Using Ableton Live software package to produce music 3.1

3.1 Setting up a controller keyboard

The screenshot below shows various keys on a keyboard being assigned to trigger various clips, scenes and controls in Ableton.

The blue arrow shows the toggle button for opening the MIDI assignment screen.

The green arrows show scenes that can be started. The white arrows show clips that can be started. The black arrows show tracks that can be stopped. The red arrows show send and return controls for various channels.

The photo below shows the corresponding keys that have been assigned on the keyboard itself. The red arrows show controls that are linked to the channel sends.

The green arrows show keys that start clips playing. The blue arrows show key that start scenes playing.

Using Ableton Live software package to produce music 2.5 reprise

2.5 Review and evaluate the finished project against the original brief.

It’s now almost a week since I performed the project ‘Life in a Scottish Sitting Room’ in the upstairs bar at the Cotton Factory in Huddersfield town centre and I’m still getting calls from lawyers protesting at my abuse of copyright. I personally rate this as a success. You know you’re worth a ton of shmoola when the law suits start turning up in droves.

As previously recorded here in blogland, this performance bore no similarity to the original brief I gave myself. In fact it barely resembled the piece that I had prepared a week before the performance itself. Whether my constant changes in direction will be received constructively and positively will have to be seen. On the one hand, I could be accused of being impulsive, unplanned and unstructured. On the other hand it could be said that I was exhibiting spontaneous creativity.

The main thing to me is that I am now able to use Ableton Live software package to produce music. I will now be able to use Abelton for future studio based projects and I’m planning a live set using Ableton as a main accompanying backing instrument.

However, I’m unable to rationally explain why my performance project came out the way it did. Except to say that I woke up at 3 a.m. (three days before the performance) thinking about Ivor Cutler. So I got up, put fifty pence in the meter and hey presto, I spent a spooky few hours coming up with an ambient, atmospheric sound to accompany one of Ivor’s poems about his childhood. I was toying with racking it up into a dance piece, but then I remembered I had been scheduled to open up the show with a soothing ditty.

Ivor Cutler (1923 – 2006) was a unique performer, well worth checking out if you haven’t encountered his work previously. Go visit www.ivorcutler.org for more information.

Ivor would not have liked what I did to his poem. He remarked once when asked if he was a member of the Noise Abatement Society, “Yes, for years and years, it makes my life a great misery, noises. I always carry earplugs with me”

He would certainly have disapproved of the jet engine that starts the piece, quietly on the tarmac at first, but then at full take off throttle. I was delighted to see during the performance that the bar staff were glancing nervously at the array of liquor bottles stacked up prettily behind them as an F16 fighter jet flew in through the window looking out onto the street and out by the door to the toilets.

As far as the rest of the performance goes, I managed to mess up a whole section just by triggering the wrong scene at the wrong time. That was a shame as to my mind it took away a great deal of the tension and drama that I was hoping to create with the accompanying ambient noises I had prepared. As it happens I doubt that many people noticed.

The sound on stage was very peculiar, and I wished upon reflection that there had been a foldback monitor, so that I could have heard things a bit more clearly. It certainly would have helped me correct the wrongly triggered scene far more quickly than I eventually did. Also, I should have gone out to the front and listened to an arrangement of the performance so I could hear the balance myself. I wanted the vocals to be at the front of the mix, given that it tells a story that I wanted the audience to get drawn into.

In the soundcheck I was told that the vocals were too high, so I turned ‘em down a few notches. So I was dismayed when a couple of people asked me afterwards what it was all about. One feller thought I had prepared loops of native American Indian chanting. Ivor would have laughed his socks off. “Told you so”, he would have said.

It was great to see the other performers doing their pieces too and I felt for Irene whose show broke down, not once but twice, for reasons that we could not fathom on the night.

In a way, I’m not suprised a mishap like this took place. With half a dozen performers setting up different rigs and keyboards for six different shows it is perhaps inevitable that something goes wrong. To be more certain, you would want to take in your own rig, set it up, test it and then make sure that no-one else touches it. You’d also want a second back up tested rig sat waiting in the wings in case the first one gets stage fright.

I understand that pictures and a video of the performances may be available at some stage in the future.

Finally for now readers, I’ll be taking issue with the management over the non-appearance of my rider for this show. Very disappointing I must say.

Using Ableton Live software package to produce music 2.5

2.5 Review and evaluate the finished project against the original brief.

With just over a week to go before the project is due to be performed, it’s possibly a bit presumptuous to be evaluating the finished project. Not least because my project isn’t what I would call finished. Neither is it what I set out to do originally. But hey, when you have a deadline to get it done, you have to get that blog blogged.

