hi there it's thomas george and welcome
to this ableton live 11 beginners
tutorial
in this video we're going to show
everything you need to know to get
started making music
we take you through many essentials of
ableton live such as the main interface
of the software
using the session and arrangement views
recording and editing midi and audio
creating music with clips quantizing
arranging your ideas
exporting your song out of the software
and many other tricks and tips to speed
up your workflow
this video is a follow-along guide so
you can practice the techniques we teach
you while creating your first song
so by the end of this video you should
have the skills so you can begin to make
music in
ableton live i've also added chapters to
this video
so feel free to skip forward at any
point if you want to move on to the next
topic
you can access these chapters via the
youtube scribble bar and you can view
the timestamps for these chapters in the
video description
this video is a condensed line version
of the first section of our complete
course
which covers many more advanced aspects
of music production in ableton live
if you're interested then you can access
our complete course via the link in the
description below this video
okay so before we start creating a song
i'm going to cover the very basics of
this software to cater for complete
beginners
hi there and welcome to this video where
i'm going to go over the very basics of
how ableton live works
so you can have some understanding of
the workflow before we begin to create
music
we'll cover everything in a lot more
detail later on but i just want to give
you a quick
overview of the interface and the
workflow of ableton live so you can
understand how this software works
one thing to note though the first part
of this video is aimed at complete
beginners
so if you've used any previous versions
of ableton live
then i recommend skipping forward to 21
minutes and 42 seconds where we cover
ableton live in more detail so this is
what ableton live should look like when
you open up a new session or set as it's
called
one thing i'll mention first is that
ableton live has a hint panel down here
and it's called the info view and you
can show and hide this info view with
this small triangle down here in the
bottom left
so this is a very useful feature that i
recommend you keep open if you're a
beginner
when you hover your cursor over
something in ableton live this info box
will give you a brief description of
this feature or area
for example if i move my mouse over some
items in ableton live
you can see here we have a brief
description about these
so this is useful if you ever get stuck
so i do just recommend
leaving this open whilst you're learning
the software
okay so i'm going to go over the
interface first so you've got a rough
idea of what you're looking at
as you can see ableton live is split
into a number of different areas
and each of these have different uses in
the music production process
so the first area i want to talk about
now is the browser
the browser is this area here on the
left hand side
and if you cannot see the browser then
you need to click on this small arrow in
the top left
and this will open and close the browser
so the browser is used to access all of
your instruments sounds and effects
these can be things such as software
instrument presets for example a bass
synth or keyboard sound to use on a midi
track
we also have audio samples for example
drum loops or melodies which we can use
on audio tracks
there's also plugins and effects to use
when mixing such as reverb delay or eq
so these can be loaded onto different
tracks in ableton live
so the browser helps make ableton live
really quick and easy to use
as you can access files and plugins very
quickly
i've just opened up another ableton live
set to help run through how this
software works
so there are two main views in ableton
live the session view and the
arrangement view
right now we're looking at the session
view if you're not currently looking at
the same view as me
then you can swap between the two views
by pressing the tab button on your
computer's keyboard
or by pressing one of these little
buttons over here in the top right
i'm going to focus on the session view
first which is this
area here here we can see our different
tracks listed across the session view
each one of these columns is a different
track for example we have a track for
the base
for the drums the guitar and so on and
so forth
we actually have both midi and audio
tracks which are slightly different
but they are both used to create musical
parts
simply put midi is used to digitally
write in or record musical information
which is then turned into audio using a
software instrument
audio tracks are slightly different they
are used to playback audio samples
for example drum loops guitar bass or
recorded vocals
on each track you'll notice that we have
a number of these little rectangles
and these are clip slots so we create
clips which hold midi or audio
information
and these can be used to store your
different musical ideas
clips can then be played back to jam out
different ideas to help you build a song
so you can loop clips or play them back
at different times to help you come up
with musical arrangements
so to play back a clip simply press on a
little play icon on the clip
let me just show you this now
[Music]
you can pause the clips playing back by
pressing the spacebar
or stop them by pressing the stop button
on the track
you can start and stop clips at
different times during playback to start
structuring your ideas
you can also play multiple clips at once
by pressing the scene play button over
here
so instead of just playing one
individual clip it will play all of the
clips in the same row or seen as it's
[Music]
called
[Music]
so you can stop all clips with a
stoppable clips button down here
or just pause them with the spacebar so
playing back clips in the session view
is a really intuitive way of creating
music
but you can then use the arrangement
view to stretch these ideas into a song
so now if i swap over to the arrangement
view with this little icon in the top
right
you'll be able to see the more
traditional timeline
now you'll notice our tracks are no
longer listed across the top of the page
they're flipped and they're down the
right hand side
so in the session view all of our tracks
are listed vertically
whereas in the arrangement view the
tracks are flipped and they are listed
horizontally
if you've ever used other digital audio
workstations in the past such as logic
pro or pro tools
you'll notice they look more similar to
this view
along the top of the arrangement view we
have our timeline measured in bars
and at the bottom we have our timeline
measured in minutes and seconds
as you can see here we have a number of
clips already arranged on the timeline
i'll just play this back you can do so
with the play icon at the top of the
screen
however if your tracks are grayed out
you'll need to press the back to
arrangement button
which is the small orange button over
here and this will allow you to play
back in the arrangement view
[Music]
you can pause playback with either the
spacebar or the stop icon up here at the
top
you can move the position of the
playhead by clicking in the arrangement
[Music]
or you can instantly start playback by
clicking on the scrub area
at the top here
[Music]
so when you're in the arrangement view
you organize your clips into a specific
order on the timeline to structure a
song
this is different to the session view
where the clips can be played back or
looped in any order
so the session view holds your musical
ideas whereas the arrangement view is
used to structure your different ideas
into a song
so the general workflow i'd recommend in
ableton live
is that you come up with most of your
musical ideas in the session view
and then you structure them into a song
in the arrangement view
one thing to note you don't have to use
a session view in ableton live
just like many other digital audio
workstations you can simply come up with
all of your ideas in the arrangement
view if you like
however in my opinion if you don't use
the session view then you're really
missing out on the best features of
ableton live
don't worry if you're a little confused
at the moment we're going to be going
over all of this again in more detail in
future lectures
i just wanted you to get familiar with
the workflow first
okay so that's the end of this video i
hope now you're starting to understand
how ableton live works
but again we're going to cover this in a
lot more detail later on in this course
so thanks for watching and i'll see you
in the next one hi there and welcome to
this video where we're going to continue
looking at the basics of ableton live
11.
so we've shown you the session view and
arrangement view and now we're going to
have a look at creating clips
firstly let's create an audio clip you
can record audio directly into a clip
but to keep things simple for now i'm
going to choose a sample from the
browser
so let's go over to the browser and
choose a sample
so here we have samples and this is
where audio files are stored in the
browser
we can listen to the different samples
that are available by clicking with the
mouse once or scrolling down with the
arrow keys on the keyboard
to stop the audition playing back just
press the space bar
i want to choose a shaker sample though
so i'm going to type in shaker in the
search up here
now once you find a sample that you like
all you have to do is drag the sample
over to an audio track and drop it into
an empty clip slot
and this will create an audio clip
let's now have a look at the clip view
to access it just double click on a clip
and the clip view is this area down here
in here we can see the audio waveform of
the clip that's been selected
okay let's now find another audio clip
in the browser
i'm going to now type in the word bouncy
beat as i know the sample that i want to
use
okay i'm going to select this drum loop
and let's drag it over onto an empty
clip slot onto the other audio track
okay so now we have a couple of clips
let's now play them back
[Music]
i'm just going to turn these down as
they were quite loud
okay so now let's create another type of
clip and this time we're going to use a
midi track
when working with midi we need to do
things a little differently
so what i'm going to do is double click
on an empty clip slot
on the midi track this will open up the
midi note editor in the clip view at the
bottom here
the midi note editor is where we can
write in and edit midi
midi allows us to write musical
information to be played back by ableton
live
you can record in midi using either a
midi device or your computer keyboard
but we'll be going over this in detail
later on in this course
okay i'm just going to quickly draw in a
chord
i'll do so by double clicking to draw in
some notes
i'm just going to drag to resize these
so the one bar in length
okay so now let's try and play back this
midi clip i'll press the play button on
this clip
notice how we cannot actually hear
anything while the clip is being played
back
this is because midi tracks need an
instrument to create sound
so i'll just quickly show you how to
load an instrument onto a midi track
to do so go over to your browser and
then find an instrument
so let's click on instruments here in
the browser notice how we don't see
anything at the moment
and that's because our search is still
active so i'm just going to hit this x
in the search bar at the top
to reset the search okay so here we have
our different instruments
we can look at the different preset
sounds that are available for each
instrument
by clicking on the small triangle next
to each instrument
see here we have a number of different
instrument sounds
i'm just going to use simpler as this is
available on all editions of ableton
live
just like with audio you can audition
sounds by clicking once or scrolling
down with arrow keys
once you've found the sound that you
like you can simply click and drag the
instrument
onto your midi track at the bottom here
you'll notice now that we see a
different window
this is called the device view the
device view shows us the instrument
that's loaded onto our midi track
here we can make changes to how our
instrument sounds
you can swap between the device view and
the clip view with this tab at the
bottom here
this allows you to jump between the midi
note editor and the instrument that is
loaded on the track
when i play this clip back once again
you'll notice we will now be able to
hear the midi information that we
previously wrote in
[Music]
this is because this midi track now has
an instrument loaded onto it
audio tracks simply play audio samples
so they don't need an instrument
right so let's create another midi clip
on this track now
so i'll double click on an empty clip
slot and now in the midi note editor i'm
going to draw in a few notes
so same again i'm going to double click
to draw in some notes
then select these notes and extend them
to the one bar
okay so now we've got a few clips let's
play back some of them
start making a rough arrangement
[Applause]
[Applause]
so as you can see there it's really
quick and easy to start building up a
song idea
using the clips in the session view
right so now let's add a bass part to
this groove
so i'm going to look in the browser
again and find another sound
let's use a simpler instrument again and
this time i'm going to open up the base
folder
i'm going to use this one here called
bass
let's drag this over to midi track one
let's now double click on an empty clip
slot to create a new clip and to open up
the midi note editor
let's now write in a note
i'm just going to move this clip down
now to the third clip slot
right let's play these parts back i'll
start off by playing about this first
scene
[Applause]
[Applause]
[Music]
right now i've got a few different
tracks and we've come up with a very
basic arrangement
now i'll show you how to get this into
the arrangement view
so all we have to do is click on this
arrangement record button at the top
here
and then start playing back our clips
before you press record i'd recommend
pressing the stop or clips button
now when we hit record we should have a
one by counting and we'll be able to
record our ideas into the arrangement
view
so let's hit record and record this into
the arrangement view
[Music]
[Applause]
[Applause]
my
[Applause]
so once you've finished playing the
arrangement just press the space bar
now if we go back to the arrangement
view we'll be able to see the clips that
we just recorded
to listen back to what you recorded make
sure you press the back to arrangement
button
which is this orange button here so as
you can see there we can start editing
and building upon these ideas to turn
them into a song
hi there and welcome to this video where
i'm going to show you the basics of some
of the track controls
so if you ever want to listen to one
track on its own then you can press the
