the original sample — all the changes are computed in real time, while the sample is played. The respective settings are made in the Clip View (page 97), which appears on screen when a clip is double-clicked. An Audio Clip’s Properties as Displayed in the Clip View.
Live Concepts 22 performance. It is also possible to radically change the sonic signature of a sound using extreme warp settings. 4.7 MIDI Clips and MIDI Files A MIDI clip contains musical material in the form of MIDI notes and controller envelopes. When MIDI is imported from a MIDI file (page 49), the data gets incorporated into the Live Set, and the original file is not referenced thereafter. In Live’s browser, a MIDI file appears with a special icon, and with the .mid file extension.
Live Concepts 23 4.8 Devices and the Mixer A track can have not only clips but also a chain of devices (page 217) for processing signals. Double-clicking a track’s title bar brings up the Device View, which shows the track’s device chain. The Device View Displaying a MIDI Track’s Device Chain.
Live Concepts 24 Plug-In Devices Are Available from the Browser’s Plug-Ins Label. 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.
Live Concepts 25 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 (page 199), which can create smooth transitions between clips playing on different tracks.
Live Concepts 26 The Mixer for a MIDI Track without an Instrument. 4.9 Presets and Racks Every Live device can store and retrieve particular sets of parameter values as presets (page 222). As presets are stored independently from Live Sets, new presets become part of your user library that any project can draw from. Live’s Instrument, Drum and Effect Racks (page 237) allow saving combinations of devices and their settings as a single preset.
Live Concepts 27 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 (page 564) or to other tracks or devices within Live. Tracks can also be combined into a Group Track (page 196) which serves as a submixer for the selected tracks.
Live Concepts 28 Track Arm Buttons, as They Appear in the Session View. It is also possible to record into Session View slots on the fly (page 208). This technique is very useful for the jamming musician, as Session recording does not require stopping the music. Clicking the Session Record button records a new clip in the selected Session scene in all armed tracks. The Control Bar’s Session Record Button. Clicking the Session Record button again defines the end of the recording and launches the new clips.
Live Concepts 29 Automation is represented by breakpoint envelopes, which can be drawn, edited and recorded in real-time. The Automated Pan Control and its Envelope. Practically all mixer and effect controls in Live can be automated, even the song tempo. Recording automation is straightforward: all changes of a control that occur while the Control Bar’s Automation Arm and Arrangement Record buttons are on become automation in the Arrangement View.
Live Concepts 30 An Envelope for Clip Transposition. 4.14 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 (page 482), which is engaged by pressing the MIDI switch in the Control Bar.
Live Concepts 31 Live offers, in addition to this general purpose mapping technique, dedicated support for Ableton Push (page 489), the Akai APC40 (page 529), Akai APC20 (page 541) and Novation Launchpad (page 549), which allows for mouse-free operation of the program. 4.15 Saving and Exporting Saving a Live Set saves everything it contains, including all clips, their positions and settings, and settings for devices and controls.
Live Concepts 32 Live Clips are a very powerful way of storing ideas, as they save not only the clip’s Clip View settings, but also the corresponding track’s instruments and effects chain. Live Clips in the browser can be previewed and added to any open Live Set just like sample files. In the Live Set, they restore the original clip’s creative options. Using Live Clips, you can build your own personalized library of: •MIDI sequences with matching instruments and effects, e.g.
Managing Files and Sets 33 Chapter 5 Managing Files and Sets Various types of files are used in making music with Live, from those containing MIDI (page 49) and audio (page 41), to more program-specific files such as Live Clips (page 50) and Live Sets (page 51). This chapter will explain everything you need to know about working with each of these file types in Live. However, we should first take a look at Live’s browser, through which most files arrive in the program. 5.
Managing Files and Sets 34 The Browser. The browser display is divided into left and right sections, called the sidebar and the content pane respectively. To resize the sections, drag the divider line horizontally. 5.1.1 Understanding the Browser’s Hierarchy Working in the browser involves choosing one of the labels from the Categories or Places sections in the sidebar, and then selecting from the items that appear in the content pane.
Managing Files and Sets 35 •Instruments — all of your Instrument Racks, as well as “raw” Live instruments and their presets, organized by device (rather than by the type of sound.) •Audio Effects — all of your Audio Effect Racks, as well as “raw” Live audio effects devices and presets. •MIDI Effects — all of your MIDI Effect Racks, as well as “raw” Live MIDI effects devices and presets.
Managing Files and Sets 36 •any folders from any of your hard drives that you’ve added to Live’s Browser. Moving through the files in Live’s browser can be done with either the mouse or the computer keyboard: •Scroll up and down in the Browser with the up and down arrow keys, the mousewheel, or by clicking and dragging while holding the [CTRL][ALT](PC) / [CMD][ALT](Mac) modifier. •Close and open folders, or move between the sidebar and content pane with the left and right arrow keys.
Managing Files and Sets 37 5.1.3 Searching for Files Live’s browser is equipped with a search field that filters the contents of the selected sidebar label as you type. To search across all locations, press [CTRL][F](PC) / [CMD][F](Mac). The Browser’s Search Field. The results will include files 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.
Managing Files and Sets 38 The Preview Switch. Hint: You can preview files even when the Preview switch is not activated by pressing [Shift][Enter] or the right arrow key. Click on a file (or use the up and down arrow keys) 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 select Live Clips in the browser to load them into the Preview Tab, but they will not play automatically.
Managing Files and Sets 39 The Preview Volume Knob. If your audio hardware offers multiple audio outs, you can privately audition, or cue, files via headphones connected to a separate pair of outs — while the music continues to play. To learn how to set up Live for cueing, please refer to the relevant section (page 202) of the Mixing chapter.
Managing Files and Sets 40 Hot-Swap Mode In addition to the drag-and-drop method of loading files from the browser, Live offers a HotSwap Mode to reduce your mouse travel. Hot-Swap Mode can be toggled on and off with the [Q] key, and establishes a temporary link between the browser and, for example, a virtual instrument. While in Hot-Swap Mode, you can step through samples or presets to audition them “in place,“ that is, within the instrument.
Managing Files and Sets 41 cancelled with a press of the [ESC] key or by pressing the close button in the Hot-Swap bar at the top of the browser. When Hot-Swap Mode is re-entered, the browser will show the location of the currently loaded sound and pre-select it. 5.2 Sample Files A sample is a file that contains audio data. Live can play both uncompressed file formats (WAV, AIF and Sound Designer II for Mac) and compressed file formats (MP3, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, Ogg FLAC and FLAC).
Managing Files and Sets 42 than the Maximum Cache Size setting, and it will always leave the Minimum Free Space on the hard disk. Pressing the nearby Cleanup button will delete all files not being used by the current Live Set. Preferences for the Decoding Cache. 5.2.2 Analysis Files (.asd) An analysis file is a little file that Live creates when a sample file is brought into the program for the first time.
Managing Files and Sets 43 those clips refer to the same sample on disk. But if you drag a new version of the sample into a Live Set, Live will use the settings stored in the analysis file for the newly created clip. The analysis file’s name is the same as that of the associated sample, with an added “.asd“ extension. Live puts this analysis file in the same folder as the sample. Samples that have an .asd file are displayed like this in the browser. Samples without an .asd file look like this.
Managing Files and Sets 44 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 file 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. Live will create a separate sample for each track.
Managing Files and Sets 45 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 file will be amplified 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.
Managing Files and Sets 46 •File Type, Bit Depth, Sample Rate — These options specify the type of sample to be created. •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 file.
Managing Files and Sets 47 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.
Managing Files and Sets 48 applications to allow more processing power for rendering. Please see the chapter on computer audio resources (page 567) for more tips on improving performance. Rendering Video Video Rendering Options. (Note: video rendering is not available in the Intro and Lite Editions.
Managing Files and Sets 49 depending on the encoder used, video rendering may occur in more than one pass. Live will display a progress bar that will indicate the status of the process. Unless you’ve specified a special window size or aspect ratio in the encoder settings, the rendered video file will play back exactly as it appeared during real time playback in Live. The video file will also contain the rendered audio.
Managing Files and Sets 50 5.4 Live Clips Individual audio or MIDI clips can be exported to disk in the Live Clip format for easy retrieval and reuse in any project. Audio clips only contain references to samples on disk (rather than the audio data itself), so they 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 Places section of the browser and drop it into the Current Project or any user folder.
Managing Files and Sets 51 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.
Managing Files and Sets 52 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 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 (page 155) that were saved with your Set are also available as a folder within the unfolded Set.
Managing Files and Sets 53 In addition to unfolding Sets, you can further unfold the tracks within the Sets to access the individual Session View clips that were used on the track: 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 means that any Live Set can serve as a pool of sounds for any other, suggesting creative reuse and crossover. 5.5.
Managing Files and Sets 54 •Computer key mappings (page 487). •MIDI mappings (page 477). The template Live Set, “Template.als,“ is located in Live’s Preferences folder and can be copied or deleted from there. The easiest way to locate this folder is to search your disk for “Template. als.“ In addition to the template Set that loads by default, the Live Library contains a folder called “Templates.
Managing Files and Sets 55 The File Reference List’s Hot-Swap Button. •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 offline 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.
Managing Files and Sets 56 Live Project will maintain all the files related to this piece of music — and Live’s File Manager will provide the tools you need to manage them (page 59). 5.6.1 Projects and Live Sets 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.
Managing Files and Sets 57 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 Live Set 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.
Managing Files and Sets 58 Let’s suppose that, in the course of our work on “Tango with Piano.als,“ we get sidetracked: 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.
Managing Files and Sets 59 5.6.2 Projects and Presets By default, new instrument and effect presets are stored in your current Project. At times however, it may make more sense to save a preset to another folder or to your User Library, so that you can access them from other Projects.
Managing Files and Sets 60 Files section.) The File Manager will present you with a list of the missing files and associated controls. The File Manager’s List of Missing Files. 5.7.1 Manual Repair To manually fix a broken file reference, locate the missing file in the browser, drag it over to the File Manager and drop it on the respective line in the list of missing files. Note that Live will not care if the file you offer is really the file that was missing. 5.7.
Managing Files and Sets 61 Automatic Repair Options in the File Manager. •Search Folder — includes a user-defined 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 file, the automatic search function may find any number of candidates.
Managing Files and Sets 62 5.8 Collecting External Files To prevent a Live Set from containing broken file 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.
Managing Files and Sets 63 •A file count and the associated disk space used; •A Show button that will list the files in the browser; •A Yes/No toggle for engaging or disengaging collection. Note: Make sure to confirm your choices by clicking the File Manager’s Collect and Save button! The File Manager’s Collect and Save Button.
Managing Files and Sets 64 File Manager, you can find missing files and collect external files not only for the current Live Set but also for: •The User Library — choose the Manage Files command from the File menu; then click the Manage User Library button. •The current Live Project — choose the Manage Files command from the File menu; then click the Manage Project button.
Managing Files and Sets 65 Last but not least, you can find the unused files for all Projects found in a specific folder (and its sub-folders): [right-click](PC) / [CTRL-click](Mac) on a folder in the browser and choose the Manage Projects command, then see the Unused Files section. Live inspects each Project individually and labels a file unused even if another Projects in the same folder does use that file.
Managing Files and Sets 66 5.12.2 How Can I Save Presets Into My Current Project? You can save presets directly to the current project by dragging from the device’s title bar and dropping into the Current Project label in the browser. You can then use the File Management tools, collect any referenced samples, etc. 5.12.3 Can I Work On Multiple Versions of a Set? If you’d like to work on different versions of the same Live Set, save them into the same Project.
Managing Files and Sets 67 Then enable the Search Project and Fully Rescan Folders options. Finally, click Go to initiate the search. 5. When searching is complete, click Collect and Save at the bottom of the File Manager to update the Project. 5.12.
Managing Files and Sets 68
Arrangement View 69 Chapter 6 Arrangement View The Arrangement View displays the Arrangement, which contains music laid out along a song timeline, like a multitrack tape. A Piece of Music in the Arrangement View. The Arrangement View is a powerful editing tool that easily lets you combine and arrange MIDI, loops, sound effects, video and complete pieces of music. 6.
Arrangement View 70 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 + and keys. To “pan“ the display, click and drag while holding the [CTRL][ALT](PC) / [CMD][ALT] (Mac) modifier.
Arrangement View 71 6.2 Transport There are a number of ways to control Live’s transport with the computer keyboard and mouse: 1. You can start Arrangement playback by clicking the Control Bar’s Play button, and stop playback by clicking the Stop button. Arrangement playback can also be toggled on and off by pressing the keyboard’s space bar. The Play and Stop Buttons in the Control Bar. 2.
Arrangement View 72 anywhere in the scrub area or in the beat time ruler. Scrubbing Arrangement Playback. 4. The song position can be adjusted numerically using the Control Bar’s Arrangement Position fields. Setting the Play Position in the Arrangement Position Fields. The Arrangement Position fields show the song position in bars-beats-sixteenths. To change the values: •Click and drag up or down in any of these fields. •Click and type a number, then hit [Enter].
Arrangement View 73 6.3 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.
Arrangement View 74 To name a locator, select it by clicking its triangular marker, and choose the Rename Edit menu command (or use the [CTRL][R](PC) / [CMD][R](Mac) shortcut). You can also enter your own info text (page 7) for a locator via the Edit Info Text command in the Edit menu or in the locator’s [right-click](PC) / [CTRL-click](Mac) context menu. Locators can be removed with your computer’s [Backspae] or [Delete] key , the Create menu, or the Delete Locator button.
Arrangement View 75 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 fields in the Control Bar, either by typing in values or dragging the numerator and denominator sliders.
Arrangement View 76 If you import a MIDI file (page 49) into the Arrangement, you’ll be given an option to import any time signature information that was saved with the file. 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.
Arrangement View 77 The loop brace can be selected with the mouse and manipulated with commands from the computer keyboard: • the right and left arrow keys nudge the loop brace to the left/right by the current grid setting (page 82). • the up and down arrow keys shift the loop brace left/right in steps the size of its length. •The [CTRL](PC) / [CMD](Mac) modifier used with the arrow left and right keys shortens or lengthens the loop by the current grid setting.
Arrangement View 78 Changing a Clip’s Length. Dragging a clip’s left or right edge changes the clip’s length. Clips snap to the editing grid, as well as various objects in the Arrangement including the edges of other clips, locators and time signature changes. 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.
Arrangement View 79 3 1 2 4 Fades in the Arrangement View. You can also set the length of a fade by selecting a range of time within the clip (page 80) that includes the clip’s beginning or end and executing the Create Fade command in the clip’s [right-click](PC) / [CTRL-click](Mac) context menu. Adjacent audio clips can be crossfaded.
Arrangement View 80 [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. Another result of enabling the Create Fades on Clip Edges option is that adjacent audio clips will get automatic 4 ms crossfades. These can then be edited just like manually-created crossfades.
Arrangement View 81 •Clicking a clip selects the clip. •Clicking into the Arrangement background selects a point in time, represented by a flashing insert marker. The insert marker can then be moved in time with the left and right arrow keys, or between tracks via the up and down arrow keys. Holding [CTRL](PC) / [ALT](Mac) while pressing the left and right arrow keys snaps the insert marker to locators and the edges of clips in the selected track or tracks. •Clicking and dragging selects a timespan.
Arrangement View 82 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 fixed. You can set the width of both zoom-adaptive and fixed grid lines using the [right-click](PC) / [CTRL-click](Mac) context menu available in either the Arrangement View track area or the Clip View display.
Arrangement View 83 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) / [CMD](Mac) modifier while performing an action to bypass grid snapping. If the grid is already disabled, this modifier 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 “...
Arrangement View 84 •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.
Arrangement View 85 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.
Arrangement View 86
Session View 87 Chapter 7 Session View In Live’s Arrangement View (page 69), as in all traditional sequencing programs, everything happens along a fixed 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.
Session View 88 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 [Shift] key. You can then move on to the neighboring clips using the arrow keys. Please refer the manual section on clip launch settings (page 161) for details on how to customize this behavior. 2.
Session View 89 Group Slots and Group Launch Buttons. 7.2 Tracks and Scenes Each vertical column, or track, can play only one clip at a time. It therefore makes sense to put a set of clips that are supposed to be played alternatively in the same columns: parts of a song, variations of a drum loop, etc. Resized Session View Tracks. For convenient access to more clips at once, you can resize Session View tracks by clicking and dragging at the edges of their title bars.
Session View 90 The horizontal rows are called scenes. The Scene Launch buttons are located in the rightmost column, which represents the Master track (page 198). 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.
Session View 91 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. 7.3 The Track Status Fields You can tell a track’s status by looking at the Track Status field just above the active track’s mixer controls: A Track Playing a Looping Session Clip... The pie-chart icon in a clip track represents a looping Session clip (page 104).
Session View 92 ... Monitoring the Input... A microphone icon appears in an audio track that is set to monitor its input (page 172). 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 browser or through recording (page 205).
Session View 93 Clips can be moved around the Session grid by drag-and-drop. To move several clips at once, select them by using the [Shift] or [CTRL](PC) / [CMD](Mac) modifier before dragging. You can also click into an empty slot and “rubber-band“ select from there. 7.4.1 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.
Session View 94 the clips that are currently running in the new scene and launches the new scene immediately with no audible interruption. This command is very helpful when developing materials in the Session View. You can capture an interesting moment as a new scene and move on, changing clip properties and trying clip combinations. (Note: the number of scenes is limited in the Intro and Lite Editions.) 7.
Session View 95 and the correct song positions. Notice that your recording has not created new audio data, only clips. The Session clips and the Arrangement clips in one track are mutually exclusive: Only one can play at a time. When a Session clip is launched, Live stops playing back that track’s Arrangement in favor of the Session clip. Clicking a Clip Stop button causes the Arrangement playback to stop, which produces silence.
Session View 96 The Stop All Clips Button. Furthermore, you can move clips not only within the Session grid, but also from the Session View to the Arrangement and vice versa by using Copy and Paste, or by dragging clips over the or selectors. When pasting material from the Arrangement into the Session View, Live attempts to preserve the temporal structure of the clips by laying them out in a matching top-to-bottom order.
Clip View 97 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. 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.
Clip View 98 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 multi-selection. To create a multi-selection, click and drag from an empty clip slot to highlight the clips, or select one clip and use the [CTRL](PC) / [CMD](Mac) or [Shift] modifiers to add to your selection.
Clip View 99 clips. Setting Session View clip launch properties is covered in detail in a separate manual chapter (page 161). Audio clips have these additional Clip View controls: •The Sample Display toggles with the Envelope Editor on the right-hand side of the Clip View, and controls Live’s sample-warping capabilities and clip playback settings (page 104). •The Sample box contains settings pertaining to how the clip plays its sample and displays it in the Sample Display. The Clip View for an Audio Clip.
Clip View 100 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. 8.1 The Clip Box The Clip Box. 8.1.
Clip View 101 8.1.2 Clip Name and Color The Clip Name field allows naming the clip. By default, a clip’s name matches the name of the file it references but, in general, the clip name is independent from the file name. You can also rename a clip by selecting it in the Session grid or Arrangement View and using the Rename command in the Edit menu or the clip’s [right-click](PC) / [CTRL-click](Mac) context menu.
Clip View 102 The “Open Groove Pool“ entry in this chooser can be used to open the Groove Pool if it is closed. If you want to quickly try out a variety of grooves, you can enable the Hot-Swap button above the chooser and then step through the grooves in the browser while the clip plays. The Commit button under the chooser “writes“ the current groove settings to the clip and disables the assigned groove.
Clip View 103 The Scrub Control in MIDI Map Mode. With quantization set to values less than one bar, it is easy to offset clip playback from Live’s master clock by launching clips, using the Nudge buttons or scrubbing within the clip (page 105). 8.2 The Sample Box 8.2.1 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.
Clip View 104 The Control Bar’s Tempo Field. To verify this, note that a warped sample’s speed follows the tempo as you change the Control Bar’s Tempo control. Live offers a number of controls to adjust the time-warping engine for optimal stretching quality (page 129). For accurate warping, Live needs to know the sample’s metrical structure.
