ILM music making thread for techno and other Ableton/Reason/Reaktor/whatever based questions and chat

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but then again based on srose's questions that might be a little advanced.

just start here:

http://sonictransfer.com/tag/ableton-live/

rolling imm ableton live tips tricks sturm drang and beat repeat saturator thread

I think Fruty Loops likes to boost up all the lows. Just turning the kick down made a big difference.

Hooray!

so i'm trying to run Live 6 on Windows Vista and it is sloooow. are there some settings i'm not aware of that i should change?

yes. uninstall vista and install xp instead

http://www.gearwire.com/ableton-warns-vista-problems.html

http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=58575

I was going to say the same thing but strictly for zing purposes

eghck that's what i was afraid of :(

but thanks for that. v.7 is out now right? does that address the problems w/Vista?

just don't vista

the problems wont stop, ive heard 7 is better but still rubbish. i transfered the license from my old xp to my new laptop and regd it with microsoft over the phone. if you have to chat to an advisor say your tech mate upgraded the components on your old pc and theyll give yu a new password. I literally couldnt believe how rapid my new laptop was once i ditched vista, its handy enough to get all the correct drivers before you reboot. as long as you do a mask disk beforehand you should be able to upgrade to vista in a couple of years when need be (ie theyve sorted all the bugs). If you actually want to use it live you dont have a choice unless you buy 4gb of RAM

Why the hell does the reverb sound more powerful when I play my tracks on itunes?

are you playing the aiff or converting the tracks to aac/mp3 and then playing them in itunes?

it's a wav.

check your EQ settings in preferences

also do you lowpass your reverb?

Not to my knowledge, come to think about it, I'm almost now certainly sure that's it actually, because my problem before was that the lows kept getting boosted up.

so i just got a brand new macbook with logic express but i keep getting this system overload message. i'm not doing anything even remotely taxing, just 4 channels open, and i more than meet the system requirements (i got a second gig of ram installed) the thing is BRAND NEW, literally arrived today. although i'm new to logic i am familiar with pc software of the same level, any idea what is happening? is the laptop fucked?

That's a weird and very irritating bug with Logic - nothing wrong with your laptop. Only thing you can do is set your buffer size larger in the audio preferences, and cross your fingers.

What do people use for their horn sounds? I'm looking to not sound quite so synth-y. Sample packs? Softsynths? (I'm using FL.)

increasing the buffer size doesn't seem to help much. anyone else experience this problem and have tips on getting around it? i'd hate to think £130 worth of software is practically unuseable :/

Give this a go too: http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=88777.

trying to do a remix in ableton - i've got a wav of the vocals, a drumbeat set up, a few chords sorted from a soft synth but i'm having trouble putting them all together. i've had a look through the lessons and the manual but there seems to be a LOT of stuff that is irrelevant to what i want to do, i'm at the beginner stage so it's really confusing (if only there was a button to press that pared it all down into a fisher price ableton).

could someone point me towards the relevant lessons, tutorials and sections of the manual for putting a bunch of noises together to make a 3 min song?

ok dude are you serious?

if you send me the files I'll just do it for you

have you ever used music software before?
if you have, you might find that staying in the arrangement window (the one with tracks and bars) and avoiding the session window (the one with columns of buttons) helps. if you haven't, then you should just go through the tutorial. all of it. I am not really kidding.

^^ Tombot might seem like he's being dicky right now, but honestly, there's this line between asking for advice and being like "I don't know how to make electronic music, please tell me how" -- it's a bit like posting to a classical music forum and going "I want to play violin next week, please tell me how" -- and dude, some of your questions really do seem to be toeing that line!

I don't mean to be Mr. Pay Your Dues Guy, but my advice is that if you've never worked with the software before, don't go thinking you're just going to leap in and find some tutorial that explains how to make a remix: you're going to have to start off small, fiddle around, learn how to work with different aspects individually, and so on. It might not even sound that good for a while, but you kinda have to. I've been playing with software like this for nearly a decade, and my stuff doesn't sound nearly as good as Tombot's, but what're you gonna do? You've to sit there playing around with stuff until you figure out how it all works, and no tutorial or scrap of advice is gonna skip around that process.

kind of the worst thing about ableton/logic studio-in-a-box software is that you can go out and get a copy and not even have to take a quiz on what compression is for, what gain staging means (ok not that much in an all-digital environment but definitely so when using more than one dynamics processor in a signal chain), how different studio sounds are achieved with fx staging and returns, AABA, ABABCBA, how to tune a sampled drum by ear so it's right on time, why to cut at zero crossings, oh god.

