Music Tech Focus 36. Ableton Live 9 2014

Welcome MTF

Welcome

… to Ableton Live 2014, the latest Focus from MusicTech. I’m assuming that, as you are reading this, you use Live – or indeed ‘Ableton’ as many users are now calling it – for music production, so you already realise what a powerful tool you have at your disposal. The idea of this focus guide is to help you access that power and use the software to its full potential. We’ve therefore included everything from compositional workshops – where we cover genres including techno and dubstep – to technique workshops, where we explore many major features of the software. With more than 50 pages of walkthroughs I’m hoping that your music production skills will improve as a result. And if they do, we’ve even included features on how to promote your resulting tunes on-line, so you are hopefully holding everything you need to improve your Live life. Enjoy the issue and, as ever, let me know what you think at the address below.

We will help you access the power of Live and use the software to its full potential

Andy Jones Senior Editor [email protected]

Multimedia Editor Alex Holmes [email protected] MUSICTECH FOCUS MAGAZINE www.musictech.net Anthem Publishing Ltd Suite 6, Piccadilly House London Road, Bath BA1 6PL Tel +44 (0) 1225 489984 Fax +44 (0) 1225 489980 [email protected]

Publisher Simon Lewis [email protected] Editorial Director Paul Pettengale [email protected] Senior Editor Andy Jones [email protected]

Ads: Di Marsh [email protected] Contributors Grant Bridgeman, Mark Cousins, Keith Gemmell, Alex Holmes, Hollin Jones, John Pickford, Huw Price, Liam O’Mullane Art Director Jenny Cook [email protected] Managing Director Jon Bickley [email protected] Licensing enquiries Jon Bickley +44 (0) 1225 489984 www.anthem-publishing.com

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MTF Contents

Issue 36

Ableton Live 2014

BECOME AN ABLETON LIVE EXPERT… NOW! Ableton Live is a special piece of music production software so we’ve put together this special issue of MusicTech just for it. We have Live workshops, genre tutorials, reviews of the latest kit and features detailing what to do with the tunes you’ll make as a result of reading it! Feature

MTF Workshops

Start here…

Compose and experiment in Ableton Live… p18

… press record

Get Your Music Online

The best sites, self promotion and the DIY route to publicity… p34 4 | Ableton Live 2014

FOCUS

Audio recording and editing in Live… p22

… and mix

Mixing tips in Ableton Live… p52

Contents MTF

MTF Feature

Master your music

A complete guide to giving your music the pro edge… p61

MTF Issue 36 Full listings… FEATURES 006 | 50 Ways To Supercharge Your Sound 034 | Get Your Music Online 061 | Mastering In Software 072 | 20 Ways To Supercharge Your Computer For Audio LIVE PRODUCTION WORKSHOPS 018 | Compose and experiment 022 | Audio recording and editing 026 | Using audio and Instrument Racks in Live 030 | Converting audio to MIDI 046 | Clip experimentation in Session view

MTF Feature

Supercharge your computer… … for audio production p72

049 | Collaboration in Live 052 | Mixing tools and techniques 056 | Composition and sound design with Push 068 | Mastering in Live SUBSCRIBE 108 | … to MusicTech here WORKSHOPS: GENRES 082 | How to produce dubstep 088 | Produce drum n bass part 1

Supercharge your sound… … with these 50 tips… p6

091 | Produce drum n bass part 2 094 | Produce techno part 1 098 | Produce techno part 2 101 | Produce techno part 3 104 | Produce techno part 4 REVIEWS 110 | Rob Papen Blue synth 110 | Novation Launchpad Mini 115 | Best Service Cantus vocals 116 | Heavyocity DM-307 drums 118 | Toontrak EZDrummer 2 110 | Softube Console 1 122 | Korg Taktile 49 keyboard 123 | Mini Reviews MEET THE ABLETON TEAM! 128 | Jesse Terry talks Ableton Live and Push YOUR DVD 130 | What’s on your MTF DVD

MTF Interview

Jessie Terry

Meet the Ableton team p128 FOCUS Ableton Live 2014

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MTF Feature 50 Ways To Supercharge Your Sound

50 YOUR SO WAYS TO

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50 Ways To Supercharge Your Sound Feature MTF

SUPERCHARGE

UND

BEEF UP YOUR TUNES AND STAND OUT NOW

Turning a good sound into a great one isn’t as hard as you might think. By following a few simple rules and employing some choice techniques, you too can get a unique and memorable sound for your tracks. Hollin Jones explains how...

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MTF Feature 50 Ways To Supercharge Your Sound

SOUND SELECTION AND TWEAKING BE CHOOSY Tracks can fail to reach their full potential when you simply settle for the first preset you come across. Many producers rarely do this and can spend a whole day agonising over getting a single sound just right. You don’t necessarily need to go that far, but if you have doubts about a sound, consider getting rid of it and finding something better. If nothing in your plug-in is doing the trick, try a different instrument. Some people use only a couple of sounds out of the hundreds provided with a synth.

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MAKE YOUR OWN SOUNDS That synth bass patch that comes with Logic might sound good, but it’s likely that hundreds or even thousands of other people will have used it already in their productions. Making a patch your own can be as simple as changing a filter or oscillator and resaving the preset. If you’re feeling adventurous, virtually all synths let you design a sound from scratch. This can be much easier than you might imagine and will help you get a much more unique sound overall.

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LAYER SOUNDS TOGETHER You can do this when sequencing, but many instruments, such as software synths and keyboard workstations, allow you to use several layers of sound mapped across a MIDI keyboard. By taking a patch and adding more layers, perhaps blending in some attacking or pad-like sounds, you can make your instruments sound fuller, bigger and more interesting. If your plug-in doesn’t allow it natively, get the same result by duplicating the MIDI part and assigning the copied part to a new instrument in your DAW.

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Most soft synths make it easy to tweak patches or design sounds from scratch – this is a good and fun way to find a more unique sound for your productions.

SUPERCHARGE TIP… DON’T BE AFRAID TO EXPERIMENT Some of the most interesting music comes about when producers and composers blend sounds that wouldn’t at first seem like they would work well together. Obviously, this can be a fine line to walk, and it’s as easy to get it wrong as get it right. However, some really interesting results can be achieved by mixing, say, orchestral and synth sounds, or electronic beats with acoustic guitars and that sort of thing. The flexibility of DAWs means it’s easy to quickly load up a cello or an 808, then swap it out for something else if it’s not having the desired effect.

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ADD MOVEMENT Many patches are stationary, meaning the sound has no movement. But adding movement can make patches much more interesting and bring a greater sense of rhythm to a track. The most common way to do this is to use modulation inside a synth via a mod matrix of some kind. A good example

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would be the use of LFOs to modulate the cutoff filter in a dubstep patch. Envelopes and even control-voltage signal can be used for the same effect, and many software synths make this easy to achieve. AUTOMATE INSTRUMENT PARAMETERS This applies to both hardware and software instruments and is an alternative method of dynamism to a sound. All DAWs support automation and if you’re controlling external kit this can be done by using MIDI CC channels routed out of your computer. Try automating filters, oscillators, octave settings, FX parameters and more to liven up your sounds. A related trick is to use MIDI effects like arpeggiators and randomizers to add variation to programmed synthesized sounds.

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Automating instrument and effect parameters is a good way to create more interesting parts.

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Reason’s Thor synth is a good example of an instrument that lets you easily route modulation sources.

Real hardware instruments can lend a more authentic sound.

AIM HIGH If you record a cheap instrument that’s in poor condition it’s going to sound bad – and no amount of processing trickery will truly hide that fact. While we can’t all enjoy playing guitars, keyboards and drums costing thousands of pounds, you should try to beg, steal or borrow the best kit you can for a recording session. The usual suspects here are cheap drums and poor-sounding keyboards or synths, especially piano patches. If you’re recording in a studio, try to use any kit they may have if it offers a better sound than yours.

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TRY TO USE ‘REAL’ KIT Software is excellent and has all kinds of benefits, but it’s great to use real kit if you have the opportunity. As well as imparting a more ‘real’ or human sound to a track, it also means you are likely to get a more

50 Ways To Supercharge Your Sound Feature MTF

You don’t have to be an expert to build your own sampled instruments from scratch distinctive and unique overall feel. This doesn’t mean everything has to be hardware – a lot of musicians and producers will mix together both real and virtual sounds. Try recording some real percussion, for example, or using a vintage synth to provide a bit of atmosphere. It can make a big difference. ADD SUB AND NOISE Synthesised sounds are by their nature quite clean as they remain inside the electronic world. Most synths enable you to add some extra signal to make a patch more complex and this can be a good idea to try. As well as adding more oscillators using different waveforms, you often get the option to add sub and noise. Sub will insert a frequency several octaves below the note you play, while noise lets you blend in some white noise to fill out the sound.

Multisample your own instruments and find a sound that is uniquely yours.

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Many synths let you add sub and noise to patches which can add depth.

SAMPLE YOUR OWN INSTRUMENTS This isn’t as complex as it might sound, and tools such as Kontakt, Reason’s NN-XT, MOTU’s MachFive and others are geared towards helping you to create your own instruments. Sample individual notes at different velocities to build up full instruments or record drum hits to make your own kits. Tools like ReDrum, Maschine and others mean that you don’t have to be a programing expert to build your own sampled instruments from scratch.

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ISOLATE YOUR AMPS Guitar amps, when cranked up, generate a fair amount of vibration and this can muddy the signal that is picked up by the mic. The same is true of bass amps, which can really shake the floor. By placing an amp on a crate or a sturdy box you can isolate it from pumping lots of sound into the floor and hopefully get a more accurate tone. You might also want to take a direct out from the amp when recording and capture it to a separate channel. This will give you more options when it comes to shaping your guitar tone later.

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RECORDING AND PERFORMANCE TIPS

SUPERCHARGE TIP…

LEARN ABOUT MIC PLACEMENT The location and angle of microphones when recording can make a real difference to the end result. At one extreme, adding room mics to a drum recording setup will give you more ‘air’ to blend in with the tighter, drier signal you get from the close-mics. At a simpler level, adding a second, off-centre mic when recording a guitar amp will enable you to capture a thinner tone to complement the louder, thicker one your direct mic will be picking up.

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GIVE THE VOCALIST SOME REVERB This might sound obvious but it’s overlooked surprisingly often. When a singer is performing, by default they hear a dry version of their own vocal in the headphones. This is actually quite unnatural and can affect the quality and nature of the performance. It’s much better to provide them with some reverb on the signal, which you would usually not record but supply as an insert on their monitor feed. In bigger studios this is easy enough to achieve, but in smaller setups you might need to use an interface with dedicated DSP-powered effects to do it, such as Yamaha’s N-Series.

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Incorporating older technology into your recording workflow can bring unexpectedly interesting results.

BE EXPERIMENTAL There’s a lot to be said for trying out new things when you record. Indeed, history is awash with examples of bands making odd choices, such as setting up the bass in a stairwell or the drums outside and getting great results despite the apparently adverse environment. Bear in mind that it won’t always work – sometimes it will sound plain awful. However, you should learn some interesting tricks and in the process get a more unique sound. Too much isolation can suck the energy out of a performance, so consider putting the band members in the same room when recording, even if this means potentially more bleed between the microphones.

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MTF Feature 50 Ways To Supercharge Your Sound

BE A MUSICAL MAGPIE Modern kit is extremely clean to record through, so to get a more unique sound you can use older gear, which tends to have a way of colouring whatever you put through it. This could be as simple as recording through an old broadcast mic, routing sounds through crusty old outboard, or using an analogue desk or even a tape machine or old sampler to process sounds before routing them back into your DAW.

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EMBRACE THE CHAOS Although a significant part of music is accuracy, it can be liberating to go in the opposite direction and introduce some randomisation into your projects. This could be as simple as using an arpeggiator to generate some MIDI sequences or re-sampling loops or beats into a tool such as Native Instruments’ Maschine or an MPC unit and resequencing them on-the-fly. It’s the digital equivalent of a guitarist layering up tons of delay and feedback and just going with whatever transpires.

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CAPTURE EVERYTHING It’s a strange fact, but people sometimes give their best performances when they think they’re not being recorded. Without the perceived pressure of this being ‘the take’, performers can do something unexpected, more spontaneous or interesting than they would ever do when the pressure was on. So it’s worth recording everything, even warm-ups, although you probably shouldn’t tell the performer you’re doing it as this negates the exercise. Ideas captured in this way might be used or serve as reference for a better way to sing or play a part.

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SUPERCHARGE TIP… PHYSICAL SPACES USING TECHNOLOGY 18 SIMULATE If you’re not able to find unusual physical spaces such as cupboards or bathrooms to record in to get specific sounds, just record as cleanly as possible and re-create those environments afterwards using effects. By using effects such as Speakerphone, EQ, reverb and physically modelled reverbs and other plug-ins, you can ‘place’ sounds inside virtual spaces in order to simulate a sound being close up, far away or in very precise locations. Some higher-end physically modelled effects even contain impulse responses from specific locations, such as Carnegie Hall or the Sydney Opera House.

Using tape emulation on groups or across the master buss of a project is a clever way to add human feel to otherwise sterile digital recordings.

USE A CLICK TRACK This is a slightly contentious issue since some drummers seem to think of a metronome as some sort of admission of failure on their part. If your drummer can keep perfect time by themselves, that’s great. To achieve similarly great consistency, however, it can be wise to use a metronome or click track routed from your DAW to feed to your drummer’s headphones. As well as ensuring no

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Some people give their best performance when they think they’re not being recorded Knock together some beats or sequences in a mini sequencer and you may be surprised at how good the results can sound. Don’t overthink it!

speed-ups or slow-downs, this will mean that programming and quantizing MIDI parts over the top of the drum takes should be trouble-free. SORT OUT YOUR STUDIO FOLDBACK This can be a tricky one, since it might be in the hands of the studio rather than your own. When performing in a studio, many people use headphones to hear a monitor mix of everything else that’s going on. If this mix is a bit on the quiet side, as it often can be, it makes it difficult for a performer to really get into their stride and let rip. Try to get the monitor mix as loud and as punchy as possible (this may involve beefing-up your headphone amps). A good foldback system will always make life a lot easier for the people playing and singing.

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CLEVER USE OF EFFECTS KNOW WHEN TO USE REVERB Reverb can be great, but it’s very easy to use too much and end up with a washy, far-off sound. Unless that’s your ultimate goal, go for much shorter reverbs that don’t muddy your mix. Some modules let you control the EQ of the reverb and this can be really handy, especially for reining in an unruly top end and preventing the ‘shimmering’ effect that can make a sound a bit too 1980s. It’s rare that you would leave a sound completely dry, although this can be an interesting approach if you’re looking to get a very specific kind of sound.

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BE CREATIVE WITH EQ EQ isn’t just for taming unruly sounds – it can also be a creative tool. One of the more interesting uses for it is to

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well. Using compression pedals on guitars and basses prior to recording is an interesting way to tame the sound before it is captured.

create a ‘phoneline’-style’ effect for vocals, drums or guitars by dropping out all but the upper-midrange frequencies. The resulting tinny effect can be heard on many records and is a good trick for adding a little extra something to the feel of a track. It’s also easier than trying to record from a phone, although this is also possible of course. DO DELAY Echo and delay are excellent for thickening a sound or creating the illusion that a sound is bigger than it actually is. Use short, double-tap delays to thicken-up percussive sounds, or longer, multi-stage delays to create more atmospheric, swirling effects. A short delay on a vocal can sometimes be more effective than reverb, since it adds body without adding space. As such it’s a popular trick in hip hop production. A bit of delay, carefully applied, can make tracks sound deeper and move involving.

GO OUTSIDE THE BOX Plug-ins can do a lot of the work for you, but it can be handy to incorporate hardware effects into your projects as well, as these often have a more unique sound. You can record through them – in which case they are permanently imprinted onto the take – or, perhaps more usefully, plumb them into your system and apply them as inserts post-recording. Many DAWs now support the incorporating of external effects directly into a project so you just need to work out the wiring and ports to get your classic guitar pedal working on your vocals.

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LEARN ABOUT COMPRESSION Everyone knows you need to use some compression in projects, but it’s important to know when to use it. Bass and drums usually benefit from a little more compression than average, as can vocals. A little compression applied across many tracks can result in a smoother and more coherent overall sound. Trying to simply compress the master channel is unlikely to sound great, although applying compression to groups or busses can work

A ‘phoneline’ EQ preset is a good way of quickly making a sound tinny.

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Tools like NI’s Maschine can help you mash-up and revitalise existing samples.

GET A LITTLE CRAZY There is an increasing number of mash-up-style effects on the market and these greatly simplify the process of cutting-up and generally mangling your sounds with a few clicks while keeping everything in-time. Plug-ins like Turnado, iZotope Stutter Edit, Effectrix and the like are astonishingly powerful and allow you to do in seconds what would once have taken hours. Best of all, they’re nondestructive, so if you decide to change the way your drum part is being sliced, reversed, delayed and scratched, you can at any point.

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AMP IT UP Simply boosting the volume of sounds rarely makes them sound better, but running them through an amp simulator often does. By introducing digitally created overdrive and distortion you can push a sound and make it warmer, more gritty and earthy, but without risking pushing it too hard in the mix. This applies to any sound – in fact, guitars are probably the least interesting source to try amp sims on. Stick them on vocals, drums, horns, samples and anything else. Use subtle distortion or push it hard depending on what you want to achieve.