Clip View 105 Click and drag vertically in these areas to smoothly change the zoom level, and horizontally to scroll the display. The Clip Overview. The Clip Overview provides additional zoom/scrolling functionality. It always shows the complete clip, from start to end. The black rectangular outline represents the part of the clip that is currently displayed. You can click within the outline and drag horizontally or vertically to scroll or zoom.
Clip View 106 The Clip Start and End Markers. These markers can be clicked and dragged to new positions in the Sample Display, or they can be moved with the left and right arrow keys. To move the entire clip region (i.e., both the start and end markers), select the start marker, hold down [Shift], and use the arrow keys. Using Clip Start and End Controls to Change Clip Length. You can also adjust the clip start and end numerically using the respective value fields to the left of the Sample Display.
Clip View 107 The Clip Scrub Area. The size of this jump is quantized by the global quantization setting, which can be quickly changed using the [CTRL][6](PC) / [CMD][6](Mac), [7], [8], [9], and [0] shortcuts. While the mouse is held down over the scrub area, a portion of the clip 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.
Clip View 108 The Clip Loop Controls. The loop brace can be selected with the mouse and its position changed with commands from the computer keyboard: •the left and right arrow keys nudge the loop brace to the left/right by the current grid setting (page 82). •the up and down arrow keys shift the loop brace left/right in steps the size of its length. •[CTRL](PC) / [CMD](Mac) plus the left or right arrow shortens or lengthens the loop brace by the current grid setting.
Clip View 109 Setting the Clip to Run Into a Loop. The Loop Length and Position fields 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.
Clip View 110 8.2.3 Clip Pitch and Gain The Clip Pitch and Gain Controls. The Transpose control shifts the clip pitch in semitones. The Detune field fine-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.
Clip View 111 8.2.5 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 files in sync.
Clip View 112 made in older versions that used Hi-Q mode may now sound different. For 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.
Clip View 113 8.2.8 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 (page 571).
Clip View 114 after saving the Live Set, in the Set’s Project folder, under Samples/Processed/Reverse. Until the Set is saved, new samples remain at the location specified by the Temporary Folder. There are a few rules for the reversing process. First, any Warp Markers will remain fixed 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 View 115 The Sample Display’s [right-click](PC) / [CTRL-click](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 (page 54), in such a way that all clips and instruments referencing the sample will be affected.
Clip View 116 •Legato lengthens (or shortens) each selected note so that it is just long enough to reach the beginning of the next note. •Dupl. Loop doubles the material within the loop brace (as well as the length of the loop brace itself), zooming as necessary to show the entire loop. Any notes to the right of the loop will be moved, so that they maintain their position relative to the end of the loop. For a more detailed discussion of MIDI editing, see the chapter on this topic (page 133). 8.3.
Audio Clips, Tempo, and Warping 117 Chapter 9 Audio Clips, Tempo, 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 Tempo 9.1.
Audio Clips, Tempo, and Warping 118 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 (page 561) for details. 9.1.2 Tapping the Tempo The Tap Button. You can use Live’s Tap Tempo function to set the tempo at any time.
Audio Clips, Tempo, and Warping 119 Although Live can be easily synchronized to external MIDI devices (page 561), you may find 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.
Audio Clips, Tempo, and Warping 120 To direct Live’s assumptions about new samples, use the Record/Warp/Launch tab of Live’s 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.
Audio Clips, Tempo, and Warping 121 ers can also be deleted by double-clicking them, or by pressing the computer keyboard’s [Backspace] or [Delete] key after selecting them. Double-Clicking In the Sample Creates a Warp Marker. When working with your clip, you can have Live scroll the Sample Display to follow playback. Use the Control Bar’s Follow switch to activate this feature.
Audio Clips, Tempo, and Warping 122 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) / [CMD](Mac) modifier while creating a Warp Marker on a transient also creates Warp Markers at the adjacent transients.
Audio Clips, Tempo, and Warping 123 9.2.3 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.
Audio Clips, Tempo, and Warping 124 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. To fix this, simply drag the ending marker to the correct position.
Audio Clips, Tempo, and Warping 125 Using Warp Markers to Manipulate the Groove. “Removing“ a sample’s natural groove by applying Warp Markers is an interesting creative method, particularly in conjunction with Live’s ability to impose an artificial groove onto clips in real-time (page 155). Syncing Longer Pieces Live’s Auto-Warp algorithm makes longer samples and entire songs readily available for integration into your project.
Audio Clips, Tempo, and Warping 126 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. The Metronome Switch.
Audio Clips, Tempo, and Warping 127 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.
Audio Clips, Tempo, and Warping 128 2. Use the Control Bar’s Tap Tempo button to tap along, thereby setting the Live Set’s tempo to match that of the clip; Turn warping on again and use the Warp From Here (Start At ...) command to tell Auto-Warp to use your tapped tempo as a reference. •Warp From Here (Straight) tells Auto-Warp that this is a clip with no tempo variations (common in electronically produced works).
Audio Clips, Tempo, and Warping 129 Quantizing Audio Samples. Using the options presented here, you can select either the current grid size or a specific meter value for quantization. You can also quantize without that “quantized“ feel by adjusting the Amount control, which will move Warp Markers by a percentage of the set quantization value. 9.3 Adjusting for Good Stretching Quality Live offers a number of time-stretching modes to accommodate all sorts of audio material.
Audio Clips, Tempo, and Warping 130 Use the Preserve control to preserve divisions in the sample as boundaries when warping. For the most accurate results, particularly with percussive material, choose Transients. This setting uses the positions of the analyzed (or user-created) transients to determine warping behavior. To preserve specific beat divisions regardless of the sample’s contents, choose one of the fixed note values.
Audio Clips, Tempo, and Warping 131 9.3.3 Texture Mode Texture Mode works well for sound textures with an ambiguous pitch contour (e.g., polyphonic orchestral music, noise, atmospheric pads, etc.). It also offers rich potential for manipulating all kinds of sounds in a creative way. The Grain Size control determines the grain size used, but unlike in Tones Mode, this is a setting that Live will use unaltered, without considering the signal’s characteristics.
Audio Clips, Tempo, and Warping 132 9.3.6 Complex Pro Mode Complex Pro Mode uses a variation of the algorithm found in Complex mode, and may offer even better results (although with an increase in CPU usage.) Like Complex Mode, Complex Pro works especially well with polyphonic textures or whole songs. The Formants slider adjusts the extent to which the formants of the sample are compensated when transposing.
Editing MIDI Notes and Velocities 133 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 (page 217) or an external synth fed via the track’s output routing (page 171). The MIDI clip (page 22) provides the device with a musical score to play, specifying note pitch, length, position and dynamics (referred to as velocity in the MIDI lexicon).
Editing MIDI Notes and Velocities 134 10.2 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 (page 115) 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.
Editing MIDI Notes and Velocities 135 Previewing MIDI Notes. Provided your MIDI track’s device chain contains an instrument (page 217), 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 (page 210) new notes into the clip. Note velocity is adjusted in the Velocity Editor, by clicking and dragging on the associated markers.
Editing MIDI Notes and Velocities 136 10.3 MIDI Editor Navigation and Transport Note Scale Position Is Shown Vertically and Beat-Time Horizontally. 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 C-2–C8, and a representation of a piano keyboard (the piano roll).
Editing MIDI Notes and Velocities 137 2. Click and drag vertically in the note ruler to change which octaves are shown, or drag horizontally to change the vertical zoom size of MIDI notes and the keyboard. 3. Click and drag over one or more notes to select them, or over a portion of the editor’s background to select a range of time. Then, double-click on the note ruler or time ruler to automatically zoom in on your selection.
Editing MIDI Notes and Velocities 138 As you work with MIDI, you may find yourself needing extra screen space. You can click and drag vertically on the window split between the Session or Arrangement View and the Clip View to enlarge the MIDI Editor. Enlarge the MIDI Editor by Dragging the Window Split Between Session and Clip Views. 10.4 Editing MIDI 10.4.1 Non-Destructive Editing You can always return your MIDI clip to its previous state by using the Edit menu’s Undo command.
Editing MIDI Notes and Velocities 139 The Fold Button Extracts Key Tracks Containing Notes. When editing MIDI, you might find that you want to change which part of the clip you are listening to, or loop the clip in order to listen to it repeatedly. You can use the loop/region markers (page 104) for this. Use the Loop/Region Markers to Select a Specific Region of the Clip to Play.
Editing MIDI Notes and Velocities 140 10.4.4 Editing Notes Editing in the MIDI Editor is similar to editing in the Arrangement (page 80). In both cases, your actions are selection-based: you select something using the mouse, then execute a menu command (e.g., Cut, Copy, Paste, Duplicate) on the selection. Here is how selection works: •Clicking a note selects the note.
Editing MIDI Notes and Velocities 141 arrow keys. •[Shift] plus the up or down arrow keys extends or retracts the duration of selected notes, according to the grid settings. To extend or retract notes without snapping to the grid, also hold [ALT](PC) / [CMD](Mac). •To change the selection to the next note in the same key track, hold [CTRL](PC) / [ALT] (Mac) while pressing the left or right arrow keys. [CTRL](PC) / [ALT](Mac) plus the up or down arrow keys moves the selection to the next note in time.
Editing MIDI Notes and Velocities 142 Changing Note Length. Tip: To set a group of notes to the same length, select them all, grab the end of the longest one, drag them all down to zero length and then extend them. 10.4.6 The ...Time Commands in the MIDI Editor The standard clipboard commands like Cut, Copy and Paste only affect the currently selected notes (or the notes within a time selection). But, as in Arrangement editing (page 83), there are “...
Editing MIDI Notes and Velocities 143 To adjust your quantization parameters, open the Quantization Settings dialog from the Edit menu. Quantizing MIDI Notes. Using the options presented here, you can select either the current grid size or a specific 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.
Editing MIDI Notes and Velocities 144 As in the Note Editor, you can select multiple velocity markers to change by clicking with the [Shift] modifier 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.
Editing MIDI Notes and Velocities 145 without releasing the mouse button. If you change velocity with this vertical 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 [right-click](PC) / [CTRL-click](Mac) context menu. The Velocity Editor Showing Note-Off Velocities.
Editing MIDI Notes and Velocities 146 10.4.9 MIDI Note Stretch MIDI Note Stretch Markers. When multiple notes or a range of time are selected in the Note Editor, Note Stretch markers will appear, allowing notes to be scaled proportionally in time. The markers are a pair of downward-pointing indicators that snap to the beginning and end of the selection.
Editing MIDI Notes and Velocities 147 10.4.10 Cropping MIDI Clips MIDI data that is outside of the loop brace can be deleted by means of the Crop Clip command. Simply [right-click](PC) / [CTRL-click](Mac) on a MIDI clip in the Session or Arrangement View and select this option. Unlike cropping audio clips (page 114), cropping a MIDI clip does not create a new file on disk. 10.4.11 Deactivating Notes To deactivate, or mute, a note (or notes) in the MIDI Editor, select it and press [0].
Editing MIDI Notes and Velocities 148
Converting Audio to MIDI 149 Chapter 11 Converting Audio to MIDI (Note: the features discussed in this chapter are not available in the Intro and Lite Editions.) Although Live’s warping allows for audio files to be used much more flexibly than in traditional audio software, there are also a number of ways to extract musical information from audio clips and place it into MIDI clips, for additional creative possibilities.
Converting Audio to MIDI 150 The Slicing Dialog. When you select Slice to New MIDI track, you’ll be presented with a dialog box. This offers a list of slicing divisions, as well as a chooser to select the Slicing Preset. The top chooser allows you to slice at a variety of beat resolutions or according to the clip’s transients or Warp Markers. Since a Rack can contain a maximum of 128 chains, Live won’t let you proceed if your choice would result in more than 128 slices.
Converting Audio to MIDI 151 11.1.1 Resequencing Slices Rearranging the Sliced MIDI Data. By default, your sliced MIDI data will form a chromatically-ascending “staircase“ pattern in order to trigger the correct chains in their original order. But you can create new patterns by simply editing the MIDI notes (page 138). You can achieve a similar effect by dragging the Drum Rack’s pads onto each other to swap their note mappings. 11.1.
Converting Audio to MIDI 152 11.2 Convert Harmony to New MIDI Track This command identifies the pitches in a polyphonic audio recording and places them into a clip on a new MIDI track. The track comes preloaded with an Instrument Rack (page 237) that plays a piano sound (which can, of course, be replaced by another instrument if you choose).
Converting Audio to MIDI 153 The Convert Melody command can work with music from your collection, but also allows you to record yourself singing, whistling, or playing a solo instrument such as a guitar and use the recording to generate MIDI notes. 11.4 Convert Drums to New MIDI Track This command extracts the rhythms from unpitched, percussive audio and places them into a clip on a new MIDI track.
Converting Audio to MIDI 154 Live uses the transient markers (page 121) in the original audio clip to determine the divisions between notes in the converted MIDI clip. This means that you can “tune” the results of the conversion by adding, moving, or deleting transient markers in the audio clip before running any of the Convert commands. Although each of the commands has been designed for a particular type of musical material, you can sometimes get very interesting results by applying the “wrong” command.
Using Grooves 155 Chapter 12 Using Grooves The timing and “feel“ of each clip in your Set can be modified through the use of grooves. Live comes with a large selection of grooves, which appear as .agr files 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 file to the clip.
Using Grooves 156 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 (page 119), and thus only work on clips with Warp enabled. 12.1 Groove Pool Once you’ve applied a groove file, 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.
Using Grooves 157 The Groove Pool. 12.1.1 Adjusting Groove Parameters Grooves in the Groove Pool appear in a list, and offer a variety of parameters that can be modified 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.
Using Grooves 158 •Velocity — adjusts how much the velocity of the notes in clips will be affected by the velocity information stored in the groove file. 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. •Global Amount — this parameter scales the overall intensity of Timing, Random and Velocity for all of the available groove files.
Using Grooves 159 12.2 Editing Grooves The effect that groove files have on your clips is a combination of two factors: the parameter settings made in the Groove Pool and the positions of the notes in the groove files themselves. To edit the contents of groove files directly, drag and drop them from the browser 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.
Using Grooves 160 12.3.1 Grooving a Single Voice Drummers will often use variations in the timing of particular instruments in order to create a convincing beat. For example, playing hi-hats in time but placing snare hits slightly behind the beat is a good way of creating a laid-back feel. But because groove files apply to an entire clip at once, this kind of subtlety can be difficult to achieve with a single clip.
Launching Clips 161 Chapter 13 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 configure your various Session View clips. This chapter explains the group of settings used to define how each Session View clip behaves when triggered, or “launched.“ 13.
Launching Clips 162 Note that you can edit the launch settings of more than one clip at the same time by first selecting the clips and then opening the Clip View. 13.2 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. •Gate: down starts the clip; up stops the clip. •Toggle: down starts the clip; up is ignored.
Launching Clips 163 13.3 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 can be quickly changed using the [CTRL][6](PC) / [CMD][6](Mac), [7], [8], [9], and [0] shortcuts.
Launching Clips 164 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 influence; at 100 percent, the softest notes play the clip silently. For more on playing clips via MIDI, see the respective section (page 477). 13.5 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.
Launching Clips 165 the clip plays. A group is defined by clips arranged in successive slots of the same track. Tracks can have an unlimited number of groups, separated by empty slots. 1 2 3 The Follow Action Controls. 1. The Follow Action Time control defines when the Follow Action takes place in bars-beatssixteenths from the point in the clip where play starts. The default for this setting is one bar. 2. The Follow Action choosers allow selecting two different Follow Actions, A and B. 3.
Launching Clips 166 “First“ launches the first (top) clip in a group. “Last“ launches the last (bottom) clip in a group. “Any“ plays any clip in the group. “Other“ is similar to “Any,“ 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.
Launching Clips 167 2 3 Creating a Group With the Two Clips. 3. Set up Follow Actions for the first clip. You will want to make Follow Action Time equal to the clip’s length. Set the Follow Action A chooser to “Next,“ 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.
Launching Clips 168 The default setting for Follow Action is actually a 1:0 chance that “No Action“ 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 Again,“ with a Chance of 8. Follow Action B is set to “No Action,“ with a Chance of 1. The clip uses a long sample, and Follow Time is set to one bar.
Launching Clips 169 13.6.6 Creating Nonrepetitive Structures Follow Actions are great when it comes to sound installations, as they allow you to create structures that play for weeks or months and never exactly repeat. You can set the Follow Action Time controls in a series of clips to odd intervals, and the clips will interact with each other so that they never quite play in the same order or musical position.
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Routing and I/O 171 Chapter 14 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.
Routing and I/O 172 •The lower chooser pair (“Audio/MIDI To“) selects the track’s output. All tracks have audio outputs, except for MIDI tracks without instruments. Remember that instruments convert MIDI to audio (page 23). Within a chooser pair, the upper chooser selects the signal category (“Ext.,“ for instance, for external connections via an audio or MIDI interface), and is called the Input/Output Type chooser.
Routing and I/O 173 where (for instance, a ReWire slave program). With this setting, output from the clips is suppressed. An “In“ monitoring setting can be easily recognized even when the In/Out section is hidden by the orange color of the track’s Activator switch. •Monitoring can be turned off altogether by choosing the Off option.
Routing and I/O 174 Mono is turned into stereo simply by using the identical signal for left and right channels. When a track is routed into a mono output, the left and right signals are added together and attenuated by 6 dB to avoid clipping. 14.3 External MIDI In/Out MIDI from the outside world is routed into Live just like audio. From the Input Type chooser of a MIDI track, you can either select a specific MIDI input port or “All Ins,“ which is the merged input of all external MIDI ports.
Routing and I/O 175 Activating the Computer MIDI Keyboard. The center row of letter keys on the keyboard will play notes corresponding to the white keys on a piano, beginning on the left with the note C3. The black keys on a piano correspond to the upper row of computer keys. The four leftmost letters on the lower row of the keyboard (Z,X,C, and V on a U.S.
Routing and I/O 176 generator, allowing you to treat both components as if they were separate devices. This allows you to use Live as the hub of your MIDI studio, which receives MIDI from the keyboard and dispatches the incoming MIDI, as well as the MIDI from the clips, as appropriate. 14.3.4 MIDI In/Out Indicators Live’s Control Bar contains three pairs of indicator LEDs that tell you about incoming and outgoing MIDI.
Routing and I/O 177 An Audio Track Receiving Audio From and a MIDI Track Sending MIDI to Reason. The following example shows how to send MIDI from one of Live’s MIDI tracks into an instrument within Propellerhead’s Reason, and then route the audio result back into an audio track: 1. First, start Live. 2. Then, start Reason and set up the Reason rack as desired. 3. Select “Reason“ from the MIDI track’s Output Type chooser. 4.
Routing and I/O 178 effects. If you want to continue work on the project without reopening Reason, simply record Reason’s audio by arming the audio track and engaging Record Mode. A similar procedure is possible with the External Instrument device. The following example shows how to send MIDI from within a track’s device chain and return the audio to the same track: 1. First, start Live. 2. Then, start Reason and set up the Reason rack as desired. 3. Insert an External Instrument device into a MIDI track.
Routing and I/O 179 208). Note that the recording track’s own output will be suppressed while resampling is taking place, and will not be included in the recording. Samples created by resampling will be stored in with the current Set’s Project folder (page 55), under Samples/Recorded. Until the Set is saved, they remain at the location specified by the Temporary Folder (page 214). 14.6 Internal Routings Live’s mixer and external routing devices allow for inter-track routings.
Routing and I/O 180 output of the tracks that are feeding it. Also, you can still solo Track A and hear its output signal. In this case, all other tracks are muted, including those that might also feed into Track B. Technically, what you hear is the output of Track B, with everything except Track A’s signal removed. Approach 2, on the other hand, leaves Track A unaffected except for Track B tapping its output. We can easily add more tracks like Track B that all tap Track A’s output.
