The Ableton Q&A Thread

[StratosFear]

Honestly I think it's easier to use Drum Racks/Impulse (depending on the version of Ableton you have). Then you'll be able to work with the blocks, quantized or unquantized. What he's doing is working with audio tracks, not MIDI, and dropping the samples directly on the audio tracks where he wants them to go. Possibly the reason you aren't getting the waves themselves is that you haven't expanded the tracks? If you leave the tracks at the smallest size it will only show the sample name. If you expand (go over to the right, to the name of the track, and drag the line down), you'll be able to see both the name and the wave of the audio.

[Tsunemori]

I have version 8.0.4. Also, how can I preview the sound of each midi by just clicking it's name (like the video)? I dont have that blue horn below the list, neither the wave form of the midi beside it.

I zoomed it just like the guy in the video but I continue to just see the blocks, not the waves. I think the waves only show if it's an audio file. Do you think it's better to work with the blocks instead of the waves?

[nowaysj]

Hey, so what is up with Massive and Ableton? Totally legit Massive, but haven't upgraded in many long time, am at 1.1.4. Are there issues? I find Massive to behave erratically, sometimes with no output, or very low output. Is this something worth upgrading Massive for, really don't like to upgrade unless there is a problem?

[mikeyp]

hey guys.. noob question here so forgive me but i can't really find a straight answer. i'm starting to dabble in ableton, mostly for djing and hopefully producing soon enough. i really want to do this with an apc40. one thing i really want to be able to do is control different layers of my own tracks. say the sub, the drums, a midrange synth, and two other melodic synths. i want to be able to kind of overlap these different layers between two songs, like mute one of the melodies and bring in the other from the next track. but from my short time messing around ive only been able to pause a certain stem instead of just muting it. like i kind of want each stem from a song to play at the same time but not all of them to be audible at the same time instead of triggering each stem when it needs to be in the song. is this easy to do/setup? i hope you can understand what i'm saying. thanks in advance for any help

[Disco Nutter]

Hey, so what is up with Massive and Ableton? Totally legit Massive, but haven't upgraded in many long time, am at 1.1.4. Are there issues? I find Massive to behave erratically, sometimes with no output, or very low output. Is this something worth upgrading Massive for, really don't like to upgrade unless there is a problem?

Hmm... don't know about this, can't really say, what do the NI forums say?

hey guys.. noob question here so forgive me but i can't really find a straight answer. i'm starting to dabble in ableton, mostly for djing and hopefully producing soon enough. i really want to do this with an apc40. one thing i really want to be able to do is control different layers of my own tracks. say the sub, the drums, a midrange synth, and two other melodic synths. i want to be able to kind of overlap these different layers between two songs, like mute one of the melodies and bring in the other from the next track. but from my short time messing around ive only been able to pause a certain stem instead of just muting it. like i kind of want each stem from a song to play at the same time but not all of them to be audible at the same time instead of triggering each stem when it needs to be in the song. is this easy to do/setup? i hope you can understand what i'm saying. thanks in advance for any help

Well, this basically sounds like you want volume faders, so use them?

[mikeyp]

Well, this basically sounds like you want volume faders, so use them?

lol i guess that is pretty simple. i'll just have to figure everything out once i get the apc
thanks for making me realize how simple that itll be

[nowaysj]

Hey, so what is up with Massive and Ableton? Totally legit Massive, but haven't upgraded in many long time, am at 1.1.4. Are there issues? I find Massive to behave erratically, sometimes with no output, or very low output. Is this something worth upgrading Massive for, really don't like to upgrade unless there is a problem?

Hmm... don't know about this, can't really say, what do the NI forums say?

I'd rather cut my tounge out.

Have asked questions over there and had absolutely no response... You and I know this is the best general purpose production forum on the web

[JTMMusicuk]

not being a dick but is ableton legit???
iv never had a problem with the two working together and normally massive has quite a loud output.
Try upgrading massive to the latest version but im not sure if that would do much tbh.
Ableton forum might be the place to ask

[nowaysj]

Never had a problem with Massive either. On this project I was just working on I had two instances, when I added the second, it had no output at all. I saved and relaunched, and massive was at full output. Then most recently the first instance of massive suddenly started outputting at a greatly reduced volume. Can't recall how I resolved that, I think I just stopped and started several times, and then it returned to full output. In passing I've read here on the forum that there were problems with Massive and live, but they were just passing comments so didn't pay too much attention. I'll grin and bear ni's service center and see if that resolves the issue.