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AUTOMATE EFFECTS Plug-in effects support automation just as well as instruments do and it can be a great way to liven things up. Instead of having a reverb stay the same across the duration of a vocal, why not try having it more intense at certain points? Alternatively, have a delay suddenly cut into a guitar or keyboard part. If you’re working with hardware effects you can still achieve a similar result, although you will have to manually turn controls up and down as a track plays and record the results.

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SUPERCHARGE TIP… EXPERIMENT WITH SURROUND SOUND This is a bit of an unusual one since it requires you to have at least as many physical outputs with connected speakers as channels you want to work with. But working with surround sound – perhaps for games, movies or TV – can be a really interesting way to go beyond basic left/ right stereo and get really creative with sound placement as it relates to the listener. Many classic albums have been remixed for 5.1 surround, and most flagship DAWs enable you to work with it pretty easily, so it’s a good one to look into if you’re thinking about getting more experimental with your productions.

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Mash-up plug-ins like Turnado give you a whole suite of crazy effects in a single window.

Surround can be tricky to work with but ultimately really rewarding in how creative it lets you be.

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MTF Feature 50 Ways To Supercharge Your Sound

USE TAPE SIMULATORS Not to make things sound wobbly, necessarily, but to impart a sort of warm glue to your sound. Many producers find that while getting hold of a real tape machine is fairly impractical, a decent tape-simulation plug-in can do the job just as well – and with far less hassle. Adding small amounts of wow and flutter can make a sound appear less digital and processed. You could apply it to just the drums, or apply it to the entire mix at the mixdown or mastering stages depending on how you like to work.

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SEQUENCING AND EDITING SUPERCHARGE YOUR SAMPLES Many people have a sample collection of some sort, even if it’s only the ones that came bundled with a DAW. Over time these can get a little tired and you may stop using them. A good trick to revitalise them is to slice them up and re-sequence them so that they sound completely different. Tools such as Maschine and AKAI’s MPCs can do this, and instruments like FXpansion’s Geist and Propellerhead’s ReCycle or the new slicing tools in Reason 7 are adept at it too. With fairly minimal effort you can make your old samples sound new again.

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AUDIO PROCESSING 32 USE Not as in effects, but as in the Tools menu. Digital audio is infinitely malleable and edits are generally nondestructive. It’s easy to pitch- and time-stretch audio loops or recordings, reverse them or cut them up to change them and make them sound more interesting. Tools like Melodyne or VariAudio in Cubase or Flex Pitch and Time in Logic make it simple to edit notes within polyphonic audio clips. In Reason 7, recorded or imported audio is automatically time-stretched to fit a project (and sliced up, too). Audio is now almost as flexible as MIDI, so take advantage of that fact.

Some people prefer old-style sequencing approaches, so why not give them a go and see what shakes out?

Many DAWs incorporate tools that let you manipulate notes within recorded audio parts DOUBLE-TRACK Double-tracking used to be a trick employed by producers to beef-up a sound, which involved recording a second copy onto the master tape (typically vocals or guitars). In a DAW it’s incredibly easy: simply select a track and choose Duplicate. Of course, initially this will just make

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Arranger tools like Blocks in Reason let you try out multiple arrangements with the minimum of fuss.

SUPERCHARGE TIP… TRY A NEW WAY OF WORKING You might be comfortable with sequencing in a certain way, perhaps using blocks of data in your favourite DAW. But this can also lead to complacency and doing things in the same way. For a new approach, consider using a different tool to compose with and see where it takes you. For example, if you always work in Logic, try sequencing a song with Maschine instead. Old-style sequencers encourage different working methods from timeline-based software.

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the part louder overall, so you need to go a little further. You could pan each copy of the track differently to create more interesting stereo effects, or process one copy differently from the other. EQ and effect it so it has a different feel, then blend it with the original version. This is a good way to quickly get a bigger sound. EXPERIMENT WITH ARRANGEMENTS This is a lot easier than it used to be thanks to the flexibility of DAWs. Tools such as Cubase’s Arranger track and Blocks mode in Reason enable you to create multiple on-the-fly arrangements without having to copy and paste sequencer data. Find one or more that you like and you’re often able to render them out to new project files, saving a huge amount of effort. You can easily, for example, make a radio edit and then a full-length version and even extended mixes, all without having to laboriously copy and paste.

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USE ADVANCED AUDIO-MANIPULATION TOOLS Many DAWs now incorporate tools that are able to identify and let you manipulate individual notes within recorded audio parts, and third-party tools such as Melodyne let you do this too. As well as letting you do clever stuff like turning songs in a major key into a minor key, the technology has other benefits, such as the ability to extract pitch and micro pitch to MIDI. This allows you to do things like double-up a recorded vocal part with a keyboard part, or match a drum part to a guitar riff. All of these can be handy for getting a bigger sound overall.

EMBRACE THE FLEXIBILITY OF DIGITAL AUDIO Once upon a time, making edits involved splicing tape together. Now it’s a very different world. Even a modest

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computer can handle running loads of tracks, so you have complete freedom to duplicate and layer parts. Try pitchshifting duplicated vocal parts to create harmonies, using parallel compression techniques to get a ‘New York’ sound, or creating atmospheres and layers via extreme time-stretching. GET REMIXED Thanks to modern technology, remixing is easier than ever and it can be an excellent way to explore musical ideas that you might not have thought of yourself. There are many examples of remixes that are better or more successful than the original track, and a remixer will often go in a musical direction that gives a track a completely new feel. You can supply them with a project file or, more likely, a folder of printed audio stems complete with tempo information.

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OUTSIDE THE BOX 39 THINK Many hardware instruments, especially older ones, have an onboard sequencer. We’re talking about drum machines, workstations and samplers such as AKAI’s MPC series. Their sequencers often have a unique sound and feel that you don’t get using the MIDI and quantizing tools inside computer software. Some developers, like AKAI, have even re-created their hardware in software form for the iPad. By basing a track on a hardware-sequenced beat or composing entirely in hardware you can often get a more unique sound. A good example is DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing, which was created entirely on a sampling drum machine and has a unique feel. ADVANCED MIDI TOOLS 40 USE We’re all used to arpeggiators and quantization, but some DAWs have more advanced MIDI tools that let you filter and work with MIDI tracks in more unusual ways. Cubase, for example, has a Logical Editor that is able to perform an action on specific notes, perhaps changing the velocity of every fifth note, or remove all accidentals. There’s also MIDI ‘compression’, which equalizes the velocity of selected notes. There are quite a few such commands and although slightly esoteric, they can be useful in batch-processing MIDI parts for interesting results.

Tools such as Melodyne, seen here integrated into Sonar X3, are a good way to reach inside existing audio parts and manipulate them.

Fader creep can become problematic if taken too far and result in clipping of the signal USE GROUPING In those situations where you have multi-source instruments such as a multitracked drum kit, it’s often a good idea to create a group channel and route all of the constituent drum channels (for example) to it. In this way you can submix the drums correctly and then, in the main mix, simply bring the entire kit up or down as required in the mix with a single fader while maintaining the correct balance between all of the different drum mics. What’s more, as an added bonus you can process the entire kit through an effect using just a single instance of that effect instead of creating multiple copies of it. Of course, each individual channel can still be effected if necessary before it is routed to the group as well.

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MIXING AND MASTERING USE THE FREEZE FUNCTION Your DAW almost certainly has a Freeze function and this is great for squeezing the maximum level of performance out of your system. If your computer is struggling to run all of the tracks in your project, freeze instrument and effected tracks to simple audio parts and you will be able to load up more plug-ins. It’s not that more necessarily means better in this situation, but sometimes you might need ten instances of that great synth, and this is the best way to keep things running smoothly.

KNOW WHERE TO PUSH During mixing you may find yourself gradually nudging various faders up in an attempt to make certain sounds louder. This ‘fader creep’ can become problematic if taken too far and result in clipping of the signal. Keep an eye on the master fader for any peaks and be careful to avoid red lights on faders in any track (and especially the master fader). Remember that you can squeeze the track at the mastering stage, so as long as the levels are healthy during mixdown, it doesn’t need to be super-loud.

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Use your DAW’s Freeze function to reduce the load on your computer.

Classic tools like AKAI’s MPC represent not just another kind of vibe, but a different approach to programming music.

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Metering the output of your projects gives a better idea of what’s really going on and lets you push the track or rein it in, depending on what’s required.

headphones to see if any problems leap out at you. They almost certainly will – too much bass, not enough vocal and so on. But this is part of the process and lets you go back and fix it before everything is nailed down. USE PARALLEL COMPRESSION Some DAWs, notably Reason 7, support the creation of parallel channels directly in the mixer. In others it’s possible to achieve the same effect by doing some creative duplication and routing of tracks. The idea is to take the clean signal from one track and route it to another channel, which you then process differently. Typically, this involves applying hard compression to it to provide a pumping or squashed

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An audio analysis plug-in will provide an accurate display of what’s really going on effect. This track can then be blended with the original to create a fuller sound. You can keep going from there, too, creating more than one parallel channel from the same source to get a really big effect.

USE AN ANALYSER They might not sound as exciting as delays or distortions, but audio analysis plug-ins can be crucial in helping you squeeze more volume out of a track, whether at the mixing or mastering stages. You tend to base your perception of volume on looking at fader levels and using your ears, but there are many potential points of confusion, such as volume knobs on speakers and interfaces being set incorrectly. An analysis plug-in strapped across your master buss won’t affect the sound but will provide an accurate display of what’s really going on, helping you to understand if you’re pushing too hard or not enough.

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DON’T BE AFRAID TO ASK FOR HELP Even if you’re an experienced producer, a second pair of trusted ears never hurts when you’re mixing. If you work on a project for days, weeks or months you can really lose perspective and your judgement can be impaired. By getting the opinion of a second person, perhaps the studio engineer, you might be able to identify deficiencies in the mix that weren’t initially apparent to you. They may know a trick for sidechain-compressing the bass or for adding air to the vocal track that adds that little extra something to the sound.

KEEP VOCALS AUDIBLE This might seem like a rather obvious point, but for any music that involves vocals they need to be as audible and clear as possible but without sticking out of the mix too much. Achieving this is almost entirely down to proper EQ and compression settings, but you can also help by identifying the frequency range of the vocals and then looking for any other elements that might be fighting for space with them. These might include midrange sounds such as guitars or keyboards, and you might want to EQ those sounds accordingly to make a space for the vocals to shine through.

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TEST YOUR MIXES Your tracks might sound amazing over the studio’s £5,000 ATC monitors, but most people will be listening to them on something considerably less high-end. Of course, you can’t account for everyone who might have some dreadful ‘bass boost’ turned on, but you can at least play test mixes over a range of speakers and

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Use grouping to gain better control of larger projects with multitracked sources.

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Reason 7 features parallel channels, which are useful for getting a big sound.

Feature MTF

SIDECHAIN-COMPRESS WHERE APPROPRIATE If you’re working with electronic music you may be familiar with the concept of bass sidechain compression. This is how the classic ‘pumping’ effect of many club tunes is achieved. Use a sidechain-capable compressor on the bass track and feed it from the kick drum track, setting the threshold and ratio controls appropriately to achieve the level of pumping that you want.

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Limiting is essential, but understand how you’re shaping the sound if you want to get optimum results.

Use sidechain compression to achieve that classic ‘pumping’ effect.

SUPERCHARGE TIP KNOW YOUR LIMITERS Limiting is the last stage of the mastering process (and indeed the last stage of the whole production process) so it’s vital to get it right. It’s tempting to slam a track really hard and get maximum clout from it, but this isn’t usually the most sensible approach. Think carefully about whether you’re squeezing all the life out of the signal and, if necessary, back it off a little. Supercharging a sound doesn’t necessarily have to mean pushing it as hard as possible – it can mean getting the correct amount of life or power from it. Indeed, this should be your goal. MTF

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MTF Technique Composition & Experimentation in Live

Ableton Live Become a Live Power User

Compose & experiment

What do you do when you run out of ideas and hit that brick wall in composition? Experiment! Liam O’Mullane guides you through Live’s tools for experimental work…

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here are many moments in music composition when you might feel the need for experimenting, or using tools you might not normally turn to. You could be suffering from writer’s block and not know where to take your work next, or perhaps you’re stuck on the first idea and need something to kick start it all off. Or maybe you are nearing the end of your song writing and feel the track still needs something better within it. There’s always the option to step away from your work and think about new ideas, but the only problem with

On the disc Accompanying project file included on the DVD

You should see this as a challenge: how far can you take an idea to create a new one this is that it might not take you into any new territories – it is still you and probably the same thought processes you always use, after all! Experimenting is a much better way and opens up many new possibilities and could result in some of your most unique work yet. This doesn’t mean that your musical integrity is compromised in any way. You’re simply leaving an interpretation of your work in the hands of somewhere else, just as you would if you collaborated with another person. The

FOCUS ON… MAKING THE MOST OF YOUR EFFORTS Live has one of the simplest ways of dealing with the individual contents of a project. At any given time you can search the contents of another project in the Live browser and drag any tracks or individual clips out and into your currently loaded session. This also works in reverse, so if you have a good idea but it may not suit the current project you’re working on, grab the top of the track or a clip respectively, then drag it to a sensible place for easy access in the future. I have a folder called song ideas which I drag every unused idea into. Live also lets you preview these ideas in tempo with your project, meaning you can audition your own ideas in the same context as you would with audio loops.

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main different is that you’re collaborating with your computer, but like working with other people, you still get to approve, dismiss or amend any ideas put on the table. There are many times I’ve completely re-worked an idea to see where it could go and I’ve rarely found the efforts to be worthless. These changes might transform a lifeless idea into something much more upbeat, or create various other instances of an idea I can use for variations or fills at the end of a phrase. So try not to be too precious when going through the techniques covered in this workshop. You should instead see this as a challenge: how far can you take an idea to create a completely new one? The process can be quite inspirational and potentially give you a new key part to your latest work. MTF

Composition & Experimentation in Live Technique MTF

MTF Step-by-Step Experimental MIDI

We’ll start with some of the most musical forms of manipulation, for when you don’t want to move too far away from a musical structure you may have already created. Under the MIDI effects tab you will find many tools to play with. We’re starting with the Arpeggiator which is useful for quickly transforming simple ideas into something more animated.

We’ve gone from an incredibly simple melody with a single note per beat to a flourish of notes using two arpeggiators. This arpeggiator began its life from the C Major Walk 16th Grooved preset which we then modified through changing the rate for faster runs and transpose was changed from major to minor to suit the existing melody more.

We then placed a second arpeggiator device and tweaked this to produce more movement to the melody. For further changes to this set-up you can feed the arpeggiator more notes using a chord device. You then just move the Pitch dials for each note you add and tweak until you like the results.

Another way to explore new possibilities is to use a Random device which, as you’d expect, creates random events from your existing MIDI material. Tweak its settings so the Chance amount is high for less repetition, then experiment with other parameters.

To record the results of any experimentation with MIDI effects, add a new MIDI Track, select the output of the track you want to record from the top MIDI From menu, then select Post FX so all your processing is captured. New MIDI clips will be created when you record with all the new content as notes, meaning you can manually edit these parts to perfection.

Don’t think that this type of experimentation is only reserved for melodic work. Try dragging these effects to your drum ideas. Because drum kit layouts rarely use all of the MIDI notes available, you’ll need to bare this in mind when you tweak parameters otherwise the majority of the notes being created could be triggering nothing.

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MTF Technique Composition & Experimentation in Live

MTF Step-by-Step Creative audio processing

Certain aspects of audio processing are considered mixing aids, like compression, EQ and so on. But other effects can become part of your creative process. For instance an immediate and drastic way to change your ideas into something rhythmic is to add an Auto Pan device.

You can take this a step further by automating its sync value so rhythmic changes become an integral part of your idea. For quick automation either hit the Arrangement Record Button in arrangement view or the Session Record Button for session view. Then tweak away to record your movement.

Auto Pan works best on sounds with a constant output whereas delays can be useful for the opposite situation when you have more sporadic notes. Try adding a Simple Delay device and exploring the Delay Time values, press Link if you don’t want a stereo effect and, of course, explore automation too.

The time aspect of your ideas can also be manipulated through the use of Live’s Beat Repeat device. This can add a mash-up/edit like aspect to your work so it saves the need for you to get heavily into editing for a quick re-work. Explore the library presets, especially Deconstruct which will heavily change your current sound.

For musical pitch changes to an audio file over time you need to automate the clip’s Transpose control. But for sound-design styles of pitch change, try Frequency Shifter as this doesn’t keep the harmonic relationships intact which adds a nastier tone to your sounds.

Thankfully turning any audio processed into a new, rendered clip is much simpler than working with MIDI effects. Just Right [PC] / Ctrl [Mac] + Click the top of a track in session view or its header to the right in arrangement view. Select Freeze Track from the menu, then right click again and select Flatten.

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Composition & Experimentation in Live Technique MTF

MTF Step-by-Step Max For Live devices

For those who own Live Suite, you can use many of the Max for Live devices for experimental work as well. A good starting point is Mono Sequencer if you don’t have anything created already. It’s a monophonic step sequencer but its Random button is the real winner for unexpected results.

