.+Memeshift+.

Photo by Accent Creative

I love Ableton .  I’d probably swear by it as a compositional and performance tool.  As far as multi-track recording, I’m sure there are some better ones, but Ableton Live is not really about that - it’s about performing and having the most intuitive interface for expressing your musical ideas.  That’s why I love it so much.

Having been an Ableton Live user for nearly 7 Years (I think I picked up version 1.5), there are a few tips and tricks that I regularly share with friends and fellow performers when we ‘talk shop’ and trade techniques.  While these techniques apply to Abelton, many of the same tips mentioned below can work across music production/performance software platforms.

Here are five of the most common techniques I use for Ableton:

Getting a decent MIDI controller
Conceptualizing your music and art across multiple sensory domains (in this case sound, vision and touch) allows you to be more expressive with your music.   My first MIDI controller was an Edirol UC-16.   It has 16 knobs and 4 buttons for switching between different stored settings of those knobs after you’ve mapped them to your Ableton set (or whatever MIDI enabled program you use). Getting this allowed me to more directly interface with my music as well as generate new ideas and workflows for composing and performing.

Setting up a default template
This, by far, has been one of the most important things I have done to improve my creative workflow.  If you ever find yourself doing the same things over and over after you open up a fresh live set - such as adding an Auto Filter on your master channel, assigning a key or knob to the same two parameters of an effect, etc. - then setting up a ‘default’ template, that opens up with all of these common, repetitive settings intact, saves loads of time.  Here’s instructions from a cool site on how to do it.

Using the key-assign feature liberally
This is also a much under utilized feature of Ableton (at least with the musicians/djs I’ve played with): your computer keyboard.  You can easily assign keys on the keyboard to turn things off and on (great for muting tracks, trigger samples or ‘dub style’ mixing by turning effects off and on rhythmically). Note that this is not to be confused with using your keyboard as a ‘Computer MIDI Keyboard’ - this is another Option in the ‘Option’ menu of Ableton that allows you to pay MIDI powered instruments in Ableton.

Adding high-pass filters on all bass-heavy channels
As many electronic musicians know (particularly dance oriented electronic musicians;), bass is one of the most important aspects of your music.  It’s what dancers’ bodies respond to best.   Bass is also one of the more difficult things to control for as your bass kicks and bass lines ’sit’ in the same frequency spectrum - both tend to be ‘low’ sounds.  These result in things sounding muddled and murky.  To control for this, I put an Auto Filter with a ‘high-pass’ filter on all bass-heavy channels - my kicks and my basslines mainly.  What this does is essentially let the high-pass.  If done well, there’s no telling what sorts of faces you can elicit from your audience as you perform. (photo by ConnorTreacy )

Putting a fun chain of effects on the master (that you can switch on and off)
Whether you enjoy pushing squares or twisting knobs, throwing a few effects ‘up front’ on your master out channel can add a lot of dynamism and drama to your mixes.  Popular favorites are low pass and high pass filters so you can emphasize highs and lows during dramatic build ups and ‘drops’.  Many DJ’s have mastered this technique to add extra flair to their mixes. I currently enjoy Auto Pan (for extreme, rhythmic gating), EQ 4 (for controlling low and high frequency attenuation), Simply Delay (with high feedback and short timing for ‘metallic’ sounds) as well as Beat Repeat for stuttering and ad-hoc looping.

What techniques would you recommend? What are indispensable pieces of hardware or software that you use?

Feel free to comment below.

Share on Facebook