Routing and I/O 181 and mixer. Soloing a track that taps another track Post Mixer will not allow you to hear the tapped track. Routing Points in Racks Tap Points for Every Chain in a Track. If a track has one or more Instrument or Effect Racks (page 237) in its device chain, internal routing points (Pre FX, Post FX and Post Mixer) will also be available for every chain within the Rack.
Routing and I/O 182 14.6.2 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.
Routing and I/O 183 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. Recording the Output of a Complex Instrument in Audio Tracks. A setup similar to the one described above (page 182) accomplishes the task.
Routing and I/O 184 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. The individual drum tracks are all set to output to the submix track, which outputs to the Master.
Routing and I/O 185 Feeding an Additional MIDI Track Into an Existing MIDI Track to Reuse its Instrument. This is accomplished by setting the new MIDI track’s Output Type chooser to “Pad.“ Note that the Output Channel chooser now offers a selection of destinations: We can either feed the new track’s output into the input of the pad track, or we can directly address the Simpler.
Routing and I/O 186 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). The original pad track now acts as a mere instrument container.
Routing and I/O 187 Using Multi-Timbral Plug-In Instruments Many plug-in instruments support multi-timbral operation. A multi-timbral instrument is like several instruments in one, with each component “part“ (or whatever term the manufacturer uses) receiving MIDI on a separate MIDI channel. Usually, the multi-timbral instrument offers individual outputs so that the parts can be separately routed into the mixer. Or, the instrument might offer a submixer of its own.
Routing and I/O 188 4. Select the MIDI channel to route to in the second chooser on the External Instrument device. 5. From the External Instrument’s Audio From chooser, select a secondary output on the instrument to which you are sending MIDI. Repeat steps 2-5 to feed and tap additional components of your multi-timbral instrument. You could also put the entire system of External Instrument devices into a single track, by placing each one in a Rack’s device chain.
Routing and I/O 189 A number of Ableton’s built-in devices have their own sidechain controls with integrated routing choosers that match those found in tracks. Thus when using these devices, it is not necessary to follow the above procedure — you can simply select the sidechain source from within the device itself. 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.
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Mixing 191 Chapter 15 Mixing 15.1 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 area. To display all mixer controls for a track, unfold the track using the button next to its name, and adjust its height accordingly.
Mixing 192 The Session View Mixer. The Session View is a standard vertical mixer layout, which you may find more intuitive than the Arrangement mixer. Note that the Tab key toggles between the Arrangement and Session Views. The View menu options listed below show or hide mixer components.
Mixing 193 The Mixer Section Selectors. Let’s look at the mixer controls: 5 6 4 3 1 2 4 1 5 6 2 3 The Mixer Controls. 1. The Meter shows the track’s RMS (average) and peak output level. While monitoring, however, it shows the input level. 2. The Volume control adjusts the track’s output level. 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 field.
Mixing 194 6. If the Arm Recording button is on, the track is record-enabled (page 205). With multiple tracks selected, pressing any of their Arm switches will arm all of them. Otherwise, tracks can only be armed one at a time unless the [CTRL](PC) / [CMD](Mac) modifier is held down or the Exclusive Arm option in the Record/Warp/Launch Preferences is deactivated. With Exclusive Arm enabled, inserting an instrument into a new or empty MIDI track will automatically arm the track. 15.1.
Mixing 195 Nevertheless, Live provides this optional visual feedback for signals that travel beyond 0 dB in any track. 15.2 Audio and MIDI Tracks Audio and MIDI tracks in Live are for hosting and playing clips, as explained earlier (page 15). You can add new audio and MIDI tracks to your Live Set’s mixer using the appropriate Create menu commands.
Mixing 196 gether when dropped. To move nonadjacent tracks without collapsing, use [CTRL] + arrow keys instead of the mouse. When multiple tracks are selected, adjusting one of their mixer controls will adjust the same control for the other tracks. If the tracks in the multi-selection have differing values for any particular knob or slider parameter (volume, for example), this difference will be maintained as you adjust the parameter.
Mixing 197 An Unfolded Group Track Visualized in Session View... When tracks are placed into a group, their Audio To routing choosers (page 179) are automatically assigned to “Group“ unless they already had a custom routing (i.e. to a destination other 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.
Mixing 198 15.4 Return Tracks and the Master Track In addition to Group Tracks and tracks that play clips, a Live Set has a Master track and return tracks; these cannot play clips, but allow for more flexible signal processing and routing. The return tracks and the Master track occupy the right-hand side of the Session mixer view and the bottom end of the Arrangement View. Note that you can hide and show the return tracks using the Returns command in the View menu.
Mixing 199 The Master track is the default destination for the signals from all other tracks. Drag effects here to process the mixed signal before it goes to the master output. Effects in the Master track usually provide mastering-related functions, such as compression and/or EQ. You can create multiple return tracks using the Create menu’s Insert Return Track command, but by definition, there is only one Master track. 15.
Mixing 200 Choose from Seven Crossfader Curves. The chart below details the power level and response of each crossfader curve. 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) (page 477).
Mixing 201 separately available for MIDI or keyboard mapping. There are two special scenarios for remote control with respect to the crossfader: •A key mapped to any one of the three assignable crossfader positions (left, center or right) will toggle the crossfader’s absolute left and right positions. •Mapping to two of the three fields allows for a “snapping back“ behavior when one of the assigned keys is held down and the other is pressed and released. Crossfade Assign Buttons.
Mixing 202 chooser. The crossfader’s automation curve is accessible when “Mixer“ is chosen from the Master track’s Device chooser and “Crossfade“ is selected from its Control chooser. 15.6 Soloing and Cueing By default, soloing a track simply mutes all other tracks (except in some cases where tracks are feeding other tracks (page 179)). The signal from the soloed tracks is heard through their respective outputs, with the pan setting of each track preserved.
Mixing 203 1. The Master Out chooser selects the output on your interface to be used as the main output. 2. The Cue Out chooser selects the output on your hardware interface to be used for cueing. This has to be set to an output other than that selected for the Master. If the desired outputs don’t show up in these choosers, please check the Audio Preferences. 3. Activate cueing by setting the Solo/Cue Mode switch to “Cue.“ 4. The tracks’ Solo switches are now replaced by Cue switches with headphone icons.
Mixing 204 Note that delay compensation for plug-ins and Live devices is a separate feature (page 235), and is automatic by default. Unusually high Track Delay settings or reported latencies from plugins may cause noticeable sluggishness in the software. If you are having latency-related difficulties while recording and playing back instruments, you may want to try turning off device delay compensation, however this is not normally recommended.
Recording New Clips 205 Chapter 16 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 (page 94). 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.
Recording New Clips 206 The computer keyboard is, by default, activated as a pseudo-MIDI input device (page 174), allowing you to record MIDI even if no MIDI controller hardware is currently available. For every track, you can choose an input source other than the default: any mono or stereo external input, a specific MIDI channel from a specific MIDI-in device, audio from ReWire slave programs or a signal coming from another track. The Routing chapter (page 171) describes these options in detail. 16.
Recording New Clips 207 16.3 Recording Recording can be done in both the Session and the Arrangement Views. If you want to record onto more than one track simultaneously and/or prefer viewing the recording linearly and inprogress, the Arrangement View may be the better choice. If you want to break your recording seamlessly into multiple clips or record while you are also launching clips in Live, use the Session View. 16.3.1 Recording Into the Arrangement 1 6 3 4 2 5 Recording Into the Arrangement.
Recording New Clips 208 start position. 5. Likewise, to prevent recording after the punch-out point, activate the Punch-Out switch. The punch-out point is identical to the Arrangement Loop’s end position. 6. When you are recording into the Arrangement Loop (page 76), Live retains the audio recorded during each pass. You can later “unroll“ a loop recording, either by repeatedly using the Edit menu’s Undo command or graphically in the Clip View: After loop recording, double-click on the new clip.
Recording New Clips 209 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 the Session Record button to record into the selected scene in all armed tracks. A new clip will appear in each clip slot, with a red Clip Launch button that shows it is currently recording.
Recording New Clips 210 and changing its loop properties (page 115). 4. Arm the track. 5. Press the Session Record button. 6. The notes you play are added into the looping clip, and you can observe your recording in the Clip View. 7. The clip overdubs as it loops, allowing you to build your pattern layer by layer. However, if you would like to pause recording for a moment to rehearse, you can deactivate overdubbing by pressing the Session Record button again.
Recording New Clips 211 2 1 3 Step Recording in the MIDI Editor. 1. Arm the MIDI track that contains the clip into which you want to record. 2. Enable the Preview switch in the clip’s MIDI Editor. 3. Click in the MIDI Editor to place the insert marker at the position where you want to begin recording. Pressing the right arrow key on your computer keyboard will move the insert marker to the right, according to the grid settings.
Recording New Clips 212 even during recording. You could, for instance, cheat a bit by turning down the tempo to record a technically difficult 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. The easiest way to record in sync is to play along with or to use the built-in metronome, which is activated via its Control Bar switch and will begin ticking when the Play button is pressed or a clip is launched.
Recording New Clips 213 if, for example, you recorded with Record Quantization set to “Eighth Note Triplet Quantization“ and then changed your mind, using the Edit menu’s Undo command would undo only the quantization and leave your recording otherwise intact. For Session and Arrangement recording, the Record Quantization setting cannot be changed mid-recording.
Recording New Clips 214 16.7 Setting up File Types The following Preferences from the Record/Warp/Launch tab are relevant to the sample files that are created by recording: •The sample file 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 file you will create by recording can be chosen from the Bit Depth chooser in the Record/Warp/Launch Preferences.
Recording New Clips 215 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 (page 210). 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.
Recording New Clips 216
Working with Instruments and Effects 217 Chapter 17 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.
Working with Instruments and Effects 218 To save space in the Device View, a device can be collapsed by double-clicking on its title bar or by choosing Fold from its [right-click](PC) / [CTRL-click](Mac) context menu. Devices Can Be Folded. To learn about a particular device and how to operate it, consult the Live Audio Effect Reference (page 287), Live MIDI Effect Reference (page 363) or the Live Instrument Reference (page 375).
Working with Instruments and Effects 219 17.1 Using the Live Devices Devices in Live’s Browser. Live’s built-in devices can be accessed in the browser. You will notice that Live’s Synths, Audio Effects, and MIDI Effects each have their own labels in the browser’s sidebar. 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.
Working with Instruments and Effects 220 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 (page 205). If you have alternative monitoring preferences, please see the Monitoring section (page 172) to learn how to make these settings.
Working with Instruments and Effects 221 by clicking in the space after the last device, or by using the right arrow key to move the selection there. Generally, devices can be placed, reordered and deleted without interrupting the audio stream. Device Activator Switches. Devices are turned on and off using their Activator switches. Turning a device off is like temporarily deleting it: The signal remains unprocessed, and the device does not consume CPU cycles.
Working with Instruments and Effects 222 look into clip envelopes (page 267), which can automate or modulate individual device parameters on a per-clip basis. 17.1.1 Live Device Presets Every Live device can store and retrieve their parameter settings as presets. Each device appears in the content pane of the browser as a folder that can be opened to reveal its presets. Presets in the Browser.
Working with Instruments and Effects 223 Note that pressing [Q] to enter Hot-Swap mode will swap from the last selected device on a given track. If no device was selected, swap will be enabled from the first audio effect (on audio tracks) or the instrument (on MIDI tracks). The Hot-Swap Presets Button. The link between the browser and the device will be broken if a different view is selected, or if the [Q] key or the Hot-Swap button is pressed again.
Working with Instruments and Effects 224 Default Presets Presets saved to the Defaults folders in your User Library will load in place of Live’s generic device settings. There are also Defaults folders that allow you to customize how Live responds to various user actions, such as sample dropping, slicing, and converting audio to MIDI. You can even create default presets for newly-created MIDI and audio tracks, so that they will load with devices already in place.
Working with Instruments and Effects 225 •Create an empty Simpler or Sampler •Adjust the parameters as you like •Drag the edited device to the “On Drum Rack“ or “On Device View“ folder, which can be found in the Defaults/Dropping Samples folders in your User Library.
Working with Instruments and Effects 226 brary 17.2 Using Plug-Ins The collection of devices that you can use in Live can be extended with plug-ins. Live supports Steinberg Media’s VST Plug-ins format, as well as the Audio Units (AU) Plug-ins format (Mac OS X only). Working with VST and Audio Units Plug-ins is very much like working with Live devices. VST and AU instruments can only be placed in Live MIDI tracks and, like Live instruments, they will receive MIDI and output audio signals.
Working with Instruments and Effects 227 activating) plug-in sources can be found later in this chapter, in the sections on the VST Plug-in folder (page 231) and Audio Units Plug-ins (page 234). Note for “Intel® Mac“ users: Intel® Mac computers cannot natively run VST or AU plug-ins that have been written for the PowerPC platform. Only plug-ins of type Universal or Intel® can be used in Live.
Working with Instruments and Effects 228 The Plug-In Unfold Button. You can view or hide the plug-in’s parameters by toggling the button in the plug-in’s title bar. The X-Y control field 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 field, use the drop-down menus directly beneath it. Showing Plug-In Panels in Separate Windows The Plug-In Edit Button.
Working with Instruments and Effects 229 only those plug-in windows belonging to the track that is currently selected. You can use the View menu’s Show/Hide Plug-In Windows command or the [CTRL][ALT][P](PC) / [CMD][ALT][P](Mac) shortcut to hide and show your open plug-in windows. Notice that the name of the track to which the plug-in belongs is displayed in the title bar of the plug-in editor window. Plug-In Configure Mode The Configure Button.
Working with Instruments and Effects 230 eters, you can create a Rack (page 237) containing the configured plug-in. Racks can then be saved to your User Library and loaded into other Sets. Certain plug-ins do not have their own windows, and instead only show their parameters in Live’s panel. For these plug-ins, it is not possible to delete parameters when in Configure Mode (although they can still be moved and reordered).
Working with Instruments and Effects 231 Macintosh only: The floating editor windows of some VST Plug-ins do not receive computer key strokes. This is generally an implementation error in the plug-in itself. If it is necessary to type into a plug-in window, for instance for entering a serial number or unlock code, hold down [Shift] while clicking the Plug-In Edit button. The editor window will then appear as a “normal“ application window, rather than as a floating window, and receive your typing.
Working with Instruments and Effects 232 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. Note that you can choose not to use your VST Plug-ins in Live by turning off the Use VST Plug-In Custom Folder option. Setting up VST Plug-In Sources for Mac OS X. Set up your VST Plug-ins under Mac OS X by doing the following: 1.
Working with Instruments and Effects 233 Some VST Plug-ins contain errors or are incompatible with Live. During the scanning process, these may cause the program to crash. When you re-launching Live, a dialog will appear to inform you about which plug-in caused the problem. Depending on what Live detects about the plug-in, you may be given the choice between performing another scan or making the problematic plug-in unavailable.
Working with Instruments and Effects 234 The VST Load Program or Bank Button (Left) and Save Program or Bank Button (Right). VST programs and banks can be imported from files. Clicking a VST’s Load Program or Bank button brings up a standard file-open dialog for locating the desired file. Windows only: Please select from the File Type menu whether you want to locate VST Device Program files or VST Device Bank files.
Working with Instruments and Effects 235 you will find the Plug-In Sources section. Turning on the Use Audio Units option activates Audio Units Plug-ins so that they appear in Live’s 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.
Working with Instruments and Effects 236 process an input signal and output a result. The compensation algorithm keeps Live’s tracks in sync while minimizing delay between the player’s actions and the audible result. Note: there are a few situations in which Live cannot compensate for plug-in delay: •Automation (page 257) is not delay compensated. As a result, when using automation on tracks that contain devices that cause delays, the automation may sound early.
Instrument, Drum and Effect Racks 237 Chapter 18 Instrument, Drum and Effect Racks Inside An Audio Effect Rack. A Rack is a flexible 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.
Instrument, Drum and Effect Racks 238 18.1 An Overview of Racks 18.1.1 Signal Flow and Parallel Device Chains Inside An Audio Effect Rack. 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 Device 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.
Instrument, Drum and Effect Racks 239 18.1.2 Macro Controls The Macro Controls. One unique property of Racks are their Macro Controls. The Macro Controls are a bank of eight knobs, each capable of addressing any number of parameters from any devices in a Rack.
Instrument, Drum and Effect Racks 240 •Instrument Racks contain instruments, but can additionally contain both MIDI and audio effects. In this case, all MIDI effects have to be at the beginning of the Instrument Rack’s device chain, followed by an instrument, and then any audio effects. •Drum Racks (page 248) are similar to Instrument Racks; they can contain instruments as well as MIDI and audio effects and their devices must be ordered according to the same signal flow rules.
Instrument, Drum and Effect Racks 241 1 2 6 3 4 5 Components of a Drum Rack. 1. Racks have distinct views that can be shown or hidden as needed. Therefore, every Rack has a view column on its far left side that holds the corresponding view selectors. The actual view selectors available differ depending on whether 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.
Instrument, Drum and Effect Racks 242 appear. Simply select an entry from the list, and Live will select that device and move it into view for you. Navigate Racks Quickly Via a Context Menu. 18.4 Chain List The Chain List in an Audio Effect Rack. As signals enter a Rack, they are first greeted by the Chain List. We will therefore also choose this point for our own introduction.
Instrument, Drum and Effect Racks 243 Note: Racks, chains and devices can be freely dragged into and out of other Racks, and even between tracks. Selecting a chain, then dragging and hovering over another Session or Arrangement View track will give that track focus; its Device View will open, allowing you to drop your chain into place.
Instrument, Drum and Effect Racks 244 zones, which are discussed next, and is quite helpful when troubleshooting complex configurations. 18.5 Zones Zones are sets of data filters that reside at the input of every chain in an Instrument or Effect Rack. Together, they determine the range of values that can pass through to the device chain. By default, zones behave transparently, never requiring your attention. They can be reconfigured, however, to form sophisticated control setups.
Instrument, Drum and Effect Racks 245 4. An incoming MIDI note gets compared to a chain’s key zone. If the MIDI note lies within the key zone, it is passed to the next zone for comparison; if it does not, then we already know that the note will not be passed to that chain’s devices. 5. The same comparisons are made for the chain’s velocity and chain select zones. If a note also lies within both of these zones, then it is passed to the input of the first device in that chain. 6.
Instrument, Drum and Effect Racks 246 18.5.3 Velocity Zones The Velocity Zone Editor. Each chain in an Instrument Rack or MIDI Effect Rack also has a velocity zone, specifying the range of MIDI Note On velocities that it will respond to. The Velocity Zone Editor, when displayed, replaces the Key Zone Editor to the right of the Chain List. MIDI Note On velocity is measured on a scale of 1-127, and this value range spans the top of the editor.
Instrument, Drum and Effect Racks 247 The chain select zone is a data filter just like the other zones; although all chains in a Rack receive input signals, only those with chain select zones that overlap the current value of the Chain selector can be addressed and thereby produce output. By default, the chain select zones of Instrument and MIDI Effect Racks filter only notes, ignoring all other incoming MIDI events (such as MIDI CCs).
Instrument, Drum and Effect Racks 248 Let’s move the chain select zones of the second and third chains so that each of our zones is occupying its own adjacent value: The first chain’s zone has a value of 0, the second chain’s zone has a value of 1, the third has a value of 2, and the fourth has a value of 3.
Instrument, Drum and Effect Racks 249 2 3 4 1 The Chain List in a Drum Rack. 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 toggles for the Input/Output, Send, and Return sections, and the Auto Select button. 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.
Instrument, Drum and Effect Racks 250 18.6.1 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. The pad overview to the left shifts the set of visible pads up or down in groups of 16, either by dragging the view selector to a new area or by using your computer keyboard’s up and down arrow keys. Use the [ALT] (PC) / [CMD](Mac) modifier to shift the view by single rows instead.
Instrument, Drum and Effect Racks 251 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) / [CMD](Mac)-dragging one pad to another will layer any chains from both pads in a nested Instrument Rack. You can always change your mappings from within the chain list as well, by adjusting the Receive choosers.