The Random button randomises whichever of the five tabs are selected at anytime - Pitch, Velocity, Octave, Duration and Repeat. If you’re close to getting something you like, keep Random set to a lower percentage, but if you want complete change with each click, set this to 100%.

Drunk Again is an interesting device as it adds Random’s rapid repeats of notes within the playback of your MIDI clip. It’s best recorded for a while to capture the magic moments. We like this on percussion parts to help them get the glitch treatment.

Instant Haus is another interesting device as it’s designed to drive kick, snare/clap, hi-hat and percussion parts for immediate house music. Run this into an instrument and you might get results similar to Mono Sequencer, but the random section includes groove if you want to explore timing.

When it comes to adjusting parameters over time there are a few tools with Max that allow you to do this, with an added twist of being able to use another sound as the trigger for the sound you’re focussing on. Alongside your melody idea, set up a drum source. Here we’re using a simple drum loop.

Under Audio Effects in the Max for Live folder, grab an Envelope Follower and drag this to the drum track. This will follow the rhythmic amplitude changes of the drum sound. You can then click Map followed by clicking the parameter you wish to control to connect them together.

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MTF Technique Audio recording & editing in Live

Ableton Live Become a Live Power User

Audio recording and editing in Live

Whether you intend to record a multi-mic’ed performance or just the odd found sound, you’ll need to understand how recording and editing works in Live. Liam O’Mullane explains...

L

ike many aspects of using Ableton Live, there’s more than one way to skin a cat, and when it comes to recording audio, the main options are whether to record in Arrangement or Session View. The first two walkthroughs opposite and over the page will guide you through both approaches, but like the different approaches to editing described in the third step-by-step, one size does not fit all. So take the techniques discussed onboard, but it’s only through repeated use that you’ll gain a personal context for their use. This time is needed to decide which approach

On the disc Accompanying project file included on the DVD

It’s not until now that we’ve focused specifically on the recording process itself best suits your own preferences for workflow and the tasks you will typically undertake. For instance, pitch-correction (covered in the third walkthrough) can be applied by using many of the excellent Warp modes available. While these will allow you to preserve the timing of your recordings, a side effect can be that the sound quality is compromised as it stretches or condenses your audio to keep it in-time after re-pitching. You can minimise this by using different Warp modes on either a global or edit-by-edit basis as required, but the good, old-fashioned vari-speed approach can also come in handy when you want to completely avoid any time-

FOCUS ON… CUE MIXING When recording, you may need to create a custom headphone mix for a performer that differs from the mix you want to listen to as you record. This headphone mix could include lots of reverb for a vocalist, helping them to feel comfortable while performing, and perhaps a loud melodic instrument to help them stay in-tune. A drummer may want everything but themselves in their headphones as their drums are already loud enough. Whatever your requirements, you will most likely need to route the Cue output of Live to the relevant output on your interface to feed the headphones. This needs to be a different output from that used for the Master output of Live, otherwise it will merely copy the main mix. The Cue output will play back any pre-count and the metronome, if required, but it can also send other audio from your project to the performer’s headphones. A Cue option appears above the Cue level control after selecting its separate audio output settings. When enabled, this will turn all solo buttons into a headphone icon. For quick set-up you can simply enable the relevant icon to send those channels to the headphones. For an independent mix of tracks, send only a single return track to the Cue out and instead use the other tracks’ send controls to blend the desired balance of instruments to the headphones via this return track.

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stretch-based artefacts. But this isn’t artefact-free, either, as the sound will suffer from timing distortions as you alter pitch. So after hearing the differences between the two, you’ll have a better idea of which approach is the most appropriate for the task at hand. Before hitting record, also make sure that you’re set up for the desired bit-depth and sample rate. Bit-depth dictates the available dynamic range in your recordings, with 24-bit being a typical choice. Sample rates represent the highest frequency limit (once halved) of your recordings, and there are all sorts of arguments as to which setting is best. In general, the higher the fidelity you want, the higher the sample rate needs to be. Orchestral recordings tend to be recorded at 88.2kHz or above. Most electronic music can be set to anywhere from 44.1kHz and above. Sample rate can be altered after opening Preferences from the Options/Live (PC/Mac) menu and selecting Audio from the left-hand tab. For bit-depth, click the Record Launch Warp tab. MTF

Audio recording & editing in Live Technique MTF

MTF Step-by-Step Recording in Arrangement View

You can choose to record in both Session and Arrangement Views. This can be when Live is already in the middle of playback or you can use a pre-count to count in the start of both recording and playback at the same time. The metronome button has a menu for tailoring the duration of pre-count for the performers’ needs.

To capture a natural performance, it’s best not to focus on smaller sections and loop around them. Instead, use Live in a purely linear mode by making sure that Loop Switch is disabled, then record the performance from start to finish. This will result in a much more natural-sounding recording than working in small sections.

If you want to record multiple takes with this non-looping approach, it’s best to record each new take to a different track. You can then accurately split each part by disabling Snap To Grid from the Options menu and using Split from the Edit menu. The [0] key can be used to disable takes when determining the best ones.

If a performer can’t quite nail a full take or did a good job but small sections might benefit from a re-take, you can use Live’s punch-in/-out function. Click and highlight the area to focus on and select Loop Selection to move the Loop Brace. Press the Punch-In/Out Switch (in yellow) to map to the Loop Braces’ start and end points. Recording will now take place only between these two points.

Another approach is to track multiple recordings by cycling over a small section repeatedly. This is useful if you want to ad-lib and try out multiple different ideas. Start by looping around the area of focus, then record various times until you think there are sufficient decent parts to work with.

The audio clip that you’ve recorded will have an internal Loop Brace that’s the length of your clip. To audition the other takes, simply move the Loop Brace around to change the content of the clip. This avoids the alternative, lengthy approach of moving and extending the clip to gain access to the other takes.

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MTF Technique Audio recording & editing in Live

MTF Step-by-Step Recording in Session View

Session View can be useful for Arrangement View-like cycle recording, except that clips are recorded to separate slots, which keeps things easier to deal with visually. If you intend to work in a linear way you can simply hit record in an empty clip slot and record continuously, then drag the file into Arrangement View for editing.

Multiple takes can be recorded separately by creating multiple tracks with their Arm buttons enabled. Then, as long as Start Recording on Scene Launch is enabled from the Preferences menu, you just trigger a scene to start playback and recording of your multiple takes. Alter each clip’s Loop Brace position as in Step 6 of the previous walkthrough so that they represent each take.

Now that you have your recordings, you can either drag them into Arrangement View for editing, or use an exclusive method within Session View. This technique is much more hands-on and less graphically-based. Once you’ve set up your Loop Braces to represent each take, drag the recordings to one track so you can play back only one take at a time.

Highlighting your recordings, open the Launch Box, enable Legato mode and set Quantization to none. Legato allows you to move from playing one clip to another without losing the playback position. This lets you jump between one take and the other like a manual edit. The lack of Quantization means launching of clips will be immediate.

Next, assign computer keys or MIDI notes to each clip using either Key Map mode or MIDI Map mode from the top right of the screen. Now you can launch the takes with your fingers and jam out potential edits of the recordings. We find that this helps you listen to how the edits alter the performance, and you can practice until you think it sounds right.

When you’re ready to commit your compiling to Live, hit the Arrangement Record Button to capture your performance in Arrangement View. From here you can fine-tune and edit between parts. Drag the takes back to Session View if necessary after consolidating it to a new audio file via the Edit menu.

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Audio recording & editing in Live Technique MTF

MTF Step-by-Step Editing techniques

There are several key tools you’ll need to work with when editing a performance. If you’ve already comped from various takes you’ll have multiple clips sequenced one after another. Live will automatically smooth-out the edits you’ve made with a crossfade. To view and edit these, select Show Fades from the Create menu. Fade-ins/-outs can also be controlled in this way.

When trying to improve the timing of smaller edits, rather than trying to move the clips, move their content instead – just grab the Start Marker in the Sample Editor window to move the content and disable Snap To Grid for more accuracy. Re-size the clip to avoid abruptly chopping off the sound’s start or end points.

Disabling Warp mode from the Sample View allows you to re-pitch your audio clips for correction purposes using varispeed. This means that the audio’s duration will expand or contract as you go down or up in pitch respectively. Use the Transpose and Detune amounts to correct your audio’s pitch.

Live’s Warp mode can be used when you want to edit the timing within an audio clip but leave the pitch information intact. Pseudo Warp Markers will appear above the waveform in the Sample Editor. These can be double-clicked and dragged to condense or expand the clip’s content.

Like tuning a non-warped clip, Transpose and Detune can be used with Warp mode enabled as long as it’s set to anything but Re-Pitch mode. Finer tuning through Detune is best for minor corrections, but this can have only a static setting per clip, so Split each area to be corrected and set the Detune on a part-by-part basis.

If you plan on warping a multi-audio recording like drum mics or various instruments from a live performance, first ensure that all audio to be edited is the same length (Consolidate all pieces to a new length from the Edit menu if needed). Highlight the parts, edit one clip’s Warp Markers and the others will follow. The striped pattern across the top of the clip confirms you are in a grouped Warp mode.

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MTF Technique Audio & Instrument Racks

Ableton Live Become a Live Power User

Using Audio & Instrument Racks

Many people will recognise a Rack as they are used extensively in Live’s library content, but learning to build your own is essential for fluid workflow. Liam O’Mullane shows you how.

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bleton Live has quite a few features not found in other DAWs, and Racks is one of them. At the most basic level, Racks are containers that enable you to ‘rack’ together MIDI, instrument and audio devices. A Rack containing internal/ external instruments is called an Instrument Rack; a Rack of standalone audio processing devices is an Audio Rack. However, Racks are more than an easy way to bundle multiple elements into one easily saveable – and therefore recallable – package. Racks give you the option to run their internal signal paths in parallel or in series, which offers a

On the disc Accompanying project file included on the DVD

Racks are more than an easy way to bundle multiple elements into a saveable package FOCUS ON… USING EXTERNAL HARDWARE Live’s External Audio and Instrument devices enable you to create default presets for your outboard processors and sound sources respectively. A sound being triggered by MIDI or passing in and out of your computer as audio will always incur a little delay time. However, you can offset this for instruments by setting them to play something percussive on the beat, then enable Live’s metronome and change the Hardware Latency value to get both playing in time. This is set to milliseconds by default but you can click the ‘ms’ box to switch it to sample increments for a higher resolution of detail. The same technique can be applied to External Audio Effects by playing a percussive audio clip that matches up with the metronome, and the majority of external sources will need some housework processing to get the best out of them, such as EQ and compression. By Grouping them into a Rack along with an external device you can create a more mix-ready preset to work from. If this is set up correctly you can enjoy seamless integration of your hardware within Live at a moment’s notice as you work.

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huge range of options. In fact, the only real restriction you may encounter will be maxing-out either your CPU or RAM, but this isn’t anything that any computer user hasn’t had to factor into their workflow before. In this tutorial we’ll be using Live-only devices that are quite economical in terms of CPU requirements. It’s only when you start stacking large numbers of third-party, resource-hungry instruments and effects that you’ll perhaps need to be a bit more conscious about what you use and why. If processing power does become an issue, make use of Live’s Freeze feature to render the live processing as temporary audio. When you’re ready to commit to ideas, we encourage you to then Flatten them into newly rendered audio files. You can then perform any additional editing in these audio files while freeing up computer resources (both of these functions are accessed from the Edit menu). Racks can be used at any point throughout the production process, and typical uses include stacking layers of synths for huge, epic sounds, applying go-to parallel processing such as compression and distortion, mid-and-side processing, and building interesting musical tools for new ideas or exploring intricate audio-processing chains for sound-design tasks. As you can see, there are multiple uses for these tools and we’ll now go on to explain some of the most important aspects of Rack design. If at any point you get lost or are stuck for inspiration, we recommend that you have a look through the Live library for Audio, Instrument and MIDI Racks. From here it’s easy to explore and modify an existing Rack. MTF

Audio & Instrument Racks Technique MTF

MTF Step-by-Step Audio Racks: advanced control

Create a Rack by either dragging a preset from the Live Browser or using Group from the Edit menu when an existing instrument or effect(s) is highlighted. Each internal audio channel – called Chains – will now be visible. There will be only one by default, but more Chains can be created by clicking in the empty space below and choosing Create Chain or Duplicate a Chain from the Edit menu.

There are two reasons for parallel processing, the first being to audition various approaches for processing audio. This approach lets you try out different techniques/processors and generally explore the possibilities for each element in your mix. Use Solo to move between each Chain; when you’ve decided which treatment to go for, delete the other Chains to avoid unnecessary processing.

Reason two is for parallel processing, with typical uses being for compression/saturation. This is set up by keeping the first Chain as-is and adding a second Chain to process in parallel. Chains can also be used to split a signal into its components: by frequencies using multiple Multiband Dynamics devices; by mid-and-side components using the Utility device’s Width control at 0% and 200% respectively.

Chains can also be used to create different sonic states to move between, such as a lighter verse and heavier chorus treatments. Create the two treatments, using Solo to focus on each one like before, then open the Chain Selector Editor by clicking on the box labelled Chain. Looking like a sampler’s key-range editor, this allows you to move the assignment of each Chain to a different area horizontally.

If you move the Zone Blocks for each Chain so they aren’t overlapping, the Chain Select Ruler above them (in orange) can be moved from one sound to the next. When using Zones in this way, effects with tails – like reverb or delays – will die out naturally. To blend between the two, drag the Zone Blocks across the full range, then drag the Fade Range shapes so they oppose each other to create the fade.

All Racks have Macro controls that you can assign most parameters within a Rack to. If you right/[Ctrl]-click (PC/Mac) on the Chain Selector Ruler it can be assigned to a Macro and then assigned to a MIDI controller. Multiple assignments can be made to one Macro, so explore different combinations of assignments, ranges and the directions in which they move.

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MTF Technique Audio & Instrument Racks

MTF Step-by-Step Instrument and Drum Racks

Instrument Racks work in a similar way to Audio Racks and are useful for stacking sounds for density and depth, or setting up different sounds to move between dynamically. To create something big, take the same approach of using multiple Chains and layering contrasting sounds. The MIDI Pitch device is useful here for quickly finding the best octave or harmony for each new Chain.

Instrument Racks have more options than Audio Racks when it comes to using Zone Blocks and fades. Use Velocity to create layers with expressive control from a MIDI keyboard, or Key to create tonal changes up and down the keyboard. Here we’ve added a bass layer to the lower keys of a melody line; the fade enables it to blend in at the bottom of a descending passage.

Macros can be very useful for creating consistency in an instrument performance. For instance, if you want to use drastic effects such as a high-pass filter that removes the bulk of the body from a sound, you can offset any loss in presence by increasing the volume of a Utility device as the filter cutoff is increased.

Drum Racks have the added bonus of an internal Sends and Returns setup. This is great for achieving polished production sounds within your Rack. First enable the Show buttons for Sends and Returns (at the very left of the Rack). Drag the required effect to the area labelled Drop Audio Effects Here – a Send amount will appear on the Chain List that can be used to feed the effect.

As these effects are internal, you can sub-process all your drums as one, helping you to achieve a cohesive sound by processing both the drums and reverb with tools like compression. If you want to drive an effect that’s already set up in Live’s main Return Tracks, right/ [Ctrl]-click in an empty Chain area and select Create Return Chain. This can then be routed to the relevant Return Track.

A hybrid approach can be used to combine steps 4 and 5 by initially using Return Chains within the Drum Rack. When you’ve decided on your choices, drag-and-drop the internal Return Chains to the main Return Track area in Live. This won’t carry across the Send amounts, which you’ll have to reapply from the main Sends section of the Drum Rack’s channel in Live’s mixer.

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Launch your sound with:

ULTIMATE CONTROL OVER ABLETON LIVE Focus more on your music and less on your laptop. Seize control of everything in Ableton Live. Mixer, effects and instruments: get hands-on control over it all. Switch between tracks and devices at the push of a button. Tweak your mixer with LED-enhanced knobs that change colour to show pans, sends and device control. Combine with Launchpad S for extraordinary simultaneous control over your session view and mixer. Producing the perfect mix has never been easier.

www.novationmusic.com/launch

MTF Technique Audio to MIDI

Ableton Live Become a Live Power User

Converting audio to MIDI

Live has some of the best tools for turning an audio file into MIDI to reflect its musical content. Liam O’Mullane shares his preferred techniques for getting the best results.