solo button on the track
let me just show you now
[Music]
you can adjust the volume of a track by
clicking and dragging this slider left
or right
[Music]
[Music]
you can adjust the panning of a track so
how far left or right it appears in the
stereo image
[Music]
and you can double click to go back to
the default
you can deactivate a track by clicking
on this orange icon here
and this effectively mutes the track
[Music]
and you can click once more to
reactivate the track
okay so something else to note we can
also access these controls from within
the session view as well
so let's go back over to the session
view
as you can see here on the track we have
our different icons
so we have a volume as a fader here
we have a panning as a dial
and we also have our solo and the
activate icons here
whatever changes you make in the session
view will also affect the arrangement
view
and vice versa right so that's the very
basics of ableton live
we're going to start creating a new song
from scratch in the next section
where we'll be going into a lot more
detail of the processes involved when
creating music in ableton live
so this may seem quite complex right now
but i just wanted to give you an
overview of how ableton live works
before we actually get into making music
hopefully now you should have a basic
understanding of the workflow of this
software
however don't worry if not we're going
to go over all of this again in a lot
more detail in the following videos in
this course
in the next part of this video ian
alexander will take over and start
making a song from scratch
going over many features and functions
of ableton live to get you started
making music
right away this video is just a
condensed version of the first part of
our complete
ableton live 11 course in the full
course we go over numerous topics such
as songwriting mixing
ableton live instruments and much more
to access our complete course which is
over 20 hours long
just check out the link in the
description below this video
hi there it's ian alexander here i'm now
going to take you through the steps
involved when creating a song in ableton
live i'm going to go over the basics
first
so feel free to skip forwards using the
timestamps if you like
so first of all i'm going to show you
how to open up a new set
so we can start from scratch so just go
to file
and down to new live set you can also
use a shortcut
command in n on mac or control and
n on windows okay so this is what a new
set looks like
now the first thing i want to do is set
the tempo of my project
the tempo is the speed or beats per
minute of the music
the genre of music i'm going to create
is trap so i've got a good idea of the
tempo that i'd like to use
different styles and genres of music
will often have different tempos
so you don't need to use the same as me
however if you want to follow along and
make the same song
then i'd recommend choosing the same so
to change your tempo
go up to the top here where you can see
these numbers
this here says 120 so that's 120 beats
per minute
to change it you can just click and drag
up or down
so if i pull it down we'll be slowing
down the tempo
if i increase it we'll be increasing it
you can also click on this box
and type in a number and then hit enter
and this will save it as your tempo
now to hear the speed of your tempo
you'll need to turn on the metronome
to do so go to this icon here click on
it once
and it'll light up orange now when you
press the space bar
you can hear the metronome at 300 beats
per minute
to stop the metronome press spacebar
once again
i'm going to click on this and bring
down the tempo
now when i press spacebar again
you can hear the tempo is much slower
you can also start and stop playback
with the play and stop buttons here
right another way to change tempo
is by using the tap tempo this is a
really handy feature
which allows you to click a button at
the speed you would like your song to be
at
so for example you can listen to a
reference track
and tap in time with it to match the
tempo so if i click on this tap icon
here
so as you can see there when i was
clicking on this tap tempo icon
the tempo of my project has actually
changed
so that's two ways to change the tempo
of your project
i'm just going to click here and type in
170 as i mentioned before
that's the tempo that i want to use for
my song
and then hit enter so it's not essential
that you change your tempo before you
start creating a song
but as i say it does make it a little
bit easier to get vibe for the song
you're creating
i'm now going to go over the differences
between audio and midi tracks
while i start building up some parts of
this song
right first of all let's look at audio
tracks as these ones here
so audio tracks hold audio files
these can be pre-recorded samples or
sounds that come with ableton live
or even recordings created by you so all
you have to do
is add an audio file to one of these
clip slots and you'll be able to play it
back
audio is in some ways more simple than
midi as you don't have to load a
software instrument onto the track
as i say you simply just drop the file
onto the track and you'll be able to
play it back
i'll quickly show you an example so i'm
going to go over to my browser which is
this area here
and i'm going to select samples samples
are audio files
now i'm just going to listen to a couple
of these and find one that i like
[Music]
if you want to stop the sample preview
hit the spacebar
if you can't actually hear the preview
make sure this little headphone icon
is illuminated you can do so by clicking
on it
right i'm just going to find an audio
loop so i'm just going to search my
browser
and type in loop
okay that one's fine now all you have to
do
is click and drag it over to your audio
track and drop it into one of the empty
clip slots
this has now created an audio clip you
can play it back by clicking on this
play button here
and stop it by pressing the stop button
down here
you can also pause the loop by pressing
the space bar
you can open up your clip by double
clicking on it and this will open up the
sample display
in the clip view which is this area down
here
here we can see the audio waveform what
this is
is a visual representation of the audio
signal
if i play my clip back now
you can see the playhead moving along
showing how far through the clip we are
right i'm just going to go into the
browser and find another loop
this time i'm going to search for a
percussive loop so
i'm looking for a tambourine sound so i
go into the browser and start typing in
tambourine
[Music]
okay i'll choose that one i'm just going
to drag this into a new clip
so as you can see you can have multiple
different clips on the same audio track
and these will both play back the
individual audio files
one thing you may notice when i played
back the preview in the browser
is actually at a different speed to the
clip in our session
this is because ableton automatically
time stretches the loops
so they fit in time with your set this
is because of something called warping
if your loop is not in time with your
project just open up the clip
by double clicking and in the sample
editor
just make sure this warp button is
illuminated
if i play it back without warp selected
is going to play back at its original
tempo
right so adding audio clips is as simple
as that
once you've loaded a clip onto a track
you can move it around
into any other empty clip slot you can
even move clips
between different audio tracks to delete
your clips
you can simply select them and press
backspace
or right click and select delete
so there's absolutely loads of different
samples that come with ableton live
and this can be a really quick and easy
way of making music
something else that you can do in
ableton is record in your own audio
clips
this is a very useful feature i'm not
going to cover that just yet as i want
to go over midi first
so midi tracks are slightly different to
audio tracks
and this because they contain midi
information
midi tracks allow you to create music
using virtual instruments
you can write in or record midi
information which can be manipulated or
edited
at any time in the midi note editor this
information is then played back with a
virtual or
software instrument which creates the
sound
for example you can use drum kits
synthesizers
or any third-party instruments you may
have
so an audio file is a pre-recorded
sample
which is simply played back on the audio
track
midi tracks have software instruments
loaded onto them
and sounds are then triggered using midi
so at the moment we've got our audio
clip opened up
and we can see the audio file if i
double click
on an empty clip slot on a midi track
you'll see here the midi note editor has
opened up
this is where we can write in our midi
note information
any midi notes that we now draw in will
be stored
in this clip so in the midi editor
you'll notice we can see a piano
keyboard flipped vertically
this is where you can write in musical
notes to be played back by a software
instrument
the pitch of the notes is represented
vertically and the timing is represented
horizontally
i'm going to go over the midi note
editor in a lot of detail in future
lectures
but right now i just want to show you
how to load on a software instrument
i'm just going to create a basic chord
with the notes c
e and g i'm going to select them all
by clicking and dragging over them and
extend the length so it's the full
length of the bar
to play back a midi clip just like an
audio clip
you simply press the play button
you'll notice there my audio clip also
started playing back at the same
time that's because i hadn't pressed the
stop button
on the audio track first now if i play
this midi clip once again
you'll notice we can't actually hear
anything
if you look down here you'll be able to
see these yellow dots illuminating
so that's just showing us that midi
signal is being received
but you'll notice we couldn't hear
anything that's because a midi track
which has not been assigned a software
instrument will make no
sound midi is simply musical note
information
and each midi track needs to convert
this information into sound
using a software instrument so this is
where we need to look at the browser
once again
so i'm going to go over to the
instrument category in the browser
i'm just going to press close because we
don't actually have a tambourine
instrument
available to us so we weren't able to
see all the options
available to us the list down here is
displaying all the instruments that we
have available
in ableton live you may have less
instruments
if you're using a basic version of
ableton this version is sweet
i'm just going to go over to simpler
because this instrument is available on
all versions of ableton live
so to look at the presets click on the
little arrow to open the drop down box
here we can see some different sounds
i'm just going to go to piano and keys
and choose simplest piano
since recording this video ableton live
has changed the name of this
instrument preset to grand piano single
sample
if you'd like to use the same sound as
me please choose this preset name
instead
so we can hear the preview of it being
played back there
[Music]
right so now what i need to do is click
and drag this onto my midi track
this won't actually go in a clip slot it
just needs to be dropped
anywhere onto the track and it will load
this instrument onto the midi track
we'll be able to see now this window has
opened up and this is displaying our
software instrument
now if i play this clip back once again
we can hear there the chord is being
played back
so looking back down at this window at
the software instrument
this is where we can make changes to our
sound the area that we can see our
software instrument in
is called the device view if you want to
swap between the device view and the
midi note editor
go down to the bottom right and click on
this tab here
this will open up the midi note editor
once again you can also use the keyboard
shortcut
shift and tab to swap between these two
views
now something else i'll mention quickly
is if we look at our two different midi
tracks now
you'll be able to tell that the one with
an instrument loaded onto it
looks different to the one without if i
go back to the device view down here
click on my instrument and press
backspace this will delete it
watch what happens to my midi track now
you can see there our meter and dials
have disappeared
now when i play the clip back once again
we're just seeing these yellow dots
light up
and we're not getting any sound if i put
my instrument back on again
you'll see there the meter has
reappeared and when i play the clip
you can hear our chord being played back
so just be aware if your midi track ever
looks like this
you won't get any sound so just to
clarify
an audio track will always be able to
play back its audio clips
whereas a midi track needs a software
instrument audio tracks will always have
the meter and dials displaying down here
whatever sample you load onto your audio
track will be exactly what you hear
so if you're a complete beginner you'll
now hopefully understand
the differences between midi and audio
i'm now going to show you how to use the
computer midi keyboard
so just like in other digital audio
workstations
you don't have to write in midi notes
you can also play them in
i'm not going to show you how to record
midi just yet but i want to show you how
you can set up your midi keyboard
and the really handy feature which is
the computer midi keyboard
so if you don't have a midi controller
you can actually play in notes
using your computer's qwerty keyboard
so all you need to do is click on this
little icon at the top right here
so it's illuminated orange this shows
that your computer midi keyboard
is now activated now what you need to do
is select the track that you'd like to
trigger notes on
and then make sure this icon down here
which is the record arm button
make sure that is lit up red just do so
by clicking on it
now this track is armed and ready to
receive information
so the main keys to worry about the
moment is the middle row of keys on your
computer keyboard
so that is a all the way up to l
if i play the letter a on my keyboard
now
it's playing the note c on my midi
keyboard
i'm just going to open up the midi note
editor by double clicking on this clip
so you can see which note we're playing
see now we're playing c3
[Music]
you can change the octave by pressing z
or x
to move down or up so if i press z once
and then play the a on my keyboard
we're playing c an octave down press x
we go up an octave
and we can go back down so with this you
can play chords or notes
on your midi track
you can toggle the computer midi
keyboard on and off
by using the shortcut m on your keyboard
see when i'm pressing m the icon at the
top right is turning off and on
so just like a real piano keyboard we
have our row of white notes
then we also have the black notes just
above
the black notes start from the letter w
next i'm going to show you how to set up