Instrument, Drum and Effect Racks 252 18.7 Using the Macro Controls Making Macro Control Assignments in Map Mode. With the potential for developing complex device chains, Macro Controls keep things manageable by taking over the most essential parameters of a Rack (as determined by you, of course). Once you have set up your ideal mapping, the rest of the Rack can be hidden away. The Macro Control view’s dedicated Map button opens the door to this behavior.
Instrument, Drum and Effect Racks 253 slider’s value. The current values can also be inverted by pressing [right-click](PC) / [CTRLclick](Mac) on the entry in the Mapping Browser. 5. Select another device parameter if you’d like to create more mappings, or click on the Map mode button once more to exit Macro Map Mode.
Instrument, Drum and Effect Racks 254 Mixing Rack Chains in the Session View. Chains in the Session View mixer look similar to tracks, but they have no clip slots. Their mixing and routing controls mirror those found in the Rack’s chain list, so any changes made to these controls in either area will be reflected in the other immediately. Likewise, many chain operations such as reordering, renaming and regrouping can be performed from either the mixer or the chain list.
Instrument, Drum and Effect Racks 255 in the mixer and drag it to the mixer’s drop area. This creates a new track with the full contents of the snare chain: both its devices and its MIDI data. If you would like to extract only the devices, drag from the chain list instead of from the mixer. Extracting Drum Chains in the Mixer Extracts MIDI Data.
Instrument, Drum and Effect Racks 256
Automation and Editing Envelopes 257 Chapter 19 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 or Session clip 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. 19.
Automation and Editing Envelopes 258 When Automation Arm is on, all changes of a control that occur while the Control Bar’s Arrangement Record button is on become Arrangement automation. Try recording automation for a control; for instance a mixer volume slider. After recording, play back what you have just recorded to see and hear the effect of the control movement. You will notice that a little LED has appeared in the slider thumb to indicate that the control is now automated.
Automation and Editing Envelopes 259 1 2 3 Controls for Recording Session Automation. 1. Enable the Automation Arm button to prepare for automation recording. 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 the Session Record button to begin recording automation. It is also possible to record automation into all playing Session clips, regardless of whether or not they are in armed tracks.
Automation and Editing Envelopes 260 This allows you to, for example, overdub Session automation into an existing MIDI clip without also recording notes into the clip. Any automation in Session View becomes track-based automation when clips are recorded or copied into Arrangement View. 19.2.1 Session Automation Recording Modes The automation recording behavior differs depending on how you adjust parameters while recording.
Automation and Editing Envelopes 261 The Re-Enable Automation Button. This button serves two purposes. It reminds you that the current state of the controls differs from the state captured in Session clips or the Arrangement, and you can click on it to reactivate all automation and thereby return to the automation state as it is written “on tape.
Automation and Editing Envelopes 262 1. To show a track’s envelopes, “unfold“ the track by clicking the button next to the track name. (Note that, for Group Tracks (page 196), you may need to expand the track’s height in order to see its envelopes.) 2. Clicking on one of the track’s mixer or device controls will display this control’s envelope on the clip track. 3. Envelopes appear “on top of“ the audio waveform or MIDI display.
Automation and Editing Envelopes 263 19.5.1 Drawing Envelopes With Draw Mode enabled, you can click and drag to “draw“ an envelope curve. The Draw Mode Switch. To toggle Draw Mode, select the Draw Mode option from the Options menu, click on the Control Bar’s Draw Mode switch, or press [B]. Holding [B] while editing with the mouse temporarily toggles Draw Mode. Drawing an Envelope. Drawing creates steps as wide as the visible grid, which you can modify using a number of handy shortcuts (page 82).
Automation and Editing Envelopes 264 dragging is in the current selection, all other breakpoints in the selection will follow the movement. To Move all Breakpoints Within the Selection, Drag Any One of Them. Your movement is constrained by the neighboring breakpoints unless you hold down the [Shift] modifier while dragging, which will eliminate breakpoints as you wipe over them. Holding down the [CTRL](PC) / [CMD](Mac) modifier while dragging switches to a finer resolution.
Automation and Editing Envelopes 265 A Curved Envelope Segment 19.5.3 Locking Envelopes When moving Arrangement View clips, Live normally moves all automation with the clip. Sometimes, you might want to lock the envelopes to the song position rather than to the clips, and the Lock Envelopes switch does just that. You can also choose to lock envelopes from the Options menu. The Lock Envelopes Switch. 19.5.
Automation and Editing Envelopes 266 If you want your edits to apply to both the clip and all of its associated envelopes, apply edit commands to a selection in the clip track. Note that Live allows you to copy and paste envelope movements not only from one point in time to another, but also from one parameter to another. Since the parameters may be completely unrelated, this can have unexpected (but possibly interesting) results. 19.5.
Clip Envelopes 267 Chapter 20 Clip Envelopes Every clip in Live can have its own clip envelopes. The aspects of a clip that are influenced by clip envelopes change depending upon clip type and setup; clip envelopes can do anything from representing MIDI controller data to automating or modulating device parameters. In this chapter, we will first look at how all clip envelopes are drawn and edited, and then get into the details of their various applications. 20.
Clip Envelopes 268 The Clip View’s Envelopes Box. The top menu is the Device chooser, which selects a general category of controls with which to work. Device chooser entries are different for different kinds of clips: •Audio clips have entries for “Clip” (the clip’s sample controls), every effect in the track’s device chain, and the mixer. •MIDI clips have entries for “MIDI Ctrl“ (MIDI controller data), every device in the track’s device chain, and the mixer.
Clip Envelopes 269 20.2 Audio Clip Envelopes Clip envelopes extend Live’s “elastic“ approach to audio and, in conjunction with Live’s audio effects, turn Live into a mighty sound-design tool. Using clip envelopes with audio clips, you can create an abundance of interesting variations from the same clip in real time — anything from subtle corrections to entirely new and unrelated sounds. 20.2.
Clip Envelopes 270 The Transposition Envelope with Steps (Top) and Ramps (Bottom). Note that the warp settings determine how accurately Live’s time-warping engine tracks the envelope shape. To obtain a more immediate response, reduce the Grain Size value in Tones or Texture Mode, or choose a smaller value for the Granulation Resolution in Beats Mode.
Clip Envelopes 271 20.2.3 Muting or Attenuating Notes in a Sample Select “Clip” in the Device chooser and “Volume Modulation” in the Control chooser. By drawing steps in Draw Mode or creating shapes with breakpoints, you can impose an arbitrary volume shape onto the sample. Imposing a Volume Envelope on a Sample. The volume envelope’s output is interpreted as a relative percentage of the clip volume slider’s current value.
Clip Envelopes 272 Sample offset modulation is the tool of choice for quickly creating interesting variations of beat loops. We discourage using this technique for “analytical“ cut-and-splice tasks; they are much easier to perform using Live’s Arrangement View, and the results can easily be consolidated into new clips. Repeating Steps and Slowing Time with the Sample Offset Envelope.
Clip Envelopes 273 of confusion. However, modulation envelopes differ from automation envelopes in one important way: Whereas automation envelopes define the value of a control at any given point in time, modulation envelopes can only influence this defined value. This difference allows the two types of envelopes to work together in harmony when controlling the same parameter. Imagine that you have recorded volume automation for an audio clip so that it gradually fades out over four bars.
Clip Envelopes 274 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 infinite dB. Modulating a Send. The Send Knob’s Position Ring Indicates the Modulated Value. 20.3.
Clip Envelopes 275 of the listed controllers by drawing steps or using breakpoints. You can also edit clip envelope representations of controller data that is imported as part of your MIDI files or is created while recording new clips: names of controllers that already have clip envelopes appear with an adjacent LED in the Clip Envelope Control chooser. Live supports most MIDI controller numbers up to 119, accessible via the scroll bar on the right side of the menu.
Clip Envelopes 276 2 1 4 3 Using a Clip Envelope to Create a Fade-Out Over Several Repetitions of a Loop. 1. Choose the Clip or Mixer Volume envelope, and unlink it from the sample. The clip envelope’s loop braces now appear colored to indicate this envelope now has its own local loop/region settings. The loop/region controls in the Envelopes box “come to life.“ If you toggle the envelope’s Loop switch, you’ll notice the Sample box’s Loop switch is not affected.
Clip Envelopes 277 We depart from the clip we just set up to fade out over eight bars. Activate the clip volume envelope’s Loop switch. Now, as you play the clip, you can hear the eight-bar fade-out repeating. You can draw or edit any envelope to superimpose onto the sample loop.
Clip Envelopes 278 20.5.4 Clip Envelopes as LFOs If you are into sound synthesis, you may want to think of a clip envelope with a local loop as an LFO. This LFO is running in sync with the project tempo, but it is also possible to set up a loop period odd enough to render the envelope unsynchronized. By hiding the grid, you can adjust the clip envelope loop start and end points completely independent of meter grid. 20.5.
Working with Video 279 Chapter 21 Working with Video Live’s flexible 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 (page 43) your edited video file along with your audio. Before diving in, you will want to be familiar with the concepts presented in the Audio Clips, Tempo, and Warping chapter (page 117).
Working with Video 280 21.2 The Appearance of Video in Live 21.2.1 Video Clips in the Arrangement View 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 file’s QuickTime markers, if present, in the Arrangement View and Clip View.
Working with Video 281 21.2.2 The Video Window The Video Window in the Arrangement View. The Video Window is a separate, floating 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.
Working with Video 282 Setting a Video Clip as Tempo Master. Remember from the Audio Clips, Tempo, and Warping chapter (page 117) that, although any number of warped Arrangement clips can have the Tempo Master option activated, only the bottom-most, currently playing clip is the actual tempo master. This also means that it is possible for video clips that are not the current tempo master to become warped, resulting in warped video output in the Video Window.
Working with Video 283 2. Drag a QuickTime movie from Live’s browser and drop it into an audio track in the Arrangement View. The Video Window will appear to display the video component of the movie file. (Remember that you can move this window to any convenient location on the screen.) 3. Now that the video clip is loaded, drag an audio clip into the Arrangement View’s drop area. A new track will automatically be created for it.
Working with Video 284 A Video Clip at the Start of the Arrangement. 2. Next, we double-click on the video clip’s title bar to display its contents in the Clip View. There, we drag the Start Marker to the right so the video clip starts at the beginning of the action. Dragging the Start Marker behind the Pre-Roll. 3. Now, both the action and the music to be composed start at 1.1.1 / 00.00.00.00. Once the music is done and ready to be rendered to disk, we need to bring back the pre-roll: 4.
Working with Video 285 The Video Clip and the Final Clip of Music. 5. 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.
Working with Video 286
Live Audio Effect Reference 287 Chapter 22 Live Audio Effect Reference Live comes with a selection of custom-designed, built-in audio effects. The Working with Instruments and Effects chapter (page 217) explains the basics of using effects in Live. 22.1 Amp The Amp Effect. Amp is an effect that emulates the sound and character of seven classic guitar amplifiers.
Live Audio Effect Reference 288 •Boost is based on the ”Tremolo” channel of the same amp, and is great for edgy rock riffs. •Blues is based on a ’70s-era guitar amp with a bright character. This classic amp is popular with country, rock and blues guitarists. •Rock is modeled after a classic 45 watt amp from the ’60s. This is perhaps the best known rock amp of all time. •Lead is based on the ”Modern” channel of a high-gain amp popular with metal guitarists.
Live Audio Effect Reference 289 22.1.1 Amp Tips Because Amp is modeled on real-world analog devices, its behavior can sometimes be difficult to predict. Here are some tips on getting the most out of Amp: Amps and Cabinets Guitar amps are designed to be used with accompanying speaker cabinets. For this reason, Amp comes with a companion effect called Cabinet (page 295) which is designed to be used after Amp in a device chain. If you’re looking for authenticity, we recommend this signal flow.
Live Audio Effect Reference 290 22.2 Auto Filter The Auto Filter Effect. The Auto Filter effect provides classic analog filter emulation. It can be modulated by an envelope follower and/or an LFO to create moving filter effects. The envelope follower can track either the filtered signal or an external sidechain source. There are four different filter types: lowpass, highpass, bandpass and notch.
Live Audio Effect Reference 291 Lower Release values cause the envelope to respond more quickly to falling input signals. Higher values extend the envelope’s decay. Normally, the signal being filtered and the input source that triggers the envelope follower are the same signal. But by using sidechaining, it is possible to filter a signal based on the envelope of another signal. To access the Sidechain parameters, unfold the Auto Filter window by toggling the button in its title bar.
Live Audio Effect Reference 292 For sample and hold, the Phase and Spin controls are not relevant and do not affect the sound. Instead, the Auto Filter offers two kinds of sample and hold: The upper sample and hold type available in the chooser provides independent random modulation generators for the left and right channels (stereo), while the lower one modulates both channels with the same signal (mono). 22.3 Auto Pan The Auto Pan Effect.
Live Audio Effect Reference 293 perfectly out of phase (180 degrees apart), so that when one reaches its peak, the other is at its minimum. Phase is particularly effective for creating vibrato effects. The Offset control shifts the start point of each LFO along its waveform. The device’s influence on incoming signals is set with the Amount control. 22.4 Beat Repeat The Beat Repeat Effect. Beat Repeat allows for the creation of controlled or randomized repetitions of an incoming signal.
Live Audio Effect Reference 294 Activating the Repeat button bypasses all of the above controls, immediately capturing material and repeating it until deactivated. The Grid control defines the grid size — the size of each repeated slice. If set to ”1/16”, a slice the size of one sixteenth note will be captured and repeated for the given Gate length (or until Repeat is deactivated). Large grid values create rhythmic loops, while small values create sonic artifacts.
Live Audio Effect Reference 295 22.5 Cabinet The Cabinet Effect. Cabinet is an effect that emulates the sound of five 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. The full version of Cabinet is not included with the standard version of Live, but is bundled with the Amp effect (page 287) as a special feature available for purchase separately.
Live Audio Effect Reference 296 Near Off-Axis Near On-Axis Far Cabinet Mic Positions. 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.
Live Audio Effect Reference 297 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 (page 237).
Live Audio Effect Reference 298 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.
Live Audio Effect Reference 299 22.7 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. A compressor’s two most important parameters are the Threshold and the compression Ratio.
Live Audio Effect Reference 300 Dry/Wet adjusts the balance between the compressed and uncompressed signals. At 100%, only the compressed signal is heard, while at 0%, the device is effectively bypassed. The Knee control adjusts how gradually or abruptly compression occurs as the threshold is approached. With a setting of 0 dB, no compression is applied to signals below the threshold, and full compression is applied to any signal at or above the threshold.
Live Audio Effect Reference 301 Compressor’s Transfer Curve. •The Activity view shows the level of the input signal in light grey. In this mode, the GR and Output switches toggle between showing the amount of gain reduction in orange or the output level in a darker grey. These views are useful for visualizing what’s happening to the signal over time. Compression Activity Display, Showing Input and Output.
Live Audio Effect Reference 302 the signal, and may lead to a slight “buzziness” caused by distortion. Short release times can cause ”pumping” as the compressor tries to figure out whether to compress or not; while generally considered an undesirable effect, some engineers use it on full drum kits to give unusual ”sucking” effects. Careful adjustment of attack and release times is essential when it comes to compression of rhythmical sources.
Live Audio Effect Reference 303 22.7.1 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 specific frequency component. To access the Sidechain parameters, unfold the Compressor window by toggling the button in its title bar.
Live Audio Effect Reference 304 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. 22.7.2 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.
Live Audio Effect Reference 305 22.7.3 Upgrading from Legacy Mode Compressor’s internal algorithms were updated in Live 9, in collaboration with Dr. Joshua D. Reiss of the Centre for Digital Music, Queen Mary University of London. Live Sets that use Compressor and which were made in earlier versions of Live will show an Upgrade button in the title bar of each instance of Compressor when loading the Set in Live 9.
Live Audio Effect Reference 306 lowest note will have priority. The Transpose and Fine knobs allow for coarse and fine offset of the MIDI-modulated tuning. PB Range sets the range in semitones of pitch bend modulation. With Frequency disabled, the Tune control adjusts the base frequency of the resonance in Hertz. The corresponding MIDI note number and fine tuning offset in cents is displayed below. Enabling Off Decay causes MIDI note off messages to mute the resonance.
Live Audio Effect Reference 307 Spread detunes the two resonators in relation to each other. Positive values raise the pitch of the left resonator while lowering the pitch of the right one, while negative values do the opposite. At 0%, the resonators are tuned the same. 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.
Live Audio Effect Reference 308 The Radius parameter is only available for the Pipe and Tube resonators. Radius adjusts 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.
Live Audio Effect Reference 309 often be damped when the tuning or quality are set to low values. This parameter is unavailable with the Pipe or Tube resonators. 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.
Live Audio Effect Reference 310 The Tone control sets the spectral distribution of the distortions, directing them into the higher registers, or through the midrange and deeper. The Drive control determines how much signal reaches the tube; greater Drive yields a dirtier output. The intensity of the tube is controlled by the Bias dial, which pushes the signal into the celebrated realms of nonlinear distortion. With very high amounts of Bias, the signal will really start to break apart.
Live Audio Effect Reference 311 (Note: the EQ Eight effect is not available in the Intro and Lite Editions.) The EQ Eight effect is an equalizer featuring up to eight parametric filters per input channel, useful for changing a sound’s timbre. The input signal can be processed using one of three modes: Stereo, L/R and M/S. Stereo mode uses a single curve to filter both channels of a stereo input equally.
Live Audio Effect Reference 312 adjusted for the low cut, notch and high cut filters. In these modes, vertical dragging adjusts the filter Q. To get an even better view, you can toggle the location of the display between the device chain and Live’s main window by clicking the button in EQ Eight’s title bar. When using this expanded view, all eight filters can be edited simultaneously in the Device View. EQ Eight’s Controls With the Display Expanded.
Live Audio Effect Reference 313 Context Menu Options Several of EQ Eight’s controls are only available via the [right-click](PC) / [CTRL-click](Mac) context menu. These include: •Oversampling - enabling this option causes EQ Eight to internally process two times the current sample rate, which allows for smoother filter behavior when adjusting high frequencies. There is a slight increase in CPU usage with Oversampling enabled.
Live Audio Effect Reference 314 Each band can be adjusted from -infinite dB to +6 dB using the gain controls. This means that you can completely remove, for example, the bass drum or bassline of a track, while leaving the other frequencies untouched. You can also turn on or off each band using the On/Off buttons located under the gain controls. These buttons are especially handy if assigned to computer keys.
Live Audio Effect Reference 315 22.12 Erosion The Erosion Effect. The Erosion effect degrades the input signal by modulating a short delay with filtered noise or a sine wave. This adds noisy artifacts or aliasing/downsampling-like distortions that sound very ”digital.” To change the sine wave frequency or noise band center frequency, click and drag along the X-axis in the X-Y field. The Y-axis controls the modulation amount.
Live Audio Effect Reference 316 22.13 External Audio Effect The External Audio Effect. (Note: the External Audio Effect is not available in the Intro and Lite Editions.) 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.
Live Audio Effect Reference 317 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.
Live Audio Effect Reference 318 termined by the filter settings. The feedback from each of the three delays is also routed back through the filters. 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.
Live Audio Effect Reference 319 22.15 Flanger The Flanger Effect. (Note: the Flanger effect is not available in the Lite Edition.) Flanger uses two parallel time-modulated delays to create flanging 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.
Live Audio Effect Reference 320 Spin detunes the two LFO speeds relative to each other. Each delay is modulated at a different frequency, as determined by the Spin amount. 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 [right-click](PC) / [CTRL-click](Mac) context menu entry.
Live Audio Effect Reference 321 By changing the Mode from Shift to Ring, Frequency Shifter switches from classical frequency shifting to ring modulation. In Ring mode, the selected frequency amount is added to and subtracted from the input. For example, if the incoming audio signal (A) is a sine wave at 440 Hz and the Frequency is set to 100 Hz (B), the output will contain partials at 340 Hz (A-B) and 540 Hz (A+B).