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he ability to slice-up audio and retrigger it creatively from MIDI is nothing new – Live has had this functionality for a while now in the form of its Slice To New MIDI Track function and it’s a feature that should never be overlooked. More recently, Live 9 added Convert To MIDI to its toolkit, which translates the musical content of an audio file into MIDI. Convert Drums to New MIDI Track lets you detect an audio file’s rhythmic content and then loads in a basic drum kit to play it back. This does a pretty good job of picking the right drum sounds and is handy for starting a

On the disc Accompanying project file included on the DVD

Beatbox, hum, whistle or sing ideas and then convert them into usable MIDI data song with the right drum style for a given genre. Convert Harmony will detect chords; Melody detects monophonic melody content. The cleaner the pitch and transient information in the source audio, the better the transcription results will be. But, as always, there are ways of helping the computer to do a better job if you’re faced with a less-than-ideal situation. We’ll show you how to achieve the best results while suggesting some experimental uses for the process as well. It can be easy to dismiss this feature as a simple transcription tool, but it’s eye-opening when you realise how it can enhance your music production. If you want to remix someone else’s music, you can quickly create the

FOCUS ON… EXPERIMENTATION There are many ways to use and misuse the Convert To MIDI tools that Live offers beyond practical transcription. Try converting one instrument type to another, such as drums to a melodic bass part. This is the quickest way to get an ‘in the pocket’ bass line that immediately works with your drums in a tight and percussive fashion. You may need to edit the notes to suit your taste, but that’s all for creating a good drum-and-bass combo. You can also develop this with more information between the fused rhythmic elements, making the bass more of a lead feature – a perfect building block for the rest of a song! Melodic passages can become drum parts as well if there’s sufficient rhythmic information for Live to interpret. The drums sounds that are triggered may be a bit unpredictable, but if there’s an interesting rhythm in the part, you can loop it and then move the notes to explore what drums sounds work best. If the drums are too sparse, this is a great time to take the idea further through the use of editing or perhaps some of Live’s MIDI devices. If the notes are long enough, an Arpeggiator device could be triggered to add yet more rhythmic information. There’s a huge amount of possibilities here, and we’re sure that you’ll find this process a new way of jump-starting your creativity.

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MIDI parts for lead lines, drum grooves and so on (depending on the clarity of the source material) to use with your own choice of sounds. Other people’s music can also be used as a starting point to generate your own ideas – very useful when you want to create something spontaneous and different from your usual work. As a person who’s always made noises with my mouth since I could speak, this feature now allows me to record as I beatbox, hum, whistle or sing ideas and then convert them into usable MIDI data. I can finally use my primary instrument to interact with the computer as well as pick up my trusty guitar from time to time to try out different ideas. We’re in an exciting time for music technology and Convert to MIDI is one of the reasons for this, so let’s look at how to get the most from it. MTF

Audio to MIDI Technique MTF

MTF Step-by-Step Fine-tuning the Audio to MIDI process

Audio-to-MIDI conversion begins by right/[Ctrl]-clicking (PC/Mac) an audio file within Live, its browser, or by dragging and dropping an audio clip over a MIDI track. After selecting the approach you prefer, you can check the accuracy by solo’ing both the original and converted tracks by [Ctrl]/[Cmd]-clicking both track’s solo button.

Live uses transient information to determine where each note or beat begins, and this audio example is very distorted and lacks clear transients. If you hover above the waveform in the Sample Editor you’ll see Live’s Transient Markers. These can be clicked and moved while holding [Shift], deleted, or new markers can be added by holding down [Alt] as you double-click anywhere within the display.

If the speed of a musical passage causes issues with the transcription process, slow it down by pressing the Halve Original Tempo button (labelled :2) to make each note and transient more drawn-out. Make sure that the clip is set to the Re-Pitch Warp mode as other modes usually distort the content of your audio (although experimentation is always encouraged).

Now that the pitch is easier for Live to detect, you help further by using a Gate device to create clearer transients before conversion. Set the Gate’s threshold low enough so that each note opens the Gate, then Freeze and flatten the file (from the Edit menu) to create a new piece of audio for Live to analyse before trying to convert the file again.

When you’re focusing on a specific area from a larger piece of audio, click and drag to highlight the portion of audio in focus before converting to MIDI. This is great for working with sketched audio ideas that don’t follow Live’s tempo, such as a sketched idea sung into your phone’s recorder. You can then sort out the timing as part of the editing process after converting to MIDI.

The timing of a MIDI clip can be expanded or condensed using MIDI Stretch Markers, which appear when you highlight multiple notes to edit. Select All from the Edit menu to correct the whole piece while moving the markers at the start/end of your pattern. If the timing is out, highlight those notes and condense/expand them as necessary. Select Quantize from the Edit menu to further tidy up the part.

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MTF Technique Audio to MIDI

MTF Step-by-Step Remixing with Audio to MIDI

The results you get from using Audio to MIDI with commercially released material can vary. This is because the sound source will most often be less clearly defined than recordings made with a single instrument. This can be due to many layers of sounds playing at once, or heavy mix processing like resonant filtering. Try to find the cleanest-sounding part in a song to start working from.

The cleanest part of this song we can find for its chord progression is in the breakdown before a vocal sings on top of it. The problem is that it has a loud white-noise impact effect at the start, which as you can see almost completely prevents Live from detecting content for the first two bars. First we’ll try some EQ work to help Live focus on just the melodic content for this section.

We’ve tried a general EQ treatment which we then flattened to the audio before conversion. This helps Live to detect more chord information for the third bar than before. The first two bars, however, are still pretty garbled, so a different approach is required. We’ve instead listened through the whole piece to search for the missing chords elsewhere, with less background information.

The missing chords are repeated at the start of the second half of the piece as well, so we’ve copied it from there for the beginning. If you can’t find another usable piece in the song, search for the sound you don’t want on its own (if available). This can then be layered over the problem layer with its phase reversed for cancellation on playback using a Utility device. You’ll need to export these tracks as new audio.

Unless you’ve got a very clear and simple piece to transcribe you’ll need to do some tidy-up work to the MIDI that’s created. First there may be some unwanted notes to remove. If they’re within a cluster of notes, enable the MIDI Editor Preview headphone icon in the top-left of the editing window. This allows you to hear notes as you select them. They can then be deleted if they sound out-of-tune.

For further tidying you may need to edit the start/end points of notes as well. This can be a manual edit (by moving and dragging the end points of individual or grouped notes) or an automated task via Quantize Settings from the Edit menu. If you want a continuous, fluid monophonic melody line for a portamento effect, use the Legato button in the Notes box of Clip View so the notes slightly overlap each other.

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MTF Feature Get Online

MTF Masterclass DIY Promotion

The internet can be the ultimate advert for your music. Rob Bo offard explains how to get the best from it and create the ultimate web presence for your sound… 34 | Ableton Live 2014

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ard as it is to believe, there are still some musicians with very little online presence. The chances are you are not one of them, but there might be areas you have missed and this feature is designed to help you fill in the gaps. First you need to upload your music to a streaming service - anybody who tries to find your music needs to be able to do so instantly, listen to it instantly, find more of your stuff in moments and be pointed to where to buy it. Soundcloud is by far and away the best service for this: it lets you upload your tracks immediately, each with its own dedicated player. You’re also able to embed the player in other websites you have access to, which is the perfect way transport your tunes online. As a bonus, Soundcloud looks really good. Outside of places like iTunes and Spotify (which we’ll get to in a moment) you’ll also want to investigate online storefronts. Bandcamp is easily the best place to create one of these, and you can see how to set up a profile on the site in one of the step-by-step guides in this tutorial. The key here is to have a good mix of stuff available for free, and stuff available for sale – it’ll hopefully keep people coming back. There are other services worth looking at, too, especially if you’re a DJ. Mixcloud is an online radio service geared to providing user-generated content. You can upload your own mixes, collections and radio shows for people to stream. This can be a fantastic promotional tool for you to use; combine it with things like Twitter to spread the word, and you have a very powerful way of getting your music out there. Social networking is (very obviously) worth looking into as well. Arial Hyatt, who we speak to elsewhere in this tutorial, knows a lot more about it than we do. She’s got plenty of tips for how to master Facebook, Twitter and the like. It’s also worth setting up Google Alerts. These are dead easy to set up, and every time someone mentions you online, Google will email you telling you where. Follow these up – a simple tweeted thank you or an email can help build relationships.

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MTF Feature Get Online

Home front So that’s how other sites can represent your music. Now it’s time to make sure that the online presence you control is taken care of. It is absolutely staggering how bad many musicians’ websites are. Many rely simply on a Tumblr account, or a Facebook page, both of which are terrible ways to showcase your music. You need a good website – we can’t stress this enough. It needs your own domain name attached to it, and it needs to showcase what you do. It does not need to be complicated to do the job, nor does it need to be expensive. There are several great free website builders available, like Moonfruit or Weebly. In another step-by-step, we show you how to create one. But a word of warning. Your own domain name will cost a little, even if the website itself is free. They have to be registered, which is a pain but does mean that you own the name. And if you do have a little bit of money to spare, hiring a web designer is a very good

Don’t just rely on Tumblr; build your own website using a free website builder like Moonfruit…

MTF Step-by-Step Setting up a Bandcamp page

Bandcamp is arguably the best place to set up an online store for your music. Signing up and creating a page is pretty straightforward, so what we’re going to focus on is creating a page that really stands out. Clicking Artist Signup takes us through to the standard form page. Punch in your artist name and contact details, pick a genre and a domain name, and you’re set.

Next step for our made-up folk-metal act Viking Cleavage is to add a track, or an album. We’ll just add a track for now to keep things simple. On this screen, you’ll see the options for how you want your track to be formatted. We’re going to make this one available for free – although we’ve decided to make fans part with their email address in exchange. By the way, you need a Paypal account. Don’t argue. It’ll make your life so much easier.

A key to a good Bandcamp page, or any online store, is the details. Add a description of the track, any lyrics, and a good set of credits to it. Put your contact details here, too. Regarding album art: make sure every track and album has one. If you don’t have a designer handy, use Creative Commons to find a suitable image. The search site will throw up plenty of options you can use free of charge – some are better than others!

We’ll now be at our main page. This is what your fans will see when they visit. Again, everything is in the details: make sure you upload a striking banner image across the top, and put your contact details in the main body of text at the bottom of your track description. That includes Twitter handle and email, as well as links to any other sites like Facebook.

Keep an eye on your stats. There’s nothing here yet, since we’ve just uploaded our track, but if you have a Bandcamp page then these are something you should check on a daily basis. Pay particular attention to the Map tab – this will show you where your plays are coming from, which is very handy when deciding who to target in your promotional efforts.

Bandcamp also gives you 200 free download codes for every track or album you upload – perfect for online promotion. If you’re planning on emailing journalists or DJs, be sure to include one of the codes – they’ll be able to pick up the music in any format. You’ll find the download codes option in the Tools menu, and there are plenty of other useful bits there too. Think discount codes and private streaming.

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idea. They will do things you can’t do yourself. Sites like PeoplePerHour often have great designers available for reasonable rates. What do you need on your website? Again: nothing fancy: a short bio, plus some videos and audio examples, including links to buy. A regularly-updated blog can be a good idea too, even if it’s just some examples of things that inspire you. And contact details – you would be amazed at how hard some musicians make it to be contacted. But if a journalist happens on your music and can’t contact you, they’ll pass by very quickly. So make sure your contact details are on there, and check your email regularly! It’s also worth putting together an EPK - an Electronic Press Kit (we showed you how last month). This is simply a zip file containing your bio, some high-resolution photos, those crucial contact details and perhaps some reviews your music has received. Make this downloadable from the site, and attach it to any emails you send out.

MTF Pro Tip – An easy gig? O No gigs booked? No problem. Nothing stops you from hosting your own shows online, getting fans to log onto Skype or Google Hangouts to watch you perform. If you feel like making a little cash doing this, services like StageIt let you set up a video stream, and act as a box office for your fans. Don’t try and attempt this unless you have a fair few fans, however – an empty venue still hurts whether its real or digital.

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MTF Feature Get Online

We mentioned photos. Get them done – good ones, too. A good set of press shots are something you will use again and again. We almost guarantee you know someone who can take great shots – everyone thinks they are a pro photographer these days – so ask them. They might even do it for free for their ‘portfolio’… Then of course, there’s SEO – Search Engine Optimisation. It refers to the process of making sure your site pops up at the top of search engine results. It’s a real dark art, and we could take an entire tutorial explaining it, so we’ll leave it to you to decide how much of it you want to do. In this case, we’d suggest getting a professional in, but be careful: SEO pros are expensive, mostly because they do things no-one else seems to know how to do. The bottom line: you need to make sure your music and your artist details are as accessible – and attractive – as possible. Anybody who goes looking for you needs to find you in seconds.

MTF Pro Tip – reward your fans O Explore slightly unusual social networking ideas: for example, check out FanDistro. It rewards your fans for sharing your music with their friends, and if any sales come from those shares, your fans get free merch and a sum donated to their chosen charity. Anything that rewards your fans for being fans is always good, so thinking a little differently can really pay off in the long run. Check out the tools sites like Facebook offer too.

Arctic Monkeys know how to get a good press shot done. And black and white still works.

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MTF Pro Tip – Go mobile O Got a website? Smashing. Does it work on mobile,

too? It should. Your mobile site doesn’t have to be as feature-packed or full-on as your real site, but it should work, and it should include basic items like contact details and audio of your music. There are plenty of site creators that let you build one; make sure you test it on as many different devices as possible. There’s nothing more irritating than losing a fan because they can’t access your music, even if you’re not likely to know this has happened.

MTF Spotlight Interview

The social media expert Ariel Hyatt is a one-stop-shop for online expertise. Here’s how she does it...

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riel Hyatt has no illusions about the difficulty of what she does. She’s a digital PR: the company she founded, New York-based Cyber PR, specialises in online publicity across social networks. For a price, she and her staff will step up to handle your digital output, working on everything from Twitter and Facebook feeds to websites. She’s become something of an online guru for social media, writing articles, filming videos and hosting discussions on how best to go about it. She’s not afraid of controversy, either: a few years ago, she started a service, ReviewYou, which connected musicians with writers. The scribes would pen them reviews they could use in their press kits. It met – predictably, it must be said – with some derision from the New York press. Social networking is a little like Tetris – it’s easy to pick-up, but nearly impossible to master - and turning those Twitter followers and Facebook fans into actual purchasers of your music can often be extremely tough. It’s for these reasons that people come to Hyatt.

Whether or not you decide to pass over your online output to another company – and many musicians don’t – there are certain things to bear in mind when considering a strategy. Numbers, Hyatt says, matter less than you’d think: “On Facebook, your number of fans means nothing. What matters is the number to the right of it: people talking about this. That’s the number that needs to be focussed on.”

Numbers of fans mean nothing; it’s what they’re talking about that does It’s the content, she says, that determines how many people will engage with your music. This applies whether you have fifty followers or fifty thousand – those Likes will only turn into Buys if you have a compelling story to go with it. When Hyatt and her team took on rock act Chaser Eight, they soon discovered that a member of the band had been in drug rehab. Cyber PR asked him to share his stories on various blogs, creating a successful campaign around their music. Finding this story, she says, can often be quite tricky, but it’s a key part of any strategy. “We get a lot of resistance from our clients, saying, I don’t understand why my lifestyle or religion or gluten-free lifestyle or children or yoga practice has to do with my music,” she says. And on the subject of PR she adds: “This is not a God-given talent. It’s a learnable skill. It’s a process. Go easy on yourself if it doesn’t come naturally.”

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MTF Feature Get Online

Online moves There are plenty of places to upload your music online – whether to showcase it, sell it or get it reviewed. In fact, there are so many of these sites available that it can often be a nightmare trying to work out which ones to use. Here are some of the better ones and what they’re best for. We’ve referenced a few elsewhere in this guide, but there are plenty of new faces too.

that can be stored in your account. Create your account today and you are ready to go!” We say: An alternative service to Soundcloud. Worth investigating if you’re looking for something different, but while it has similar functionality, Soundcloud just feels more professional. Soundcloud is the best site to start with, and it looks great too.

SOUNDOUT Soundout.com @Soundout They say: “SoundOut is the market leading research and audience insight tool for new music that guarantees accurate and objective insight into your music, 100% powered by real music fans. SoundOut will help you select your strongest singles, decide where to focus your marketing effort and identify which demographics you should be targeting.” We say: Judging by their reports, they give you some pretty thorough data. Be warned: the service does cost. But if you’re looking to control every aspect of your promotion, it’s well worth checking out.

MUSIC XRAY Musicxray.com @Musicxray They say: “Music Xray is a platform where artists can

SOUNDCLOUD Soundcloud.com @Soundcloud They say: “SoundCloud is the world’s leading social sound platform where anyone can create sounds and share them everywhere. Recording and uploading sounds to SoundCloud lets people easily share them privately with their friends or publicly to blogs, sites and social networks.” We say: You’re looking at the gold standard for uploading music in a shareable format. Simple, brilliant and works just about everywhere.

MIXCLOUD Mixcloud.com @Mixcloud They say: “Mixcloud’s mission is to deliver great radio, for everyone. We are re-thinking radio, joining the dots between traditional shows, Podcasts and DJ mixes.” We say: Mixcloud is best for when you’ve got a mix or a podcast you’d like to upload. It’s not so good for individual tunes, but when used in conjunction with Soundcloud it’s brilliant.

BANDCAMP Bandcamp.com @Bandcamp They say: “Discover amazing new music and directly support the artists who make it.” We say: Its templates are limited, but you’re not going to find an easier way to sell your music online, or track where the sales come from.

YOURLISTEN Yourlisten.com @Yourlisten They say: “Upload music and audio for free with no size and time limits or limits on the amount of uploads

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MTF Pro Tip – Reveal all? O If your studio sessions are entertaining, why not think about streaming them

live? Services like Ustream or Google Hangouts are perfect for setting this up. It’s good if there are plenty of people in the group – the back-and-forth on songwriting alone can be brilliant – but even if you’re working alone, you could still keep up a running commentary on what you’re doing. This is not something you need to do 24/7, but trying it out once a week can draw in people curious to see how your music works. Give it a try.