First up then is to record that the original brief I gave myself was abandoned fairly early on due to technical difficulties that I chose not to overcome. Having elected to perform, record and play back loops of a live performance using guitars, vocals and some pre-recorded Abelton arrangements through a foot effects pedal, I was always going to be dependent upon the pedal having enough flexibility and capacity to remotely trigger events and actions in Ableton.

This transpired not to be the case and rather than spend a lot of time, energy and resources in finding a pedal that would meet my requirements, I chose the route of least resistance and started to look for different options.

At least I can claim to have identified this potential problem in advance of it arriving.

My initial alternative plan was to carry on with the same performance (which in itself was a cover version of someone else’s tune), but with all the instrument parts pre-recorded and arranged. I would still bring a vocalist with me to perform live. This plan drew little enthusiasm from the course tutor. It seemed that this option would not come up to scratch in meeting the originality and strength of ideas targets that this particular project requires. Although it wasn’t said as such, I think we were both thinking ‘karaoke’.

Not all was lost though. In preparing for the project I had already got to grips with sampling and cropping drum patterns, then creating multiple variations on the same sample. I also successfully used Ableton to set up and record the bass part for the tune. In addition, I had explored in depth the potential for assigning internal controls in Ableton to external MIDI controllers and keyboards.

Having arrived at the decision to abandon my original plan on 8 February, I was unable to immediately consider much in the way of a substitute project given that I had to unavoidably miss the following week’s sessions due to child care commitments for the half term period.

Given this delay, I opted to create a project that was simple in structure and premise. I experimented first with a MIDI based arrangement of Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber. This was a lot of fun and I leant quickly how to use MIDI arrangements in Ableton to play instruments in Reason. I also learnt how to use Ableton’s own instruments, particularly Operator and Impulse. However, given the slow tempo (73 BPM) of the track arrangement I had designed and perhaps concerned that my creative originality may be questioned yet again, I opted to abandon this as a project for this course.

Eventually though I chose to create a project that exclusively used audio samples, primarily beat based samples, using samba and latin rhythms and at a tempo of 130 BPM. I decided that I would use a small array of clips, with variations, and that to create tonal and melodic texture within the project, I would use an Ableton audio device called Resonator. To complement these basic elements I would also add in some atmospheric audio samples from a library of specially recorded guitar effects.

Once I began to experiment with a couple of clips, I quickly discovered that I would easily be able to use a MIDI keyboard to trigger various assigned settings and controls during the live performance of the project.

It was a relatively straight forward exercise to string together clips and scenes into a basic arrangement that would last for something in the region of five minutes.

Having done that, I’ve spent most of the time experimenting with Resonator and making sure that the atmospheric samples match the tuning that is created by rhythms running through Resonator.

I’ve also concentrated on pre-programming variations of some clips in advance of the performance. This will leave me to manipulate assigned control changes using a range of knobs, sliders and keys on the M-Audio Radium 49 keyboard that will be available for the performance.

I still have a small number of arrangement questions and queries to resolve in advance of the performance. I will need to go through these with the course tutor by 29 February.

I am still hoping to work with a live vocalist, but I will also prepare for a performance without a vocalist.

Critically though, I have an unavoidable prior commitment on the day of the performance and I will not be able to attend the final course session until approximately 4.00 pm. I need to understand what impact this will have.

Using Ableton Live software package to produce music 1.8

1.8 create default sections of a performance by collecting clips into scenes

The screenshot below shows the session view window of the project that I am preparing as a performance piece.

The master channel indicated by the red arrow on the right hand side of the page shows the names of four different scenes that have been created for this project.

The first scene named ‘intro 16’ for example, has been created to play for the opening 16 bars of the project.

When this scene is triggered, the four while coloured clips along the top row will all begin to play together, in time and at the tempo of 130 beats per minute (BPM), as shown by the green arrow.

Triggering the second scene called ’16 to 80’ would result in all the blue coloured clips on the second row beginning to play on the next upcoming bar. Once again, the clips will all play together, in time and at the tempo of 130 BPM.

The option to begin playing a new scene at the end of the bar currently playing has been set in the control bar option shown by the blue arrow. This could be varied by selecting alternative options as shown in the drop down menu visible in the screenshot.

There are also a collection of orange coloured clips, indicated by the white arrow, that have not been arranged into named scenes in the master track. The clips have been positioned to be triggered when chosen at various points during the live performance. The controls for each individual clip have been set so that the clip will play once when triggered, then stop. Once again, when triggered, these clips will begin playing in time and matching the tempo of the track.