Live Audio Effect Reference 322 this up an octave, we multiply these frequencies by two, resulting in new frequencies at 880 Hz and 1760 Hz. 22.16.1 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.
Live Audio Effect Reference 323 22.17 Gate The Gate Effect. (Note: the Gate effect is not available in the Lite Edition.) The Gate effect passes only signals whose level exceeds a user-specified 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 so that it cuts off reverb or delay tails or truncates an instrument’s natural decay. As of Live 9, Gate’s internal behavior has been subtly improved.
Live Audio Effect Reference 324 With the Flip button enabled, the gate works in reverse; the signal will only pass if its level is below the threshold. A gate can only react to an input signal once it occurs. Since it also needs to apply an attack/ release envelope, the gating is always a bit too late. A digital gate can solve this problem by simply delaying the input signal a little bit. Gate offers three different Lookahead times: zero ms, one ms and ten ms.
Live Audio Effect Reference 325 These can either be frequencies in the signal to be gated or, by using the EQ in conjunction with an external sidechain, frequencies in another track’s audio. The headphones button between the external and EQ sections allows you to listen to only the sidechain input, bypassing the gate’s output.
Live Audio Effect Reference 326 compressor to return to normal operation after the signal falls below the threshold. The Release knob’s values are in seconds. When Release is set to A (Auto), the release time will adjust automatically based on the incoming audio. The Glue Compressor’s Auto Release actually uses two times - a slow one as a base compression value, and a fast one to react to transients in the signal.
Live Audio Effect Reference 327 22.18.1 Sidechain Parameters The Glue Compressor 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 specific frequency component. To access the Sidechain parameters, unfold the Glue Compressor window by toggling the button in its title bar.
Live Audio Effect Reference 328 Context Menu Options Oversampling can be toggled on or off via the [right-click](PC) / [CTRL-click](Mac) context menu. Enabling this option causes the Glue Compressor to internally process at two times the current sampling rate, which may reduce aliasing and transient harshness. There is a slight increase in CPU usage with Oversampling enabled. Note that with Oversampling enabled, the level may exceed 0 dB even with Soft clip enabled. 22.
Live Audio Effect Reference 329 note) of delay. With Sync Mode active, changing the Delay Time field percentage value shortens and extends delay times by fractional amounts, thus producing the ”swing” type of timing effect found in drum machines. If the Sync switch is off, the delay time reverts to milliseconds. In this case, to edit the delay time, click and drag up or down in the Delay Time field, or click in the field and type in a value.
Live Audio Effect Reference 330 22.20 Limiter The Limiter Effect. (Note: the Limiter effect is not available in the Lite Edition.) The Limiter effect is a mastering-quality dynamic range processor that ensures that the output does not exceed a specified level. Limiter is ideal for use in the Master track, to prevent clipping. A limiter is essentially a compressor with an infinite ratio. (For more information about compression theory, see the manual entry for the Compressor device (page 295).
Live Audio Effect Reference 331 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 final 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. 22.21 Looper The Looper Effect. (Note: the Looper effect is not available in the Lite Edition.
Live Audio Effect Reference 332 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 (page 27).
Live Audio Effect Reference 333 Stopped Clear Record Empty Click Play Overdub Undo/Redo Doubleclick Hold Diagram of Looper’s Multi-Purpose Transport Button Behavior Looper’s Multi-Purpose Transport Button is optimized for use with a MIDI footswitch. To assign a footswitch, enter MIDI Map Mode (page 482), click the button and then press your attached footswitch. Then exit MIDI Map Mode.
Live Audio Effect Reference 334 record until you press another transport button. If you specify a fixed number of bars to record by selecting another option in the chooser, Looper will record for the specified 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.
Live Audio Effect Reference 335 Enabling the Reverse button plays the previously recorded material backwards. Any material that you overdub after enabling Reverse will be played forward. Note that disabling Reverse 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.
Live Audio Effect Reference 336 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.
Live Audio Effect Reference 337 both an upper and lower threshold, allowing for two types of dynamics processing to be used simultaneously per band. 22.22.1 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.
Live Audio Effect Reference 338 upward expansion (uncommon) original dynamic range larger dynamic range original dynamic range larger dynamic range downward expansion (common) Downward and Upward Expansion.
Live Audio Effect Reference 339 quency is set to 2000 Hz, then the low band goes from 0 Hz to 500 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.
Live Audio Effect Reference 340 For the Above thresholds, Attack defines 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.
Live Audio Effect Reference 341 Normally, the signal being processed and the input source that triggers the device are the same signal. But by using sidechaining, it is possible to apply dynamics processing to a signal based on the level of another signal or a specific frequency component. To access the Sidechain parameters, unfold the Multiband Dynamics window by toggling the button in its title bar.
Live Audio Effect Reference 342 easily hear the results of your adjustments. Generally, de-essing works best with fairly fast attack and release times. Uncompression Mastering engineers are often asked to perform miracles, like adding punch and energy to a mix that has already been heavily compressed, and thus has almost no remaining transients. Most of the time, these mixes have also been heavily maximized, meaning that they also have no remaining headroom.
Live Audio Effect Reference 343 (Note: the Overdrive effect is not available in the Intro and Lite Editions.) 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 sacrificing dynamic range. The distortion stage is preceded by a bandpass filter that can be controlled with an X-Y controller. To define the filter bandwidth, click and drag on the vertical axis.
Live Audio Effect Reference 344 (Note: the Phaser effect is not available in the Lite Edition.) Phaser uses a series of all-pass filters 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).
Live Audio Effect Reference 345 22.25 Ping Pong Delay The Ping Pong Delay Effect. (Note: the Ping Pong Delay effect is not available in the Lite Edition.) The Ping Pong Delay effect uses a single tapped delay line to create a delay that jumps from the left to the right output. The delay is preceded by a lowpass and highpass filter that can be controlled with an X-Y controller. To define the filter bandwidth, click and drag on the vertical axis.
Live Audio Effect Reference 346 The Dry/Wet control adjusts the balance between the processed and dry signals. Set it to 100 percent if using Ping Pong Delay in a return track. Changing the delay time while Ping Pong Delay is processing audio can cause abrupt changes in the sound of the delayed signal.
Live Audio Effect Reference 347 If the downsample dial is set to ”1”, every input sample passes to the output and the signal does not change. If set to ”2”, only every second sample will be processed, so the result sounds a bit more ”digital.” The higher the number, the lower the resulting sample rate, and the more ”deconstructed” the sound. Downsampling is like applying a mosaic effect to an image: There’s a loss of information and sharp edges occur between the blocks.
Live Audio Effect Reference 348 This device consists of five parallel resonators that superimpose a tonal character on the input source. It can produce sounds resembling anything from plucked strings to vocoder-like effects. The resonators are tuned in semitones, providing a musical way of adjusting them. The first resonator defines the root pitch and the four others are tuned relative to this pitch in musical intervals. The input signal passes first through a filter, and then into the resonators.
Live Audio Effect Reference 349 22.28 Reverb The Reverb Effect. 22.28.1 Input Processing The input signal passes first through high and low cut filters, whose X-Y controller allows changing the band’s center frequency (X-axis) and bandwidth (Y-axis). Either filter may be switched off when not needed to save CPU power. Predelay controls the delay time, in milliseconds, before the onset of the first early reflection. This delays the reverberation relative to the input signal.
Live Audio Effect Reference 350 Spin applies modulation to the early reflections. The X-Y control accesses the depth and frequency of these modulations. A larger depth tends to provide a less-colored (more spectrally neutral) late diffusion response. If the modulation frequency is too high, doppler frequency shifting of the source sound will occur, along with surreal panning effects. Spin may be turned off, using the associated switch, for modest CPU savings. 22.28.
Live Audio Effect Reference 351 The Echo Density and Scale parameters provide additional control over the diffusion’s density and coarseness, and, when the room size is extremely small, have a large impact on the coloration contributed by the diffusion. The Chorus section adds a little modulation and motion to the diffusion. Like the Spin section, you can control the modulation frequency and amplitude, or turn it off. 22.28.
Live Audio Effect Reference 352 a nonlinear process, the incoming signal is reshaped to a greater or lesser degree depending upon its level at each moment in time. Incoming signals are first clipped to the dB level set by the Drive control. The meter on the right side of the display shows how much Saturator is influencing the signal. Signal shaping has six fixed modes: Analog Clip, Soft Sine, Medium Curve, Hard Curve, Sinoid Fold and Digital Clip.
Live Audio Effect Reference 353 filter, essentially an equalizer, is used for controlling higher frequencies. It is shaped with the Freq (cutoff frequency), Width and Depth controls. The Output control attenuates the level at the device output. When the Soft Clip switch is activated, Saturator will also apply an instance of its ”Analog Clip” curve to the output. The Dry/Wet control adjusts the balance between the processed and dry signals. Set it to 100 percent when using Saturator in a return track.
Live Audio Effect Reference 354 If the Sync switch is off, the delay time reverts to milliseconds. In this case, to edit the delay time, click and drag up or down in the Delay Time field, or click in the field and type in a value. The Feedback parameter defines how much of each channel’s output signal feeds back into the delay lines’ inputs. Internally, they are two independent feedback loops, so a signal on the left channel does not feed back into the right channel and vice versa.
Live Audio Effect Reference 355 (Note: the Spectrum device is not available in the Intro and Lite Editions.) Spectrum performs realtime frequency analysis of incoming audio signals. The results are represented in a graph, with dB along the vertical axis and frequency/pitch along the horizontal. The peak levels are retained on the graph until the song is restarted. Note that Spectrum is not an audio effect, but rather a measurement tool — it does not alter the incoming signal in any way.
Live Audio Effect Reference 356 To get an even better view, you can toggle the location of the display between the device chain and Live’s main window by clicking the button in Spectrum’s title bar or by double-clicking in the display. 22.32 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.
Live Audio Effect Reference 357 The Width control acts as a continuous mono to stereo controller when set from 0 to 100 percent. However, beyond 100 percent the output starts to ”fold in” on itself. At 200 percent the output contains only the difference between the left and right channels. If either Left or Right have been chosen in the Channel Mode chooser, the Width control has no function and is therefore disabled. At the bottom of the device you will find two Phase controls, one for each channel.
Live Audio Effect Reference 358 The Pinch Effect section adds odd harmonics to the input signal. These distortions typically occur 180 degrees out of phase, creating a richer stereo image. The Pinch Effect has the same controls as the Tracing Model, but generates a rather different sound. The Drive control increases or decreases the overall distortion amount created by both the Tracing Model and Pinch. There are two distortion modes: Soft and Hard.
Live Audio Effect Reference 359 Vocoders work by running both the carrier and modulator signals through banks of bandpass filters. The output level of each of the modulator’s filters is then analyzed and used to control the volume of the corresponding filter for the carrier signal. Live’s Vocoder should be inserted on the track that contains the audio material you plan to use as your modulator.
Live Audio Effect Reference 360 Sens. sets the sensitivity of the unvoiced detection algorithm. At 100%, the unvoiced noise generator is always on. At 0%, only the main carrier source is used. The Fast/Slow switch adjusts how quickly Vocoder switches between unvoiced and voiced detection. Vocoder’s large central area shows the levels of the individual bandpass filters. Clicking within this display allows you to attenuate these levels. The Bands chooser sets the number of filters that will be used.
Live Audio Effect Reference 361 The Dry/Wet control adjusts the balance between the processed and dry signals. 22.34.1 Vocoder Tips This section explains how to set up the most common Vocoder applications. 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.
Live Audio Effect Reference 362 1. Set the Carrier chooser to Modulator. 2. Set the Depth to 100%. 3. Enable Enhance. 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 filterbank parameters as well.
Live MIDI Effect Reference 363 Chapter 23 Live MIDI Effect Reference Live comes with a selection of custom-designed, built-in MIDI effects. The Working with Instruments and Effects chapter (page 217) explains the basics of using effects in Live. 23.1 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.
Live MIDI Effect Reference 364 23.1.1 Style and Rate Sections Arpeggiator’s Style chooser determines the sequence of notes in the rhythmical pattern. “Up“ and “Down“. “UpDown“ and “DownUp“. “Down & Up“ and “Up & Down“. “Converge“ and “Diverge“. “Con & Diverge“.
Live MIDI Effect Reference 365 “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.
Live MIDI Effect Reference 366 chooser. Grooves in Arpeggiator behave similarly to grooves in clips, and the intensity of the groove is determined by the Amount slider in the Groove Pool (page 156). With the Hold parameter active, Arpeggiator will continue to play the pattern even after the keyboard keys have been released. The pattern will be repeated until any other key is pressed.
Live MIDI Effect Reference 367 a total of eight times, playing it in higher notes each time. (When Distance is set to a negative value, the sequence will transpose lower each time.) 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.
Live MIDI Effect Reference 368 The order in which pitches are added to the chord is inconsequential: The effect of a +12 semitone shift added with the Shift 1 control, for example, is equal in effect to a +12 semitone shift added with the Shift 6 control. Note that no two notes of the same pitch can contribute to the chord, and that selecting the same shift value twice (e.g.
Live MIDI Effect Reference 369 On/Off Balance — This determines the velocity of the output note. It is a balance between the incoming note’s Note On and Note Off velocities. If your MIDI keyboard does not support MIDI Note Off velocity, you can just set this to zero. Decay Time — This is the time needed for an incoming note’s velocity to decay to zero. The decay begins immediately from the moment the device receives a MIDI Note On message.
Live MIDI Effect Reference 370 23.5 Random The Random Effect. Random adds an element of the unknown to the otherwise commonplace pitch parameter. The Chance control defines 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.
Live MIDI Effect Reference 371 For example, with Chance set to 100 percent, Choices set to 12 and Scale set to 1, playing 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.
Live MIDI Effect Reference 372 The Transpose slider can raise or lower the pitch of incoming MIDI notes by +/- 36 semitones. 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.
Live MIDI Effect Reference 373 notes are being output quietly, and vice versa. If instead, Out Hi is set to zero and 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.
Live MIDI Effect Reference 374
Live Instrument Reference 375 Chapter 24 Live Instrument Reference Live comes with a selection of custom-designed, built-in instruments. The Working with Instruments and Effects chapter (page 217) explains the basics of using instruments in Live. 24.1 Analog The Analog Instrument. Analog is a virtual analog synthesizer, created in collaboration with Applied Acoustics Systems.
Live Instrument Reference 376 24.1.1 Architecture and Interface Analog’s signal flow is shown in the figure below: Filter 1 Oscillator 1 Amp 1 L R Oscillator 2 Pre Filter Mix LFO 1 Filter Env 1 Amp Env 1 Filter 2 Amp 2 Filter Env 2 Amp Env 2 Output LFO 1 L R L R LFO 2 LFO 2 Noise Diagram of Analog’s Signal Flow. The primary sound sources of the synthesizer are two oscillators and a noise generator.
Live Instrument Reference 377 24.1.2 Oscillators Display and Shell Parameters for the two Oscillators. Analog’s two oscillators use physical modelling to capture the character of vintage hardware oscillators. Because they use modelling instead of wavetables, they avoid aliasing. Each oscillator can be turned on or off independently via the switch labelled Osc 1 or Osc 2 in the shell, and the oscillator’s output level is adjusted by the slider to the right of this activator.
Live Instrument Reference 378 of space between the notes on the keyboard. At 0%, the oscillator is not modulated by note pitch at all. To get a sense of how this works, try leaving one of the oscillators at 100% and setting the other’s Key scaling to something just slightly different. Then play scales near middle C. Since C3 will always trigger the same frequency regardless of the Key value, the oscillators will get farther out of tune with each other the farther away from C3 you play.
Live Instrument Reference 379 The Noise generator produces white noise and includes its own -6db/octave low-pass filter. The generator can be turned on or off via the Noise switch in the shell. Its output level is adjusted by the slider to the right of this activator. The F1/F2 slider controls the balance of the noise generator’s output to each of the two filters. When the slider is at the center position, equal amounts of signal will be sent to both filters.
Live Instrument Reference 380 Below each mode chooser is an additional control which differs between the two filters. In Filter 1, the To F2 slider allows you to adjust the amount of Filter 1’s output that will be sent to Filter 2. The Slave switch below Filter 2’s mode chooser causes this filter’s cutoff frequency to follow the cutoff of Filter 1. If this is enabled, Filter 2’s cutoff knob controls the amount of offset between the two cutoff amounts.
Live Instrument Reference 381 In addition to the envelope controls, the displays for the amplifiers contain various modulation parameters. The Pan and Level amounts can be independently modulated by LFO, note pitch and amp envelope via the sliders in the Pan Mod and Level Mod sections respectively. Note that, when using note pitch as the modulation source for Level, middle C will always sound the same regardless of the modulation amount. Positive values will cause the level to increase for higher notes.
Live Instrument Reference 382 The S.Time slider can cause the Sustain level to decrease even if a key remains depressed. Lower values cause the Sustain level to decrease more quickly. Finally, the release time is set with the Release knob. This is the time it takes for the envelope to reach zero after the key is released. The Slope switches toggle the shape of the envelope segments between linear and exponential. This change is also represented in the envelope visualization.
Live Instrument Reference 383 24.1.7 LFOs Display and Shell Parameters for the two LFOs. Analog’s two LFOs can be used as modulation sources for the oscillators, filters and amplifiers. 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.
Live Instrument Reference 384 24.1.8 Global Parameters Display and Shell Parameters for the Global Options. The Global shell and display parameters adjust how Analog responds to MIDI data, as well as controls for performance parameters such as vibrato and glide. 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 amplifier sections.
Live Instrument Reference 385 The Gli switch turns the glide effect on or off. This is used to make the pitch slide between notes rather than changing immediately. With Legato enabled, the sliding will only occur if the second note is played before the first note is released. The Time slider sets the overall speed of the slide. Turning on the glide effect enables an additional Glide Mode chooser in the display. Selecting Const causes the glide time to be constant regardless of interval.
Live Instrument Reference 386 Note that the Quick Routing options do not affect any changes you may have made to the oscillator level, tuning or waveform parameters — they only adjust the routing of the oscillators to the filters and subsequent amplifiers. 24.2 Collision The Collision Instrument. Collision is a synthesizer that simulates the characteristics of mallet percussion instruments.
Live Instrument Reference 387 The LFO tab contains two independent low-frequency oscillators (LFOs), which can each modulate multiple parameters. Similarly, the MIDI tab allows for MIDI pitch bend, modulation wheel and aftertouch messages to be routed to multiple destinations. To the right of the resonators is a section of global parameters, including overall output volume, polyphony and resonator routing options.
Live Instrument Reference 388 The Stiffness knob adjusts the hardness of the mallet. At low levels, the mallet is soft, which results in fewer high frequencies and a longer, less distinct impact. As you increase the stiffness, the impact time decreases and high frequencies increase. This parameter can also be modulated by pitch and velocity via the Key and Vel sliders. The Color knob sets the frequency of the noise component. At higher values, there are less low frequencies in the noise.
Live Instrument Reference 389 The attack time — how quickly Noise reaches full volume — is set with the A (Attack) slider, while the time it takes for the envelope to reach the sustain level after the attack phase is set by the D (Decay) slider. The S (Sustain) slider sets the level at which the envelope will remain from the end of the 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.
Live Instrument Reference 390 adjusted with the linked control. Dragging the parameter to its absolute maximum or minimum value will make the settings thereafter identical, adjustable as a single value. Tuning Section Resonator Tuning Parameters. The Tune and Fine knobs function as coarse and fine 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).
Live Instrument Reference 391 Physical Properties Section Physical Properties of the Resonator. 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.
Live Instrument Reference 392 This is similar to how real-world mallet instruments such as a marimbas and glockenspiels behave. At 100%, the resonance is muted immediately at note off, regardless of the Decay time. The Material slider adjusts the variation of the damping at different frequencies. At lower values, low frequency components decay slower than high frequency components (which simulates objects made of wood, nylon or rubber).
Live Instrument Reference 393 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. 24.2.4 LFO Tab Collision’s LFOs.
Live Instrument Reference 394 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. With Retrig. enabled, triggering a note restarts the LFO with the waveform phase set by the Offset parameter.