your midi keyboard or midi device
so let me first mention what a midi
controller actually is
a midi controller is a hardware device
that allows you to transmit midi notes
or midi data
some midi devices also have buttons
sliders or dials
that you can control other parameters
with for example pitch bend or
modulation
right so if you have a midi keyboard or
midi device you'll need to make sure
that it's set up correctly enabled in
life
so to do this we need to go to
preferences
on windows go up to options and choose
preferences
and on a mac go over to live and then
select preferences
right in your preferences you need to
navigate to the link
tempo midi tab here and it should look
something like this
i'm not going to go over everything in
detail now i'm just going to show you
what you need to know
to use your midi controller once you're
at the screen make sure your midi
controller is plugged in
i'm going to plug mine in now right i've
got an axiom air mini 32
and as you can see it has automatically
recognized it in ableton
so all you need to do is make sure that
these track buttons
are selected you may as well select them
all but the most important is the midi
in so that's already sorted
now if i go back to my track and make
sure my track is selected
record armed and has a software
instrument loaded onto it
then when i place some keys on my
keyboard we should be able to hear
something else to check if you can't
hear anything make sure
monitor is set to auto mode
[Music]
okay great that's working straight away
now whenever you select a different midi
track if it has an instrument loaded
onto it
you'll be able to hear sounds so i'm
going to drag software instrument onto
this other track
now it's selected and record armed if i
play some notes
so we can control either of the midi
tracks
right so that was very easy it actually
set it up automatically
now i'm just going to unplug this device
and show you how it's set up
in a slightly different way so if we go
back to preferences again
so that's options preferences on windows
or live then preferences on a mac
now we can see this control surface is
no longer active
so i'm just going to set it back to his
default
now i'm just going to plug in my other
midi controller
this time it's the impact gx61
and this isn't actually recognized by
ableton
see it's not popped up in the control
surface box
it's also not listed down here
so don't worry if this is the case with
your midi controller you'll still be
able to use it
just make sure you've got track selected
on in
midi one right once you've got track
selected you should be able to play midi
notes back
so i'm just going to close preferences
and try it out
make sure my track selected
[Music]
and there we can see our new midi
controller is working
so it's really easy to do this in
ableton i just wanted to go over this
quickly early on
so you're all set up i just want to show
you one thing quickly
so i'm going to go back to my
preferences
if you're a more experienced ableton
user and you have an advanced midi
controller
i'd recommend going back to preferences
and checking a few more boxes
i won't go over these settings in detail
now but these settings will enable you
to utilize more features of your midi
controller
you can do things such as start or stop
playback in ableton
using your controller or also map
different faders or dials to parameters
within ableton live
or even trigger clips in ableton with
buttons on your controller
so you may as well select all of these
buttons here if you have an advanced
controller
this will just enable all of its
features
okay your midi controller should now be
set up to follow along with the rest of
the class
don't worry if you do not have a midi
controller you can always use the
computer midi keyboard
and this will allow you to play in notes
on your computer's qwerty keyboard
now we've gone over the essentials and
you're all set up let's actually start
creating a song
so first of all i'm going to delete the
midi clip that we created
on the piano part as we just don't need
it for the song
i'm also going to delete these two audio
tracks as we don't need those at the
moment
so to delete a track select it by
clicking on the name at the top
and then press backspace you can also
delete a track by right-clicking
and going to delete okay i'm going to
add a bass
sound to this track here so i'm going to
go to instruments
go to simpler bass and then find a bass
sound
okay this one seems fine so what i'm
going to do
is click and drag it onto this track
you'll notice we already have an
instrument there so when i drag over
this new instrument
it will replace it see we've now got the
b
bass on this track right i'm just going
to create a new clip
by double clicking on an empty clip slot
on this track
the midi note editor should then open up
right i'll just quickly go over some of
the features of the midi note editor
at the top we have our timeline so over
on the left at bar number one
we have beat one of the first bar here's
beat two
here's beat three here's beat four and
we have other beat divisions in between
over on the left we see our keyboard
which is flipped vertically
representing our pitch if you want to
hear the pitch of these notes
you just need to activate this headphone
icon here by clicking on it
when it is blue if you click on a note
you'll be able to hear the pitch
[Music]
you can move down to a lower octave by
scrolling on the midi note editor
[Music]
so the most simple way to draw a note is
by double clicking
so we can edit our notes in a variety of
different ways
clicking dragging the center of the note
allows us to move it
either in time or pitch so to change the
timing of the note
clicking drag left or right and change
the pitch
click and drag up or down
[Music]
hovering over the start or end of the
note allows us to change length by
clicking and dragging
you can either make it longer or shorter
right now i've got this note the full
length of the bar i'm just going to play
back this clip
so i'll just click on this play icon
next to the clip
you can stop it by clicking on the stop
icon here or pressing the space bar to
pause
so when playing it back you'll notice
that this clip is one bar in length and
it continues to loop
when making music it's common to use
four or eight bar loops
so i'm going to change this clip so it's
8 bars in length
as i already have an idea of the bass
part i'm going to write
to change the length of your clip you
can simply click and drag this little
arrow on the right hand side
you can make it shorter by dragging left
or longer by dragging to the right one
thing that's important to note
is be very careful of where your clip
ends if it's too long or too short
it will not loop correctly and your
music will get out of time
so we need to drag this over so it ends
exactly at bar nine
as you can see this might take quite a
while as it doesn't do it very quickly
so a better way to do this is go over to
the left-hand side here
and see where it says length click on
this number
and type in the length that you'd like i
want it to be 8 bars long
so i'll just type in 8 and hit enter
you can see now our clip is 8 bars
you can adjust the horizontal zoom of
the midi note editor
by using the key commands plus a minus
on your keyboard
so if i press plus we'll zoom in a minus
will zoom out
you can also hover the mouse at the top
here until this magnifying glass icon
appears
if you then click and drag up or down
it'll zoom in
and zoom out to zoom vertically
hold alt on windows or option on mac
and scroll
again you can also zoom vertically if
you hover the mouse over to the left
hand side here
when the magnifying glass appears you
can click and drag left and right
i'm just going to zoom in a tiny bit
more and start drawing in my notes
so the first note i want is an f so i'm
just going to drag this down to f1
[Music]
the letter on the note dictates the
pitch and the number
dictates the octave now i'm going to
click and drag the end of this note
so there's two bars in length
so we want to go to the end of the
second bar right if i play this clip
back now
[Music]
we can see there we're slowly moving
through the clip
and it's looped back to the start again
right so let's draw in some more notes
this time i'm going to draw in a g so
i'm going to double click here
at the start of bar 3 and then i'll
extend this note out so it's again
2 bars in length now there's a handy
feature to speed up the process
of drawing notes you can actually copy
notes
so if you click and drag a note it'll
move
[Music]
but if you hold down the ctrl key on
windows or the option key on mac
while dragging
you'll see here this little plus icon
has appeared
now if i let go of the mouse before i
release the option key
it has copied the note over now i'm
going to change the pitch of this
so it's an a
[Music]
another way to quickly duplicate a note
is right click
and select duplicate now we just have
the same note
starting where this one ends so click
and drag this
up to the right pitch now
[Music]
okay let's play that back
[Music]
okay great now something else to be
aware of
if you ever make a mistake when working
in the midi note editor
so for example if you accidentally
duplicated a note
you could just press command z on a mac
or ctrl z
on windows to undo your last step
if you continue to press ctrl z or
command z it will undo the previous
steps
if you've pressed undo too many times
you can actually use the redo
function if you want to redo you can use
the key command
shift command z on a mac or shift
ctrl z on windows this will redo the
previous step
if you already have some music theory
knowledge you can come up with your own
parts
however if you're a complete beginner
feel free to copy mine
right i'm now going to create another
new part so i'm going to close the midi
note editor
by clicking on this arrow in the bottom
right here now i'm going to go into my
browser
and choose a new preset for another
track so this time i'm going to access
an instrument
from the core library i'm going to use
the core library
as this has lots of sounds that are
available in most editions
of ableton live to access it go down to
places
and click on packs then click on the
drop down box on core library
and go down to racks here i'm going to
choose instrument racks
and i'm going to open up this folder
here mallets
right i'll just scroll through a couple
of these and see if there's one i like
okay that one sounds quite good
so what i'm going to do now is load this
onto our other track
another way of loading an instrument
onto a track rather than clicking
dragging
is select the track that you'd like to
load the instrument onto
and then just double click on the
instrument
it's now loaded on this track okay so
for this part i want an arpeggio style
part
something like this
[Music]
okay so i'm going to draw this midi in
once again so i'm going to create a new
clip
by double clicking on an empty clip slot
and now we can see the midi note editor
now we already have our bass line and
something you need to be aware of when
writing music
is the key that you're in for this song
to keep things simple
i'm going to be using the key c major
this is often considered the easiest key
to understand
as it does not use any sharps or flats
which
are the black notes on the keyboard so
in c major
we only use the white notes now one
feature that's new for ableton live 11
which i really like
is a scale feature in the midi note
editor so if we go over to the left here
you can see this box it says scale if
you click on this
you can choose the scale that you'd like
to be in here it's already set to c
major
now any notes that are in the scale that
we want will be highlighted
so as we can see here all of the white
notes have been highlighted blue
if i was to change this to a different
key for example
g sharp major we can see now
different notes being highlighted lots
of the sharps and flats
so this is a really great feature for
beginners which helps you understand
which notes to use one other thing i'll
mention real quickly while we're looking
at this feature
is if you click on the scale button up
here it actually removes
any notes that are not in the scale so
now we're only seeing the white notes
personally i wouldn't recommend using
this as it's good to have the whole
piano roll open
to help you understand where all the
different notes are so i'm going to
disable it for now
feel free to use it if you like but your
music theory will improve quicker
if you get used to looking at piano roll
like this
if i look at my bass part we can just
check to make sure we're using the
correct notes
so i'll activate the scale feature in
this clip
and there we can see we've only used
these white notes here
okay let's start writing in our new part
so
these are the notes i wanted to play
as you can see there when it's playing
notes on my keyboard they're lighting up
in the midi note editor this also works
when using the computer midi keyboard
if you don't have a midi controller so
now
i know the first note i want to write in
is this f so i'm going to double click
to draw in here
the next note i want to draw in is a c
i'm going to draw this in
one eighth note away from this f
so the f is the first eighth note of the
bar the second eighth note starts here
two sixteenth notes are the length of
one eighth note
at the moment our grid is set sixteenth
notes
we know this because there's sixteen
beat divisions in this bar
right i'm going to draw the c here
the d on beat 2 of the bar
i'm going to draw a g just here
right let's hear that back
okay great i'm going to draw in a few
more notes now
right let's listen to this back
okay that sounds fine one thing you may
notice
each of these notes are exactly the same
volume
so in ableton live you can actually
adjust the velocity
of each note the velocity determines how
hard a note is played
so with a high velocity the note will be
played very hard
and will therefore be louder with a low
velocity
the notes will be played back more
quietly so to adjust velocity we need to
go down
this little window here if you can't see
it just make sure this arrow is pointing
out to the right
and that this top icon here is
illuminated orange
now if you hover the mouse over we'll
get this icon
and we can make the velocity window
slightly larger
so these bars here represent the
velocity for each note
as we can see they're all exactly the
same
now i'm going to adjust velocity for
some of these slightly so we can hear
the difference
[Music]
right let's hear that back
see it just sounds a little bit more
natural now the notes aren't all being
played back
at the exact same velocity little
changes like this
can make a big difference to your song
so far
i've only shown you how to play back one
clip at a time
but we can actually playback both clips
at the same time
if we press the play button over on the
right hand side here
this is the scene play button the scene
is the row of clips
so we can see the numbers on the side
here are numbering each scene
