The Ableton Q&A Thread

[Tiger Blood]

Possible phasing issue with the sends?

On your Drum Bus
Turn Send A OFF
Turn Send B all the way up
Use Send B Volume fader to mix in the compression and make sure compressor is set to 100% wet

You want to have the same compressor and eq on the drum bus, as you do on send B. But on the drum bus, you don't need to use the compression or eq if you don't want.

That might solve it? If it doesn't, no idea man.

made my parallel compression sound good but the drum track still isnt exporting, its also a problem on the percussive track which dosent have any parallel compression...

This is really weird!

[Hircine]

just bought suite with the box, hours of fun to come figuring stuff out with the manual by my side.

[Perej]

how do I get fullscreen mode on a mac? Got my dashboard sitting down there and it's annoying me.

[Hircine]

as I said, I bought a box with ableton suite 8. after installing it all, I download the 8.3.3 version but it installs as a m audio powered demo version. I had a lite ableton sitting on my mac for months but I deleted it before installing suite. how do I update suite?

[RmoniK]

how do I get fullscreen mode on a mac? Got my dashboard sitting down there and it's annoying me.

view > full screen mode.
to exit, click the bottom right corner.

or just use F11 for both.

Also, you can hide your dock, so that it only shows up when you hoover the bottom of the screen.

[RandoRando]

Do you guys like abletons compressor? I usually find myslef using my Antress Compressors instead, i only use the ableton one for sidechaining.

and you know how some ableton plugs have LFOs on them? freq shifter for example, can i tell it what i want the lfo to modulate? or is it not changeable.

[Disco Nutter]

Do you guys like abletons compressor? I usually find myslef using my Antress Compressors instead, i only use the ableton one for sidechaining.

To be fair, I use it almost all of the time when I reach for a compressor.

As far as LFOs - not all of the plugins have them.

[Burgeamon]

Do you guys like abletons compressor? I usually find myslef using my Antress Compressors instead, i only use the ableton one for sidechaining.

To be fair, I use it almost all of the time when I reach for a compressor.

As far as LFOs - not all of the plugins have them.

This!

The ableton compressor is my go to. It's lightweight, visually its really helpful for me when I'm trying to get some really tight compression on something and the sidechaining is great. If I need something with a little more character i'll grab one of the Waves compressors.

[Redderious]

i only use the ableton one for sidechaining.

Same story here man. I used the trial version of Fab-filter's Compressor. I loved it but i never actually compared the two side by side. imo ableton's compressor does the job just fine, just doesn't look as pretty.

[outdropt]

Ill use ableton's compressor for small things.. Like if im cutting out some frequencies with an EQ and it messes with the volume of the sound to much.... Also on some vocals/risers....

For mastering, most vocals, basslines i would use Vintage warmer.. It adds a really nice dynamic to the sound and you can really beef up sounds without destroying the overall tonal quality..

Ableon's compressor is nice, quick, and easy on the eyes/CPU but it doesn't compare to some thing like Vintage Warmer which is a muliband compressor/limiter.... Just takes some time to understand what your actually doing to the sound.

[RmoniK]

i don't know, i kinda like it for RMS compressing but for some reason i do not like what comes out of it for peak compressing. I have the same problem with the limiter.

As far as the LFO question goes, i believe there is a max4life instrument that allows you to LFO any knob in ableton, plus any knob in a VST (but you have to assign it to a macro first)

[RandoRando]

Man i should really look into max4live

[bkwsk]

Man i should really look into max4live

true dat

[RandoRando]

The book helped me learn ableton in a week, tons of information. Put it by your toilet and youll be full of ableton knowledge. I still delve into it, turn to a random page and ill learn something new everytime!
Yes its very basic, but you cant know everything about every little thing in ableton...until you finish this book, get me?

http://www.amazon.com/Ableton-Live-Powe ... 1598639757

[RandoRando]

compression question- i understand ratio, but then i dont, i dont get why 10:1 is a limiter, cause wouldnt that mean that the audio has to go 10db over the threshold that it will reduce the output by 1 db? Wouldnt it never engage then? unless you were really feeding that input?

[Conflux]

Nah the ratio means that 10db over the threshold will output 1db over the threshold if that makes sense.
20db over threshold at ratio of 10:1 will output 2db over the threshold. For example if you have a signal at -8dbfs and you set the threshold at -10dbfs and the ratio at 2:1 the output signal will be -9dbfs. The original signal was 2dbfs over the threshold so the compressor only allowed it to increase by 1dbfs. The best thing to do is just look at the gain reduction.

At what ratio compressor becomes a limiter is a bit of a grey area and really doesn't matter, unless you are talking about brick wall limiting.

[RandoRando]

oh ok makes more sense, just the "reduced by 2db" actually meaning what you said " output 2db over the threshold", is kind of confusing.

[Conflux]

not too sure what u mean sorry so I'm going to have a little rant about how i think about compression. Think about it as if the compressor is an actual person that is moving a fader, lets call him "Compressor" haha. You say to compressor "for every 4dbfs above -10dbfs (which would be called the threshold) i want you to output 1dbfs above the threshold". This would be a ratio of 4:1. For every 4dbfs above the threshold 1dbfs above the threshold is outputted (it is important to remember i am explaining this in dBfs which has a maximum of 0). So if the incoming signal is at -6dbfs then the output of the compressor is -9dbfs (if threshold is -10dbfs and ratio is 4:1), "compressor" has moved the fader down by 3dbfs so that the output is equal to -9dbfs.

Now lets say the incoming signal is at -2dbfs and the ratio and threshold are still the same. This would mean that the outputted signal is -8dbfs. We told "compressor' to output 1dbfs for every 4dbfs above the threshold. Seeing as the signal is 8dbfs above the threshold (twice it was before), "compressor" will turn the signal down by 6dbfs (twice it was before) to -8dbfs. 2dbfs above the threshold (twice it was before).

[RandoRando]

got it i can see now why a compressor turning into a limiter is kind of a gray area. Makes sense ! All those incoming signals that are only getting output of 1 or two dbs when they are -8 or -4 are the peaks getting squashed!

[Perej]

Alright. I can't change the velocity of midi hits.... I mean.. it lets me change them but there's no effect on playback. Even if I move all the little icons the velocity doesnt change... wtf?