Live Instrument Reference 395 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.
Live Instrument Reference 396 Mallet Noise Resonator 1 Resonator 2 Resonators in 1 + 2 (Parallel) Configuration. 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 find 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.
Live Instrument Reference 397 Of course, to program unrealistic sounds, anything goes: •try using the Noise excitator, particularly with long envelope times, to create washy, quasigranular 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) configuration. •use the LFOs and MIDI controllers to modulate Collision’s parameters.
Live Instrument Reference 398 The full version of Electric is not included with the standard version of Live, but is a special feature available for purchase separately. 24.3.1 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. The sound of that fork is then amplified by a magnetic coil pickup and sent to the output, very much like an electric guitar.
Live Instrument Reference 399 24.3.3 Fork Section The Fork section is further divided into Tine and Tone subsections. This area is the heart of Electric’s sound generating mechanism. The Tine subsection controls the portion of the fork that is directly struck by the mallet. The Decay knob adjusts how long it takes the tine’s sound to fade out while a note is held. The Color knob controls the relative amplitude of high and low partials in the tine’s spectrum.
Live Instrument Reference 400 24.3.5 Pickup Section The Pickup section simulates the behavior of the magnetic coil pickup that amplifies the sound of the resonating fork. The R-W buttons switch between two different types of pickups. In the R position, Electric simulates electro-dynamic pickups, while W is based on an electro-static model.
Live Instrument Reference 401 Electric will play in equal temperament, which means that two notes are an octave apart when the upper note’s fundamental pitch is exactly twice the lower note’s. But because the actual resonance behavior of a vibrating tine or string differs from the theoretical model, equal temperament tends to sound “wrong“ on pianos. Stretch tuning attempts to correct this by sharpening the pitch of upper notes while flattening the pitch of lower ones. The result is a more brilliant sound.
Live Instrument Reference 402 ReWire Options Shown in the Routing Choosers. If another track in your set contains a multitimbral plug-in, you can select this track in the top chooser. In this case, the second chooser allows you to select a specific MIDI channel in the plug-in. The Audio From chooser provides options for returning the audio from the hardware synth, plugin, or ReWire device.
Live Instrument Reference 403 sible latency. In this case, be sure to switch back to milliseconds before changing your sample rate. Any latency introduced by devices within Live will be compensated for automatically, so the slider will be disabled when using the External Instrument Device to route internally. Latency adjustments when routing to ReWire devices will probably not be necessary, as most ReWireenabled programs also compensate automatically.
Live Instrument Reference 404 ping samples (page 40). Loaded samples can be deleted with your computer keyboard’s [Backspace] or [Delete] key. Imported samples are automatically mapped onto your MIDI keyboard, providing that it is plugged in and acknowledged by Live. C3 on the keyboard will trigger the leftmost sample, and the other samples will follow suit in the octave from C3 to C4.
Live Instrument Reference 405 24.5.3 Filter The Filter section offers a broad range of filter types, each of which can impart different sonic characteristics onto the sample by removing certain frequencies. The Frequency control defines where in the harmonic spectrum the filter is applied; the Resonance control boosts frequencies near that point. Filter Frequency can be modulated by either a random value or by MIDI note velocity. 24.5.
Live Instrument Reference 406 24.5.7 Individual Outputs When a new instance of Impulse is dragged into a track, its signal will be mixed with those of the other instruments and effects feeding the audio chain of the track. It can oftentimes make more sense to isolate the instrument or one of its individual drum samples, and send this signal to a separate track. Please see the Routing chapter (page 186) to learn how to accomplish this for Impulse’s overall signal or for Impulse’s individual sample slots.
Live Instrument Reference 407 sections. On the left side, you will find four oscillator sections, and on the right side from top to bottom, the LFO, the filter section, the pitch section and the global parameters. If you change one of the shell parameters, the display in the center will automatically show the details of the relevant section.
Live Instrument Reference 408 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 filter section.
Live Instrument Reference 409 User Waveforms The “User“ entry in the Wave chooser allows you to create your own waveforms by drawing the amplitudes of the oscillator’s harmonics. You can also select one of the built-in waveforms and then edit it in the same way. The small display next to the Wave chooser gives a realtime overview of your waveform. When your mouse is over the Oscillator display area, the cursor will change to a pencil.
Live Instrument Reference 410 useful, for example, in creating live drum sounds. Fixed Mode also allows producing very low frequencies down to 0.1 Hz. Note that when Fixed Mode is active, the frequency of the oscillator is controlled in the shell with the Frequency (Freq) and Multiplier (Multi) controls. Operator includes a special Osc
Live Instrument Reference 411 filter, but this depends on the nature of the sound itself and cannot generally be predicted. If you want to familiarize yourself with the sound of aliasing, turn Tone up fully and play a few very high notes. You will most likely notice that some notes sound completely different from other notes. Now, turn Tone down and the effect will be reduced, but the sound will be less bright. 24.6.3 LFO Section Operator’s LFO Parameters.
Live Instrument Reference 412 The overall intensity of the LFO is set by the LFO Amount control in the shell. This parameter scales both the Dest. A and B amounts and can be modulated by note velocity via the display’s Amt
Live Instrument Reference 413 play a note a bit out of sync, it will repeat perfectly but stay out of sync. In Sync Mode however, the first repetition is quantized to the nearest 16th note and, as a result, all following repetitions are synced to the song tempo. Note that Sync Mode only works if the song is playing, and otherwise it will behave like Beat Mode.
Live Instrument Reference 414 24.6.5 Filter Section Operator’s Filter Section. Operator’s filters 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 filter section offers 14 different filter types including multiple varieties of lowpass, bandpass, highpass and notch filters.
Live Instrument Reference 415 Tip: The [right-click](PC) / [CTRL-click](Mac) context menu on the Frequency knob contains an entry called “Play by Key.“ This automatically configures the filter for optimal key tracking by setting Freq
Live Instrument Reference 416 24.6.7 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.
Live Instrument Reference 417 Note that turning off the oscillators will not save CPU power. 24.6.9 Finally... Operator is the result of an intense preoccupation with FM synthesis and a love and dedication to the old hardware FM synthesizers, such as the Yamaha SY77, the Yamaha TX81Z and the NED Synclavier II. FM synthesis was first explored musically by the composer and computer music pioneer John Chowning in the mid-1960s.
Live Instrument Reference 418 Voices — This sets the maximum number of notes that can sound simultaneously. If more notes than available voices are requested, the oldest notes will be cut off. Retrigger (R) — When enabled, notes that are enabled will be retriggered, rather than generating an additional voice. Interpolation — This toggles the interpolation algorithm of the oscillators and the LFO. If turned off, some timbres will sound more rough, especially the noise waveform.
Live Instrument Reference 419 OSC Crossfade B/D — Crossfades the volumes of the B and D oscillators based on the value of the modulation source. OSC Feedback — Modulates the amount of feedback for all oscillators. Note that feedback is only applied to oscillators that are not modulated by other oscillators. OSC Fixed Frequency — Modulates the pitch of all oscillators that are in Fixed Frequency mode.
Live Instrument Reference 420 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 defined by the pitch envelope’s levels. A value of -100% inverts the sign of the pitch envelope levels. Spread — If Spread is turned up, the synthesizer uses two detuned voices per note, one each on the left and right stereo channels, to create chorusing sounds. Spread is a very CPU-intensive effect.
Live Instrument Reference 421 Filter Type — This chooser selects one of 14 filter types, including a variety of lowpass, highpass, bandpass and notch filters. The filter names imply the part of the spectrum they affect. A notch filter passes everything apart from its center frequency and is more audible with low resonance settings. The 24 dB filter modes attenuate the filtered frequencies to a much greater degree than the 12 dB modes. The Ladder and SVF filters provide additional filter architectures.
Live Instrument Reference 422 LFO Waveform — Select from among several typical LFO waveforms. Sample and Hold (S&H) creates random steps, and Noise supplies bandpass-filtered noise. All waveforms are bandlimited to avoid unwanted clicks. LFO Range — The LFO covers an extreme frequency range. Choose Low for a range from 50 seconds to 30 Hz, or Hi for 8 Hz to 12 kHz. Sync causes the LFO’s rate to be synced to your Set’s tempo.
Live Instrument Reference 423 Oscillators A-D Shell and Display Osc On — This turns the oscillator on and off. Osc Coarse Frequency (Coarse) — The relationship between oscillator frequency and note pitch is defined by the Coarse and Fine parameters. Coarse sets the ratio in whole numbers, creating a harmonic relationship. Osc Fine Frequency (Fine) — The relationship between oscillator frequency and note pitch is defined by the Coarse and Fine parameters.
Live Instrument Reference 424 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. Low Repeat values result in a brighter sound, while higher values result in more high-end roll-off and a more prominent fundamental.
Live Instrument Reference 425 segment will begin at the value of the envelope at the moment the note-off message occurs, regardless of which segment is currently active. Envelope Initial Level (Initial) — This sets the initial value of the envelope. Envelope Peak Level (Peak) — This is the peak level at the end of the note attack. Envelope Sustain Level (Sustain) — This is the sustain level at the end of the note decay.
Live Instrument Reference 426 Context Menu Parameters Certain operations and parameters in Operator are only available via the [right-click](PC) / [CTRL-click](Mac) context menu. These include: Copy commands for Oscillators — The [right-click](PC) / [CTRL-click](Mac) context menu of the oscillator’s shell and envelope display provide options for copying parameters between oscillators.
Live Instrument Reference 427 24.7 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.
Live Instrument Reference 428 on the simple transposition of a single recorded sample, multisampling 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 files. The acoustic piano, for example, is a commonly multisampled instrument.
Live Instrument Reference 429 Group — Selecting this will load Sampler into a new Instrument Rack. Fold — Folds Sampler so that only the device title bar is visible. Unfold quickly by double-clicking the device title bar. Show Preset Name — By default, Sampler takes the top-most sample in the sample layer list as its title. Unchecking Show Preset Name will replace the current title with “Sampler.
Live Instrument Reference 430 24.7.5 The Zone Tab The Zone Tab. Clicking on the Zone tab toggles the display of Sampler‘s Zone Editor, which offers a hands-on interface for mapping any number of samples across three types of ranges — the Key Zone, the Velocity Zone and Sample Select Editors, respectively. The Key Zone Editor. The Zone Editor opens in its own dedicated view, directly above the Device View.
Live Instrument Reference 431 to play an incoming note will become selected in the sample layer list for the duration of that note. Zone Fade Mode (Lin/Pow) — These buttons toggle the fade mode of all zones between linear and constant-power (exponential) slopes. Auto Select and Zone Fade Modes (Lin/Pow) Zone Editor View (Key/Vel/Sel) — These buttons toggle the display of the Key Zone, Velocity Zone and Sample Select Editors. Key Zone, Velocity Zone and Sample Select Editors.
Live Instrument Reference 432 ing over a layer in the list or a zone in the zone editors will display relevant information about the corresponding sample in the Status Bar (bottom of screen). Selecting any layer will load its sample into the Sample tab for examination.
Live Instrument Reference 433 Small/Medium/Large — Adjusts the zoom level of the Zone Editor. Show in Browser — Navigates to the selected sample in the browser and selects it. Manage Sample — Opens the File Manager and selects the chosen sample. Normalize Volume — Adjusts Sampler’s Volume control so that the highest peak of each selected sample uses the maximum available headroom. Normalize Pan — Adjusts Sampler’s Pan control so that each selected sample has equal volume across the stereo spectrum.
Live Instrument Reference 434 Key Zones The Key Zone Editor. Key zones define the range of MIDI notes over which each sample will play. Samples are only triggered when incoming MIDI notes lie within their key zone. Every sample has its own key zone, which can span anywhere from a single key up to the full 127. A typical multisampled instrument contains many individual samples, distributed into many key zones.
Live Instrument Reference 435 Velocity Zones The Velocity Zone Editor. Velocity zones determine the range of MIDI Note On velocities (1-127) 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.
Live Instrument Reference 436 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. The Sample Selector. Please note that the position of the sample selector only determines which samples are available for triggering.
Live Instrument Reference 437 playback begins from the Sample End point, proceeds backwards through the Sustain Loop (if active), and arrives at the Sample Start point. Snap — Snaps all start and end points to the waveform zero-crossings (points where the amplitude is zero) to avoid clicks. You can quickly see this by using Snap on square wave samples.
Live Instrument Reference 438 Envelope Decay Time (Decay) — This sets the time it takes for an envelope to reach the sustain level from the peak level. The shape of the decay can be adjusted via the Decay Slope (D. Slope) parameter. Envelope Sustain Level (Sustain) — This is the sustain level at the end of the envelope decay. The envelope will stay at this level until note release unless it is in Loop, Sync or Beat Mode.
Live Instrument Reference 439 faster at the end. A slope of zero is linear; the envelope will move at the same rate throughout the segment. All time-based values in this tab are displayed in either samples or minutes:seconds:milliseconds, which can be toggled using the [right-click](PC) / [CTRL-click](Mac) context menu on any of their parameter boxes.
Live Instrument Reference 440 — The volume envelope’s release stage is active, but will occur within the Sustain Loop, with playback never proceeding beyond Loop End. Release Enabled — When the volume envelope reaches its release stage, playback will proceed linearly towards Sample End.
Live Instrument Reference 441 Sustain- and Release-Loop Crossfade (Crossfade) — Loop crossfades help remove clicks from loop transitions. By default, Sampler uses constant-power fades at loop boundaries. But by turning off “Use Constant Power Fade for Loops“ in the [right-click](PC) / [CTRL-click](Mac) context menu, you can enable linear crossfades. Sustain Crossfade Release Crossfade Sustain- and Release-Loop Crossfades.
Live Instrument Reference 442 RAM Mode (RAM) — This is also a global control that loads the entire multisample into RAM. This mode can give better performance when modulating start and end points, but loading large multisamples into RAM will quickly leave your computer short of RAM for other tasks. In any case, it is always recommended to have as much RAM in your computer as possible, as this can provide significant performance gains.
Live Instrument Reference 443 The Sample Tab’s Vertical Zoom slider, and Channel Buttons. 24.7.7 The Pitch/Osc Tab The Pitch/Osc Tab. The Modulation Oscillator (Osc) Sampler features one dedicated modulation oscillator per voice, which can perform frequency or amplitude modulation (FM or AM) on the multisample. The oscillator is fully featured, with 21 waveforms (available in the Type chooser), plus its own loopable amplitude envelope for dynamic waveshaping.
Live Instrument Reference 444 The modulation oscillator is controlled via Initial, Peak, Sustain, End, Loop, Attack and Time
Live Instrument Reference 445 The right-hand side of this section contains five sliders and one chooser that are unrelated to the Pitch Envelope, but can globally effect Sampler’s output: The Lower Right-hand Corner of the Pitch/Osc Tab. Spread — When Spread is used, two detuned voices are generated per note. This also doubles the processing requirements. Transpose (Transp) — Global transpose amount, indicated in semitones. Detune — Global detune amount, indicated in cents.
Live Instrument Reference 446 The Filter/Global Tab. The Filter Sampler features a polyphonic filter with an optional integrated waveshaper. The Morph (M12 and M24) and SVF filter types can morph continuously from lowpass to bandpass to highpass to notch and back to lowpass. Naturally, filter morphs can be automated. Classic 24 dB lowpass, bandpass and highpass modes are also available, but these cannot be morphed.
Live Instrument Reference 447 The Volume Envelope The Global Volume Envelope. The volume envelope is global, and defines the articulation of Sampler’s sounds with standard ADSR (attack, decay, sustain, release) parameters. Please see the Sample Playback section (page 437) for details on these parameters. This envelope can also be looped via the Loop chooser. When a Loop mode is selected, the Time/Repeat slider becomes important.
Live Instrument Reference 448 than generating an additional voice. Turning Retrigger on can save CPU power, especially if a note with a long release time is being triggered very often and very quickly. 24.7.9 The Modulation Tab The Modulation Tab. The Modulation tab offers an additional loopable envelope, plus three LFOs, all capable of modulating multiple parameters, including themselves.
Live Instrument Reference 449 Rate — With Hz selected, the speed of the LFO is determined by the Freq slider to the right. With the note head selected, the LFO will be synced to beat-time, adjustable in the Beats slider to the right. Freq — The LFO’s rate in Hertz (cycles per second), adjustable from 0.01 to 30 Hz. Beats — This sets the LFO’s rate in beat-time (64th notes to 8 bars). LFO Attack (Attack) — This is the time needed for the LFO to reach maximum intensity.
Live Instrument Reference 450 LFO 1. LFO Stereo Mode (Stereo) — LFOs 2 and 3 can produce two types of stereo modulation: Phase or Spin. In phase mode, the right and left LFO channels run at equal speed, and the Phase parameter is used to offset the right channel from the left. In spin mode, the Spin parameter can make the right LFO channel run up to 50% faster than the left. Like the Auxiliary envelope, LFOs 2 and 3 contain A and B choosers, where you can route LFOs to many destinations. LFOs 2 and 3.
Live Instrument Reference 451 24.7.10 The MIDI Tab The MIDI Tab. The MIDI tab’s parameters turn Sampler into a dynamic performance instrument. The MIDI controllers Key, Velocity, Release Velocity, Aftertouch, Modulation Wheel, Foot Controller and Pitch Bend can be mapped to two destinations each, with varying degrees of influence determined in the Amount A and Amount B sliders.
Live Instrument Reference 452 For all multisample formats except Apple EXS24/GarageBand and Kontakt, Live will import the actual audio data and create new samples. This means the new Sampler presets will work regardless of whether the original multisample file is still available. To import Apple EXS24/GarageBand and Kontakt multisamples, Live will create new Sampler presets that reference the original WAV or AIF files.
Live Instrument Reference 453 24.8.1 Sample View The Sample View displays the sample waveform. Samples can be dragged into Simpler either directly from the browser, or from the Session or Arrangement View in the form of clips. In the latter case, Simpler will use only the section of the sample demarcated by the clip’s start/end or loop markers. Samples can be replaced by dragging in a new sample, or by activating the integrated Hot-Swap button. 24.8.
Live Instrument Reference 454 Loops“ in the [right-click](PC) / [CTRL-click](Mac) context menu, you can enable linear crossfades. 24.8.3 Zoom Quite often, one starts with a longer region of a sample and ends up using only a small part of it. Simpler’s Sample view can be zoomed and panned just as in other parts of Live — drag vertically to zoom, and drag horizontally to pan different areas of the sample into view. 24.8.
Live Instrument Reference 455 24.8.6 LFO The LFO (low-frequency oscillator) section offers sine, square, triangle, sawtooth down, sawtooth up and random waveforms. The LFO run freely at frequencies between 0.01 and 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.
Live Instrument Reference 456 sensitivity of +/- 5 semitones. You can also modulate the Transpose parameter with clip envelopes and external controllers. 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.
Live Instrument Reference 457 24.9 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.
Live Instrument Reference 458 ple, when felt is applied to the strings by releasing the keys and sustain pedal. The vibration from the string is then transmitted to the body of the instrument, which can radiate sound efficiently. In some instruments, the string vibration is transmitted directly to the body through the bridge. In other instruments, such as the electric guitar, a pickup is used to transmit the string vibration to an amplifier.
Live Instrument Reference 459 friction, causing the string to alternate between sticking to the hair and breaking free. The frequency of this alternation between sticking and slipping determines the fundamental pitch. The Force knob adjusts the amount of pressure being applied to the string by the bow. The sound becomes more “scratchy“ as you increase this value. The friction between the bow and the string can be adjusted with the Friction control. Higher values usually result in a faster attack.
Live Instrument Reference 460 where the picking position is always basically the same regardless of the notes being played. On a piano, the excitator position is relative — the hammers normally strike the string at about 1/7th of their length — and so is best modelled with Fix. Pos turned off. The excitator’s position can additionally be modulated by velocity or note pitch, via the Vel and Key sliders. The Excitator section can be toggled on or off via the switch next to its name.
Live Instrument Reference 461 The Decay slider determines how long it takes for the resonating string to decay to silence. Higher values increase the decay time. The
Live Instrument Reference 462 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 fingers.