Get Online Feature MTF

submit their music directly to Industry Professionals. When you submit to an opportunity, your track goes directly to the decision makers: no middle-men, no pre-screeners, just a direct link between artist and Industry Professional.” We say: Hmmm. Indie acts or those from niche genres are unlikely to get much here, but it’s an active site and has some big names attached to it.

musicians to be who they are while maintaining creative control over their music and financial control of their sales.” We say: Er…what? Get past the jargon, and you’ll find a site that acts in a similar way to OurStage, although the presentation leaves a little to be desired.

PLEDGEMUSIC

Kickstarter.com @Kickstarter They say: “We’re a home for everything from films, games, and music to art, design, and technology. Kickstarter is full of projects, big and small, that are brought to life through the direct support of people like you.” We say: Crowdfunding, tried and tested. If you’re confident that a wider audience will support your work, and you’re prepared to graft bloody hard to make it happen, dive in.

Pledgemusic.com @Pledgemusic They say: “PledgeMusic is the most creative and interactive way for you to be part of your favourite artists’ journey in releasing new music. Through PledgeMusic, artists create new music projects, and when you Pledge on a campaign, you gain access to new music as well as exclusive content and often experience the creation process alongside the artist, all before the album officially hits the masses.” We say: Kickstarter for music. The advantage? Narrows the audience, connecting you with dedicated fans of your genre.

OURSTAGE

LASTPASS

Ourstage.com @Ourstage They say: “OurStage is a site that brings artists and music fans together in a truly democratic environment. For artists, OurStage is a place to make your music available to your fans, to find new fans, and to have your songs independently judged in competitions for some pretty great prizes.” We say: The site rewards fans for reviewing your music, so it’s an attractive proposition. The design is fresh and funky, and we’ve heard good things from those who have sent their music in.

Lastpass.com @Lastpass They say: “Designed by web enthusiasts and skilled application developers, LastPass was created to make the online experience easier and safer for everyone.” We say: Why are we recommending a password management site, you ask? Because being hacked sucks. Lastpass is, hands down, the most secure way of managing passwords known to man, and essential if you’re signed up to lots of sites.

KICKSTARTER

Kickstarter: use if you are confident and don’t mind working hard…

A password site. You’ll need it

MADELOUD Madeloud.com @Madeloud They say: “MadeLoud.com is a music website that incorporates the content of an indie music publication with the services of an online music retailer. Our intent is to create a site that empowers independent

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Audio visual - Then there are videos It’s possible to survive in the music business without YouTube videos. If you have music so good that it makes grown men weep tears of joy, then you can do it. If you’re not quite there yet, we’d suggest making sure you’ve got some footage handy. It can often be incredibly daunting to create a video, especially if you’ve never done one before. The good news is that videos don’t have to be complex or difficult to get the point across. You know your music best, so you may already have an idea of what you’d like to see when it plays. If you have a little bit of a budget, then things get a lot easier to manage, as you can hire people who actually do this. There are, however, some great low-budget or no-budget ways to make a video. For his single To Be Continued, rapper Evidence grabbed his video camera and went to a theme park. He got on a roller coaster, then rapped the song to the camera as he went through the twists and loop-de-loops. At the time of

MTF Step-by-Step Creating a website

It’s very tempting to sign up for a Tumblr account and leave it at that. But having your own domain name and website can really give you an edge, and with so many ways to create slick websites available now, there’s really no excuse. We’re using Moonfruit here, which allows us to create a basic template for a website. It’s nothing too fancy, but then, it doesn’t need to be.

If you can make a track in a DAW, you’ll be able to figure out how to arrange the elements in a site builders. Most of the time, it’s a case of relabelling things, moving them around, adding and shuffling pages and putting things where you want them. Moonfruit is no exception, and if you get stuck you’ll find that most site builders have a comprehensive help section.

A mistake that budding web-designers make is not keeping things simple. You don’t need a complicated website. Really, what will someone come to your page to do? Listen to music, find out who you are, maybe watch a few videos, reach out over email. That’s it. So before you get carried away with adding things in, remember that you’ll be more effective – and save yourself a lot of work – if you keep it simple.

One of the best reasons to have a website is that you can blog. Doing so regularly will increase your Google visibility, and give your fans a reason to keep coming back. But be warned: sometimes, the blogging tools on site builders aren’t great, or can be a pain to update. One strategy might be to open a Tumblr or a Wordpress page, and simply direct the blog link on your site there. These services are dead easy to upload to, even on the move.

Watch out for storage limitations, and try to avoid uploading enormous images and other files. If you’re using a site builder for free, expect there to be a limit on how much you can upload – a gigabyte might seem like enough, but trust us: it’s not. However, if you keep your music and videos hosted off-site – on YouTube or Soundcloud, for instance – then you shouldn’t have too much trouble displaying them on your site, even if you’re uploading a lot of them.

Finally: the domain name. Ours is currently www.vikingcleavage. moonfruit.com. That’s fine, but it lacks a certain something. The bad news is if we want our own domain name, we’ll need to buy it. Sites like 123-reg.co.uk will let you purchase a name for a relatively small fee, and even if you’ve used an external site builder, you can set up a redirect so that whenever anybody punches in the name it’ll take them right to your site.

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writing, the clip has clocked nearly a million views on YouTube. Or how about Karmin – a single camera, filming a shot of the husband-and-wife duo singing and rapping, became a total online sensation. Videos can give your music an exposure that simply can’t be beaten, especially if they go viral. You can never quite work out how people are going to respond to something – and never, ever read the YouTube comments on anything. Seriously. You’ll want to burn your eyeballs out.

Follow these tips, and stay focussed on getting your music heard, and you’ll come right. Perhaps the most important thing is one we haven’t mentioned yet: adapting. Circumstances change, new opportunities come up, and there will be times you need to move quickly not to miss them. Not everything we’ve written down here will cover that, but we’re pretty sure you can handle it on your own from here. MTF

MTF Pro Tip – Use the data O Your budget shouldn’t be the only number you’re concerned about. You should

be looking at website analytics too: how many people who arrive at your site come from your home country, how long they stay, what they look at. Google Analytics is the obvious jump-off point, and it’s very easy to install. You might also want to look at something like Next Big Sound, a service dedicated to producing numbers for musicians across all forms of social media. You’d be amazed at what your data can tell you, so don’t neglect this.

MTF Technique Clip experimentation in Session View

Ableton Live Become a Live Power User

Session View has numerous uses in Live 9 , both practical and creative. Liam O’Mullane explains how you can use and abuse the properties of audio and MIDI Clips to make music in a different way...

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o far in this issue we’ve looked at the various different tools for creating music in Ableton Live, most of which can be used in either Live’s Arrangement or Session Views. This instalment, however, focuses on tools that are available only when using Clips in Session View. Arrangement View is a linear overview showing tracks running vertically in rows, while time goes from left to right. Session View, on the

On the disc Accompanying project file included on the DVD

For higher levels of interactive control it’s worth investing in a dedicated controller other hand, takes a different approach, displaying tracks vertically like channels on an audio mixer. Slots are placed vertically down each track, which can be used to launch MIDI or audio Clips. You can choose to trigger an entire row of Clips at once – referred to as Scenes – or launch them individually. We’ll first look at how you can interact with one or more Clips for experimentation, then explore how to develop ideas so that Scenes can be expanded into potential new song sections. Scenes or individual Clips can be launched using the mouse, mapped keys on your computer keyboard, MIDI keys or buttons. Mapping manually

FOCUS ON… EXPERIMENTATION The majority of this tutorial focuses on modifying individual Clips to create variation. Although some of the techniques will yield a degree of randomness, they are mostly concerned with making precise changes through editing. If you want to take a different approach to achieve new results – or, indeed, you’re looking for a different way to sequence Clips – Follow Actions are worth exploring. Follow Actions are essentially a rule system that you can apply to any Clip in Session View to dictate how the playback of one Clip will lead into the playback of another. They can be applied only to Clips residing on the same track, therefore only one Clip can play at any one time. The positioning of the Clips will determine how they are grouped if they’re placed on the same track and in consecutive Slots – ie, if there are 20 clips running down a track, an empty Slot between the first ten and the second ten will result in them being grouped into two lots of ten, and the Follow actions will only ever communicate with the other Clips in the local group of ten.

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this way is set up using either Key Map or MIDI Map modes respectively. When enabled from the Options menu, you can then assign Scene Launch or Clip Launch buttons to a fixed mapping. This is a good approach for quickly trying out new ideas or for triggering specific assignments within a prepared performance, though you’ll usually delete the assignments when they are no longer needed. When either Map Mode is enabled, four new assignable buttons appear below the Scene Launch area on the right-hand side of Live’s display. When mapped, these allow you to select Scenes using either assigned up and down controls or a rotary encoder to scroll up and down. You can then use a special Launch button that simply triggers the scene currently highlighted. This approach is open to anyone with a standard computer keyboard or a MIDI controller, but for a higher level of interactive control it’s worth investing in a dedicated controller. Ableton’s own Push is the Rolls-Royce of options as it controls Session View and plenty more, making composition, sound design and mixing all feasible with minimal computer interaction. Other candidates include the Novation Launchpad or an AKAI APC-type product, which offer different levels of control but still let you navigate Session View for Clip/Scene launching. But irrespective of how you want to interact with Clips and Scenes, the techniques here will enhance your ability to jam in Session View. MTF The first parameter to understand is the Follow Action Time, which, like loop length, determines the length of a Clip’s playback until the Follow Action is implemented. This measures in bars, beats and 16ths and will then move to the Follow Action chosen from the A or B dropdown menu below. Underneath the two Follow Action menus is a Probability setting that by default is 1 to 0 – meaning that for every use of A’s Follow Action, there will be zero uses of Follow Action B; 1 and 1 will make them alternate between each other. The next setting to explore is the Follow Action itself. There are too many options to go into here, but there are two simple ways to achieve unique results. The first is to set all but the last Clip to play the next Clip using the Next Action, then set the last Clip to play the first. This will create a playback loop from top to bottom of all Clips in the group. Experiment with the duration of the Follow Action Time for changes to rhythm and time signature. The second approach involves the Any Follow Action, which sets up your Clips for random interaction. We like to use this on sound layers that sit further in the background of a mix for ever-changing layers of detail.

Clip experimentation in Session View Technique MTF

MTF Step-by-Step Experimenting with Clips

One way to interact with Clips is by changing their Launch mode behaviour. Unsync the Clip’s Launch quantization from Live’s Global quantization – this gives you more expressive settings, such as 16ths, without affecting Live’s global setting. Open the Launch box in Clip View by clicking on the small L symbol, then select from the Quantization menu.

There are four Launch modes to choose from. Trigger is the default mode, simply launching a Clip. Gate gives momentary launching while you hold the Clip’s Launch button; Toggle flips between playback being on/off with each launch. Repeat creates a stutter effect during playback while the Launch button is pressed, which then reverts to normal playback (like Trigger) when released.

Experiment with Launch modes to determine which one works best. If more than one sounds good, duplicate the Clip and give them custom modes to move between. The next way to manipulate multiple instances of a Clip is to explore Start Marker positions. These are the small markers above the waveform/MIDI grid in Clip View and they too can be customised for multiple instances of the same Clip.

You can immediately rework ideas when three or four duplicated Clips are set up with different Start Marker positions. The next level of manipulation comes from experimenting with loops on certain Clips. With the Loop Switch enabled, resize the Loop Brace above the waveform by dragging its edges or using the numerical values below the Loop Switch button.

Start Markers take on a new life here as they can be placed before a Loop Brace’s position or at any point within it, so explore letting normal playback run into a short loop later on in the Clip. In this way, short plays of this Clip will sound normal; longer runs into the loop create a sound effect.

If you want to keep the relative Clip playback position as you move from one Clip to the next, Legato mode can be used in much the same way that a synthesizer will use legato to move from one note to the most recent one hit, no matter how many are being held. For instance, launching a new Clip on the second beat of the bar will resume playback in the next Clip from the same position.

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MTF Technique Clip experimentation in Session View

MTF Step-by-Step Developing Scenes into full ideas

You can extend the duration of MIDI or audio Clips for developing ideas, but they need to be approached in different ways. A MIDI part can be duplicated using the Dupl. Loop button, then you can manually edit your new MIDI data to create more interest. Because audio Clips are single audio events that are played back, a different approach needs to be taken to create variation within Session View.

To vary audio over a longer duration than the audio itself you need to create automation loops for variation that can act independently. By opening the Envelope Box (press the small E symbol in the bottom left of Clip View), you can choose a parameter to edit from the Device and Controller dropdown menus. Each envelope can be given its own loop length by changing the Linked button to Unlinked.

Regardless of an envelope’s duration, rounded loop lengths will allow you to create predictable changes to your Clips. This means that the envelope’s loop will stay in sync with the musical phrase of the Clip’s audio. Start by creating a gated sequence – select Clip from the first menu, then Volume Modulation. Use Draw mode (Options menu) to edit the envelope and turn the sound on and off rhythmically.

A modulation envelope uses the current minimum/maximum range available from a parameter’s current position. Because our Clip volume is at 0dB, our envelope can control infinity up to full volume, but if the Clip volume is lower, we’d be limited to its maximum setting. For other effects automation, Absolute makes more sense as each edited envelope will control the parameter.

Warp Markers are a useful tool for adjusting the timing within an audio loop. These are created after double-clicking above the waveform display in the Clip View window and can then be dragged around. Automation that is linked to the original audio’s duration will follow Warp Marker manipulation. Explore this for interesting ways to edit audio and effects processing at the same time.

For less-sync’ed changes to your ideas over time, think of envelopes as looping LFO. Create an envelope with a less musically related duration so that it overlaps in different ways every time the audio loops. For instance, automate the movement of a notch filter for five beats to create a sense of constant movement in a sound as it plays.

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Collaboration in Ableton Live Technique MTF

Ableton Live Become a Live Power User

Collaboration in Ableton Live

So much can be done with one computer these days that you can forget that other humans are around to collaborate with. Liam O’Mullane shares various ways to get social with Live…

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ne of the strengths and weaknesses of today’s all in-the-box, computer-based studios is that you can do it all by yourself. Composing, producing, DJing, remixing and even jamming with yourself are all possible, but in this workshop, we’re looking at working with others and how Live can be set-up to do just that. Even when collaborating in the studio, it’s easy to overlook the various ways you can both work at the same time, rather than taking it in turns to hop on and off the computer. In its most basic form, you can assign two different MIDI controllers to control an instrument each. This gets better when there’s more than

On the disc Accompanying project file included on the DVD

It gets better when two of you can jam out ideas with one of you taking an engineering role two of you as you can collaboratively jam out ideas together while one person takes the engineering role and tweaks the sounds. You are then also geared up to immediately record any ideas as they arise. The next level of collaboration is to work with someone else running Live. This can work great in both the studio and live environments, and it’s a situation when you’ll usually opt for sync’ing two or more bits or gear together so they lock together by tempo and, when required, playback positions. Our Sync Between Two Machines walkthrough shows you how to sync two computers running Live. This can be done via 5-pin MIDI cables if you

FOCUS ON… MANUAL SYNC As automatic sync can be less than ideal in certain situations, there may be times when you’d just prefer to manually beat match with another Live user – just like a DJ would beat-match one record to mix at the same tempo with another. If you’re jamming with other musicians who are playing without a metronome, you may also need to manually sync to their current tempo to take advantage of Live’s tempo sync’d effects, or to capture a recorded loop on the fly. The main way manual beat-matching of Live to another electronic source differs to working with more freeform tempos is that you’ll have to micro manage your tempo for the latter, whereas electronic source work will be more of a ‘set and forget’ situation. When matching to another Live user, the simplest option is to run at the same BPM and after launching the second computer to sync with the first, use the forwards and backwards nudge buttons to perfectly align both computers. These are located to the right of Live’s tempo readout and can be mapped to MIDI for easy control in a live situation. When you want to try and sync with someone else’s tempo which isn’t known, the

have the interfaces available, or you can use an ethernet or Wi-Fi based network. We’ll show you the basics of making a network function as a MIDI interface for OSX as well, but you’ll need additional software to perform this task on Windows and this is beyond the scope of this workshop. Help can be found however at the following link http://www.tobiaserichsen.de/software/rtpmidi/rtpmidi-tutorial.html. Just download the rtpMIDI software which pretty much mirrors the OSX interface and follow the instructions. The final option is to use a manually-controlled form of tempo sync which will really test your rhythm skills. Some people will use these manual syncing techniques to beat match machines, but in most cases it’s reserved for working with human performers whose timing can be much more freeform. On the topic of sync again, the quality of automatic tempo matching can vary depending on the gear being used and the way they are hooked up. Although Wi-Fi is the simplest method, it’s also unpredictable and has a less than ideal performance – we’d only use this when caught short of other options in rehearsals or the studio. Working with 5-pin MIDI has worked fine for us so far and the best results come from running both computers from an external MIDI clock. But this is an additional investment, so we’d only recommend going down this route if you are not satisfied with the results using the techniques discussed. If you’re new to the world of sync, try out Wi-Fi first as it comes at no cost – you can then explore the finer syncs in life! MTF

first option to try is the Tap Temp (TAP) button to roughly set Live to the correct BPM. This alone will be enough to use tempo-based effects if you’re using Live as a creative mixing device. If you want to run Live to launch clips in time with the other performers then you’ll need to either then take over in terms of tempo by introducing something with a beat for them to follow, or you could capture part of their performance to loop via recording a clip in Session View or using Live’s Looper device.

