21 Mar 2012
by madeleinein Ableton Live Tutorials Tags: Ableton, Ableton Live, Arrangement View, audio, bit depth, dither, export, sample rate, Session View, tutorial
In Ableton Live you have Session and Arrangement View from which you can export audio. This can be quite confusing at first and if you don’t understand how it’s done you might end up with rendered silence or too short audio files. So here’s the jist of it.
Exporting from Arrangement View:
- Most often you want to export the whole song you’ve created or its individual tracks. To do this, you need to have it recorded into Arrangement View first. If you don’t know how, here’s the tutorial for it.
- Drag the Loop Start and Loop End so the Loop covers the whole length of the song to be exported. Make sure the Loop is selected.
- Make sure that no tracks are muted that you want to include and no tracks are soloed, because what you hear is what will be exported. You can listen to the song once more to ensure it’s all good.
- Choose ‘Export Audio/Video’ from the File Menu or use the shortcut SHIFT + Ctrl + R (Windows) or SHIFT + Cmd + R (Mac). This will open the Export dialog.
- Choose your preferred rendering options (details below), then click OK.
- You can now choose the location to which the audio file(s) will be saved. Click Save and rendering process will start.
Exporting from Session View:
- When exporting Session View clips, only clips with activated clip launch buttons are rendered. So make sure that all clips you want to export are launched first.
- Choose ‘Export Audio/Video’ from the File Menu or use the shortcut SHIFT + Ctrl + R (Windows) or SHIFT + Cmd + R (Mac). This will open the Export dialog.
- When exporting from Session View you need to enter the desired Length in bars, beats and 16th.
- Choose your preferred rendering options (details below), then click OK.
- You can now choose the location to which the audio file(s) will be saved. Click Save and rendering process will start.
Audio Rendering Options:
- ‘Rendered Track’ options:
- If you want to export the mixdown of the song, choose Master.
- ‘All Tracks’ will render all individual tracks to separate audio files. That includes all MIDI and audio tracks as well as return tracks.
- Or you can choose a specific individual track. You can easily find the one you want since the track numbers and names are listed.
- All options will render the post-fader signals including insert effects.
Turn on Normalize if you want the file to be rendered with maximum volume.
‘Render as Loop’ lets you render the file as a loop including any effect tails.
You have the choice between Wav (Windows format) and Aiff (Mac format) under ‘File Type’. It doesn’t make a difference anymore which one you choose since these days both formats can be read on Windows and Mac.
‘Convert to Mono’ will render the file in mono. Live handles everything in stereo. This option is useful if you want mono files to be used in a different audio software or want to include mono files in your Live Set to keep it small.
‘Sample Rate’: To burn in to an audio CD, choose 44100. For mastering choose the ‘Sample Rate’ you had used throughout your production.
‘Bit Depth’: To burn in to an audio CD, choose 16. For mastering choose the ‘Bit Depth’ you had used in your Live Set.
Dither: Dithering introduces small noise, but helps avoid artifacts when reducing the bit depth. Live handles audio internally in 32-bit. Dithering should only be done at the end when you won’t export the file again. This is generally after mastering the track or when you want to burn it on CD. If you choose to not export in 32-bit and want to keep working with the audio file, Triangular is the safest mode. Rectangular adds less noise, but can add artifacts once the audio file is processed further. The 3 POW-r options introduce even less noise pushed above the audible range. These should never be used when processing audio further.
‘Create Analysis File’: Turn it on if you want to import the rendered file back into a Live Set.
Do you have any questions or comments? Let me know.
08 Mar 2012
by madeleinein Ableton Live Tutorials Tags: Ableton, Ableton Live, Arrangement View, live, recording, Session View, tutorial
Session View is great for getting down loop based ideas or when performing live. Arrangement View, on the other hand, is best used for the production of songs along a traditional musical timeline. It can be handy to start in Session View to come up with the initial idea for a new song. At a certain point you will want to get the parts into Arrangement View. Exporting the whole song only works from the Arrangement View. You can copy and paste all clips, but this can be tedious, especially the more clips and tracks you have. The good news is, you can also record from Session into Arrangement View.
- To toggle between the two views, use the Tab key on your computer keyboard or click on the button for the respective view in the top right corner of Live.
- To record from Session to Arrangement View the tracks don’t need to be armed. In fact, they shouldn’t be as otherwise you might accidentally overwrite what you had previously recorded into the clips.
- Turn on the Global Record button.
- Make sure you’re in Session View. Now you can launch Clips and Scenes in the order you want them played in your song.
- Once you’re done, hit the Spacebar. This will stop recording and playback.
- Use the Tab key to switch to Arrangement View which will now contain your recording. This includes:
- the clips launched
- changes of the mixer and the devices’ controls which is called automation
- tempo and time signature changes, if they are included in the names of launched scenes
Commments of any sort are welcome. Do you have any further questions? Requests for a tutorial on something you struggle with in Live? Or something to add? Let me know.
22 Feb 2012
by madeleinein Ableton Live Tutorials Tags: Ableton, Ableton Live, live, MIDI, MIDI clip, MIDI instrument, overdub, record, tutorial
MIDI itself contains only data like note number, velocity and length, but no sound. To turn MIDI into sound you need a MIDI instrument.
- Drag and drop a MIDI instrument, e.g. a Simpler Preset, from the Live Device Browser into a MIDI track. You will see see that it now has a Track Volume Slider just like audio tracks. This indicates that audio is now routed out of the track, not MIDI data anymore.
- Make sure the MIDI track is armed. By default arming is set to exclusive in Live’s Preferences > Record/Warp/Launch. Unless you’ve changed that, adding a MIDI instrument will automatically arm the track.
