How does ableton live work

Plus there are Curated Collections, toolkits of curated sounds from selected scenes—Instrument Racks, clips and samples, designed to be molded and shaped into something new. Push is the best way to get hands-on with Live. Compose beats and melodies, slice samples and sculpt sounds. Mix your music and compose entire tracks, all without thinking about your computer.

And each update to Live brings new features that mean ever closer integration with Push. Capture ideas wherever you are and take them further in Live—use the new Export Live Set feature, now in a number of iOS apps. Check out the latest Export-enabled applications. Map knobs, faders and buttons to control nearly any parameter. Live works with any MIDI controller and includes instant mappings for a growing number, for instant playability.

See the most popular controllers. Ableton Link allows you to sync to Live wirelessly over a shared internet connection. Expand your setup and collaborate with others using Link. Analogik Bundle. Future Beat. Orchestral Ensemble Essentials. Japanese Taiko Percussion. Tricky Traps. Packs are add-on instruments, effects, loops and sample collections for use in Live. Each Pack is custom-made by premier sound designers, and the contents of the Packs are ready to use, license-free, in your own musical projects.

Discover more Packs available to buy and download Play video: The Max for Live Connection Kit lets you extend and interact with Live in new and experimental ways. You can use it to customize devices, create your own from scratch and even change the way Live works. Or open up a world of possibilities and connect to lights, cameras, sensors, surround sound setups and more. Use Live to pull your show together.

Control external hardware, integrate outboard effects or mixing desks. Improvise on your own, resample sounds in real-time, or process audio played by others. One of the things that makes Live so ideal for performance is its flexibility.

You can design your own unique combinations of instruments and effects, and use up to 16 Macro knobs to control any number of parameters. Find settings you like and save them as Macro snapshots for instant recall. On stage you can trigger, resequence and remix your music in real time. And use flexible MIDI mapping to set up almost any part of Live for hands-on tweaking with your controller. A producer and drummer duo show tempo following and Macro improvements in action.

Live listens to and adjusts its tempo based on incoming audio in real time, making it a dynamic part of the band instead of the tempo source that everyone has to follow. Some even go beyond sound: using Max for Live to control visual projections or light installations in sync with their music, connecting to sensors and much more. Live users from all over the world create amazing things and share what they know.

We sit down with artists from a variety of music genres to discuss their process and how they use Live to bring their musical vision to life. Our monthly video series in which producers, composers and other artists share bite-sized creative tips. Ableton User Groups are a great way to meet up with and learn from Live enthusiasts from all backgrounds and experience levels.

Ableton Certified Trainers are educators, producers, engineers, musicians and consultants who specialize in helping the world make music with Live. A summit for music makers where music, technology and culture meet.

The buffer size is measured in samples, and this is used to control how quickly Ableton can record and playback sounds. If this is too high, there may be a large delay between playing a sound and hearing it out of your speakers. If you set it too low, your computer has to work much harder. A good place to start is Samples. If you have strange audio glitches, you may need to increase this. Now that you're all setup, it's time to make some music -- go ahead and close the preferences panel.

The "traditional" approach in music software is to record tracks from left to right. Ableton has this ability, but what really sets it apart from other DAWs is the Session view. This arranges clips vertically, and allows you to trigger any clip in any order.

It really opens up creative avenues for making music, and you may discover a new arrangement of your song! Session view is most often used for remixing songs live. It can also trigger clips or songs in response to various events. If you want to record music the "traditional" way, Ableton has a built in Arrangement view that can be accessed with the Tab key.

Once in arrangement view, pressing Tab again will take you back to the session view. You can use arrangement view to record the output of a session or to record yourself or a band, and session view to remix your latest hit or experiment with a new arrangement. Switch back to session view. There are four main components alongside the controls at the very top. The leftmost section is for navigating and selecting project files, instruments, and effects.

This is called the Browser , and can be shown or hidden using the small arrow in the top-left corner. The Browser is split into two halves. The left side lists folders on your computer and Ableton's built-in folders:. These Categories are where you can search for the effects and instruments built into Ableton.