so when i play this back it's going to
play both of these
let's have a listen
notice when we're playing that back this
part seems to clash with the bass a
little
so what i'm going to do is turn this
midi clip into an eight bar clip
so we can add some more notes and vary
them slightly
so to do so i'm going to go over to
length here
click and then type in eight then when i
hit enter
we now have an 8 bar loop
now i'm just going to select these six
notes here
then hold option on a mac or control on
windows
and click and drag them over this will
copy all of the notes
now let's have a listen back
i'm going to press the master stop
button now to stop
all clips so i can listen back to this
clip on its own
once more
okay great that sounds fine now you may
have noticed when i copied those over
it didn't just copy the notes it also
copied the velocity information
so duplicating notes can be quicker than
drawing them in individually
as it saves you adjusting velocity once
again
right i'm just going to show you another
way that you can copy your notes
so i'm going to press command a on mac
or ctrl a on windows
to select all of my notes now i'm going
to press
command c or control c on windows
now i'm going to go and click at the top
of the bar here
in this gray area to set the marker to
this point
now when i press command v on mac or
control v
on windows it will paste them to this
new position
all right so let's listen back once more
now we've got the exact same part once
again
i'm just going to change a picture of
this note here so it fits with the bass
part a little better
so i'm going to move it up to a g
i'm going to paste these again once more
at bar five
so i'm going to click on this dark gray
area here to set the marker
and press paste once again which is
command v on a mac or control v
on windows and this time i'm just going
to
move that first note once again but up
to an a
let's go to bar seven and paste again so
i'll click here
and press the command v this time i'm
going to move this first note to a b
and now we've got an eight bar loop so
let's listen to this back with the bass
by clicking on the play button on the
scene
right that sounds much better we've now
got an arpeggiated part
in time with our bass
okay so now we've written in a couple of
musical parts you should have a basic
understanding of midi
now we can move on to some more advanced
features
so a huge part of music production is
recording
in this video i'm going to show you how
you can record midi into clips
so first of all let's create a new track
so i'm going to go up to create and
select insert midi track
i'm going to add a new instrument and
this time i want to choose a pad sound
so this is going to be playing back some
long held chords
so i'm going to go to pax core library
devices instruments
and now i'm going to choose simpler
in here we have some pad sounds
so i'm just going to play a couple of
these back and see which ones are like
[Music]
okay that one sounds fine so i'm just
going to select the track that i want to
load it onto
and double click on the instrument
now this instrument is loaded onto this
track
now to record in we're going to need to
use the computer midi keyboard
or a midi controller so make sure your
computer midi keyboard is activated
by clicking on this icon up here so it's
illuminated
or alternatively make sure your midi
controller is set up
right so the first thing we need to do
is make sure we've got the track
selected that we'd like to record onto
and make sure it's record armed so this
icon here
should be lit up red
now if you place some notes on your
computer midi keyboard
you should be getting signal
alternatively if you're using a midi
keyboard
just double check with this
right one thing you may notice on this
track we actually have little circles on
the left hand side
so when recording midi into a clip you
don't actually need to create a new clip
first
all we've got to do is hit this record
icon and that will record midi
information
into a new clip if these are still stop
buttons
your track is not record enabled
notice when i hit the record enable
button on the other tracks
these squares turn into circles so that
is the track that is ready to record
when i press this record button we'll
hear the metronome clicking four times
right now i don't want to hear these two
clips being played back
when i hit record so i'm just going to
go and click on the stop
all clips button over here
okay so now when i hit this record icon
we're going to hear a one bar count in
from metronome
and then it'll start recording
you'll notice there when the counting
stopped the clip started recording
i didn't actually play anything until
after three bars in
so something you'll probably want to do
when recording is activate the metronome
so you can keep in time to turn the
metronome on
simply click on this icon here and this
will glow orange
the metronome will now continue while
recording
one thing to note so if you didn't have
any time before the clip started
recording
make sure you go into your metronome
settings by clicking on the little drop
down arrow here
we can select different options for the
metronome here we have our count in
so you can have none one bar two bars or
four bars
we can also change the sound and the
rhythm of the metronome
there's also a handy feature here which
says enable only while recording
so this means you'll only hear the
metronome when you're recording
you won't hear it during normal playback
right i'm just going to delete this clip
because i recorded the part in
very badly so i'll click on the clip
and press backspace if you do want to
hear your other clips while you're
recording
just press play on the scene on the
right hand side
and then press the spacebar to stop
playback
these clips will now be activated so
when i hit record
they will also play this is often vital
when recording
okay i'm now going to record in a chord
for eight bars
okay let's hit record
okay great we can see the notes here
that we've recorded in
one thing to mention if you do make a
mistake when recording
you can press command z on a mac or
control z on windows
to undo the recording right so let's
look at the midi that we've recorded
first thing you may notice is i haven't
actually played it bang on in time
it's not starting right at the beginning
you'll also notice
at the end we've gone past the eight bar
mark
so this clip is now too long so if i was
to play this alongside my bass and
arpeggio part
as this loop is one bar longer they
would not be looping in sync with each
other
so i'm just going to correct the timing
of these notes
so i'm just going to click and drag
these all to the start
[Music]
sometimes it's worth zooming in to make
sure you're accurate with this
the shortcut to do so is a plus button
on your keyboard
[Music]
i want these notes to all end right at
the end of this bar
[Music]
now what we need to do is change the
loop length so again it's exactly eight
bars this time instead of typing in
number
i'm simply going to click and drag this
back
all right let's play them all back
[Music]
together
[Music]
okay we've got another eight bar loop
which fits with our other parts
so it's the easiest way to record midi
into ableton live
i'm now going to talk through grid
settings
so if you open up the midi note editor
by double clicking on a clip
then right click on the midi note editor
and go down to this section here we'll
be able to see adaptive grid
and fix grid with a number of different
options
at the moment we're using an adaptive
grid setting
narrow this is the default
so if you notice as we zoom right in
we get finer increments where we can
snap notes to the grid
if i zoom back out again we'll see there
we have less and less increments
so right now this is the smallest note i
can draw in
but if i zoom in on that i can actually
split it up
over 16 times so this can be useful
as when you're writing in midi you can
make finer adjustments
to note positioning
so we do have other adaptive grid
settings and the amount of note
increments there are vary
depending on the zoom once again right
let's look at something else
let's look at fixed grid if i select one
32nd note on the fixed grid
no matter how much resumed we're always
going to have the options to draw in
notes in very fine increments
if i choose a different one for example
half a bar
you can see there we've only got two
grid markers in each bar
so if i double click for a note here
it's going to make a note that is half
bar in length
now if i show you another example
quarter note
then we can draw in four notes in each
bar
again it doesn't matter how much we zoom
in that is the finest increment we have
you can position notes to be in
different points
however it won't snap into the right
position like it would
if it was on a finer increment see now
we can have each note snap perfectly
to 1 8 of a bar
in this midi clip i could just set it to
four bars or even eight bars
because this is an eight bar clip and
each note is being held the whole time
so if i was to double click to draw a
new note in now it will be eight bars in
length
if i went over to this arpeggiated part
here you'll see there if we chose fixed
grid
on a large amount we just wouldn't be
able to draw the notes in
as finely as we need to so depending
what type of part you're writing in will
determine which grid setting you should
choose
this is why adaptive grid is often a
good option
so i hope you now understand how you can
adjust the grid settings in ableton live
i wanted to show you this before i go
over quantizing
as it should help you understand how
this feature works a little better
the next thing i'm going to look at is
how to correct the timing of midi notes
using quantizing
so first of all i'm going to record in
one more new part
i quite like the sound which we had on
this track so i'm going to duplicate it
to do so right click on the track and go
over to duplicate you can also use the
shortcut command d
on a mac or ctrl d on windows
now this new track will have the same
sound as this last one
i'm just going to delete this clip as i
don't need it
okay so we just need to set up the
recording once again
so if you're using a midi controller
make sure it's plugged in
set up in your preferences or if you're
using the computer midi keyboard
make sure it's activated up here
now select the track that you'd like to
record onto that's this one
and i'm going to press the record arm
button
now these are turned into little circles
so it should be ready to record
again just make sure monitor is set to
auto
now if you place some notes on your
keyboard
we can hear there that we're ready to
record right
i'm just going to go to my metronome
settings and make a little change
i feel like i'd rather have a two bar
counting rather than just the single bar
this will give me a bit of time to get
ready to start playing
i'm also going to turn the click on so
we hear it while recording
okay i'm just going to record this to
the click
and i'm not going to bother having the
other parts playing so i'm going to hit
record now and we should start recording
remember this time as we've chosen two
bar counting
we're going to have eight clicks before
we start recording
[Music]
okay let's have a look at our midi now
for some reason
it's really zoomed out so i'm just going
to zoom in a little bit
by using the magnifying icon
now while i show you quantization i'm
going to change my grid setting
so i'm going to right click and go down
to fix grid
and i'm going to choose eighth note so
these are the closest notes to what i
played
as you can see here i didn't actually
get it bang on
on any of these notes other than this
one
so let's just listen to that back
[Music]
it's not terribly out of time but it's
not bang on
so what we're going to do now is
quantize these nodes
quantizing is a quick way of correcting
mistakes in timing when recording
so to actually quantize these notes i'm
going to select them all
by pressing command a on mac or ctrl a
on windows
right click on one of the notes and
select quantize
we can see there the notes have now
snapped into position
this has worked very well due to the
settings i already have set
up i'll show you these now firstly i'll
press
undo so these notes are no longer
quantized
okay let's right click on this note
again and go to quantize settings
here we can change our settings to make
them more appropriate
depending on the part that has been
played so if we go to quantize two
we'll see it says current grid i'll go
over that in a moment
beneath this we've got a number of
different quantize options
so if i choose one 32nd note for example
these nodes are going to be quantized to
the closest
32nd note so if i press ok once more
it's worked for most of the notes but
this note here hasn't been snapped to
the position that i wanted it
let's press undo once again i'll right
click on the note and go to quantize
settings
or use the shortcut command shift and u
or ctrl shift u on windows
now if i choose a different value for
example quarter notes
then press ok we'll see here our notes
have jumped quite a long way
this is because they're no longer
snapping to the eighth note that they
were meant to be at
so for this melody that's just not
appropriate i've just pressed undo once
again
let's go back to our quantize settings
and look at something else
i'm going to select eighth note once
again as i know i want these to snap to
the nearest eighth notes
so if i press ok see there they've
snapped to these positions
now i'm going to use the shortcut this
time command shift new or ctrl shift new
now if i select end let's see what
happens
you'll see there the ends of the notes
have been cut or stretched
to the nearest eighth note each of these
notes
is now a multiple of an eighth note
so this is two eighth notes exactly so
is this
this one's three and this one's three so
this is really handy
if you want your notes to be an exact
length i'm just going to press
undo and show you the last setting then
i'll press command shift and u to open
up my quantize settings
or ctrl shift u on windows again
now we've got the amount so at 100
is going to snap exactly to the point
that you've set with the quantize 2
amount
if i reduce this however it won't
quantize the notes as aggressively
you can see these three notes here
haven't actually snapped all the way to
the beat
this could be useful if you want your
quantizing to be a bit less aggressive
and sound more natural
but for this part i want it to be exact
so i'm going to set this to 100
okay the last thing i want to show you
is the current grid setting
if you remember just before we started
quantizing we change the setting to
fixed grid
eighth notes if i change this to one bar
now for example
and then i quantize these notes
just double check we've got current
grades selected then i'll press
ok now each of our notes has been
snapped to the nearest bar
and they're all exactly one bar in
length if i press
undo and change grid setting to eighth
notes once again