The clips that have been arranged together into scene arrangements mainly tend to loop again and again while the scene is being played.

If you take a look at the track named ‘short clip’ indicated by the yellow arrow, you will see that the track contains a number of clips all called ‘short clip’.

These particular clips, although they contain exactly the same audio waveform, have different control settings and will sound and play differently at different times in the performance. This variation plays an important part in retaining the listener’s attention as the track develops.

The screenshot below shows some of the control variations for the white ‘short clip’ that will play in scene ’intro 16’.

The drop down menu indicated by the red arrow shows three controls that have had variations applied to them. They are all mixer controls. The first controls the volume of the clip. The second and third controls when the output from the clip is sent to a resonator effect loaded into a send and return track on the mixer.

The yellow bar in the drop down menu is currently highlighting the mixer track volume. The pink shaded area to the bottom right of the screenshot shows the volume being adjusted over the sixteen bar length of the scene.

The green arrows indicate the volume level gradually increasing from zero at the opening bar, until full track volume at the beginning of bar nine. Slowly rising and falling volumes are an important factor in this ambient based project. They can create a sense of appearing as if from nowhere. You can’t always be sure when they started, but eventually they can become a central part of the overall sound. Similarly as they fade away again, you can be left listening to remaining sounds in a different way.

This next screenshot shows the contrasting control variations for the blue ‘short clip’ that will play in scene ’16 to 80’. The drop down menu again indicated by the red arrow shows three controls that have had variations applied to them.

This time though, the green arrows can be seen to indicate the volume levels rising and falling over a sixty four bar period. In this case gradually increasing from zero at the opening bar, until full track volume is reached at the beginning of bar nine. This remains until bar nineteen where it begins to fall again down to zero by bar thirty two, rising again to full track volume at bar forty one.

Using Ableton Live software package to produce music

Recording into Ableton Live using the arrangement view – part one of my area of expertise

In the screenshot below, we can see an audio track being recorded in Ableton Live’s arrangement window.

The window can be accessed by clicking on the yellow icon in the top right hand corner of the screen indicated by the red arrow. Toggling between the arrangement view and alternative session view can also be performed by pressing the tab key on the keyboard.

This audio track called ‘new’ is recording a bass guitar that has been plugged into the computers soundcard. The track includes an input/output box indicated by the blue arrow. The box can be toggled in and out of view by clicking on the yellow I/O button shown by the purple arrow. The bass being played here is plugged directly into an external soundcard connected to the computer. The soundcard can be selected as the input source from the drop down menu of options in the input/output box.

The track has been prepared for recording, or ‘armed’ by clicking on the button indicated by the green arrow. When the track is armed to record, this button is red. The global record function indicated by the yellow arrow is also turned on.

The black arrow indicates the monitor box which shows that the signal being produced by the bass guitar is not exceeding safe limits. While the bar remains green, the signal is not creating digital distortion. The levels being recorded can also be measured numerically in decibel ratings.

The bass guitar can be seen recording into the track as shown by the white arrow.

Using Ableton Live software package to produce music 1.5

1.5 Record, quantise and edit MIDI clips

In the screenshot below, we can see a MIDI track being recorded.

In the light grey midi track called ‘bass section’ on the left hand side of the screen, the blue arrow indicates that the MIDI track has been armed to record. The red arrow shows the MIDI note registering on the volume control of the track as notes are being played on a computer keyboard.

Meanwhile, down in the clip window, the green arrow shows the notes being captured as they are played.

   

After recording, and if necessary, the MIDI notes can be adjusted to fit perfectly in time with the tempo of the track by using the quantise function.

In the screenshot below, the MIDI notes have all been selected and clicking on the right hand button on the mouse reveal a drop down menu with the yellow highlighted quantize option shown by the red arrow.

The blue and green arrows show that two MIDI notes have moved to the nearest bar beats in the track. The blue arrow indicates a note that last longer than the green arrow. The yellow arrow indicates the volume at which this note was recorded.

   

All these parameters can be adjusted if necessary. There are alternative ways to input MIDI notes into Ableton Live. The screenshot below shows that the pencil tool indicated by the blue arrow, has been used to draw in a series of notes indicated by the green arrow. The red arrow shows where the volume of the notes being played has been adjusted to be quieter at the end of the series of notes, than the beginning.