Underneath this is Places , where you can search your computer for files. The right side of the Browser is where you can navigate to specific files or folders within the category or place you have selected. The top section of the browser contains a search feature, which allows you to search in the selected folder for a particular sound, instrument, or effect.

At the bottom-left of the Ableton window is an information viewer. Hover over anything in Ableton, and this will tell you what it does.

This is extremely helpful, and can be a lifesaver in helping you learn. The bottom pane is the Effect Controls section. This is where you can configure any instruments or effects you have assigned to a track -- something we'll go into greater detail about later on. Finally, the remaining panel on the right is the session or arrangement view. This is where you will create and manipulate audio. Now that you know about the interface, let's make some music!

Ableton comes with several instruments that you can use to make sounds, or you can use the included samples , which are pre-recorded snippets of sound or songs. In session view, by default you'll see seven vertical panels. These will probably be called something like "1 Midi", "2 Audio," and so on. The final one of these is called "Master", and is the overarching master channel.

These default tracks are defined in Ableton's default project. It's possible to save your own default project so whenever you open Ableton you have a basic structure ready to go. But straight out the box, you get Ableton's default project. Before you can make any music, you need to understand the difference between tracks. MIDI devices and tracks are covered comprehensively later on, but for now, think of them as a way of generating a sound, like a keyboard or guitar.

Audio tracks are the opposite of MIDI tracks. These can play and record sounds from other devices such as a microphone or other device , but they cannot generate any sounds on their own. Finally, there are Return Tracks. These provide a route for processing audio and returning it back. Don't worry about these for now. Each track has the same basic structure. The top of the track is known as the Track Title Bar.

You can right-click here to change the name and color of the track. Underneath this are the Clip Slots. Underneath the clip slot is a mini control panel for each track. Here you can enable or disable the track, adjust settings such as pan or gain, and route audio from or to nearly any other place. The default values are sufficient for now. Go ahead and delete the two MIDI tracks and one audio track so you are left with one track.

You can delete tracks by right-clicking on the track title bar and selecting Delete , or by left-clicking the title bar and using your delete or backspace key. If you only have one track, you won't be able to delete it.

Open the Browser from the left hand side -- it's time to find some sounds! Underneath Categories , select Samples. Use the right side of the browser to search for some sounds you like -- Ableton comes with lots of samples, and each version Intro, Standard, and Suite comes with a different selection.

You can use the cursor or the arrow keys to select a sample, and doing so will play a preview of it. Most of these will be short sounds of people or instruments.

If you want something a bit more complex, select Clips from the Categories submenu. Clips are usually longer samples, but most of them won't preview when you click them. To hear a preview, select Click to Preview from the bottom of the browser. Once you've found a sample you like, drag it into an empty clip slot by clicking and holding with the left mouse button.

This will now show up as a clip. You can drag multiple clips onto empty clip slots, or drag them over existing clips to replace the old clips with the new ones. Video 11 videos. What You'll Learn in Lesson 1 31s. Overview of Ableton Interface 6m. Setting Up Hardware and Software 5m. Overview of Non-Linear Functionality 5m.

MIDI Sequencing 18m. Clip Properties 6m. Session View and Arrangement View 8m. Creating and Exporting an Arrangement 3m. Troubleshooting 4m. Reading 3 readings. Join Your Study Group 10m. How To Submit Your Projects 10m. The Ableton Live Interface 30m. Week 2. Video 7 videos. What You'll Learn in Lesson 2 26s. Recording Audio 9m. Warping and Stretching 13m. File Management 8m. Reading 1 reading. Polishing the Sound 28m.

Week 3. What You'll Learn in Lesson 3 28s. Serial vs Parallel 5m. Max for Live Devices 5m. Final Project Overview 1m. Course Wrap-Up 15s. Reading 2 readings. Ableton Live Features 10m. The Endless Possibilities 26m. Reviews 4. Frequently Asked Questions When will I have access to the lectures and assignments? If you don't see the audit option: The course may not offer an audit option.

You can try a Free Trial instead, or apply for Financial Aid. The course may offer 'Full Course, No Certificate' instead. This option lets you see all course materials, submit required assessments, and get a final grade.

This also means that you will not be able to purchase a Certificate experience.