[JTMMusicuk]

Never had a problem with Massive either. On this project I was just working on I had two instances, when I added the second, it had no output at all. I saved and relaunched, and massive was at full output. Then most recently the first instance of massive suddenly started outputting at a greatly reduced volume. Can't recall how I resolved that, I think I just stopped and started several times, and then it returned to full output. In passing I've read here on the forum that there were problems with Massive and live, but they were just passing comments so didn't pay too much attention. I'll grin and bear ni's service center and see if that resolves the issue.

normally then only problem is when massive is cracked it tends to go wild but if everythings legit i dont know why it would do that, is it still quiet when opening a new patch/sound ?

[nowaysj]

I work from the default sound, I don't use massive's presets. And it is like once the issue is resolved, it is resolved. I don't really do anything to resolve it. It just starts working again... I will do the upgrade and let you know.

[Perej]

Yo yo yo,

I'm trying to get close to drums like Blawan has - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfImrcVGS68

They are so rich and fat.

What I'm doing right now is layering up 2 kick in Sampler and putting Saturn filter thing on them with a bit of distortion and the 'warm tape' setting but for some reason they don't sound as fat as if I just play them through a drum rack... is this something to do with the 'scale' option in sampler?

Only just discovered that you can load multiple samples into sampler yesterday

[mks]

hey guys.. noob question here so forgive me but i can't really find a straight answer. i'm starting to dabble in ableton, mostly for djing and hopefully producing soon enough. i really want to do this with an apc40. one thing i really want to be able to do is control different layers of my own tracks. say the sub, the drums, a midrange synth, and two other melodic synths. i want to be able to kind of overlap these different layers between two songs, like mute one of the melodies and bring in the other from the next track. but from my short time messing around ive only been able to pause a certain stem instead of just muting it. like i kind of want each stem from a song to play at the same time but not all of them to be audible at the same time instead of triggering each stem when it needs to be in the song. is this easy to do/setup? i hope you can understand what i'm saying. thanks in advance for any help

All of what you're describing is quite easy to do in the Session view. There are mute buttons on every channel. The APC has the mute buttons mapped out as well.

[nowaysj]

Yo yo yo,

I'm trying to get close to drums like Blawan has - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfImrcVGS68

They are so rich and fat.

What I'm doing right now is layering up 2 kick in Sampler and putting Saturn filter thing on them with a bit of distortion and the 'warm tape' setting but for some reason they don't sound as fat as if I just play them through a drum rack... is this something to do with the 'scale' option in sampler?

Only just discovered that you can load multiple samples into sampler yesterday

Uh I just learned that

[mikeyp]

hey guys.. noob question here so forgive me but i can't really find a straight answer. i'm starting to dabble in ableton, mostly for djing and hopefully producing soon enough. i really want to do this with an apc40. one thing i really want to be able to do is control different layers of my own tracks. say the sub, the drums, a midrange synth, and two other melodic synths. i want to be able to kind of overlap these different layers between two songs, like mute one of the melodies and bring in the other from the next track. but from my short time messing around ive only been able to pause a certain stem instead of just muting it. like i kind of want each stem from a song to play at the same time but not all of them to be audible at the same time instead of triggering each stem when it needs to be in the song. is this easy to do/setup? i hope you can understand what i'm saying. thanks in advance for any help

All of what you're describing is quite easy to do in the Session view. There are mute buttons on every channel. The APC has the mute buttons mapped out as well.

yeah i think i've figured out how i'm going to go about this

split up tracks into four layers, each layer to a clip. then split each clip into intro/drop/break/drop/outro and have ghost tracks if there isn't a certain layer in one part of the song so that everything stays playing where it should in the song but i can use one piece of it if i want to. that will work right?

[mikeyp]

and sorry that this is all really basic stuff i just want to make sure i can do what i want in my head before i go investing time & money into this

[mks]

The great thing is is that there are so many different workflows that you could employ.

My standard flow for doing a Live PA of my own material was to break the tracks down to no more than 8 parts; I didn't want to have too much to remember so that I could focus on improvising, the arrangement, effects etc.

So I would usually break it down to Drums, Percussion, Bass1, Bass2, Pads, Melodies/Leads, Vocals and FX and make clips out of all of these.

Don't forget about Scenes. If you know you want to have certain clips all playing at the same time, I would make a Scene for it. When you trigger the Scene, all of the clips in that Scene will play. It makes it easy trigger a Scene and then mute or drop out clips, add clips etc. The APC has specific buttons for Scenes.

There is so much you could do really.

[mikeyp]

yeah im coming to realize that i could do absolutely anything with enough preparation. thanks for your help

[nowaysj]

Apc 40 is amazing u will not regret it.

EDIT: but I wouldn't go planning everything out before you start working with it. Keep your mind open on this one because the possibilities are many.

[Perej]

Is it just me or does the ASIO Full directX duplex driver sound better than the standard Asio4all one? On top of this you can have youtube or Itunes open at the same time, which I can't do with Asio.

Anyone here use this driver? Should I have used it from the start?