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MTF Technique Collaboration in Ableton Live

MTF Step-by-Step Sync between two machines

Regardless of how you’re connecting up your MIDI data from one computer to another, the basic set-up of routing MIDI clock from the master computer to the slave is the same for running between two instances of Live. Open Preferences on the master computer and select the MIDI Sync tab. The data will control the slave so enable Sync from the Output of the MIDI port connected to the slave.

The slave is set up in the opposite way so, under its MIDI Sync preferences, Enable Sync for the MIDI input to receive the MIDI clock data from the master. The Clock Sync Delay allows you to offset the timing of the slave so it can be aligned with the master. Playing the metronomes on both makes it easy to judge when you’ve got the timing right, using a loop like a breakbeat to make it easier to hear.

Two different types of MIDI clock can be chosen for the output: Song will give out the tempo along with a current position in the Arrangement View. Pattern gives out tempo and beats which means changing your playback position on the master won’t affect the slave. Use Song mode so you can move around an arrangement on both computers. Use locators from the Create menu for easier launching.

The master computer should have an on-the-beat light flash in the Sync Out indicator. Then after enabling the EXT button on the slave, its Sync In indicator should flash when pressing play on the master. Now your two computers should sync. It takes a few seconds to truly lock together, so sync playback first with no clips playing, then launch your first clips in unison for a clean sounding start.

MIDI information will appear in Live when using a 5-pin cable, but you’ll need to set up MIDI when using Wi-Fi or ethernet. Go to Applications/Utilities Audio MIDI Set Up. Select Show MIDI Window. Double-click the Network box for the MIDI Network Set-up window and click the plus icon under My Sessions. Enable this session in the top right, then repeat the process on the slave computer.

When the slave is ready, you can connect to it from the Directory window of the master. You’ll know when they are connected as the computer will appear in the Participants window to the right. The latency can be adjusted from here as well but it’s slightly limited as you have to enter numeric values rather than having the option to click and drag for easier control like in Live.

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Collaboration in Ableton Live Technique MTF

MTF Step-by-Step Live jamming and processing

If you’re in sync with other people either through a manual or automated sync set-up, you will be able to take advantage of Live’s tempo sync’d Session View and Devices. The first level above simply cueing clips in Session View is to capture someone’s else’s audio as one or more clips to play with. To do this, first create a new Audio Track and name it to be relevant to the source it will record.

Set up this audio channel to record the correct input from the In/ Out settings which you can reveal from the View menu. If you don’t want to hear this input signal until you’ve recorded it into a clip, set Monitor to off. But if you’re using Live as a mixer you’ll need to set the Monitor to Auto so the live input is always heard until a clip is recorded and then played which then overrides that input.

When recording external sounds, capture a sequence and then modify it. The other option is to record the sound across a few clip slots so you can then immediately re-work it to creatively trigger them. To trigger the slots quickly you’ll need to set the Global Quantization setting to a higher resolution like 1/4 and then hit record on each clip slot one after the other running downwards.

Another way to re-work a freshly captured piece of audio is to use time manipulation device effects like Beat Repeat. In the Audio Effects library folder, under Performance and DJ, the Knob 1 Super Looper is a great device for controlling loop length with a single dial. The default Live library doesn’t have a great range of performance tools like this so it’s worth searching online for devices other people have made.

If you need to rehearse before everyone hears it, you can use Live’s Cue function. Set an output on your interface for the cue output. Then click the Solo mode button to turn it into Cue mode. Now press the headphone icon for the track you want to preview and disable the track’s Activator button so it’s muted from the main master output until you’re ready to play your work to the world.

If you are using Live as a mixer you can be part of a jam by processing effects in real time. EQs, compressors etc can be left to their static settings, but Auto Filters, Auto Panner, Redux and delays are all great tools to manipulate on someone else’s sound. If you want to capture these for use later, set the Monitor to In so the live input is always heard while you record in the background.

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MTF Technique Mixing tools and techniques

Ableton Live Become a Live Power User

Mixing tools and techniques

When it comes to mixing, Live offers both classic and contemporary mixing tools for a variety of sonic options. Liam O’Mullane walks you through his main choices of devices and editing tools to make your mixes shine…

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ixing is a process that can happen in one or two stages of the music production process. The first stage is creative and composition based, where people may mix as they go. Here they’ll solely concentrate on mixing as the track comes together with possibly a separate tweaking stage at the end. The second stage is after the composition is complete and sounds are in place, to then mix with a subjective outlook. Some people will ignore major mix decisions until this stage as it gives them the most mix options as possible while they only have their mix engineering hats on.

On the disc Accompanying project file included on the DVD

It is a good idea to try and separate your mixing stage from your creative stage… Although mixing has creative sound design aspects, it also has many practical tasks and assessments that need to be carried out. With your creative hat on, you can find this difficult to do, so if you stop to take care of these matters, it can have a negative affect on your creative workflow. So

FOCUS ON… EXPANDING YOUR GO TO TOOLS The library of audio effects in Live’s browser offers a good range of functional and creative mixing tools to choose from. EQ Eight and Compressor/Glue Compressor are the most obvious choices for frequency and dynamics control, but there are many other devices which are worth exploring for frequent mixing tasks. Although you can use a low- and high-cut EQ to bracket a sound’s frequency range using an EQ Eight, a Cabinet device can achieve a similar effect with much more added character. This is partially due to its narrower frequency bandwidth that creates a telephone like effect. But this can be balanced with the original signal using the dry/ wet control to return a sense of fidelity. The range of the bandwidth restriction, or bracket, is selected through the speaker setting. Transient smearing is at its most affective when you select a dynamic mic from the microphone list and explore its position. Cabinet adds an element of dynamic control as part of its processing as well, but other options like Saturator and Dynamic Tube devices can do this while offering a different character. Use a careful balance of drive and output – you can either go for a fully-processed and clipped sound, or balance the dry/wet amount for a balance of the original signal to retain some dynamics. Redux’s Bit Reduction can be used to reduce a sound’s dynamic range, but it will

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there is a good reason to separate these two mixing processes if you can. To help commit to this separation, it’s worth rendering out all of your tracks to new audio. This helps you decide when you’re truly ready to mix, while also removing the temptation to tamper with compositional aspects during the mixing stage. Rendering out your audio also frees up computer resources which means more processing power for plug-ins. Finally, if you intend to send your work out to be mixed by an engineer, this process will create files that they can use. To export your project’s tracks to new individual audio files, highlight the duration of the whole song and then select Export Audio/Video from the File menu. This opens up a large range of options and we recommend you remain at Live’s native bit-depth of 32-bits, and stay at the same sample rate you’re working at. The sample rate you’re currently using is signified by having a small speaker icon next to it. The only other option that needs configuring for this task is the Rendered Track menu (all other options should be disabled). Select Individual Tracks for rendering and then select a new, clean, mix project folder to put them in after clicking the Export button. You will now have a new file for every track which can be imported into a new project. Until next time, happy mixing… MTF

create a dirty, lo-fi characteristic. This can be useful for giving one or two sounds a distinct tone of their own in the mix. Harmonics can also be introduced using Downsample when set to use its Soft mode. Use a very small amount to introduce a glassy sounding top-end for dull sounds. Whatever tools end up being your favourites, save some time and create a default processing chain by Right [PC] / Ctrl [Mac] + clicking on a track’s name. Here you can save a default opening state for future new MIDI or audio tracks. After loading in your preferred mix-tools to a track, select Save As Default MIDI or Audio Track respectively. Now all new tracks will be created with this chain of devices pre-loaded.

Mixing tools and techniques Technique MTF

MTF Step-by-Step Processing, side-chaining and automation

Although Live’s Compressor Device is perfectly functional, Glue Compressor can be used to add some character for dynamic processing. Glue is a great channel, group and mix buss compressor with its SSL-like smoothing effect. Enable the Soft Clip function and explore driving the signal using the Makeup gain for a hot sound. You can always then use the dry/wet dial to make this a parallel effect.

If you need to remove unwanted sounds, try editing the unwanted portions out rather than using a gate device. This offers a higher level of individual control to tidy up audio over a more ‘set and forget’ approach used with a gate. After highlighting the portions you don’t want, delete them, then select Show Fades from the Create menu. You can now drag these start and end fades to suit each audio event.

As compression is the process of level control, you can also control dynamics using Live’s editing functions. You can automate volume, but this limits you for making level adjustments down the line. Instead, add a Utility Device at the end of the Track’s processing chain, then automate its gain parameter. For more natural automation changes, hit Alt on automation lines to drag and create curves.

Use an EQ Eight before any processing to remove unwanted frequencies. Add another at the end of the chain for re-balancing the frequency curve of a sound. Check unnecessary bottom-end that needs removing using the analyser on the first EQ. The second EQ’s analyser monitors how your processing is affecting the frequency content – useful when trying to fill out holes in your mix.

Many devices have the ability to be side-chained, so respond to the amplitude levels of an external signal. Most people only use these on single or grouped sounds, overlooking the option to dynamically control ambience effects. Try adding a compressor to each Return Track and set them to take Audio From the drum group. This make your mix move with a pumping, rhythmic sound.

Those with Live Suite can get creative with side-chaining using its Max For Live based Envelope Follower. Place this on the track to be the source sound for side-chaining, then click map before clicking a parameter you wish to control. This moves in time with the audio events on the track with the device on. Use a multimap device to multiply and started mapping this source to various destinations.

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MTF Technique Mixing tools and techniques

MTF Step-by-Step Advanced and unique processing

An Overdrive device is useful for thickening up the harmonic content of a sound. First, find the right frequency area and width of focus using the device’s bandpass filter. Then control the density of distortion using drive and its brightness using tone. Finally, compress the signal as required using the dynamic amount, then dry/wet can blend the processed signal to taste.

Another option for thickening up specific frequencies is the Vinyl Distortion Device. The tracing model graph can be used in much the same way as the bandpass filter on an overdrive device. It’s the pinch graph below where things get interesting as harmonics are distributed across the stereo plane, making it useful for also enhancing its stereo width.

We discussed setting up mid and side processing using Audio Racks in Part 5 of this series. This simple process lets you add different processing to the middle (mono) and sides (stereo difference) for a higher level of control. To get used to how these sound, after setting-up, solo each one and play with their respective balance to hear which part of the sound each chain represents.

If you have a stereo signal, a good way to enhance how stereo it sounds is to compress both the mid and sides of the signal separately. This way you can reduce the dynamic range of the sides so the stereo aspect of the signal is more consistent in volume. Raising the level of the sides will then make the sound more stereo than mono.

Another good place to consider processing mid and side signals on their own is for ambience effects. Try using a different reverb device, or Max For Live Convolution Reverb on each signal with unique settings. This creates a much deeper and engaging ambience soundfield. A shorter decay time on the middle and longer on the side works well for an enhanced sense of stereo spread.

Live’s Vocoder device can function as a noise based exciter. With the carrier set to noise, the reverb-like noise effect can have its decay time altered using the release value. After setting the device to 40 Bands for the best fidelity along with a maximum frequency range, explore the depth and formant controls to tune its noise to best suit the source sound and EQ it to taste drawing into the filter bank.

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MTF Technique Composition and sound design

Ableton Push Workshop

Composition & sound design

Learning to use Push entails more than simply understanding its functionality. Liam O’Mullane shares his essential techniques for kicking out some jams.

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ince its release, Push has slowly become an integral part of our studio set-up. Although it does have a few weaknesses in terms of complete software control for more in-depth mixing features, its strengths win us over when it comes to song composition. We write electronic music of varying genres and Push’s hardware-led approach takes us back to a workflow we miss from older times. Working without a computer screen is liberating, and the added focus you have on judging ideas and sounds by ear, as opposed to visual cues, cannot be underestimated. More recently our challenge has been to use Push exclusively from start to finish with zero direct interaction with our computer. As you’ll find out, although this does include a certain amount of library, template, plug-in preparation and workflow alteration in some cases, the freedom of writing and arranging with such an instrument connects you to the music at a deeper level than you may have experienced before as an electronic musician. So join

FOCUS ON...THIRD-PARTY PLUG-INS

On the disc Accompanying example audio files included on the DVD

Although there are a few preconfigured Instrument and Audio Rack libraries to use with some of the more popular AUs, VSTi’s and VSTs (such as Push VST Bridge from www.craftedsound.com, and www.freelancesoundlabs.com’s products, for instance), the majority of third-party plug-ins need a bit of prep before you can go screenless with Push. To make your instruments as Push-friendly as possible, drag them into a Live Set, Group each one from the Edit menu, Rename this newly created Audio or Instrument Rack with the same name as your plug-in, then click the Rack’s disk icon to save it to your Presets folder in the User Library. Push can now access these plug-ins from the Live Library, which means you can load them at will when required through Push’s Display Browser. This technique works fine if the parameters of the plug-in are already showing in the Parameter list (which is accessed by clicking the small triangle in the top-left of the device). If they are not you will need to manually add parameters by clicking the Configure Mode button in the top-right of the device, then move any parameter from the plug-in itself to add it to the list. Push can access up to 128 of these parameters, spread over 16 pages, and as long as your plug-in enables each of its controls to be mapped this can often be enough to fully program the device from Push alone. Sadly, Push is still at its most featured when using Live’s own devices, and preset access is not yet supported for external plug-ins. But, if an instrument plug-in supports preset access via MIDI you can use a Max for Live device such as DialToProgramChange from the www.maxforlive. com library to change presets from Push and integrate that device into your Instrument Racks before saving them. If you have a preferred starting point with certain plug-ins, this is a great chance to save a configured state before saving your Racks.

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us as we share our experience of using Push for composing, arranging and designing sounds.

Drumming up some ideas You can begin a song with any instrument, and in this particular workshop we’re beginning with the drums. Your genre of choice will dictate how in-depth you get with the sound design aspect, but we’ll usually focus on patterns and groove before getting too deep into the sonic aspects of it all. Plus you don’t always know what sound to go for until other instruments are in place because it’s at that point you’ll get an idea of the mix space each sound dictates and you can make the appropriate decisions. Some drum patterns can begin from playing with pads, especially if you’re keeping your options open for genre; other times you might immediately dial in the tempo and then step sequence the core drum hits to get a beat started. With the latter there’s no need to enable the metronome as your first beats will provide the backbone rhythm for you to place everything else around. If you’re playing with ideas from the pads, however, explore this for a while so you know what pattern you want to record while also feeling the tempo you want to work at. Then press the Tap Tempo button for a few bars so Live can sync the tempo, then enable the Metronome and record your ideas. From here you have various other ways to work with your drum ideas as you add and edit them. Our preferred method is to add new sounds and explore their position to get a groove going. Although you can, of course, apply swing quantization to ideas you play in, we get much more surprising results when using the swing amount as a performance control while playing-in new parts using Push’s Repeat mode. This doesn’t have to be a continuous running rhythm, just the odd two or three hits here and there with a varying swing

If you’ve got any external gear set up in the studio, make full use of it via Live’s External Audio Effect and Instrument Devices. Instruments can be set up easily but controlling their parameters via MIDI CCs can be tricky. The simplest approach we’ve found is to use a Max for Live device that offers parameters that output custom CC numbers based on your preferences. You can then save these into an instrument rack when one or more are set up for your favourite parameters to access from Push.

Composition and sound design Technique MTF

MTF Step-by-Step Capturing external sounds

It’s important to have your library in good order when using Push as you can’t organise it in any way from Push itself. Plus it’s always counter productive to deal with production admin when in creative mode, so library prep is essential! Try to use logical folders based on grouped instruments by type or their sonic nature. As the Places section of Live’s Library is right at the bottom of Push’s Display, we advise you give certain folders of priority a numeric start to the title. This means that when you wind down to your Places Folder at the bottom of your Push display you can access your own custom folders almost immediately.

amount can really get feet tapping. This works great for any incidental or sporadic percussion work. Nudge is another favourite option for us but don’t be tricked into thinking it’s just for moving one sound at a time – holding down multiple steps in the sequencer will group hits to enable changing their position as a whole by turning the Nudge encoder. When there are a few good drum ideas going on in one or more clips we like to use Mute to audition more stripped-down versions of the patterns. You can then Duplicate your clips and replicate these new combinations by using Delete and touching the unwanted drum pad. This approach should get you some very dynamic-sounding patterns and a good collection of clips to create variation throughout your song. The sound of individual hits isn’t a priority at this stage, as we can hot-swap pads and replace them with other samples or drum synths later down the line. Max for Live’s Drum Synth devices are a handy tool for sculpting and they easily integrate with Push.

Push isn’t reserved for working as a standalone, in fact with the right starting template you can record external performers to integrate into your jams from a variety of soundcard inputs. Whether you want to record instrument ideas, sing a vocal line or grab some percussion to add some human dynamics on the fly, start with an Audio Track with the appropriate audio interface input selected in the Audio From menu.