then we quantize them
they're now snapped to the eighth notes
so
this current grid setting is really
useful
so i'll generally leave my quantized
settings on current grid
this means whenever i change my grid
setting i can have a look
see what's going to be most appropriate
for my part
and then i simply hit quantize and it
will snap to this point
now rather than opening up my quantize
settings every time i want to correct
the timing of a part
all i have to do is change the grid
setting see what looks like it's going
to be most appropriate for the part
and then i can simply hit command new or
control u on windows
and that will quickly quantize it so
just clarify
these quantized settings will now be
stored so next time you want to quantize
something with the same settings
you can simply press command u or
control u
and these settings will be applied so as
i say i generally leave the quantize
setting
on current grid then i can simply select
all the notes that i want to quantize
and then use the shortcut command u to
quickly quantize these
to that grid setting
great let's have a listen back with a
click and compare the quantized and
unquantized notes
[Music]
so that was quantized and this is
unquantized
[Music]
it all just sounds a bit tidier once the
part is quantized
i'll just press shift command z to redo
so the notes are quantized once again
right i'm just going to listen back to
this part with the rest of the song
firstly i'll turn off my metronome as i
don't need it anymore
i just want to quickly draw in one more
note here
and also if you look at the velocity
this note here
is way lower than the rest so i'm going
to increase this quite a bit
okay so this song now has some decent
harmonic ideas
as in we've got a bass part some chords
an arpeggio and a melody
next thing we need to do is add a drum
part and then we can start structuring
our song
one thing which i should do now which i
should have done before
is save this project it's really
important to just keep saving your
project
in case your computer crashes and you
lose all your work
so i'm just going to go up to file save
live set
as i'm going to name it trapsong
i'm just going to save this on my
desktop then press save
right now project is saved so if it
crashes we're not going to lose anything
so the next thing i want to do for the
song is create a drum part
honestly i'd usually do this earlier on
maybe even before i created the bass
part
but i just wanted to show you the basics
of midi before i went into a little more
detail
writing drums again some people prefer
recording drums in so they can get a
good feel for the track
but i've noticed a lot of beginners do
find it easier to program the drums in
first
right so i'm going to create a new track
i'm going to right click on this gray
space here
and select insert midi track now i'm
going to go over to my browser
go to packs core library
racks drum racks
and down under drum machines i'm going
to choose 808
core kit this drum kit should be
available
in most editions of ableton live you
don't have to use the same one
but i just quite like the sound of the
808 kit
there are a number of different drum
kits you can use which just have
different sounds
so feel free to use these if you wish
[Music]
right so i'm just going to drag this
over onto my midi track
okay next i'm going to create a new midi
clip
so i'm going to go out to my drum kit
double click
and it's created a new clip
i'm going to make the midi note editor a
little bigger for the moment
so i'm going to hover my mouse over here
and click and drag upwards
now we've just got a better view so you
notice how the midi note editor looks
very similar when programming in drums
as it would to a harmonic part the main
difference however
is we have the different drum sounds
listed on the keyboard on the left here
so this makes it really easy to know
where to program your notes
so if you want a bass drum i know to go
down here and draw a note down here
you can audition the sounds by clicking
on the keys
but again make sure this headphone icon
is illuminated blue
otherwise you won't be able to hear the
preview
so when i'm programming drums i'd
usually start off with a kick drum
then add the snare then the hi-hats and
then other percussion afterwards
so just like writing in other midi parts
you double-click to draw in a midi note
but there's another way to draw in notes
which can be very useful when writing
drums
and that is using the draw tool so to
access the draw tool
just simply use the keyboard shortcut b
so that's the letter b on your qwerty
keyboard
alternatively you go to this icon up
here which will turn the draw tool on
and off
again when it's orange it's active
so you'll see instead of a normal cursor
we've got this pencil
so all you have to do to draw a note
with this tool is click once
again you can edit the start and end
points of your note
but you'll notice if you click on the
middle it'll actually delete your note
rather than allowing you to move it
so there are pros and cons of using this
tool and just depends which you prefer
and it's all down to personal preference
whichever you find easier to use
something is really useful about the
draw tool however is you can click and
drag to draw multiple notes in
so if i click and drag on this hi-hat
part here
you'll see there i've drawn a note for
every increment of the grid
and again to delete you can click and
drag
this can be particularly useful for hi
hats as you can draw in a hi-hat part
really quickly
it's going to stop all of my clips and
play this clip back on its own
[Music]
see there we've already got a hi-hat
part drawn in
let's delete all of those quickly
now i'm just going to change the grid
setting so i'm going to right click
and choose different grid setting this
time i'll choose quarter notes
now if i click and drag you'll notice we
have a kick drum
on each beat of this bar
so depending on what grid setting you
have we'll determine the length of the
note that the draw tool writes in
i'm just going to draw a snare drum in
on beats 2 and 4.
i'm going to change my grid to eighth
notes and draw in some hi-hats
so as you can see the draw tool in
combination
with changing the grid settings is a
very quick way to draw in ideas
something else i'll mention now though
if you go back to normal cursor
you'll notice we can click and drag over
multiple midi notes to make a selection
[Music]
when using the draw tool however you'll
not be able to do this
as when you click it will simply draw in
a note
[Music]
so just bear this in mind when working
with the draw tool
right i'm just going to delete
everything in this clip i want to create
a new drum beat from scratch
i've now gone away and created a new
drum beat if you'd like you can pause
this video
and copy this from my screen the grid is
set to eighth notes
alternatively you can just create your
own drum beat
if you want to see me going through and
creating this drum beat or using some
more features
such as record quantization and midi
overdub recording
then be sure to check out the full
course which you can access via the link
in the description of this video
we've been looking at midi in a lot of
detail in the past few videos
but i just want to show you a couple
more handy features before we move on to
turning ideas into a song
so we're getting close now we have a two
bar drum loop but really i want it to be
a four bar loop so i can add a bit more
variation
so i could extend the end of the loop
just drag it out
then select all of my notes and copy
them over but there's a quick way of
doing this
all you've got to do is go over to the
left hand side of your clip here
and click on duplicate what this is
going to do is duplicate the clip
so it's twice the length right so now
we've got a four bar loop
the first two bars are exactly the same
as the second two bars
i'm just going to make a little change
to the hi-hats now just so we've got
that extra variation
so i'm just going to delete these last
five notes
so i'm going to select those ones and
press backspace
now i want to draw in some 16th notes
here so i'm going to change my grid so
it's on 16th note once again
it's going to double click to draw in a
couple of notes
i'm just going to bring down the
velocity of this second one very
slightly
so i'm going to hold command on a mac or
alt on windows
and then click and drag
now i'm just going to select these two
notes hold option on a mac or control on
windows
and copy them over
right for the last two notes i just want
two more eighth notes so i'm going to
copy these two notes
over to there so again i'm going to hold
option
or control on windows and drag
let's hear that back
[Music]
i just added the symbol in there because
i wanted it every four bars
now something else i want to do is match
the kick pattern
to our bass part so in this style of
music it's often common
to have the kick and bass part playing
the same rhythm in certain sections of
the song
so what i'm going to do is select my
kick drum notes
so i'll click on the note on the left
hand side and i'll select all of them
then i'm going to press command c on a
mac or ctrl c
on windows to copy them all
right now i'm going to open up my base
clip
here we can see our different base notes
now i'm just going to press command v
or control v on windows to paste the
kick drum pattern
into this bass clip
one thing you'll notice is it's actually
pasted from bar seven
so you may have realized i had a
selection made over here
so i'm just going to press undo now i'm
going to click at the very start of this
bar
now we know our notes are going to be
pasted at this point
you may just be able to see that white
bar see this one here
you can just see that it's right at the
start
so let's paste those in once more so
command v
now what i'm going to do is drag our
kick pattern up to the note of
f1 because that's where our bass note
should be
so i'm going to select all of these
notes and click and drag upwards
great now they've overwritten the note
that was there and we've got this
pattern
on the base i'll do the same for the
next three notes
this time i'm going to hold option on a
mac or control on windows
and drag them over to the a
[Music]
and finally up to the c
[Music]
right now our kick and bass should be
the same rhythm let's listen to it back
[Music]
so one thing you may notice is a bass
part sounds pretty weird now
because the notes aren't being held so i
just need to go in
and extend the length of each of these
notes
so i could do this manually and click
and drag individual notes
but this will take quite a while so
there's another feature that we can use
and that is legato so what legato will
do
is extend each note to the following
note
so i'm just going to press command a to
select all of my notes
then i'm going to hit this button over
here which says legato
see there all of the notes have now
filled out the gaps up until the next
note
let's listen to it back once more
[Music]
sounds much better one other thing i
just want to clarify
i'll just press undo if i select
individual notes
such as these i can use legato and it
will just do it to those notes
if i actually don't have any notes
selected in the clip
and then press legato it'll apply this
function to all of the notes
all right great we've now got a drum
beat and it's matching our bass part
nicely
so we've got good backbone for the track
right so as you can see we've only got
five tracks so far but we'll be adding
some more quite soon
it's probably time that we start
organizing our session
otherwise it can become a bit
overwhelming in the future
so i'm going to start renaming my tracks
and my clips
to rename a track simply right click
then you can go down to rename i'm just
going to call this base
now i'm going to change the name of this
track
first of all i'm going to solo it with
this button down here to make sure i
know which part it is
and play back
so that's my arpeggio part so i'm going
to right click
rename this arpeggio
you can do the same for this track so
i'll solo this
and play again
that's this melody part another way to
rename
is simply using the shortcut command r
or control r
on windows then you can simply type it
in you just have to make sure the
correct track is selected
something else i'm going to do is change
the color of this track because it's the
same as my arpeggio part
this will just make things easier to see
so you can right click
and then go down to one of these colors
just click on one of these
and that'll change the color of your
track you can also do the same
on the clips so i'm going to right click
and choose a different color
i'm going to rename my last two tracks
right i'm now going to give names to my
different clips
just help me remember what these parts
are i feel like the idea that i've come
up with
feels like a chorus so i'm just going to
rename this clip
chorus bass
you rename clips in the exact same way
as renaming tracks
i can rename this coolest arpeggio i'll
just call it arp for short
now our session is a little bit more
organized so let's start looking at how
you can use clips
to arrange your song ideas so clips can
be moved to different clip slots
on the same tracks or even move to
different tracks
so if i clicked and dragged this pad
clip i could drag it over to my arpeggio
track
again you can drop it in any clip slot
that's available
be careful if you drag over another clip
slot as you will delete the clip that's
already there
so i'm going to press undo moving clips
around can be a good way to try out
different ideas on different sounds
so clips can also be duplicated
sometimes you may want to use a very
similar part
in two sections of your song so that's
when duplicating is useful
to do so right click and go to duplicate
or use a shortcut command d on a mac or
ctrl d on windows
see now we have two of the exact same
clips on this arpeggio track
another way to duplicate is holding
option on a mac or control on windows
and clicking and dragging to a new clip
slot see there the little plus icon has
appeared
i'll just press undo i'm going to start
coming up with a bit of an arrangement
so i've already duplicated my arpeggio
and i'm going to duplicate this melody
right so the idea i've got is to play
these two parts
before i play the whole chorus section
i'm just going to order this slightly
differently
so i've got my intro section at the top
and my chorus section just below
so i'm just going to move all these
other clips down to the second scene
i could play this first scene back with
just these two clips
and then play the second seam back which
has the rest
i'll just hit stop quickly first to
disengage all of our clips
and then play my first scene
[Music]
okay our set is a little better
organized now
the next thing i need to talk about is a
quantization menu
as this will determine how your clips
are played back
so the quantization menu is this box
over here
as you can see it's set to one bar at
the moment
this is the default setting
whenever i play a clip or a scene it'll