Live Instrument Reference 463 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.
Live Instrument Reference 464 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. The only control here is the Position slider, which functions similarly to this parameter in the Excitator and Damper sections. At 0%, the pickup is located at the string’s termination point, while at 50% it is under the midpoint of the string.
Live Instrument Reference 465 The body type chooser allows you to select from different body types modelled after physical instruments. The body size chooser sets the relative size of the resonant body, from extra small (XS) to extra large (XL). In general, as you increase the body size, the frequency of the resonance will become lower. You can further modify the body’s frequency response with the Hi Cut and Low Cut knobs. The decay time of the body’s resonance can be adjusted with the Decay knob.
Live Instrument Reference 466 Tension’s Filter section features a highly configurable multi-mode filter that sits between the String and Body sections. In addition, the filter can be modulated by a dedicated envelope generator and low-frequency oscillator (LFO). The filter’s chooser allows you to select the filter type. You can choose between 2nd and 4th order low-pass, band-pass, notch, high-pass and formant filters.
Live Instrument Reference 467 The LFO’s speed is set with the Rate knob. The switches below this knob toggle the Rate between frequency in Hertz and tempo-synced beat divisions. The entire Filter section can be toggled on or off via the switch next to its name. Global and Keyboard Parameters Tension’s Global and Keyboard Parameters.
Live Instrument Reference 468 creasing the Stretch amount raises the pitch of upper notes while lowering the pitch of lower ones. The result is a more brilliant sound. Negative values simulate “negative“ stretch tuning; upper notes become flatter while lower notes become sharper. 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.
Live Instrument Reference 469 When programming Tension, it may help to think about the various sections as if they really are attached to a single, physical object. For example, a bow moving at a slow speed could perhaps excite an undamped string. But if that string is constricted by an enormous damper, the bow will need to increase its velocity to have any effect. To get a sense of what’s possible, it may help to study how the presets were made.
Live Instrument Reference 470
Max for Live 471 Chapter 25 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.
Max for Live 472 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. At this point, the Max content will begin to install into your Live Library. 25.2 Using Max for Live Devices Max for Live comes with a collection of instruments and effects which are ready for use. Max for Live devices appear in the Max Instrument, Max MIDI Effect and Max Audio Effect folders in the Max for Live label in the browser.
Max for Live 473 A Max Device and its Presets in the Browser. 25.3 Editing Max for Live Devices Max devices (or “patches“) are constructed of objects that send data to each other via virtual cables. An empty Max Audio Effect, for example, already contains some of these elements: the plugin~ object passes all incoming audio to the plugout~ object, which then passes the audio on to any additional devices in the chain. A Default Max Audio Effect.
Max for Live 474 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. This launches the Max editor in a new window, with the current device loaded and ready for editing. A Default Max Audio Effect in the Patcher.
Max for Live 475 Note: unlike Live’s native devices, Max devices are not saved inside Live Sets, but rather as separate files. 25.4 Max Dependencies As mentioned earlier, there are some special file management considerations when creating presets for Max devices. Additionally, Max devices themselves may depend on other files (such as samples, pictures, or even other Max patches) in order to work properly.
Max for Live 476
MIDI and Key Remote Control 477 Chapter 26 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 specific 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.
MIDI and Key Remote Control 478 our MIDI tracks. Let’s suppose that you are using a MIDI keyboard to play an instrument in one of Live’s MIDI tracks. If you assign C-1 on your MIDI keyboard to a Session View Clip Launch button, that key will cease playing C-1 of your MIDI track’s instrument, as it now ”belongs” solely to the Clip Launch button. MIDI keys that become part of remote control assignments can no longer be used as input for MIDI tracks.
MIDI and Key Remote Control 479 Instant Mappings In most cases, Live uses a standard method for mapping its functions and parameters to physical controls. This varies, of course, depending upon the configuration of knobs, sliders and buttons on the control surface. These feature-dependent configurations are known as instant mappings. Within Live’s built-in lessons, you will find a Control Surface Reference that lists all currently supported hardware, complete with the details of their instant mappings.
MIDI and Key Remote Control 480 Getting Hands-On: Control Surfaces Can Be Locked to Devices. A hand icon in the title bar of locked devices serves as a handy reminder of their status. 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 Help View option from the Help menu to access Live’s built-in lessons. 26.1.
MIDI and Key Remote Control 481 You can use any number of MIDI ports for remote mapping; Live will merge their incoming MIDI signals. When working with a control surface that provides physical or visual feedback, you will also need to enable the Remote switch for its output port. Live needs to be able to communicate with such control surfaces when a value has changed so that they can update the positions of their motorized faders or the status of their LEDs to match.
MIDI and Key Remote Control 482 Value Scaling — This option ensures smooth value transitions. It compares the physical control’s value to the destination parameter’s value and calculates a smooth convergence of the two as the control is moved. As soon as they are equal, the destination value tracks the control’s value 1:1. 26.2 The Mapping Browser The Mapping Browser. All manual MIDI, computer keyboard (page 487) and Macro Control (page 239) mappings are managed by the Mapping Browser.
MIDI and Key Remote Control 483 Once your remote control setup has been defined 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 closed, [CTRL][ALT][B](PC) / [CMD][ALT][B](Mac) will open it for you. 2.
MIDI and Key Remote Control 484 26.2.3 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.
MIDI and Key Remote Control 485 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. Each of these are also available in a ”linear” mode. Some MIDI encoders use ”acceleration” internally, generating larger changes in value when they are turned quickly.
MIDI and Key Remote Control 486 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. Assign this scene number value box to a MIDI controller — preferably an endless encoder — to scroll through the scenes. For details, see the previous section on Relative Map Modes (page 484). 3. Assign this button to launch the highlighted scene.
MIDI and Key Remote Control 487 26.2.5 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. Notice that the assignable elements of the interface become highlighted in red when you enter Key Map Mode. The Mapping Browser will also become available.
MIDI and Key Remote Control 488
Using Push 489 Chapter 27 Using Push Ableton Push is an instrument for song creation that provides hands-on control of melody and harmony, beats, sounds, and song structure. In the studio, Push allows you to quickly generate clips that populate Live’s Session View as you work entirely from the hardware. On stage, Push serves as a powerful clip launching controller. Push’s controls are divided into a number of sections, as shown in the diagram below.
Using Push 490 There are also a number of videos that will help you get started with Push. These are available at https://www.ableton.com/learn-push/ 27.1 Setup Setting up the Push hardware is mostly automatic. As long as Live is running, Push will be automatically detected as soon as it is connected to a USB port on your computer. After connection, Push can be used immediately. It is not necessary to install drivers and Push does not need to be manually configured in Live’s Audio/MIDI Preferences. 27.
Using Push 491 Loading Devices or Device Presets in Browse Mode. You can scroll quickly through folders and subfolders via Encoders 1, 3, and 5. What you see when in Browse Mode depends on the device that was last selected. If you were working with an instrument, Browse Mode will show you replacement instruments. If you were working with an effect, you will see effects. After pressing a device or preset load button, the button will turn amber.
Using Push 492 Then use Browse Mode to load one of the Drum Rack presets from Live’s library. When working with a MIDI track containing a Drum Rack, Push’s 8x8 pad grid automatically configures itself into three sections, allowing you to simultaneously play, step sequence and adjust the length of your clip.
Using Push 493 When working with Drum Racks that contain a larger number of pads, use Push’s touch strip or the Octave Up and Octave Down keys to move up/down by 16 pads. Hold Shift while using the touch strip or Octave keys to move by single rows. Octave Up/Down Buttons. 27.3.1 Loading Individual Drums Browse Mode can also be used to load or replace individual pads within a loaded Drum Rack. To switch between browsing Drum Racks and single pads, press the Device button to show the devices on the track.
Using Push 494 Selecting an Individual Pad in a Drum Rack. Now, entering Browse Mode again will allow you to load or replace the sound of only the selected pad. Once in Browse Mode, pressing other pads will select them for browsing, allowing you to quickly load or replace multiple sounds within the loaded Drum Rack. 27.3.2 Step Sequencing Pressing a pad also enables it for step sequencing. (Tip: to select a pad without playing it, press and hold the Select button while pressing a pad.) Select Button.
Using Push 495 Scene/Grid Buttons. As the clip plays, the currently playing step is indicated by the moving green pad in the step sequencer section. (When Record is enabled, the moving pad will be red.) Pressing a step that already has a note will delete that note. Press and hold the Mute button while pressing a step to deactivate it without deleting it. Press and hold the Mute or Solo buttons while pressing a pad to mute or solo that sound, respectively Mute and Solo Buttons.
Using Push 496 Press and hold a step to adjust the velocity and length of the step, and to nudge it backwards or forwards in time. Hold a Step to Adjust Note Parameters. The pad colors in the step sequencer section indicate the following: •Unlit — this step doesn’t contain a note. •Blue — this step contains a note. Darker blues indicate higher velocities. •Dull yellow — this step contains a note, but the note is muted.
Using Push 497 27.3.3 Real-time Recording Drum patterns can also be recorded in real-time by playing the Drum Rack pads. Follow these steps to record in real-time: •If you want to record with a click track, press the Metronome button to enable Live’s built-in click Metronome Button. •Then Press the Record button to begin recording Record Button. Now any Drum Rack pads you play will be recorded to the clip. Pressing Record again will stop recording but will continue playing back the clip.
Using Push 498 Pressing New stops playback of the currently selected clip and prepares Live to record a new clip on the currently selected track. This allows you to practice before recording a new idea. By default, pressing New also duplicates all clips that are playing on other tracks to a new scene and continues playing them back seamlessly. This behavior can be changed by changing the Workflow mode in Push’s User preferences (page 513). New Button. 27.3.
Using Push 499 Fixed Length Button. Press and hold Fixed Length to set the recording length. Fixed Length Recording Options. When Fixed Length is disabled, new clips will continue to record until you press the Record, New or Play/Stop buttons. Tip: enabling Fixed Length while recording will switch recording off and loop the last few bars of the clip, depending on the Fixed Length setting. 27.3.5 Changing the Loop Length The Loop Length controls allow you to set the length of the clip’s loop.
Using Push 500 change the loop length to two bars. Each pad in the Loop Length Controls area corresponds to one of 16 possible bars. Each Loop Length Pad Corresponds to One Bar. 27.4 Additional Recording Options 27.4.1 Recording with Repeat With Push’s Repeat button enabled, you can hold down a pad to play or record a stream of continuous, rhythmically-even notes. This is useful for recording steady hi-hat patterns, for example.
Using Push 501 Repeat Button. The repeat rate is set with the Scene/Grid buttons. Tip: if you press and release Repeat quickly, the button will stay on. If you press and hold, the button will turn off when released, allowing for momentary control of repeated notes. Turn up the Swing knob to apply swing to the repeated notes. When you touch the knob, the display will show the amount of swing. Swing Knob. 27.4.2 Quantizing Pressing Push’s Quantize button will snap notes to the grid in the selected clip.
Using Push 502 Quantize Button. Press and hold Quantize to change the quantization options: Quantization Options. Swing Amount determines the amount of swing that will be applied to the quantized notes. Note that the Swing amount can be adjusted from Encoder 1 or from the dedicated Swing knob. Quantize To sets the nearest note value to which notes will be quantized, while Quantize Amount determines the amount that notes can be moved from their original positions.
Using Push 503 27.5 Playing Melodies and Harmonies After working on a beat, you’ll want to create a new track so that you can work on a bassline, harmony parts, etc. Press the Add Track button to add a new MIDI track to your Live Set. Add Track Button. (Tip: press and hold the Add Track button to select between Audio, MIDI and Return tracks. Adding a track puts Push into Browse mode, so you can immediately load an instrument. After loading your instrument, make sure Note Mode is enabled.
Using Push 504 C Major Scale. The pad colors help you to stay oriented as you play: •Blue — this note is the root note of the key (C.) •White — this note is in the scale, but is not the root. •Green — the currently-playing note (other pads will also turn green if they play the same note.) •Red — the currently-playing note when recording. To play triads, try out the following shape anywhere on the grid: C Major Chord.
Using Push 505 27.5.1 Playing in Other Keys Press Push’s Scales button to change the selected key and/or scale. Scales Button. Using the display and the Selection and State Control buttons, you can change the key played by the pad grid. The currently selected key is marked with an arrow in the display: Key and Scale Selection. In addition to changing the key, you can also change the layout of the grid using the two buttons on the far right.
Using Push 506 In Key/Chromatic: With In Key selected, the pad grid is effectively “folded” so that only notes within the key are available. In Chromatic Mode, the pad grid contains all notes. Notes that are in the key are lit, while notes that are not in the key are unlit. By default, the pads and scale selection options indicate major scales. You can change to a variety of other scale types using the two buttons on the far left.
Using Push 507 Arrow Keys. The Left/Right Arrows move between tracks. Note that selecting a MIDI track on Push automatically arms it, so it can be played immediately. In Live, track Arm buttons will appear pink to indicate that they have been armed via selection. Pink Track Arm Button. The specific behavior of the Up/Down Arrows is determined by the Workflow mode, which is set in Push’s User preferences (page 513). In both modes, the Up/Down Arrows move up or down by a single scene.
Using Push 508 Device Button. In Device Mode, the Selection Control buttons select devices in the currently selected track, while the State Control buttons turn the selected device on or off. The currently selected device is marked with an arrow in the display. Device Mode Settings. The In and Out buttons allow you to navigate to additional devices and parameters that may not be immediately available. In and Out Buttons.
Using Push 509 Use these buttons to access: •additional banks of parameters (for effects that have more than one bank of parameters). •additional device chains within Racks that contain more than one chain. 27.8 Mixing with Push To control volumes, pans, or sends with the encoders for up to eight tracks simultaneously, press the corresponding button on Push. Volume and Pan & Send Buttons. In Volume Mode, the encoders control track volume.
Using Push 510 In Track Mode, the encoders control track volume, pan and the first six sends of the selected track. Press the Selection Control buttons to select which track will be controlled in Track Mode. Selecting Tracks in Track Mode. Press the Master button to select the Master track. 27.9 Recording Automation Changes that you make to device and mixer parameters can be recorded to your clips as automation, so that the sound will change over time as the clip plays.
Using Push 511 press the Automation button again to turn it off. To delete the changes you’ve recorded for a particular parameter, press and hold the Delete button and touch the corresponding encoder. Delete Button. To reenable all automation that you have manually overridden press and hold Shift and press the Automation button. 27.10 Controlling Live’s Session View Press Push’s Session button to switch from Note Mode to Session Mode.
Using Push 512 In Session Mode, the 8x8 pad grid will now launch clips and the Scene/Grid Buttons will launch scenes. Pressing a pad triggers the clip in the corresponding location in Live’s Session View. If the track is selected, pressing the button records a new clip. The pads light up in different colors so you know what’s going on: •The color of all non-playing clips in your Live Set is reflected on the controller. •Playing clips pulse green to white. •Recording clips pulse red to white.
Using Push 513 view of your Session View. In the Session Overview, each pad represents an eight-scene-byeight-track 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. For example, holding the Shift button and then pressing the pad in row three, column one will put the focus on scenes 17-24 and tracks 1-8. Furthermore, while Shift is held, each scene launch button represents a block of 64 scenes (if they are available in your Set.
Using Push 514 User Settings Pad Threshold sets the softest playing force that will trigger notes. More force is required at higher settings. Note that at lower settings, notes may trigger accidentally and pads may “stick” on. Velocity Curve determines how sensitive the pads are when hit with various amounts of force, and ranges from Linear (a one-to-one relationship between striking force and note velocity) to various logarithmic curves. Higher Log values provide more dynamic range when playing softly.
Using Push 515 Log 1 (Default) Linear 127 Note Velocity Note Velocity 127 1 Striking Force ― ―› 1 Striking Force ― ―› Log 3 Log 2 127 Note Velocity Note Velocity 127 1 Striking Force ―› 1 Striking Force ― ―› Log 5 Log 4 127 Note Velocity Note Velocity 127 1 Striking Force ― ―› 1 Striking Force ― ―› Diagram of Push’s Velocity Curves The Workflow option determines how Push behaves when the Duplicate, New, or Up/Down arrow buttons are pressed.
Using Push 516 track. •the Up/Down Arrows move up or down by a single scene. Playback of the clips in the new scene begins seamlessly. In Clip Workflow: •Duplicate creates a copy of the currently selected clip in a new scene, while continuing playback of any currently playing clips in other tracks. •New prepares an empty clip slot on the currently selected track. Clips in other tracks are not affected. •the Up/Down Arrows move up or down by a single scene.
Using Push 517 Note Mode — when selected, the Pad Section changes its functionality based on the type of track that is currently selected: •MIDI track containing an instrument — the pads plays notes. •MIDI track containing a Drum Rack — the Pad Section is divided; the lower-left 16 pads play the Drum Rack, the lower-right 16 pads adjust the loop length of the clip, and the upper four rows control the step sequencer.
Using Push 518 Add Track — creates a new MIDI track to the right of the currently selected track. Press and hold Add Track to select a different type of track to add (Audio, MIDI, or Return.) Note Section Note Section. These buttons adjust how notes are played on the Push controller. Scales — When Note Mode is on and an instrument track is selected, pressing this button allows you to select which scale will be played on the pads.
Using Push 519 Repeat — when Repeat is enabled, holding down a pad will retrigger the note. The Scene/Grid buttons change the rhythmic value of the repeated note. Accent — when Accent is enabled, all incoming notes are played at full velocity. Hold Accent and press a step sequencer step to program the step at full velocity. Octave Up/Down — if an instrument track is selected, these buttons shift the pads up or down by octave.
Using Push 520 Display/Encoder Section Display/Encoder Section. The six buttons to the right of the display determine the editing mode of the encoders. In all modes, the ninth encoder controls the volume of the Master track (or the Pre-Cue volume if Shift is held.) Note that you can temporarily toggle to a different editing mode by pressing and holding the corresponding button. Releasing the button will then return to the previous mode. Volume Mode.
Using Push 521 In Track Mode, the encoders control track volume, pan and the first six sends of the selected track. Select which clip track to control via the eight Selection Control buttons. Press the Master button to select the Master track. In Clip Mode,the encoders control various parameters for the selected clip. The parameters depend on the type of clip selected: Clip Mode With a MIDI Clip Selected.
Using Push 522 •Transpose •Gain Device — The encoders control parameters for the selected device. Browse — The encoders scroll through the available devices and presets. Tempo Section Tempo Section. Tap Tempo — as you press 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. Metronome — toggles Live’s metronome on or off.
Using Push 523 The right encoder sets the amount of swing applied when Quantizing, Record Quantizing or when Repeat is pressed. Edit Section Edit Section. Undo — undoes the last action. Press and hold Shift while pressing Undo to Redo. Note that the controller’s Undo button applies Live’s Undo functionality, so it will undo actions in your Live Set even if they were done without using the controller. Delete — In Note Mode, this button deletes the selected clip.
Using Push 524 Transport Section Transport Section. Fixed Length — when enabled, all newly created clips will be a fixed number of bars. When disabled, new clips will continue to record until you press the Record, New or Play/Stop buttons. Press and hold, then use the buttons beneath the display to specify the fixed recording length. Tip: enabling Fixed Length while recording will switch recording off and loop the last few bars of the clip, depending on the Fixed Length setting.
Using Push 525 Play/Stop — toggles the play button in Live’s transport bar. Hold Shift while pressing Play/Stop return Live’s transport to 1.1.1 without starting playback. Touch Strip Touch Strip. When an instrument track is selected, the touch strip adjusts pitch bend. When a Drum Rack track is selected, the touch strip selects the Drum Rack bank.
Using Push 526 Pad Section Pad Section. The functionality of the Pad Section is determined by the Note and Session Mode buttons. When Session Mode is on, the Pad Section is used to launch clips in Live’s Session View.