 

Using Ableton Live software package to produce music 1.7

1.7 Add appropriate processors in send and return mode

The in-built Ableton processors can be found in the audio effects folder in the file browser as indicated by the white arrow in the screenshot below. In this case a delay effect called Ping Pong Delay, indicated by the red arrow has been dragged and dropped into a send and return track (now called Ping Pong) indicated by the blue arrow. The send and return controls can be toggled on and off by pressing the yellow S & R buttons indicated by the purple arrow.

The Ping Pong Delay effect can be viewed in the device browser (indicated here by the green arrow) by double clicking on the top bar of the send and return track into which it has been loaded.

This processor will affect any track which sends it’s output via the send control indicated by the yellow arrow. The audio signal from the track shown can be seen arriving and playing in the Ping Pong track as indicated by the black arrow.

Using Ableton Live software package to produce music 1.6

1.6 Add appropriate processors in insert mode

The in-built Ableton processors can be found in the audio effects folder in the file browser as indicated by the white arrow in the screenshot below. In this case a preset compressor called Flattenator, indicated by the red arrow has been dragged and dropped into the track called kit indicated by the blue arrow.

The compressor can be viewed in the device browser (indicated here by the green arrow) by double clicking on the top bar of the track into which it has been loaded.

This processor will only affect the arrangements, notes or samples that are contained in this track. Unless it is turned off by the button indicated by the yellow arrow, the effect will be heard all the time the track is being played.

Using Ableton Live software package to produce music 1.4

1.4 Use a range of built-in Ableton instruments

The in-built Ableton instruments can be found in the instrument folder in the file browser as indicated by the red arrow in the screenshot below. Impulse, indicated by the yellow arrow is a drum sampler and in this case it has been dragged and dropped into the track called kit indicated by the green arrow.

Impulse can be viewed in the device browser (indicated here by the white arrow) by double clicking on the top bar of the track into which it has been loaded.

   

Waveform drum samples have been loaded into each of the eight available slots in Impulse by clicking on the orange hot-swap button shown in the first A-Kick slot indicated by the red arrow in the screenshot below.

This opens up a library of available waveform drum samples as shown by yellow arrow. These samples can be loaded into this slot by dragging and dropping from the browser, or by hitting the return key when the orange hot swap button is indicated on the sample of your choice.

Once loaded into Impulse, each sample can be further manipulated by use of some of the controls indicated by the green arrows.

   

Each of the samples in Impulse can then be triggered by playing the appropriate key on a MIDI keyboard, or even an assigned key on a computer keyboard.

In the screenshot below, Impulse is being driven by a pre-written MIDI arrangement.

The MIDI arrangement can be opened up in the clip view window (indicated by the red arrow) by double clicking on the clip view indicated by the yellow arrow.

The samples loaded into Impulse are visible here as indicated by the white arrow. The blue arrow indicates the MIDI notes that trigger hits in Impulse. The green arrow indicates the launch and notes options, which permit further interaction with the sounds that Impulse creates.

In the example below, another instrument device called Operator indicated by the red arrow in the file browser has been loaded by dragging and dropping into the track called bass sec indicated by the yellow arrow.

Operator is a synthesiser that uses up to four oscillators to modulate each others waveforms. The controls in this example, as indicated by the white arrows have all been used to manipulate to sound of waveforms that can be created by pressing keys on a MIDI keyboard. Effects and settings which are being used by Operator can be recognised by the orange shaded areas in the controls.

In the example below, the MIDI signals that are playing Operator can be viewed in the clip view window (indicated by the red arrow) by double clicking the clip shown by the yellow arrow.

The clip view in this example shows the clip envelope window (shown by the blue arrow) being used. The clip envelope is opened by clicking on the E button indicated by the green arrow.

A pencil tool indicated by the white arrow has been used to draw in variations in the pitch bend option as shown by the black arrows.

Using Ableton Live software package to produce music 1.3

1.3 Create variations on clips by utilising a number of techniques

Changing the start and end point of a clip is relatively straighforward. Moving the lower start marker as highlighted in the screenshot below will determine where the clip will start playing from when it is launched. Similarly, adjusting the end start marker will determine where the clip will stop playing.

Adjusting the upper loop start and stop markers will have the same effect if the loop function is armed.

The same clip can be manipulated in other ways. As shown on the screenshot below, simply clicking on the indicated Rev button has reversed the waveform. Adjusting the transpose option will alter the tone or key that the clip will playback at.

By opening the envelope option, the clip can be edited in other ways. As shown in the screen shot below, the volume levels of the clip have been adjusted by selecting the volume option in the drop down menu shown in the envelope window. Once selected, changes can be drawn in using a pencil tool in the pink highlighted area.