be triggered on the downbeat of the next
bar
so if i play this first scene and then
the second one you'll notice it'll start
playing at the start
of the next bar
[Music]
again if i stop all of these and show
you another example
i start playing my bass back
[Music]
see there i press play on the drums part
way through a bar
and they started playing at the next bar
again if i were to press the stop button
during playback it'll wait till the
start
of the next bar to stop all the clips
[Music]
see it was flashing there for a moment
now if i go to my global quantization
menu
and choose none let's see what happens
[Music]
the clips will start and stop exactly
when
you press the start and stop buttons
they're not going to wait until the next
bar
so if we were trying to build up an
arrangement such as bringing the drums
first
then the bass the pad and the melody
it'd be extremely difficult
to get the loops going together in time
with each other
see that was all out of time if i was to
change the global quantization menu to a
different number
let's try four bars i'll just stop all
the clips once more
and start playing these back
individually
do
[Music]
see whenever i triggered a new clip it
waited until the start
of the next four bar loop so this makes
it a lot easier to add new clips in
and keep them in time with each other
again if i press play on this now
and then hit the stop button our
arrangement won't stop
until the end of the four bar loop
you can see the stop button was flashing
displaying it had been pressed
and it was going to stop at the start of
the next four bar loop
generally i'd recommend setting the
global quantization
to two or four bars as this gives you a
little bit more time
to press your clips so start playing
back at the correct point
you can shorten it to one bar if you
want as this way you can bring clips in
at different times
however as i say if you're a beginner it
can be easier to do everything
in four bar loops there are a number of
different options here so you can have
half bar
a quarter of bar an eighth of a bar etc
but it's going to get a lot more
difficult i'd recommend using one of the
longer settings
until you're more advanced user i'm just
going to leave it on four bars for the
moment
something else i want to mention quickly
is clip lengths
so you'll notice all of our clips loop
continuously
but if you remember some of these clips
are different lengths
so if we look at the melody part this is
only two bars in length
whereas the drums are four bars and the
base is eight bars
i'm just going to play these back
quickly
i've now paused playback have a look at
the track status display
where you can see these little pie
charts i'll play it back again and have
a look at the melody
the pie chart is going around way
quicker than the pad or bass part
[Music]
notice how the melody pie chart has
completed two rotations
in the time the chorus bass part has
completed half a rotation
so we can see the amount of rotations
with this figure on the left
[Music]
the figure on the right dictates the
length of the clip in beats
so this melody part is eight beats and
this one is 32 beats
there's eight beats in two bars and
there's 32 beats
in eight bars i just wanted to go over
that quickly
as it can be really useful to see how
far through the rotation your clips are
i've just gone away and added a few more
parts to this song
i've added a verse section which
consists of base
drums and a guitar part and i've also
changed the intro section
so it has some more variation from the
chorus
if you'd like to see all of these stages
in more detail be sure to check out the
full course
where i take you through step by step
building up this song
again you can find the full course from
the link in the description below this
video
i'm now going to go over the steps
involved when setting up for an audio
recording
so if you have an audio interface and an
xlr microphone
you can set these up to record in
ableton live you can also use a usb
microphone
or even a built-in microphone on a
computer however i would not recommend
using this last option
as the audio quality will be poor so
just to get you going quickly
i'm going to skim over how to get set up
so what we need to do is go into our
preferences
so on windows go to options preferences
or on a mac go to live and select
preferences
now navigate to the audio tab as this
second tab down here
if you currently do not have an audio
device selected you'll only see
these options at the top under audio
device
the rest of them may not be here now
what we need to do is choose our audio
input device
so this is going to be the input for
ableton live
so if you're using an audio interface
and an xlr microphone
in here you need to choose your audio
interface as the input
so for example i could choose audient
id22
this is my interface if your interface
isn't appearing in this list
go to the audio interface's official
website and download any appropriate
drivers
now if you're using a usb microphone
it'll also appear in this audio input
device list
at the moment i've usb microphone
plugged in and that's this here
blue snowball again if this isn't
showing up
you'll need to download the relevant
driver from the manufacturer's website
if you want you can use your computer's
built-in microphone
if your computer has one it should
appear in this list
if you're using an audio interface and
you have studio monitors
or headphones plugged into the interface
you can choose your audio output device
here
you can just have your headphones
plugged straight into your computer but
if you're using an audio interface
you may as well select that as the audio
output device in this list
right now i need to leave on telestream
audio capture as this is recording the
audio for this tutorial
normally i'll choose my audio interface
which is id22
again if you're using a usb mic or your
built-in microphone or computer
choose built-in output on mac or if
you're using windows
choose your appropriate output this
could be an seo device
your built-in speakers or a windows
audio device
if it was already working fine don't
bother changing this
okay so your audio interface or usb
microphone should now be set
up i'm just going to add my input as the
id22
okay so that's the bare essentials to
set up your microphone so you can record
within ableton live
now we have our microphone set up we're
almost ready to record
so let's just get our session set up
firstly add a new audio track so i'm
just going to right click in this blank
space here
and select insert audio track now
i'm just going to set up the input if
you're using external interface
plug your microphone into input 1 and
turn the gain dial up about halfway
if you're using condenser microphone
make sure phantom power is turned on on
your interface
there's usually a button with a plus 48v
icon
near the input gain dial that's the
phantom power
if you want to record a guitar or an
external instrument such as a
synthesizer
plug this in instead again if you're
using a usb mic
make sure the gain dial is turned up or
if using the built-in mic on your
computer
go into your sound settings and make
sure the mics input volume
is turned up now i'd recommend using
headphones rather than speakers
to avoid getting any feedback so what
you need to do next is record enable
your track
you may notice here i'm getting some
movement when i speak
that's because my microphone is plugged
into input one i'm actually going to use
a synthesizer for this recording
rather than a microphone just so it's
easier to distinguish between my voice
so if you're using input 2 or another
input in your audio interface
just choose it from this drop down box
here
now when i play a note on my external
instrument you'll see that's lighting up
okay so now we've got our input set up
let's just hit the record on button down
here
notice my monitor is set to off at the
moment but i'm just going to play back a
note quickly
and we can see there those grey bars are
indicating this track is receiving
signal
now what you need to do is set the input
signal for your microphone
so at the moment when i play a note
you can see this meter is reaching
around -12
and that's actually quite a good
starting point if i turn it up too much
you'll see there it's reaching the top
it's going red and it's clipping
when clipping occurs the audio signal
will distort
and damage the quality of your audio so
if at any point your signal is clipping
you need to turn down your microphone's
input
right now i'm just playing a note on my
synthesizer and turning down the gain on
my audio interface
there the loudest point of the signal
was around minus six
i'm just going to turn it down a tiny
bit more and sometimes when you're
performing
your signal may increase slightly so i'm
just playing a note again and turning it
down a tiny bit more
right this should be fine now i'm going
to turn monitor to auto
and we should be able to hear what i'm
playing in
[Music]
so the sound you're hearing there is a
sound of a synthesizer
being plugged into my audio interface it
is set up in exactly the same way
as using a microphone i've gone into one
of the inputs on my interface
and adjusted the input gain just as i
would if i was using a microphone
if i swap this over to input number one
you'll now be able to see signal
whenever i'm speaking
i'm going to put that back to input 2 as
i don't want to record my voice at the
moment
now if you're recording your voice with
microphone or even another instrument
and you don't want to hear it back in
your headphones then just turn monitor
to off
it will still record but you won't
actually hear it being played back in
your headphones
this is down to personal preference some
people like recording
being able to hear what's going into the
computer whereas other people do not
something else i'll mention quickly now
if you've got monitor on auto
and you can hear your voice being played
back in your headphones if there's a
slight delay
you may need to reduce the buffer size
on your computer
so to access that we need to go back to
audio settings once again
so on windows go to options preferences
or on mac go to live preferences
now go to the audio tab you should be
able to see this buffer size
so the shorter the buffer size the less
latency you'll have when recording
so if i have a shorter buff size
there'll be less of a delay
between my source going into the
microphone and also actually hearing it
back
through ableton one problem with doing
this
if you reduce the buff size too much it
could cause your computer to crash or
glitch
so just try out different settings the
lower you go
the less latency you'll get the higher
you are the less strain your computer
will be put under
however there will be more latency
i'm going to leave mine at 128 for the
moment
generally when recording i'd recommend
having the buff size as low as your
computer can handle
but when you're mixing you may as well
increase the buff size to its max
as it will allow you to use more plugins
right what i'm going to do now
is record in a bass part so i'm going to
make sure my track is record enabled
i'm just going to turn monitor to auto
mode now so you can hear it back while
recording
i want to record this part along with
the other clips in the track
i'm going to make sure they're active by
pressing the scene button here
and then pausing now when i hit record
these will play along with the recording
i'm going to check what my counting is
quickly
right we've got one bar and i don't
really need a metronome anymore
as i've got my drum part
right let's record
[Music]
okay i recorded in a simple bass part
just doubling the bass that we've
already got
let's have a listen back to it
[Music]
okay that sounds fine but the timing is
a little off
in the next video i'll look at
quantizing this piece of audio
something i want to do quickly first
though is just double check the length
of my loop is correct
here i want it to be 16 bars in length
so let's double check that's exactly 16
so it's the same as our original base
part
right as you can see once you're all set
up recording audio
is just as easy as recording midi
editing audio
is a little more difficult but we'll
start looking at that next
i'm not going to go over audio editing
in a lot of detail at the moment
as there is a lot you can do for now i
just want to show you the basics
right just to show you some extreme
examples of audio editing
i'm going to record in a different bit
of audio so i'm just going to record in
some clicks and claps
i'm going to stop all my clips and just
record this into a new clip
in my audio track i want to use my
microphone for this recording
so i'm going to change my input to the
input that my microphone is plugged into
or my interface which is input one
one thing i didn't mention in the
previous video if you can see
input one slash two that's a stereo
input
so you can use both inputs one and two
at the same time
don't worry about this for the moment as
if you've only got one microphone you'll
be recording in mono
recording in mono requires you to use
one input
for example input one if you record in
stereo with one microphone
you'll only hear the audio signal coming
out of one side
so you'll hear it either in the left or
the right depending on which input your
microphone is plugged into
right so i'm going to turn my metronome
on change this to input 1 and then start
recording
as you can see there it was clipping
quite a lot so i'm just going to try
once again
so i'll just press undo to get rid of
that recording
okay so i just recorded in some claps
there let's listen to those back
right you'll notice they're not quite in
time with the click
now sometimes when you're recording into
a clip you might want to try out a few
different ideas
and that's what i did here i was just
changing the rhythm of the clap
i've decided i don't want anything up to
this point here
so i can change the length of my clip
so it's starting at bar six now and it's
only three bars in length
let's zoom in a little bit
right so this is the part that i want to
work on let's hear that back
okay it's very out of time with the
click now something i want to show you
quickly
see at the moment our clip is starting
at bar six
what you can do is actually change where
beat one of bar one is
within your clip so just zoom in to
around where you want beat one
so i'm going to right click and go up to
set 1.1.1 here
now we can see this is beat one of bar
one
anything before are minus numbers
it's going to drag this so my clip
starts at the same point
so now i can have a two bar clip
starting at bar one
in this situation it wasn't vital but it
can become quite confusing
if you're starting a clip at strange
point
now something else you can do is delete
any audio before your clip starts
all you have to do is right click in the
sample editor and select
crop sample now it's cut out the other
audio and just left us with this shorter
clip
let's drag this back so it's two bars in
length as well
so now it's ending at the start of bar
3.