Using Push 527 Scene/Grid Section Scene/Grid Section. These buttons also change their functionality depending on whether Session Mode or Note Mode is selected. When Session Mode is selected, these buttons launch Session View scenes. When Note Mode is selected, the Scene/Grid Section determines the rhythmic resolution of repeated notes when Repeat is enabled and, for MIDI tracks containing a Drum Rack, determines the rhythmic resolution of the step sequencer grid.
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Using the APC40 529 Chapter 28 Using the APC40 The APC40 (Ableton Performance Controller) is a dedicated controller for Ableton Live, codesigned by Ableton and Akai Professional8. This chapter will help you set up your APC40, and introduce its capabilities. 28.1 Setup The APC40 is one of Live’s natively supported control surfaces (page 478), so setup is easy. Once the APC40 has been powered on and connected to your computer’s USB port, it will be automatically configured by Live.
Using the APC40 530 Setting Up The APC40. 28.2 Clip Launch Matrix The APC40’s matrix of buttons gives you physical access to the clips in your Session View (page 87). The matrix has 40 three-color buttons arranged in a five-scene-deep-by-eight-trackwide 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.
Using the APC40 531 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.
Using the APC40 532 The directional arrows and Shift button increase the scope of the eight-by-five 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 five 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. 28.
Using the APC40 533 ume (page 202), 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. Hold the Shift button and press the right or left arrows to jump in blocks of eight tracks at a time. 28.
Using the APC40 534 Device Controls. The Track Selection buttons route the eight endless encoders to the first 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. Clip/Track lets you switch between viewing the devices on a track or the properties of a track’s clip in the currently selected scene. Device On/Off turns the currently selected device on or off.
Using the APC40 535 28.6 Transport and Global Buttons Live’s Play, Stop and Arrangement 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. •Detail View opens and closes the Clip/Device View, so you can see more of your clips. •Record Quantization lets you toggle input quantization (page 212) between “none” and the last selected quantization setting.
Using the APC40 536 28.7 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. The buttons let you select what the encoders are controlling, while the encoders control the amount or depth of the pan or send levels. 28.
Using the APC40 537 Tempo Control. As you hit the Tap Tempo (page 118) 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. On stage and in the studio, you may find yourself in situations in which you need to adjust to sources that aren’t locked to one tempo, such as live musicians or turntables.
Using the APC40 538 28.9 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 (page 199) 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.
Using the APC40 539 28.10 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 (page 480). Setting Up The APC40 For Custom Assignments. Now, by entering Live’s MIDI Map Mode (page 482), you can override the pre-assigned functions of all of the APC40’s knobs, faders and buttons.
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Using the APC20 541 Chapter 29 Using the APC20 The APC20 (Ableton Performance Controller) is a dedicated controller for Ableton Live, codesigned by Ableton and Akai Professional9. This chapter will help you set up your APC20, and introduce its capabilities. 29.1 Setup The APC20 is one of Live’s natively supported control surfaces (page 478), so setup is easy. Once the APC20 has been powered on and connected to your computer’s USB port, it will be automatically configured by Live.
Using the APC20 542 Setting Up The APC20. 29.2 Clip Launch Matrix The APC20’s matrix of buttons gives you direct access to the clips in your Session View (page 87). The matrix has 40 three-color buttons arranged in a five-scene-deep-by-eight-trackwide 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.
Using the APC20 543 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. Many aspects of the Live interface are replicated in the APC20.
Using the APC20 544 The controller tells you what’s going on in the software, but, importantly, the software also reflects 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. 29.
Using the APC20 545 Transport and Global Controls. 29.5 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 (page 202), 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.
Using the APC20 546 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. The selected parameter bank will light up red, showing you that it’s selected.
Using the APC20 547 29.6 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. 29.7 Combination Mode The real power of the APC20 comes through when you combine it with additional APC20s or the Akai Professional APC40 (page 529).
Using the APC20 548 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.
Using the Launchpad 549 Chapter 30 Using the Launchpad The Launchpad is a dedicated controller for Ableton Live, co-designed by Ableton and Novation10. Launchpad has 64 square-shaped pads and 16 round buttons, all of which are preconfigured to integrate perfectly with Live. This chapter will help you set up your Launchpad, and introduce its capabilities. 30.1 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.
Using the Launchpad 550 Setting Up The Launchpad. 30.2 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. 30.
Using the Launchpad 551 Launchpad Session Mode Button. 30.3.1 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 first of Live’s six control surface choosers. Each chooser has a different colored ring, allowing you to assign multiple Launchpads at the same time.
Using the Launchpad 552 •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.
Using the Launchpad 553 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 eightby-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.
Using the Launchpad 554 30.4.1 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 (page 480). Setting Up The Launchpad For Custom Assignments. Now, by entering Live’s MIDI Map Mode (page 482), you can override the pre-assigned functions of all of the Launchpad’s controls.
Using the Launchpad 555 30.5 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.
Using the Launchpad 556 30.5.1 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.
Using the Launchpad 557 •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 30.5.2 The Volume Page Launchpad Volume Page. Press the ”vol” button to enter the Volume page.
Using the Launchpad 558 30.5.3 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.
Using the Launchpad 559 30.5.4 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.
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Synchronization and ReWire 561 Chapter 31 Synchronization and ReWire 31.1 Synchronizing via MIDI The MIDI protocol defines 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.
Synchronization and ReWire 562 Choosing a MIDI Slave for Live. The lower indicator LED next to the Control Bar’s EXT button will flash when Live is sending sync messages to external sequencers. 31.1.2 Synchronizing Live to External MIDI Devices Live can be synchronized via MIDI to an external sequencer. After connecting the sequencer to Live and setting it up to send sync, use Live’s MIDI/Sync Preferences to tell Live about the connection. Setting up Live as a MIDI Slave.
Synchronization and ReWire 563 Loop switch is activated, playback will be looped, and song position pointers will simply be “wrapped“ into the length of the loop. 31.1.3 MIDI Timecode Options Timecode options can be set up per MIDI device. Select a MIDI device from the MIDI/Sync Preferences’ MIDI Ports list to access the settings. The MIDI Timecode Frame Rate setting is relevant only if “MIDI Timecode“ is chosen from the MIDI Sync Type menu.
Synchronization and ReWire 564 31.2 Connecting via ReWire Live supports the ReWire interface for connecting with another ReWire-compatible audio program running on the same computer. The ReWire technology, developed by Propellerhead Software, provides ReWire-compatible programs with: •common access to the audio hardware; •shared transport functionality; •synchronization to audio word clock and song positioning; •exchange of audio streams.
Synchronization and ReWire 565 MIDI signals, and all of its audio tracks and MIDI tracks containing instruments are accessible as audio sources. If you have not used Live yet, please launch Live so that it can install its ReWire engine in your system. Live will run in ReWire slave mode if it detects a running ReWire master application upon startup. Therefore, always start the ReWire master application first, and then start Live.
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Computer Audio Resources and Strategies 567 Chapter 32 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. 32.
Computer Audio Resources and Strategies 568 The CPU Load Meter. The Control Bar’s CPU meter displays how much of the computer’s computational potential is currently being used. For example, if the displayed percentage is 10 percent, the computer is just coasting along. If the percentage is 100 percent, the processing is being maxed out — it’s likely that you will hear gaps, clicks or other audio problems.
Computer Audio Resources and Strategies 569 effect produces a “tail,“ like reverbs and delays, deactivation occurs only after all calculations are complete.) While this scheme is very effective at reducing the average CPU load of a Live Set, it cannot reduce the peak load. To make sure your Live Set plays back continuously, even under the most intense conditions, play back a clip in every track simultaneously, with all devices enabled. 32.1.
Computer Audio Resources and Strategies 570 •Record Session View clip launches into the Arrangement View; •Create, move and duplicate Session View scenes; •Drag frozen MIDI clips into audio tracks. When performing edits on frozen tracks that contain time-based effects such as reverb, you should note that the audible result may be different once the track is again unfrozen, depending on the situation.
Computer Audio Resources and Strategies 571 Besides providing an opportunity to conserve CPU resources on tracks containing a large number of devices, the Track Freeze command simplifies sharing projects between computers. Computers that are a bit low on processing power can be used to run large Live Sets as long as any CPU-intensive tracks are frozen. This also means that computers lacking certain devices used in one Live Set can still play the Set when the relevant device tracks are frozen. 32.
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Audio Fact Sheet 573 Chapter 33 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.
Audio Fact Sheet 574 files imported into Live ensures that the imported audio will be identical to the files saved on disk. Applying neutral operations to files being exported from Live ensures that the quality of your output file will be at least as high as what you heard during playback.
Audio Fact Sheet 575 33.2.2 Matching sample rate/no transposition Playback of an unstretched audio file in Live is a neutral operation, provided that the file‘s sample rate is the same as that set in Live‘s Preferences and that the file is played back without transposition. This is verified by cancellation tests of rendered output. Please note that “playback“ in this context refers only to the audio within Live, prior to the point at which it reaches your audio hardware. 33.2.
Audio Fact Sheet 576 ming within a 32-bit architecture strikes an ideal balance between audio quality and CPU/ memory consumption. 33.2.5 Recording external signals (bit depth >/= A/D converter) Recording audio signals into Live is a neutral operation, provided that the bit depth set in Live‘s Preferences window is the same or higher than that of the A/D converters used for the recording. In this context, “neutral“ means “identical to the audio as it was delivered to Live by the A/D converters.“ 33.2.
Audio Fact Sheet 577 ranger‘s 1.1.1 position and retain them for the duration of the frozen clip. This is analogous to the behavior with unfrozen clips; when playing normal clips in Session View, any Arrangement automations are “punched out“ until the Back to Arrangement button is pressed. Frozen clips are always played back with Warp on and in Beats mode, which means they are subject to the same non-neutral behavior as any other Warped audio files. Any devices with random parameters (e.g.
Audio Fact Sheet 578 flexible routing architecture allows for a variety of scenarios, including routing from before or after any track‘s effects or mixer and tapping the output of individual sample slots within the Impulse instrument. In these cases, it is likely that the signal heard at the output point will be different from the signal heard prior to routing, because it has been tapped before reaching the end of its original signal chain. 33.2.
Audio Fact Sheet 579 Pitch modes. Although the Complex modes may sound better, particularly when used with mixed sound files containing many different kinds of audio material, they are never neutral — not even at the original tempo. Because of this, and because of the increased CPU demands of these algorithms, we recommend using them only in cases where the other Warp modes don‘t produce sufficient results. 33.3.
Audio Fact Sheet 580 33.3.4 Dithering Whenever rendering audio to a lower bit depth, it is a good idea to apply dithering in order to minimize artifacts. Dithering (a kind of very low-level noise) is inherently a non-neutral procedure, but it is a necessary evil when lowering the bit resolution. Please note that Live‘s internal signal processing is all 32-bit, so applying even a single gain change makes the resulting audio 32-bit as well — even if the original audio is 16- or 24-bit.
Audio Fact Sheet 581 33.3.8 Clip fades When Create Fades on Clip Edges is enabled in the Record/Warp/Launch Preferences, a short (up to 4 ms) fade is applied to the clip start and end to avoid clicks at the clip edges. These “declicking“ fades can also be applied to Session View clips via the Clip Fade (page 112) button. Additionally, Arrangement View clips have editable fades and crossfades (page 78). Applying any of these fade options is a non-neutral operation. 33.3.
Audio Fact Sheet 582 •For all audio clips, disable both the Warp and Fade options in the Clip View. •Do not adjust the Transpose and Detune controls for any clips. •Always render at 32-bit and at the sample rate set for your audio interface. If you need audio files at a different sample rate and/or bit depth, we recommend that you convert your rendered files in an offline application that is optimized for these tasks, rather than in Live.
MIDI Fact Sheet 583 Chapter 34 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.
MIDI Fact Sheet 584 3. Playthrough involves sending MIDI note and controller information from a hardware device (such as a MIDI keyboard) into the DAW and then, in real-time, back out to a hardware synthesizer or to a plug-in device within the DAW. An ideal playthrough environment would “feel“ as accurate and responsive as a physical instrument such as a piano. 34.
MIDI Fact Sheet 585 2. If you are using playthrough while recording, you will want to record what you hear — even if, because of latency, this occurs slightly later than what you play. Live addresses the problems inherent in recording, playback and playthrough so that MIDI timing will be responsive, accurate and consistently reliable. In order to record incoming events to the correct positions in the timeline of a Live Set, Live needs to know exactly when those events were received from the MIDI keyboard.
MIDI Fact Sheet 586 to a schedule. Additionally, MIDI cables are serial, meaning they can only send one piece of information at a time. In practice, this means that multiple notes played simultaneously cannot be transmitted simultaneously through MIDI cables, but instead must be sent one after the other. Depending on the density of the events, this can cause MIDI timing problems.
MIDI Fact Sheet 587 converter‘s output is then recorded into a new audio clip in Live. In an ideal system, each event in the MIDI clip would occur simultaneously with the corresponding event in the audio clip. Thus the difference in timing between the MIDI and audio events in the two clips can be measured to determine Live‘s accuracy.
MIDI Fact Sheet 588 Live MIDI Clip MIDI-to-Audio Converter Audio Recording (another instance of Live) Audio Clip MIDI Output Test Configuration. In all cases, the output tests showed comparable results to the input tests. 34.5 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.
MIDI Fact Sheet 589 Selecting the MIDI Port Type (Windows). 34.6 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 highestquality hardware components available.
MIDI Fact Sheet 590
Live Keyboard Shortcuts 591 Chapter 35 Live Keyboard Shortcuts 35.
Live Keyboard Shortcuts 592 35.2 Accessing Menus Under Windows, you can access each menu by pressing [ALT] and the first letter of the menu ([ALT][F] for “File,” for instance). While a menu is open, you can use: •the up and down arrow keys to navigate the menu items; •the right and left arrow keys to open the neighboring menu; •[Enter] to choose a menu item. 35.
Live Keyboard Shortcuts 593 Load Selected Item from Browser [Enter] [Enter] Preview Selected File [Shift][Enter] [Shift][Enter] Search in Browser [CTRL][F] [CMD][F] Jump to Search Results down arrow key down arrow key Windows Macintosh Play from Start Marker/Stop [Space] [Space] Continue Play from Stop Point [Shift][Space] [Shift][Space] Play Arrangement View Selection [Space] [Space] Move Insert Marker to Beginning [Home] [Function]+left arrow key Record [F9] [F9] Back to Arra
Live Keyboard Shortcuts 594 By holding down an additional modifier key, some of the above commands can also be applied to: Windows Macintosh Clips and Slots Across all Tracks [Shift] [Shift] Time Across all Tracks [Shift] [Shift] The Selected Part of the Envelope [ALT] [ALT] [Tab] can be used to move from one track or scene to another while renaming. 35.
Live Keyboard Shortcuts 595 Select Neighboring Clip/Slot arrow keys arrow keys Select all Clips/Slots [CTRL][A] [CMD][A] Copy Clips [CTRL]drag [CMD]drag Add/Remove Stop Button [CTRL][E] [CMD][E] Insert MIDI clip [CTRL][Shift][M] [CMD][Shift][M] Insert Scene [CTRL][I] [CMD][I] Insert Captured Scene [CTRL][Shift][I] [CMD][Shift][I] Move Nonadjacent Scenes Without Collapsing [CTRL] up and down arrow keys [CMD] up and down arrow keys Drop Browser Clips as a Scene [CTRL] [CMD] 35.
Live Keyboard Shortcuts 596 Windows Macintosh Insert Audio Track [CTRL][T] [CMD][T] Insert MIDI Track [CTRL][Shift][T] [CMD][Shift][T] Insert Return Track [CTRL][ALT][T] [CMD][ALT][T] Rename Selected Track [CTRL][R] [CMD][R] While Renaming, Go to next Track [Tab] [Tab] Group Selected Tracks [CTRL][G] [CMD][G] Ungroup Tracks [CTRL][Shift][G] [CMD][Shift][G] Show Grouped Tracks [+] [+] Hide Grouped Tracks [-] [-] Move Nonadjacent Tracks Without Collapsing [CTRL] arrow keys [CMD
Live Keyboard Shortcuts 597 Computer MIDI Keyboard [CTRL][Shift][K] [CMD][Shift][K] 35.
Live Keyboard Shortcuts 598 35.15 Clip View MIDI Editor The shortcuts for zooming, snapping/drawing and loop/region settings also work in the MIDI Editor. Windows Macintosh Quantize [CTRL][U] [CMD][U] Quantize Settings...
Live Keyboard Shortcuts 599 35.17 Global Quantization Sixteenth-Note Quantization Windows Macintosh [CTRL][6] [CMD][6] Eighth-Note Quantization [CTRL][7] [CMD][7] Quarter-Note Quantization [CTRL][8] [CMD][8] 1-Bar Quantization [CTRL][9] [CMD][9] Quantization Off [CTRL][0] [CMD][0] 35.
Live Keyboard Shortcuts 600 Group/Ungroup Devices [CTRL][G] [CMD][G] Activate/Deactivate All Devices in Group [ALT] device activator [ALT] device activator Click to Append Devices to a Selected Device [Shift] [Shift] Load Selected Device From Browser [Enter] [Enter] 35.20 Using the Context Menu A context menu is available in Live for quick access to many commonly used menu items.
Index 601 Index A Adaptive Grid options.................................... 82 Add/Remove Stop Button command............ 93 Amp effect.....................................................287 Amp effect tips..............................................289 Analog........................................................... 375 amplifiers................................................380 architecture and interface..................... 376 envelopes............................................... 381 filters..
Index 602 in audio/MIDI tracks............................... 20 Clip Activator Switch....................................100 Clip box........................................................... 98 Clip Color chooser....................................... 101 Clip Envelope Control chooser....................268 Clip Envelope Device chooser....................268 clip envelopes........................................29, 267 and changing note pitch.......................269 and changing note volume...........
Index 603 Convert Melody to MIDI command............ 152 Corpus effect.................................................305 count-in for recording....................................213 CPU................................................................567 CPU Load meter............................................568 CPU Preferences................................................9 Create Analysis Files preference................... 43 crossfader...............................................
Index 604 with scenes............................................... 93 Electric...........................................................397 architecture and interface.....................398 damper section......................................399 fork section.............................................399 global section.........................................400 mallet section.........................................398 pickup section........................................400 Envelope Editor.........
Index 605 sample slots and controls......................403 saturator and envelope.........................405 Start, Transpose and Stretch.................404 Info View.............................................................7 insert effect........................................................219 instrument.................................................219 plug-ins...................................................226 track........................................................
Index 606 Master track.................................................. 198 Max for Live.................................................. 471 Maximum Cache Size preference................. 42 Metronome switch.........................................212 MIDI editing with the transform tools.............. 115 exporting.................................................. 49 quantizing.......................................142, 212 sending bank/program changes.......... 116 MIDI Arrangement Overdub............
Index 607 Ping Pong Delay effect.................................345 Pitch effect.....................................................369 Play button........................................................71 Plug-In Configure Mode..............................229 Plug-In Edit button.........................................228 plug-ins in the browser.........................................226 Plug-In Unfold button....................................228 Preferences...........................................
Index 608 Re-Pitch Mode...............................................131 resampling..................................................... 178 Rescan Plug-Ins preference.......................... 227 Resonators effect...........................................347 return tracks............................................ 25, 198 Reverb effect.................................................349 Diffusion Network..................................350 Early Reflections.....................................
Index 609 recording an Arrangement...................... 94 recording audio in.................................208 selector......................................................17 Set 1.1.1 Here command............................. 126 Set Locator button........................................... 73 Set Locator command..................................... 73 Set Song Start Time Here command..............74 Show/Hide Plug-In Windows command...229 Simple Delay effect.......................................
Index 610 audio and MIDI in................................... 20 automation in......................................... 261 compensating for device delays...........203 devices in.................................................217 grouping................................................. 196 in Arrangement View............................... 77 inserting.................................................. 195 in Session View........................................ 89 mixer controls in......................
Index 611 Warp modes................................................. 129 Warp switch..................................................103 Widen Grid command................................... 82 Z Zoom Display.....................................................8 Zooming in Arrangement View............................... 69 in Clip View............................................