I will explain any and all of these things but you have to ask about them one at a time

actually don't ask about what compression is for because I misplaced my kiln suit

I'm not really asking 'pls for you to talk me through theory of electronic music and do my remix for me', I just want to know which sections of the tutorials/lessons are most relevant for arranging and putting a song together. I'm sure to you guys this seems like the most basic and idiotic thing in the world to ask as you've been using the program for years. At the moment I'm at the very early stages of understanding Ableton so was hoping someone could help steer me towards the most relevant parts.

I've been using various sound editing programs for years now, mostly DJing live, I have a good knowledge of these programs but Ableton is a step up from the ones I've been using and contains a bunch of new terminology. My situation is that I've been asked to remix a song, which needs to be done in about a weeks time for digital release. I've got the idea for the song in my head, got all the relevant sounds, beats, loops all set up, arrangement scribbled down - it's just the placing them all together that I need to read up about.

I've been dipping into the program constantly over the last month or so, learning bits here and there - if anyone else starting out would like a walkthrough of how to set up a soft synth such as Massive in Ableton then just ask, this took hours to work out but can be achieved in minutes with the right guidance.

I'm sure I would learn how to arrange, and much more besides, if I went through every tutorial, every lesson, read the entire manual, but this would leave little time to stick all the stuff together and I figure I don't really need to learn how to record audio into the program or how to set up midi controllers, I can save that for a later time. As with most programs there is a lot of extra info in there that isn't suitable for me right now and I just want to be able to cut through that.

I do apologise for appearing so clueless about this, perhaps this thread is too advanced for questions like mine. If anyone could recommend a beginners forum that might be best.

This advice of Tomboto is what you need then -----> "stay in the arrangement window (the one with tracks and bars) and avoid the session window (the one with columns of buttons)"

I don't think the tutorials take that long even if you do them all.

Maybe taking the commission was a mistake.

just go through all the tutorials at once, it won't take long at all as they are very succinct

patrick don't say that, i'm already freaking out about it! but yes my plan is to spend all evening going through the tutorials (i've been through most of them already over the past few weeks) and look over the manual. it was probably a silly idea to look for a shortcuts, esp when the tutorials do seem so user-friendly

Learning to use the "Consolidate" command effectively made my first remix in ableton MUCH easier, I can say that.

as far as arranging goes, actually, I can probably honestly state that most of it is setting up the full loop - what generally winds up being the fade-out A section at the end or wherever - and then using cut, paste, consolidate, and just clicking and dragging. That's like 90% of the arrangement work (if 5% of the work on the whole track, since mixing and effects and sound design take much more effort and time).

(the other 10% of the arrangement work is little touch shit like fills and fade-ins/outs and writing the bridge)

informal survey: how many of you do full-track listens of your work in progress far more often than is healthy? *raises hand*

oh I wait until it's finished and rendered to disk and then I listen to the goddamn things over and over and over in iTunes like a pathetic fanboy. I hardly ever listen to a track all the way through before it's done

I think because the only way I know a track IS done and no longer in progress is when I can listen to it all the way through. otherwise there's going to be something I have to stop and fix.

I try not to listen to things too much at one time. It distorts your perspective.

The trick is to get the general idea down and then let it sit for a couple weeks. I find that I make better decisions when I have a bit of distance from the music. It doesn't feel like it is mine anymore and I don't have any ego/emotional attachment to the music.

It is the same reason why you don't mix a record immediately after tracking.

^^^OTM.

This thread makes me glad I'm in a heavy live playing phase.

Sometimes sitting around mixing or feeling guilty for doing something else while I should be editing tracks is about as fun as writing college essays.

struggling to find a good bass sound for a discodancepop track, can anyone recommend a good thick rich one built in to ableton, or as a vst?

the operator DX100-alike is a good start. chorus/saturator/delay is all on you

thanks tomboto.

another problem - ive got a 2 sec sample up as a midi clip. playing at c3 gives the original sound but when i go to d# the increase in pitch makes it speed up so its 1.5secs or so. how do i get it to increase in pitch but remain the same length? can ableton do this or is it something i need to do in an external sample editor?

can anyone reccommend some fm soft synths, i'm looking for some tasty bell sounds

if you just drag your sample into an audio clip instead of playing it back as a hit in impulse or whatever it'll let you stretch it, pitch it, and I think 7 has also allows pretzel knots

lol can't write today. too early for me