right so that's how you can start
tidying up your recording let's listen
back to it now
so like midi we can quantize audio just
be aware
it's not quite as flexible as quantizing
midi
i'm just going to open up this bass part
that we recorded recently
and now i'm going to use the quick
quantize option to quantize my audio
so i'm just going to zoom in a bit
here we can see our grid is on an
adaptive setting
i'm going to change this to quarter note
this way when we quantize it i'll have a
better chance of each these notes
starting on the bar
right now i'm going to press quick
quantize shortcut which is command u
on a mac or control u on windows
we can see there these notes have all
been moved into time
something else you'll notice is these
little orange markers have appeared
these are what we call warp markers
these basically points ableton has
assigned
whereas notice there is a transient a
transient is a spike in audio
so the transients here are the start of
each of our notes
we can actually click and drag these and
move them around if we like
so we could even change the rhythm of
this part let's listen back to it see
those notes are all starting on beat one
of each bar
i'll just press undo so we can listen to
it unquantized
and i'll press redo now
so in this situation it's done a really
good job
right let's look at the other piece of
audio we recorded
now i'm just going to press command you
once again to quit quantize
now we'll listen back
so the last three notes have been
quantized perfectly in time but this
first one hasn't
that's because you may notice this warp
marker isn't actually
in time with this transient i'll zoom in
a bit more so you can see
see there the warp marker is at the very
start of this clip and isn't actually on
this note
so what we can do is actually draw in
transient markers
there's a couple ways of doing so i can
right click on this little gray area
here
and select insert what marker
now it's added a new warp marker we can
delete them by right-clicking
and going up to delete so now a warp
marker is gone
alternatively you can double-click up
here and add a new warp marker
one thing to note since i've added that
new warp marker i'll still need to
quantize it
and also when adding warp markers i'd
always recommend zooming right in
to make sure the warp marker starts at
the point where the audio crosses this
line in the middle
so that is about there i could even
delete that one
and move it over very slightly i might
draw it in here
so i'm just going to double click if you
double click it'll just draw in one warp
marker
whereas if you right click you'll add
more warp markers wherever it thinks it
needs them
okay i'm just going to try quantizing
again
so i'm going to use keyboard shortcut
command u
that one has been quantized correctly
but you'll notice this one still hasn't
so i'm just going to select this warp
marker i'm actually going to click and
drag it to the position i would like
see there it snapped back to the start
of the bar let's listen back once more
that's perfectly in time with our grid
now a couple more things i want to
mention quickly
if you're unable to draw in warp markers
you just need to make sure that this
icon here
which says warp is active see when i
take that off
all of our warp markers have gone and
this clip will now be out of time
so make sure this is enabled something
else you need to do
if you have to click on the warp icon is
make sure you re-engage
loop because right now this clip is no
longer going to be looping
so the clip will only play through once
sometimes you may want to do this but
right now i don't want to
so i'm just going to select loop now
when i play it back again
now another thing i'll mention very
briefly is warp mode
so ableton will do its best to try and
quantize your audio
in the most subtle way possible but
there are a couple of different settings
you can try
depending on the type of audio now when
working on percussive parts
you want to have warp mode set to beats
this is the most appropriate setting for
when working with percussive
sounds however if i was quantizing
something harmonic
for example this bass part if it starts
to sound a bit strange
you may want to try using a different
setting for example tones
now i'll just open up the quick help for
a moment
if you're ever unsure of what type to
use just hover your mouse over this box
and it will give you a brief description
of the different warp modes
it's not always essential to do this but
if you've noticed your audio starts have
some strange artifacts
try out a couple of these different
types i'd recommend looking at beats
tones and texture first
something else i'll mention is you can
actually warp any audio file
so if you've chosen a sample from the
browser you can use these warp modes to
actually quantize it so it matches with
your project
you can even move notes around change
your rhythm
right so that's the very basics of audio
editing and that should be enough to get
you started
okay i've just gone away and added a
number of new parts using the skills and
techniques i've already shown you
if you'd like to see me going through
and adding in all these new parts then
make sure to check out the full course
we can also download this ableton live
set
okay so now we've got our ideas we need
to finally turn them into a song
so we need to do this using the
arrangement view
that is this view over here you can
access it by clicking on this button
or by pressing tab on your keyboard
some people prefer to just use the
arrangement view to write music
this is how many other digital audio
workstations are used
however using clips is a great way of
writing music and a big part of ableton
live
so generally i'd recommend coming up
with your ideas in the session view
then putting them into the arrangement
view so just like in the session view
we can record or edit midi and audio
we just go about in a slightly different
way
so the way i'd recommend you get your
clips into the arrangement view
is by recording them in this can save
you time
allows you to perform your clips in the
order that you'd like them to be in your
song structure
so i'll quickly show you how you can
record into the arrangement view
first of all have a look at your global
launch quantization menu
i'd recommend choosing one two four or
eight bars
i'm going to leave it at four bars for
the moment as this can make it easier to
play back your clips at the right time
now make sure none of your tracks are
record enabled
so if any of your tracks have the record
arm button lit up
just click on it so it's disengaged now
the last thing we need to do
is hit record so if i hit record now
it'll start recording straight away if
you have a count in
it'll go through accounting first but
the way i'd recommend you recording
is holding shift and then clicking on
this button
so what will happen now is ableton live
will wait until you play your first clip
or scene back
and your recording will commence this
means you'll always be able to start
your recording in time with the timeline
one thing to note you don't have to play
back your clips or scenes in any
particular order
experiment playing different clips back
at different times to come up with an
interesting arrangement
right i'm going to record some of my
clips into the arrangement now
everything is set up so all i have to do
now is play a clip or a scene
[Music]
do
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
okay once you've stopped all your clips
stop recording by pressing the stop
button at the top
or the space bar now let's have a look
at our arrangement view
as you can see here our clips have been
recorded into the arrangement view
in the order that we played them back
now one thing to note if i try and play
this back now
we're not actually going to hear
anything that's because we need to press
the back to arrangement view button
so we can see the timeline cursor moving
along the timeline
however we're not hearing anything once
you press this button
you should be able to play this
arrangement back and it won't be grayed
out anymore let's have a listen
okay great we can hear our arrangement
so as you've probably guessed the
timeline
is this at the top here we can see the
bar numbers running along the top
and at the bottom down here we can see
the time
we can zoom just like in the midi note
editor by hovering over the top to get
the magnifying glass icon
then you can click and drag you can also
zoom using keyboard shortcuts
plus and minus
the tracks are listed down on the side
here so they're just the same as in the
session view
but flipped sideways now something to
mention
if we go back to the session view and
place some of our clips back
[Music]
when we go to the arrangement view again
you'll notice that the tracks that were
played back
have been grayed out so when i try and
play my arrangement
[Music]
you'll notice it's just playing back the
clips that were activated
in the session view so again you'll need
to press the back to arrangement view
button
you can also access this button down
here on the master channel
see how it's lit up orange at the moment
once i press it
it goes gray and now we'll be able to
play back our arrangement
[Music]
to play back the arrangement from the
start press the stop button at the top
here
if you want to select another place to
play back the arrangement from
simply click somewhere on the timeline
now when i press play
it'll start playback from this point
[Music]
again you can play and pause by using
the spacebar
okay so that's my favorite way of
getting my ideas from the session view
into the arrangement view there are a
couple more ways that you can do so
which i'll show you shortly the next way
i want to show you
is by simply dragging and dropping clips
in
so what you can do is simply click and
drag a clip
from the session view over into the
arrangement view
so just click a clip drag it over and
hover it over the arrangement view icon
you can now drop that clip into the
arrangement
you can actually drop it onto any track
so make sure you choose the right track
another very similar way of doing so is
by clicking and holding on a clip
and pressing the tab button so this just
jumps over to the arrangement view
now when i move my mouse i can select
where i'd like to drop the clip
you can also do this with multiple clips
so to select multiple clips
click and hold control on windows or
command or mac
and select any clips you'd like to copy
over
then you can either drag them over to
the icon and drop them in
or you do the same by clicking holding
and pressing tab
it's going to select all of these move
them down to the correct tracks
another quick way to move clips into the
arrangement view so i click on the one
you'd like to move over
and press copy so that's command c on
mac or control c
on windows then go to arrangement
select where you'd like to paste it just
by clicking on the timeline
and press paste so command v or mac or
control v
on windows you can see here the clip has
been copied over
another really handy feature is using
the scenes to copy clips over
so if i click and drag a scene over to
the arrangement view
when doing so scroll up to the top
instrument so you make sure you copy
all the clips are in the scene and then
drop it in
see now it's copied everything that was
in that scene into the arrangement view
i was going to delete all these ones
i've just copied over as i've already
got an arrangement here on the left
so that's how to get your ideas into the
arrangement view
now what we need to do is start working
on our song structure
in the arrangement there's loads of
stuff i need to teach you about editing
in the arrangement view which i'll look
at now
so we've previously looked at the very
basics playing
pausing and navigating around the
timeline
so just quick reminder you can play and
pause with the space bar
or the buttons at the top here and to
choose where you want to play back your
song from
click somewhere on the arrangement and
press space
hover over the timeline so this icon
appears then when you click
playback will start from this point now
something else i want to show you
is a loop feature this is really handy
if you want to listen back to a part of
your song
to make edits for example so to select
an area of your track to create a loop
just make a selection for example i can
make a selection by clicking on one of
my clips
then all i need to do is press command
and l on a mac
or control l on windows now this section
will loop over and over
to turn the loop off again simply press
command l or control l once again
you'll notice how this loop area is
grayed out
so i'll just make a small selection this
time i'm going to click and drag on a
blank space of the timeline
so now this section here has been
selected i'll press command
l and it's now jumped to this point if i
play the track back now
i'll loop this section over and over
[Music]
but if i press command l once again it
will no longer loop
[Music]
something else you might want to do is
just loop your whole track
if you want to loop the whole length of
your track simply click and drag from
the start to the end
or vice versa then once again command
l or control l and now your whole song
will be looped over and over
okay next i'm going to look at moving
clips around so
right now i'm not really going to
structure a song i'll do that in a later
video
i just want to show you a number of the
different features
so to move clips just hover your mouse
over the top section of a clip
then when this hand icon appears you can
click and drag the clip
see here i can click and drag it over to
the right or move it back to the left
you can also drag clips onto other
tracks so if i wanted to hear this part
on the bass track for example
i'll just drag it up to the bass track
now if i solder this track and play back
this part
so i'm going to select this clip then
press command l or control l
to loop this section
so that's the arpeggio part on our bass
track
i'll just move it back down to where it
was something else i'll mention quickly
if you want to duplicate a track you can
do so by dragging a clip
down to this area at the bottom which
says drop files and devices here
so if i was to click and drag this lead
guitar part down to that area
it'll just duplicate the lead guitar
track
now we have all the exact same settings
so we've got the same instrument
and if you had any plugins these would
also be loaded on this track
so this could be handy if you want a
duplicate of the same track
i'm just going to press undo to get rid
of this
right so back to moving clips around if
i click and drag on clips as you can see
they'll move forwards or backwards in
time you'll notice here they're actually
jumping and conforming with the grid
increments
so another way to quickly move them is
using the left and right arrow keys
again the clip will jump back and forth
on these grid increments
if you want you can move the clip in
fine increments by holding command
on a mac or alt on windows and then
using arrow keys
see there it's moving back and forth
very slightly
again if you were to move a clip with a
mouse if you hold command
on mac or alt on windows it'll do the
same and you'll be able to move the clip
in much finer increments generally i
wouldn't really need to do it in the
small increments
as i want my clip to be snapped in time
with the grid
i'm going to press undo a few times i'm
going to zoom in a touch
again by using the plus key on the
keyboard
as you can see when i'm zooming in my
grid amount is changing
that's because we're on an adaptive grid
setting so if you wanted to jump clips
back and forth
in smaller increments you can zoom in
and then when you use the arrow keys
it's going to jump in these fine
increments if you want to do this it's a
slightly quicker way
you could actually change the grid
setting so here i could click on one of
the fixed grid
or adaptive grid modes let's just choose
fixed grid for the moment
and here we're on eighth notes so as a
zoom out we can still see those eighth
note increments
a handy shortcut that allows you to
change grid increments quickly
is by holding command on a mac or
control on windows
and then pressing one or two right now
i'm holding command and pressing two
and we can see there the grid increments
are getting larger
so now we're on half nodes if i was to
hold command and then press one
or control and one and we've got much
finer increments on the grid
i'm just going to go back to adaptive
grid and choose narrow
so i've shown you how to move individual
clips but if you want to move multiple
clips at the same time
it's very easy to do so click on one of
the clips that i'd like to move
then hold shift and select another clip
that you'd like to move
now a selection has been made and i can
move all of these clips at the same time
again this works with mouse or the arrow
keys on your keyboard
you can do this with clips on multiple
tracks as well
this time to make a selection i'm going
to click and drag over the clips that
i'd like to select
now i want to move these the clips on
all three tracks will move
okay so that's the very basics now let's
look at copying
so this works in a similar way to
copying midi notes in the midi note
editor
my preferred way of copying is by
holding the option key on the keyboard
while dragging
so if i was to move this clip and hold
the option key at the same time
or control on windows we'll see that
plus icon appears
again just like copying midi notes that
has now been duplicated
i'll just press undo you can also use
the copy and paste feature
using command c or ctrl c
so i'll press command c now then click
where i'd like to paste my clip
and press command v so that's control v
in windows
now this clip has been pasted at this
point
so just remember you need to select
where on the timeline you'd like the
clips to be pasted
this can also be on other tracks so i've
now selected this pad track
and when i paste this clip is now on
this track
an even quicker way of doing so is
duplicating
so instead of copying and then pasting
you can simply press
command d or control d
the clip will be duplicated at the end
of the selection that have been made
one thing to note be careful when making
a selection
as if i highlight these clips here and
then press duplicate
as the selection ended at this point
here when we duplicate them
that's where we pasted so if i wanted
them to be pasted
right at the end make sure your
selection ends at the point you'd like
your clip to be pasted
so now if i press command d we've got it
pasted directly after the clip
again you can do this with multiple
clips so i'm going to select all of
these clips here
and then press duplicate but notice my
selection ends at this point
so this is where we'll be pasted from so
command d
or control d and there we are they've
been pasted from this point here
let's just press undo and try that again
this time i'll make sure my selection
ends at the correct point
now when i press command d they've been
pasted
right at this point at the start of bar
73.