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A tune a day Like drums, the process of composing melodies and chords can be an explorative one, and this is when Push’s Scale and Key functions really shine. We like to develop ideas on the pads and then explore pitch changes by switching key while still playing the same patterns or shapes with our

FOCUS ON… CREATING TEMPLATES AND STARTING PROJECTS

There are two ways of starting with the optimum Live Set for your own Push preferences. The first approach is to save a default template from Preferences followed by hitting Save Current Set As Default under the File Folder tab. This is effective as a global starting point, but if you’d like multiple set-ups to choose from save multiple Live Sets and be sure to lock them as read-only in your OS so you’re forced to save them under a new name upon each use. This avoids the risk of overwriting them by accident. What you decide to add to your starting templates is quite open, but we have a few suggestions. If your library is well organised you shouldn’t need anything in the way of initial instruments as they can be added from Push when needed; however, if you want any type of creative routing in your work this needs to be set up beforehand as Push can’t access track or side-chaining routing by default. This is something we imagine will be addressed in the near future. If you have a certain number of instruments you tend to work with then this can be another reason for pre-loading them into your template for the best workflow. If you wish to record sounds from external sources, as with our Capture External Sounds walkthrough, set up a unique track per input on your audio device. This means all of this is to-hand without touching your computer and works around Push’s routing limitations.

In order to record audio with minimal background bleed you’ll need to set up your interface to monitor the backing track via headphones while you mute your main speaker playback. There are a few ways to set this up but the simplest and quickest way is by setting up a Return Track in Live that is always muted. This can be used to feed a headphone-specific balance of sounds via the individual Sends.

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When it comes to recording, you simply Solo the Return Track, Arm Session Recording on the track you want to record to, and set up your headphone balance with the sends so as not to disturb your current mix. You can of course run this Return Track directly to another headphone output on your interface if available, or even multiple Return tracks for independent headphones mixes for different musicians.

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MTF Technique Composition and sound design

MTF Step-by-Step Re-sampling techniques

Step automation is a very powerful feature for Push and automating different start points of samples, different transpose settings, ADSR stages and so on can create amazing drum and melody sounds that live and breath throughout your tracks. Don’t forget to add audio effects as creative processors to automate as well – they can be very powerful tools for sound design and hold multiple steps at the same time for longer fixed automation steps.

fingers. If you just want to jam, set a new clip to record and capture your session, edit it using Clip mode and Loop Position to vet your efforts and focus in on your best ideas. If you are open to a more interactive experience, explore some MIDI devices and craft their output by automating parameters. We also like to use a classic drum sync technique for bass parts by duplicating the drum track to make a copy of its clips on a new track. This clip can then be used as a basis for your bassline’s rhythm. Hold Delete on the drum pad of any sound that plays any overly busy material, as we want just core aspects of our drums to trigger the bass. Now Browse for an instrument to replace this new track’s Drum Rack and you have a rhythmic but not yet musical bass part. You can’t edit the pitch of a MIDI note in situ using Push’s step sequencer, so replacing one note for another will lose any groove you crafted from your drums. As a work-around we added a Pitch MIDI Device and then step-automated its Pitch parameter to create a musical bassline fitting the existing groove. This requires a good ear as there’s little visual feedback for musical information. Melody is either a hands-on process of experimentation with the notes themselves or a marrying of note and sound-design choices. You may find you leave this stage of the process with a very strong musical idea, or you need to develop some sketches with potential as you interact with timbres and additional rhythmic aspects through the next stage of sound-design and automation.

With a capture track loaded into your Live set and its Audio From set to Re-sample, you can re-sample your master output at any given time which can be a great way to commit certain layered sounds to new clips. Just solo out the relevant tracks and then hit record on the Capture Track.

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We love creating synth samples using this method: start with a single synth sound, add some Amp Simulation from Audio Effects Racks, then do a few automation passes and static parameter tweaks to create something interesting. When recorded, these re-sampled clips will appear in your Current Project folder in Push’s Browser.

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Automatic for the people In today’s electronic music, sound design is a balancing act to strike alongside good, solid musical ideas. You may start by building sounds and then crafting them into a catchy melody, or vice versa, but they can both have a strong influence on each other throughout most genres. Even with a few basic ideas laid out as clips across a few scenes, the following techniques can help push things forward to some musically and texturally interesting results. Many automation workflows are available through Push, and a handy feature to help capture potential automation sweet spots is to Double a clip’s length multiple times before recording automation passes.

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Now you can load these onto individual Drum Pads within a new Drum Rack. You can then go and re-sample a new sound, or load the same clips onto different pads and alter their pitch, sample start position and so on. This is just one of many ways to create new ideas and re-edits of the same patch.

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Composition and sound design Technique MTF

PXT opens up many more options for Push users, which are great for reworking ideas on the fly.

FOCUS ON… UPGRADING YOUR PUSH ENVIRONMENT

If, like ourselves, you can’t help but yearn for more functionality from Push to emulate the more in-depth functions normally accessed from your computer then there are a few options available to upgrade your Push environment. Max for Live devices are the easiest way to start, as many are free and you should be familiar with using them already. Our essential recommendation is the Push-Global Quant 1.2 device. Place this on your Master Track and then hold Select to access the Global Quantization menu using the Tempo encoder. Now you can launch clips in Session mode with a higher resolution, which is great fun for a spontaneous jam. Although Aftertouch is featured on Push it’s a greatly unharnessed power. It can be assigned to any parameter using the Max for Live Expression Control device included with Live Suite, but this can be tricky to control as it reacts the moment a pad is struck. To avoid this problem, Push Pack for Aftertouch from www.subaqueousmusic.com gives you the option to control aftertouch after either a slight delay time or after a threshold of how hard you push down on the pad after the initial strike. This gives practical control of this great feature and is a highly recommended download. There are many written and hacked scripts for the older generation of Live controllers such as the Launchpad and APC40, but two we recommend that are directly designed for Push are the PXT-Live ($19.50) and PXT-Live Plus ($16.50) scripts from nativeKONTROL. These enable the user to have access to a much higher level of control to Live. They are accessed via Push’s User mode and a combination of Shift, Session, Note and Select enable you to access different aspects of the scripts.

The big difference is that you can select input routing options, side-chain routing for third-party plug-ins, track labelling, and there are also various methods for creatively working with clips and chords. This only really touches the surface of what PXT truly offers and it’s something we now use on a regular basis, and best of all normal Push behaviour is always available by just flicking out of User mode when required.

Now you’ll have freedom over multiple passes of the original clip, each time moving different parameters to find what might make or break a sound. Then you can hone in on the best bits, Duplicate them to a new clip, loop them and hit Double to extend these best bits to edit further. Per-step Automation is a valuable resource for more immediate and short-lived changes to any step on the grid. Select a Device to automate, hold down a step in the step sequencer and alter the parameter value for it from Push’s display. This is where sound design gets

Designing sounds and jamming with Push should result in you creating a unique instrument very interesting and greatly integrated into the rhythmic aspect of any part. Imagine what’s possible here: you can drag various Audio Effects into the track and just punch in effects processing at different stages within a clip, then you can Double this clip and look to further edit the automation, or keep it in place and then edit the notes of the instrument to see how they create new sounds through these effects. Note that Repeat and Pad Pressure (aftertouch) can be used for a creative combination of modulation and automation at the same time. Using Note Repeat to trigger both notes and an envelope stage of an

If you’re going to be busy with both hands when recording then make use of Fixed Length mode so you can pre-trigger clips a bar or two before performing (dependent on your Global Quantization settings) and have recorded clips automatically stop recording. Another option is to record a long pass and then use Clip editing from Push and set the Loop length to the duration of your idea, then move the Loop Position parameter to listen through and select the best take within the clip. You can then hit Double to extend on this best take.

instrument like a slow attack filter sweep, results in Note Repeat suddenly becomes very expressive. This is just retriggered modulation, but you can then vary the shape of the envelope to get all sorts of groove- and timbre-shift changes. The aftertouch aspect of Note Repeat outputs velocity changes, which works very well when mapped to something other than volume. Expression Control is a great Max for Live device for this, and can be easily mapped and saved into an Instrument Rack for this purpose. Though this can be done by sequencing a pattern first then playing with envelope aspects, having one hand rhythmically trigger and manage Pad Pressure and your other hand control encoders makes this a very performance-led creative technique. Of course automation isn’t the entirety of sound design but it will play an integral part in keeping movement and interest. Throughout the process it’s not uncommon to also redesign the source material as you go via synthesis or sample tweaking. It’s a feedback loop of creativity and a common method for creating longer sections for your music.

Pushing onwards… We often push the idea on our readers to work alongside a track that inspires you. This is easy with Live as it is so tempo-sync driven, which enables you to use your own work against a reference track for a stark comparison. If all tracks (including Returns) are mapped to one side of Live’s Crossfader, assign the reference track to the other and MIDI Map the User button on Push to the Crossfader. Now you can flip to your reference material at will by holding down the User button, then release it and you’ll be back listening to your own work.

There are countless ways to create music with Push – many more techniques than we can cover here. Due to Live’s extensive library integration and unique Max for Live devices, sound design and jamming with Push should result in you creating your very own unique instrument, and therefore your own signature sound. Exploration isn’t just recommended, it’s required. MTF FOCUS Ableton Live

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Mastering in software Feature MTF

MTF Feature Master your music

Mastering is the vital last step in the production process, and with so many software solutions around, it’s easier than ever to get involved. Hollin Jones explains all… he evolution of music technology in recent years has seen mastering, once seemingly the most mysterious of processes for the uninitiated, become something that almost any producer can do for themselves. Thanks to powerful computers, advanced applications and plug-ins, the tools needed are now far more accessible than they used to be. Plus there’s a greater understanding of what mastering is and how to go about it. It does, of course, remain as much of an art form as it ever was, and simply having the tools is meaningless if you don’t know how to use them or you lack the musical judgement to make the right creative decisions. In truth, with a little guidance most people can create great-sounding masters, and the good news is that your DAW provides almost all the tools you need to do so. There are some specialised suites and plug-ins that will make your life easier if you have the option of using them, and a decent set of monitors and a sympathetic listening environment are also crucial to any mastering session, FOCUS Ableton Live 2014

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MTF Feature Mastering in software

regardless of what’s going on inside the computer. But the great part for producers of any level is that mastering in software is now accessible to all. What we’re going to do is take you through the process, from mixdown to selling your music online, and show you the key stages you’ll need to go through. As with any creative process there’s the caveat that every piece of music is different and needs to be mastered according to its own unique characteristics, but underlying this is a common set

of techniques that will help you get a great, radioready sound.

Blue Cat Audio makes some excellent analysis and metering plug-ins that provide an amazingly detailed view of what’s really going on inside your audio signal.

Whatt is mastering? Before talking about how to master audio it’s important to understand what the term actually means. When you work on a track you are concentrating on recording, editing, programming and arranging it, and when you come to mix it what’s important is the relative balance of all the different elements. So you’re EQing the guitars a little here, automating the vocal a little there and

adding reverb so that everything blends together, and so on. What you’re not doing at any of these stages is worrying very much about the gain and power of the track as a whole. Of course you want it to be loud enough, but during mixing your only real concern as far as the master fader goes is that nothing is clipping or peaking and nor is the master level too quiet. The goal of mixing is to get the perfect blend of sounds, and the final step of the production process is mastering. Here you take your mixed-down stereo file (or possibly some stems, though this is a little more complex) and process it as a whole using specific kinds of effects to try and achieve a solid,

MTF Technology Who needs record labels? It’s never been easier to sell your own music online, with more services than ever enabling you to have a presence on major digital music stores such as iTunes, Amazon, Spotify and others. As well as getting your music into these stores they also usually provide a centralised hub for managing earnings from your music and downloading sales reports, so, for example, you can see which stores are performing the best and in which regions of the world you’re selling the most. Although services like these will rarely screen music based on genre (unless it’s a very genrespecific service, of course), there are audio quality barriers to entry. These aren’t hugely strict (any halfway decent production ought to be sufficient), but producing a good master will help a lot with the saleability of your music. Digital distribution services are likely to reject

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anything that’s ridiculously quiet, or that has digital clipping anywhere in it. There are a fair few of these services around and most charge a one-time fee for uploading your music. Some charge an ongoing admin fee, so look for one that doesn’t unless you’re sure you will be earning a decent amount from sales. Mondotunes.com is pretty good and only charges once, and you should also look at CD Baby, Ditto Music, and ReverbNation. Of course you can sell music yourself using the excellent Bandcamp.com, which has become the go-to self-publishing platform for musicians, and also showcase your stuff on SoundCloud. There’s never been a better time to sell your own music online, so it’s vital to get the best-sounding results in order to maximise sales potential. MondoTunes is one of the better digital distribution services as it only has a one-off initial charge.

Mastering in software Feature MTF

MTF Step-by-Step Mastering a track using Ozone

Load up your stereo mix in a DAW and create an instance of Ozone. Start with a preset that sounds close enough to what you want, and then make the necessary tweaks. You can cycle through presets while auditioning the track, and don’t be afraid to try one or two whose names might not automatically match your style of music.

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Go through each processing stage and activate the ones you want to use, setting parameters as you go. Here we have dialled in some EQ to pull specific sounds up in the mix a little. Using a wide Q value for an EQ point creates a broader EQ curve and a narrow Q value means that only a very precise frequency is affected.

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powerful gain level and an EQ curve that perfectly sweetens the signal. The aim of mastering is to make the track sound as good as it possibly can on all the playback devices on which it will be listened to. As you can imagine this is something of a tall order since there are many possible ways to listen to music: from a car radio and phone earbuds, to high-end hi-fi systems and everything in-between. Nevertheless, if you get your master right you will achieve this seemingly impossible task. Mastering is the very last step before your music is released to the world, which is why it’s so vital to get it right.

A lot of producers, even some at the top of the industry, now work almost entirely in-the-box, which means that music is started, worked on and finished without ever leaving the computer. This has a number of benefits, not least that it greatly reduces

Tech Terms OA/B’ING The process of temporarily muting processing to hear the original version of the signal and judge how you are changing it. Also applies to comparing your work-inprogress with commercially mastered material to help decide if you’re heading in the right direction. OSTEMS Groups of tracks that bear some relation to each other, eg, drums, guitars or vocals. Stem mastering enables you to alter the balance of these elements during mastering, which isn’t otherwise possible if you have a stereo file to work with.

The Maximizer section is where the limiting takes place, and here you should set your output level to 0dB or -0.1dB. Then use the Threshold and Margin sliders to drive the input level up against the limit to squeeze more gain out of the track. Use your judgment and leave some dynamic range so the track isn’t being squeezed too hard.

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the amount of physical equipment you need to do your job. For those of us working in home or project studios it’s very useful to be able to do everything on one setup. All major DAWs, such as Cubase, Logic, Pro Tools and Reason, now make mixing in-the-box a powerful experience. Although it’s possible to layer up lots of plug-ins on modern systems, it’s strongly advisable to separate the mixing and mastering processes because they have two distinct and different aims. Mixing is about balancing the elements of a track, and mastering is about affecting the overall sound once the mix is done. You will probably spend a fair amount of time on your mix, and possibly go slightly mad from listening to the same track hundreds of times, so it’s a very good idea to leave a little space between the two processes. Have at least a night off, preferably a couple of days, before you come back and start mastering. It’s also a good idea to master tracks in the same sessions if they are destined to end up on the same album so there’s an overall coherence to the sound. What you should end up with after a mix session is a track or a bunch of tracks that sound well balanced and hang together nicely. You might have also already used a little master buss compression during mixdown, which is a good trick to give a kind of audio ‘glue’ to your mixes and magically bind everything together. When you export a mixdown you will have a few options. The most common technique is to export a stereo audio file at the same quality as the sessions, which might typically be 24- or 32-bit, and any sample rate from 44.1, 48 or even 96kHz. Don’t start reducing quality during mixdown, as it’s much better to keep everything at maximum and compress web versions and so on much further down the line. Some producers will mix down a collection of stems for mastering and this is technically fairly easy IK Multimedia’s T-RackS is a self-contained mastering suite whose modules also work as plug-ins. It has a nifty ‘loudness suggestion’ feature so you can master appropriately for a specific genre.

