Blog Three: Creating Variations Of My Clips

I’ve decided that I need to edit my clips to add a bit of variation.

The first piece of audio I want to edit is a sample which is 8 bars long. The second half of it clashes with the other instruments so I going to loop the first half. To do this I go into the clip view and take the start and end markers and the loop braces and set the start at warp marker 1 and the end at warp marker 5.

I created a variation of this clip by copying this newly edited one and pasting it in a clip slot below. This time I kept the start and end markers in the same place but moved the loop braces within the audio. This means that when the audio is triggered it will play the sample through and then loop the area I’ve selected with the loop braces.

I then wanted to change how fast the sample is triggered i.e. does the sample trigger on the nearest quarter beat when I click the clips play button or does it wait until the start of the next bar? To do this I go to the drop down menu under Quantisation in the launch area of the clip view. I like to use the bar setting when using this as it keeps everything in time, there’s no accidental parts coming in on the off note.

I decided that was enough editing on that part for now but there is another part I wanted to edit. I have a Jazz Saxaphone part which I would like to edit. I thought I would try reversing. To do this I double clicked the clip and simply hit the little rev button in the sample section of the clip view. It gave a very interesting result that I thought sounded good so I kept it in.

Here you can also transpose i.e. change the pitch, without affecting the length. I decided not to use the transpose on this piece of audio as it was in tune with the rest of the track already.

My final piece of editing for this session was on a section which I thought would sound good if it continually panned across the stereo field in quarter notes. To do this I used the clip envelope in the clip view. To get there you double click the clip and select the envelope section in the clip view. You then use the device choose to select the mixer and the control chooser to select panning. Using the draw tool you draw in the desired automation.

Blog Two: Editing Audio To Be Used In My Project

In this blog I’m going to describe how I’ve treated the audio clips I’ve chosen so they are ready to be used in my project.

As stated in my previous blog I’ve previewed some audio samples and imported them into the session view. Using these I’ve built up scenes which are the sections of my track. I also mentioned that I needed to edit one of my drum loops.

My main concern with the drum loop was that it wasn’t quite in time with the other clips. Ableton uses a process called warping where by it tries to guess the tempo of the sample and adds markers where it thinks the bars, beats and their subdivisions should be. Unfortunately it doesn’t always get it correct so you need to do some manual editing.

I double clicked the clip I wanted to edit and zoomed into the 2nd beat (1.2) of the bar to where one of Ableton’s warp markers was set. As can be seen it’s not quite on the beat, it could do with being moved to the left slightly to tighten it up. (Please click on the image to view)

Double clicking on the 1.2 marker creates an editable marker which can then be moved. (Please click the image to view)

Now the marker is placed here it also moves the other markers along slightly which tightens them up as-well. After checking and editing the rest of the audio file I was happy with the edited loop.

After I had done this edit I decided that I wanted to save the clip as it was. Using Abletons file browser I located the samples folder of my Ableton project and dragged the edited clip into it directly from the session view. This creates a new file that is recognised by ableton as a clip file rather than an audio file. (Please click the image to view).

Blog One: Key Elements in Ableton Live

In this blog I will be demonstrating how I’ve used Ableton Live to create, arrange and record parts of my tune. I’ve begun by previewing many audio files and picked out the ones I wanted to use.

From the browser view I’ve dragged and dropped the Audio files into the session view tracks which are the vertical rows .

I’ve then arranged these clips into scenes. These are the horizontal rows of clips. They are triggered and named on the far right. On the image below I’ve highlighted scene 6 red which is made up of 5 clips spread over 5 tracks.

After some experimentation I decided that one of my drum loops needed to be a little tighter. To edit it I have to go into the clip view by double clicking the clip. (Please click on the image to see the full view).

After arranging some of my tune I decided I wanted to record my arrangement and listen back. I set recording going and triggered my scenes one after the other in the order I wanted. To view what I have recorded I needed to go into the arrangement view.

After this I decided I wanted to save my progress so far. For this I went to File>Save Live Set As and navigated to my folder on the hard drive to save it. As an extra precaution I also went to File and selected collect all and save so Ableton puts all of my audio samples into my Ableton Live project. So now I have an Ableton Live Project folder which contains my Ableton Live Set plus a folder which contains my original and processed audio.

One thing I noticed when I had finished my session was this little icon in the top right corner.

To find out what it was I went to the info view in the bottom left corner.

Planning the end of module Project and Performance

My name is Simon Burgin and I am writing this Blog to document the preparation and creation of our end of module project. The Project involves creating a track in Ableton Live and performing it at the Media Centre on 07.03.08. I will write a track in the Trip Hop style, my main influences being DJ Shadow, Unkle and the production work of Dan The Automator.The track will be a minimum of 5 minutes, at this length I can create a detailed piece within the time frame given. I will specialise in the virtual instrument Operator because the Trip Hop genre primarily involves the use of samples and using this synth will give me the edge of originality. I will map the track within Ableton Live to a controller Controller Keyboard so I can perform it live. And I will use the inbuilt compressors, reverbs, EQ’s and other processors and effects to polish the mix ready for performance.,

The track will be a combination of samples and virtual instruments. I will convert the samples and MIDI information into clips and build these into scenes which will be sections of the track like intro, verse etc.

I will finish the track in 3 weeks giving me just over a week at the end to rehearse and polish the mix down of the track.