- If you have a MIDI controller like a keyboard or drum pads and it’s set up correctly, you can now play and should be able to hear the sound. If you can’t hear anything, check the audio setup. See the tutorial for Mac or Windows if you don’t know how.
- If you don’t have a MIDI controller, you can use the computer keyboard to play. Check out my tutorial if you don’t know how.
- Before recording you should set the Tempo and Time Signature. You can either enter the BPM directly or Tap out the tempo by hitting the Tap Tempo button for each beat.
- To record in sync with the tempo, turn on the Metronome.
- You can also set a count-in to have some time to get ready before the recording starts. For this open the Preferences > Record/Warp/Launch and choose 1, 2 or 4 Bars for the Count-In.
- You can either record into Session or Arrangement View. The former is good for jamming and trying out ideas in loops, the latter for continuous recordings.
- To record into Arrangement View, you need to click on the Global Record button, then hit Play.
- If you want to record into Session View, you only need to click on the Record button in a Clip Slot to start recording.
- It’s also possible to create a MIDI clip with a fixed length to record into. For this double-click on a Clip Slot which creates a MIDI Clip of 1 bar length. You can change the length of the Clip by adding the desired length in the Loop Length field.
- To record into an existing MIDI Clip or to add notes on top, the Overdub (OVR) needs to be on.
- The Clip View at the bottom of Live includes the MIDI Note Editor that now contains the notes you’ve recorded. To see the Clip View of a MIDI clip, it needs to be selected. If it’s not, double-click the Clip to make it visible.
If you have questions or suggestions, you’re welcome to leave a comment.
08 Feb 2012
by madeleinein Ableton Live Tutorials Tags: Ableton, Ableton Live, audio, audio interface, audio setup, Clip, Clip View, input, record, tutorial
If you want to record real instruments or vocals, you should get a decent audio interface as a built-in sound card won’t give you good quality and may give you higher latencies which means you’ll hear an annoying delay while recording.
- First make sure your audio interface is set up correctly. If you don’t know how, I wrote tutorials about this for Windows and Mac.
- Connect your guitar or microphone cable to an input of your audio interface.
- In an Audio Track choose ‘Ext. In’ under ‘Audio From’ as well as the Input that you’ve connected the cable to on your interface, e.g. 1. Most input sources are mono so if you can only choose 1/2 you need to go to the Preferences > Audio > Input Config and activate the Mono Inputs first. Otherwise you’ll end up with the recorded signal playing back only on one side.
- Arm the Audio Track. Plug your headphones into the headphones output of your audio interface.
- Now test the input levels by playing/singing. You want to get a properly loud signal without having the meters go into the red. Red means it’s too loud and you’ll get nasty digital distortion. If your audio interface has a knob next to the input, you can adjust the input level there. If not, you should have a mixing software in which this can be set. If in doubt, refer to interface’s manual.
- Once you’ve established a good level for your recording you should set the Tempo and Time Signature. You can either enter the BPM directly or tap out the tempo by hitting the Tap Tempo button for each beat.
- To record in sync with the tempo, turn on the Metronome.
- You can also set a count-in to have some time to get ready before the recording starts. For this open the Preferences > Record/Warp/Launch and choose 1, 2 or 4 Bars for the Count-In.
- You can either record into Session or Arrangement View. The former is good for jamming and trying out ideas in loops, the latter for continuous recordings.
- If you want to record into Session View, you only need to click on the Record button in a Clip Slot to start recording.
- To record into Arrangement View, you need to click the Global Record button, then hit Play by either clicking the button for it or using the Spacebar.
- The Clip View at the bottom of Live includes the Sample Editor that now contains the waveform you’ve recorded. To see the Clip View of a clip, it needs to be selected. If it’s not, double-click the clip to make it visible.
Any questions, suggestions or other comments? I’m happy to read them. 
25 Jan 2012
by madeleinein Ableton Live Tutorials Tags: Ableton, Ableton Live, ASIO, audio, audio interface, audio setup, buffer size, driver, input, output, sample rate, sound card, tutorial, Windows
Let’s dive right in, shall we?
- If you have an audio interface check the manufacturer’s website for the latest ASIO driver (some offer none though) and possibly a control software. Download and install if available.
- If there’s no driver available or you want to use the built-in sound card of your computer, you need to install the ASIO4ALL driver from:
http://asio4all.com/
- Connect your audio interface to your PC (via USB or Firewire most likely) and to a power source if needed (most do). Then switch it on. Check the manual if there are any other setup steps necessary.
- Start Live and go to the Preferences > Audio. The shortcut for it is Ctrl + ,.
- Choose ASIO as the Driver Type. MME/DirectX is not suited for audio software and would give you high latencies.
- Choose either the ASIO4ALL v2 as the Audio Device or the one of your audio interface.
- If there’s Hardware Setup button, click on it. It will open the control panel of the driver. There you should be able to set your active input and output.
Click on the wrench icon on the bottom right to enable making changes. If the Sample Rate is greyed out in the Live Preferences, then you need to set it up in the control panel as well.
- Back in the Live Preferences you can activate the needed mono and/or stereo in- and outputs under Input and Output Config respectively.
- Choose the Sample Rate as needed. It’s not saved with the Live Set, but is set universally so beware if you tend to switch, e.g. between live and studio. You can set the Bit Depth in Preferences > Record/Warp/Launch.
- A Buffer Size of 512 seems to work for most. Or you can try to find a setting that gives you low latency without audio drop outs.
- Now you should be all set. If you’re using an audio interface, don’t forget to plug in headphones or connect it to speakers. If your audio interface is off, Live will show Audio Engine as off. You need to change it back manually in the Preferences after turning it back on. Happy noise making!
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