i've just pressed undo again
another handy editing feature i should
talk about is making selections of clips
so as i showed you before if you hover
your mouse over the top section of a
clip
this hand icon will appear and you'll be
able to move the clip
if you hover the mouse further down and
click and drag
you'll see here you actually get a
selection made on your clip
this can be useful if you want to
duplicate just one section of a clip
so now when i press command d we'll just
duplicate this
end section of the clip if i keep
pressing command d it's going to keep
duplicating that same clip
now it's been selected if i click and
drag it
you'll see that it's actually separated
that portion of the clip
i could do this on this one here so i've
made my selection
then i'll hover my mouse over the top
part and click and drag and now it's
separated into another clip
if you want to separate a clip without
clicking dragging
click to make a selection this time i
won't drag i'll just click where i'd
like to make the cut
then press command and e on a mac or
ctrl e on windows
see that clip has now been cut into two
again this works for midi tracks as well
as audio
so that's command e to split a clip
a great feature for joining clips
together if you've got a number of clips
that you want to consolidate into one
is using the shortcut command j
so i'm going to quickly cut up this
chorus drums here into a number of
different clips
so i'm going to press command e make a
selection command e
another selection command e and so on
so now here we've actually got a number
of different clips
we could tell the different clips as the
name has been repeated at the start of
each clip
you can also see the black line showing
they've been cut
i'll zoom in so you can see that a
little better see these black lines here
if i wanted these clips to be one single
clip again
all you have to do is make a selection
so i'm going to select all of the clips
i'd like to join
and use the shortcut command j or
control j
on windows now they've been consolidated
into one clip
i'll just press undo another way you can
access a lot of these features
i've spoken about simply by
right-clicking
so don't worry if you ever forget these
shortcuts just right click and you'll be
able to see the options available
see here we've got cut copy paste
duplicate and further down here we've
got consolidate
so let's just press command j now and
they're joined back together
something else you may have noticed in
that drop down box then was deactivate
clip
so this is basically a way to mute clips
the shortcut is simply pressing 0 on
your keyboard
i'm going to click on it here and now it
says clip deactivated
so this clip will no longer playback
audio
we'll solo this track
[Music]
and we can now no longer hear anything
i'll just re-engage it by pressing the
shortcut 0
and our drums continue there's a lot of
information to be given in one video
but i just wanted to take you through
most of the different editing features
we can use on
audio and midi clips again if you forget
any of the shortcuts for these features
just right click on the clip and these
drop down options will appear
as i've seen this it's just reminded me
of one more feature that i wanted to
talk about
and that's the loop feature so instead
of duplicating or copying pasting
we can just loop clips so all you've got
to do
is hover the mouse over the top corner
of one of your clips
and when this bracket icon appears click
and drag it
see now this is looping the clip and
extending the length
if i do it at the other end we can also
use this loop feature
one thing to note you can actually
shorten your clips as well if you like
using this feature
so i could trim it down
i'm now going to show you some features
that are specific to audio editing in
the arrangement view
first of all let's look at fades and
crossfades
so these are something you can use on
audio clips in the arrangement view
they can be used to blend between two
audio clips or they can be used just to
remove any clicks or pops
at the end of your audio clip so if we
look at this audio clip we have down
here
you may be able to notice when i hover
the mouse over it we get these boxes in
each corner
now you may also be able to tell there's
a slight grayed out section
at the beginning and end of the clip
this is just showing us that that's
where our fade is
so by default fades are automatically
added to audio clips on the timeline
this has just stopped them clicking or
popping
right if i play this back we'll be able
to hear this note
something gets cut off
now if i hover my mouse over this box in
the top corner
and click and drag over the audio clip
you'll see there we've changed the
length of the fade now if i play back
you could hear there it was more
gradually fading out
if you want to change the shape of the
fade you can do so using this little
node in the center
so i can have it very gradually fade and
then drop down suddenly
or the opposite
so you can just click and drag this
around and find a shape that you like
now if you want to change the end point
of your fade you can do so
using the box in the bottom corner so if
i click and drag on this little box
we can have the fade ending earlier or
later
one thing to note this is different to
changing the length of your clip
when this bracket icon has appeared
if i were to click and drag and change
the length of the clip now
you can see there the fade was actually
moving with the clip
i'll just press undo
whereas if i do it with the little box
at the bottom you'll see there the start
point of the fade
hasn't actually moved so depending on
what you're doing
having the flexibility to be able to do
both of these can be very useful
now if we go to the start of this audio
clip
you'll be able to see we have the exact
same options so if you want to increase
the length of the fade
click and drag the top box you can
change the shape
by using this node in the center or
choose the starting point your fade with
the box at the bottom
i'll just press undo next
i just want to show you how to use a
crossfade so i'm just going to cut this
clip into two
i'm going to click to make a selection
on my clip and press command in e
or control e on windows and it's cut
this clip into two
now i'm going to change the length of it
and drag these two parts near to each
other so
if we play this back
we're jumping suddenly between the two
different notes
a crossfade allows you to do this more
gradually
a quick way to create a crossfade is
select the clips that you'd like to make
a crossfade between
so i'll click on one to make a selection
then hold shift and click on the next
clip
then if i right click on the clip i can
select create crossfades on clip edges
or you can use the shortcut command
option f on a mac
or ctrl alt and f on windows
now this has created a crossfade it's
only a very short crossfade
at the moment you can change the length
of your crossfade
just like a normal fade
so i'll do a quite long crossfade this
time
i'll play this back
so we can hear it gradually blending
between the two notes
listen to how different that sounds to
when it's a really short crossfade
so these can be really useful if you
want to seamlessly blend between two
clips
you can also create a crossfade in a
different way if your clips are right
next to each other
like this see here we've got the fade
out and the fade in and the two separate
clips
if i click and drag this fade out over
to the next clip
that also creates a crossfade this will
only work if the clips right up next to
each other
again i can do it the other way by
clicking on the fade in and dragging it
back
over to the previous clip also don't
forget you can change the shape of your
fade
by clicking and dragging on the node in
the center
okay so that's a handy editing tip
it's going to press to undo a few times
it says clip goes back to how it was
now something else i want to show you is
how to time stretch an audio clip
on the timeline now the first thing you
need to do is open up your sample editor
and make sure warp is selected
if it is it'll be lit up orange
now all you have to do is hover your
mouse over the top corner
of one of your clips and hold shift
now when you click and drag it it'll
actually time stretch the audio
so if i click and drag it all the way
over here
this clip will play back at twice the
speed
so if i press undo
you can see there it's time stretched it
and it still sounds pretty good
you may need to play around with a
different warp mode depending on the
type of audio you're working with
however for now that sounded fine
again if you wanted to slow something
down just hover over one of the top
corners
then click and drag so it's really handy
creative editing feature that you can
use in the arrangement view in ableton
live
now one final editing feature that you
can use in the arrangement view
is reversing audio clips
so i'm just going to shorten this clip
once again i'm going to make it really
fast this time
[Music]
right so to reverse an audio clip simply
select the clip that you'd like to
reverse
then hit the letter r on your computer
keyboard
or you can reverse it back again
[Music]
if you like you can reverse just a small
section of an audio clip
so just click and drag over the lower
half of an audio clip
then use the shortcut r and it reverse
just this section
you'll see there it's actually cut this
up into two different clips
this doesn't sound particularly
interesting on this simple bass note
however if you have recorded a guitar or
a vocal reversing it can sound really
good
so that was just a few quick audio
editing features that you can use in the
arrangement view
in ableton live 11. now i've gone over
all the basic skills you need to create
music
i'd like to show you how you can export
a song out of the software so it can be
shared or listened to on other devices
so to export your song you first need to
make a selection of the area that you'd
like to export
so in the arrangement view press command
in a on a mac
or ctrl a on windows and then set your
loop with ctrl
l or command l
now one thing you should do you'll
notice that the loop starts
at the very beginning here but it also
ends at the very end of our last clip
if i was to play back the very end of
this song i'll just turn my loop off
quickly
you'll notice there there was a couple
of seconds where the final note was
ringing out
so if we were to end it at this point
here
it actually cut off the very end of your
track so just stretch out the end of the
loop
so it doesn't cut your song short
i'll just play this back and see if
that's far enough
okay that's plenty i'm just going to
bring that back one bar
okay now i'm going to make sure my loop
is active once again
and then i'm going to go up to file
export audio
video and now this menu will open up
by default this is the settings that
you'll be given
so here i'm going to change the file
type so that's a wav
file this is just the most common type
of audio file
the other thing you can do is enable mp3
so this way you'll have a high quality
audio file which is the web file and
they can also have the lower quality
mp3 file if you wanted a smaller file to
send around
okay that's it i'd recommend copying
these settings
and then press export now you can give
your audio file a name
someone's going to call this trapsong
and you can choose where you'd like it
to be saved i'm going to leave it as
desktop for now
so ableton will take a couple of minutes
to bounce this audio
and once this is done you'll be able to
find the audio file in your selected
destination
okay so it's as simple as that that's
how to export a song out of able to live
so as we mentioned before this youtube
video is condensed down version of the
first part of our complete ableton live
course
here we go over many more topics of
music production such as
advanced recording methods mixing
automation using ableton's instruments
warping audio midi effects music theory
songwriting tips and much more so if
you've enjoyed this video and you'd like
to continue learning with us
then make sure to check out the full
course in the link in the description
below