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MTF Feature Mastering in software

MTF Technology On the move? You can still master! Mastering hasn’t just made the leap from professional to home studios, it’s now even possible on iOS too. There have been advanced DAW apps on iOS for a couple of years and it’s possible to use insert effects in those, just as on your own desktop, to perform mastering tasks. Cubasis, Auria, GarageBand, NanoStudio and FL Studio Mobile HD are just some of the apps that will enable you to do this. With advanced technologies being developed for iOS all the time, things such as Audiobus and Inter-App Audio now enable you to stream audio between apps without having to export it from one to the other. Perhaps the most interesting development has been the release of a couple of dedicated iOS mastering apps. Positive Grid produces Final Touch (£10.49), an excellent iPad-based mastering solution with a slick interface that has a maximiser, pre- and post-EQs, four-band dynamics,

stereo imaging, reverb and dither, and is perfectly optimised for the touch interface. Far more advanced than you might expect, it has detailed controls for every aspect of the mastering process as well as great metering and comprehensive import and export options for putting music directly online. Alternatively, an app called Audio Mastering, also for iPad and priced at £8.99, has a more scientific interface but is nonetheless very powerful. It has a parametric EQ, stereo imaging, multiband compressor, reverb, stereo imaging, maximizer, spectral analyser and more, and has basic and advanced control modes. Just as with your computer you will want to use a proper audio interface and serious monitoring in order to get the best possible results, but it’s interesting to know that you can now master on iPad using very similar tools to those that you would use in your studio.

and running it through some effects. As you might imagine, though, some apps are better than others. A simple wave editor that can load plug-ins will do in a pinch, but a pro audio wave editor is preferable because it will usually have a more efficient way of handling plug-ins, looping, metering and the like. Steinberg’s WaveLab for Mac and PC is designed specifically for mastering, and Sony’s Sound Forge is another excellent choice – both have some great built-in processing and editing tools. Sound Forge is now available for Mac too, though it is rather different to its PC sibling. Mastering is also possible using your DAW by simply creating a single audio track and then using insert effects on that channel or the master buss to process the mixdown that you import. Any major

to do by using mixer grouping and batch exporting from a DAW. Stems are groups of tracks that all have a common theme as defined by the producer, so for example you might export drum stems, guitar stems and vocal stems for mastering. The idea is that this affords you more flexibility during mastering because you are able to vary the levels of the different stems (which you can’t do using a stereo file of the whole track), effectively tweaking the mix even after mixdown. It’s an interesting approach, although it does add an extra layer of complexity to the mastering stage. If you’re fiddling around by altering stem levels you might get bogged down in changing the mix instead of focusing on the mastering processing. Technically it’s not so different from stereo mastering, it’s just that you load up four or five synchronised audio tracks and route them all through master effects instead of just the one. Potential problems can arise from giving yourself too many options, so consider whether you trust yourself enough to get the mix right and use a stereo file, which is usually simpler. Of course if you are mastering material that has been mixed by someone else, getting stems will give you more flexibility in the event of a poor mix.

You can master in various different kinds of software since it’s really just a case of loading up an audio file

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Final Touch is a dedicated and powerful mastering app for iOS.

Using master buss compression, such as here in Reason 7, can help to glue a mix together and mean that less compression is required at the mastering stage.

Mastering in software Feature MTF

DAW will enable this, and as you’re not going to be using any MIDI or arrangement tools the only really important thing to do before you start is make sure the project settings match those of the audio you are importing so that no unexpected format conversion takes place. Although the vast majority of mastering effects come in plug-in format there are some dedicated mastering apps as well, probably the most complete of which is IK Multimedia’s T-RackS CS, which has some excellent tools and is a staple of many people’s mastering setups. It’s quite possible to master using the bundled plug-ins that come with your DAW, though these will of course vary in quality depending on how high-end the software is. The core effects you will need are compression, EQ, limiting and ideally some stereowidening and metering tools as well. The major DAWs such as Cubase, Logic, Pro Tools and the like come with most of these. Others can be added for free, but if you are doing serious mastering it’s worth looking at some more heavyweight plug-ins. Suites such as iZotope’s Ozone or some of Waves’ plug-ins are great, and not just for mastering but for general tracking and mixing tasks as well.

S uee Sq eze th the e soun nd There’s no strictly defined order in which to start processing your master but many producers like to

FabFilter’s Pro-L is a great limiting plug-in that can be used to squeeze the maximum amount of power out of your tracks without crushing them.

Tech Terms ODITHERING Changing the bit depth of audio, say when mixing down from 32-bit to 16-bit, can introduce distortion into the signal. Dithering adds noise that’s more or less inaudible to our ears in an attempt to minimise this. OGLASS MASTER An increasingly outdated concept, the glass master is the master copy of a digital album that is used to press a large number of CDs from. Your pristine, full-quality digital files that result from mastering fulfil much the same role.

begin with compression. If you have applied master buss compression during mixdown you may want to go a little easier during mastering so as not to over-compress or ‘pump’ the sound and risk sucking the musicality out of it. Used carefully, compression is an excellent way of pulling together the louder and quieter parts of the signal to create a more even feel, ensuring that quiet bits aren’t inaudible and the loud bits don’t deafen you. Listen to any track where a singer practically whispers one line then screams the next and yet both seem weirdly about the same volume: that’s compression doing its thing. With mastering you want the compression to glue the whole signal together and smooth out the peaks

MTF Feature Mastering in software

and troughs but without sounding artificial. As such it’s usually better to apply a relatively gentle amount with a low-ish ratio and an attack time that’s not too quick. When you apply a compressor across the whole signal it has to deal with everything from the bass to the crash cymbals, so using a decent quality model is preferable. Singleband compression is common but you can also use multiband compression if you feel confident enough. Multiband compressors enable you to set the crossover points and compression levels for several frequency bands independently, so you can effectively pull different bands up or down selectively. Though different from EQ this can be a very useful trick because it helps you to deal more effectively with rogue groups of sounds. For example, if the bass is too loud in the mix, using EQ to take it down might lessen the power and impact of the track, but using multiband compression to control it serves to level it Tech Terms OMULTIBAND Any processing that works across several frequency bands, usually with adjustable crossover points. Compression and EQ are the most common multiband types and are both used extensively in mastering.

off rather than knocking it out and should also help it to blend with any nearby frequencies.

Bec come the equalizer With your audio ‘glued’ together by compression it’s time to use EQ to sweeten and balance the sound. You will invariably find that a little EQ during mastering can really help, even for a track that has been mixed well. A parametric EQ is a good choice as it provides a nice visual representation of the EQ curve and will have multiple points and Q controls. The aim of mastering EQ is to pick out certain elements of a track and then either back them off or,

OMASTER BUSS The stereo output of your DAW through which the whole signal passes. During the mastering process this is where you would normally place the effects, although they can also be used as inserts on your single audio track if you are only working with one track at a time instead of stem mastering.

A good parametric EQ will serve you well for mastering. If your budget stretches far enough then Steinberg’s Portico 5033 EQ is an excellent choice.

DAWs on the iPad such as Auria have advanced insert effects sections that you can use for mastering on the move.

more usually, enhance them by pulling their frequency up a little. The Q settings of a parametric equalizer are particularly useful here because they control the width of the area around the EQ point and thus the amount of frequency to either side that is affected. So to perform a broad boost to the lower mids, for example, you might use a wide Q value and a gentle rise in the gain. To isolate a single sound such as a guitar, use a narrow Q value and pull the sound up or down, leaving similar sounds to either side relatively untouched. As good as your mixdown is you will always find small improvements that can be made at this stage, especially when the other mastering effects have changed the character of the sound in their own ways. Because you are applying an EQ curve across the whole track you can control the feel of the soundstage much more easily. There are some commonly used techniques here in addition to sweetening the sound, such as performing a very low bass roll-off to deal with any sub sounds, and either adding or cutting very high frequencies to add sparkle or remove hiss.

Ta ake it to the limit The third core process in mastering is limiting, which means driving the input level of the signal while ensuring it doesn’t exceed a predetermined level. The goal here is to ‘squeeze’ as much gain and power out of the signal as is appropriate but without causing it to clip and without ‘crushing’ it so it becomes dull and lifeless. Limiting comes at the end of the processing chain because anything placed after it could interfere with its operation by negatively affecting the signal. At their simplest, limiters just have input and output gain controls. You need to set the output level to 0dB or just below, say -0.1dB, in order to ensure that the signal will not exceed this level and thus not clip. Use the input gain level control to drive the

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Mastering in software Feature MTF

MTF Technology To really understand your masters, you need to check the meter… When mixing and mastering you spend a lot of time looking at the master level meters in your DAW or on your mixing desk. This is indeed where you can see if your signal is too loud or quiet, but it offers only one kind of visual feedback. To fully understand what’s going on you will need to use some more advanced metering tools. These can be applied as inserts across your master buss and don’t process or change the sound, they simply analyse it. Your DAW may come with an analysis plug-in or two but there are excellent third-party models available too from the likes of Blue Cat Audio’s Analysis Pack and Waves’ Dorrough Meter Collection and PAZ Analyzer. What you gain by using proper audio analysis tools is a better insight into the way the frequencies in your master are really behaving. When you listen to sound through loudspeakers it is being affected by all kinds of factors including the character of those speakers, their placement and proximity to walls, and your position relative to them. For example, bass can sound very different depending on how you stand in relation to the speakers. By analysing the sound before it leaves the computer, plug-ins can show you what’s truly happening across the frequency spectrum with phase issues and so on, and enable you to correct these during mastering. The modules in T-RackS CS also work individually as well as in a suite, and can be loaded into any DAW.

signal until you get a solid and consistent level, which means your level meters are spending a lot of time up near 0dB. The aim is to bolster and boost the sound’s gain, and careful limiting is the reason so many commercial tracks sound much louder than those produced in home studios. It’s also the culprit behind the ‘loudness wars’ where commercial studios have tended to limit harder and harder, a phenomenon that

Tech Terms ● IN THE BOX Any production that takes place entirely inside the computer. Increasingly popular as a standard working method, some producers start, work on and finish off whole tracks without ever leaving their digital environment. ● MASTERING SUITE A collection of plug-ins or processing modules that collectively make up a mastering chain. Typically comprising EQ, compression and limiting they may also have stereo widening and mastering reverb too.

reached its nadir with Metallica’s Death Magnetic, an album so tiring on the ears that some listeners actually sent it back. It’s quite possible to over-limit and crush your signal, either by running the output level over 0dB or more likely by driving the input gain too hard. If your level meters are consistently hammering up against the zero mark, step back and listen to whether your track is in fact being squeezed too hard. You don’t want to suck all the dynamic range out of it because this kills its musicality – the levels should have a little movement left in them. It’s generally accepted now that the loudness wars went too far; it’s not necessary to crush your tracks to death, just use some judgement in balancing a

strong level against retaining the right amount of dynamic range.

Best of the rest As well as the processors mentioned above you may also want to use stereo widening, and some more advanced metering can also help. Stereo widening should be used sparingly because it can quickly start to really mess with the soundstage if you push it too far, seriously altering the mix. It’s good to use a stereo widener with low and high controls and a configurable crossover point so you can keep the low end tight and centred while adding a little width to the top end. Regularly A/B’ing your master both with its dry, unprocessed signal and with commercially mastered songs in a similar style can be invaluable in helping keep you on the right track and getting the best end results. You’ll also need a decent set of monitors because you need as accurate a picture as possible of how your master is shaping up. And preferably get yourself kitted out with a really good set of headphones, since many of your listeners will experience your music this way. When your master is done you can export it out to a stereo file and then top and tail it in a wave editor to deal with any errant reverb tails or clicks. Before signing off on a master it’s vital to listen back to it on as many systems as you can in case you find that for some reason the bass disappears on an iPhone, or the cymbals are way too loud on a car stereo. Stuff like this does happen and it’s well worth going back and refining the master to account for it. With a little practice and the right set of tools you can use mastering to really enhance the finished sound of your tracks. MTF

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MTF Technique Mastering tracks in Live

Ableton Live Become a Live Power User

Mastering tracks in Live

To give your tunes the ultimate professional edge Liam O’Mullane shares some Live-specific techniques that can be essential when it comes to mastering your own music…

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ell, this series has been quite a journey. We’ve covered a large range of bestpractice for using many of Live’s unique features, and we hope you now have a handful of songs you’d like to polish-up and stick in that folder named Finished Tracks. But although the mastering process can be applied reasonably well through your own studio set-up with software we encourage you to consider outsourcing this process if you plan to release this material commercially. There are many reasons for doing this, with the core points being: 1. An experienced mastering engineer can offer a level of

On the disc Accompanying project file included on the DVD

There are a few ways to enhance your masters with analogue-style enrichment subjectivity you will never experience when you’ve also created and produced the music yourself. 2. A professional engineer will have a well-tuned room that makes it easy for them to spot problem areas in your mixes. 3. The quality level of the gear available at many traditional

FOCUS ON… COPING WITH MULTIPLE TRACKS The main focus of mastering is placed on the task of processing one track on its own, but this isn’t the only thing to take into consideration. If you are planning on releasing an EP or an entire album you’ll need to master your multiple tracks in sympathy with each other so they have an overall cohesion. With multiple tracks comes an issue of navigation, as you’ll need to regularly compare one track against the others to check for consistency. This is best dealt with by setting different Locator points and assigning them to key commands to move around Live’s Arrangement View with ease. Right [PC] / Ctrl [Mac] + Click on the Scrub Area below the Arrangement View timeline and select Add Locator. These can then be renamed from the same + Click menu and assigned to computer keys using the Edit Key Map option from the Options menu. If you start to label up the start, breakdown, main section, outros and so on of four or more tracks, assigning these to individual keys becomes a bit cumbersome to manage. In this case the Next and Previous Locator buttons are the best options to move around many different Locators. These two arrow symbols sit either side of the Set button, which appears in the top right-hand side of the screen when Edit Key Map is enabled. Just assign these to two keys to move back and forth with ease as you work. The launching time for Locators is controlled by the Global Quantization chooser menu next to Live’s Metronome in the top left-hand corner of the screen. Change this to None if you want to immediately switch from one locator to another, rather than wait for a tempo-based launching time.

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mastering houses is usually out of most people’s reach due to the high cost. This last option is food for thought if you work 100% in-the-box, as it may be the only time your work has the chance to pass through an analogue signal path. This type of processing can help you get a more rounded tone and a greater sense of depth, which, as we’ve already mentioned, will be applied by someone with very experienced ears. But paying out for mastering isn’t always an option, and although a full guide to mastering in Live is beyond the scope of this single sitting here, we will cover various techniques that make great use of Live’s unique devices. Although Live doesn’t offer much in terms of vintage emulation, aside from its SSL-modelled Glue Compressor, there are a few ways to enhance your masters with some analogue-style harmonic enrichment. As you explore the dynamic, frequency, stereo-width and perceived depth aspects of your material when DIY mastering you will always start to hear what may have needed more attention at the mixing stage. You can then always re-visit these Live projects for correction, which provides an element of ear training required to improve your overall production skills. So even if you plan on outsourcing your mastering needs, a bit of DIY can be a great learning experience. MTF

Mastering tracks in Live Technique MTF

MTF Step-by-Step EQ, dynamics and saturation

You’ll often want to restrict the extremes of the top and bottom ends. If there’s bass energy lower than the lowest note this can be limited using a x4 Low Cut filter. Removing this also helps achieve a slightly higher output level. Use a x4 or regular High Cut to restrict the top end and tame the very high frequencies, through to a more obvious roll-off around 15-16kHz for a cut-to-vinyl tone.

Narrow-band subtractive EQ can be useful if you have a build up of unpleasant resonances. Use a parametric (Bell) EQ with additive Gain and sweep the Frequency to hunt out the problem area, then use the Q control to choose a width that doesn’t boost more than the area needed. Reset the Gain back to 0dB and use negative Gain until the resonance is reduced enough so it’s no longer an issue.

Although rhythmic, peak-based compression can be good to help bring out drum-track transients in your songs, to increase the body and energy of your song you might need a mild, non-rhythmic type of dynamic control. Live’s Glue Compressor is a good choice here – with a ratio of 2:1, and little to no Threshold applied, a few dBs of gain reduction can help your songs sound more glued together.

A simple way to firm up and thicken your bottom end is to use Live’s Overdrive device to add subtle distortion. Be very careful to use low Drive, Tone and Dynamics settings, as the signal can break up very easily at the cost of your audio quality. But with its Bandpass EQ set to focus purely on the low end, this device can add a really solid weight to your songs.

For harmonic enrichment in the top end, Saturator tends to do this job better than the often brittle-sounding Overdrive. The presets within Live’s library are a good place to start, with Hot Tubes and Warm Up Highs being our personal favourites. Remember to keep exploring the right balance of Dry/Wet while you work, as it’s very easy to add too much.

Corrective rebalancing of the tops, lows and mids can be made using High Shelve, Low Shelve and Bell EQs, respectively. Be careful to adjust the Gain level of the EQ when making either additive or subtractive adjustments so your levels stay at their optimum. Any mid-range adjustments are best made with a wide Q, so the overall balance isn’t distorted too much.

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MTF Technique Mastering tracks in Live

MTF Step-by-Step Width and depth

Fine-tune the stereo width by switching an EQ Eight into M/S from the Mode menu. This enables you to EQ the Mid and Side parts of the signal individually. Increase stereo width by slightly boosting the tops in the sides with a High Shelve EQ, then use a Low Cut EQ so the low end only passes down the Mid signal. Use Audition Mode to hear where the Low Cut frequency should be set.

Another way to enhance your stereo width is by adding harmonics to the side signal. A Mid and Side Device is included on the DVD which splits the signal into a Mid and Side Chain within an Audio Rack. You can then add processors to either Chain. Drag a Saturator with a high Drive amount to the Side Chain, and set the Dry/ Wet balance so the stereo is enhanced without sounding too distorted.

A subtle reverb can be used to place a dry-sounding mix into an audible space and add depth. This needs to be done subtly, so be careful with your Dry/Wet balance. We’ve gone for a medium room and used the Reverb device’s Lo Cut on the input to avoid muddying up the low end. Live Suite owners should explore the Convolution Reverb in the Max for Live browser for a more natural sound.

The previous technique can be taken a step further by only adding the reverb to the sides, maintaining a dryer sound down the centre of the mix. When applying reverb to the sides be careful to experiment with applying it before or after the Utility device, which removes the mid part of the signal. In most cases it’s best to add the reverb to be pre-Utility, and then balance the Dry/Wet to taste.

You don’t always need to increase the width of a mix, though, especially when matching multiple tracks for an EP or album. To control the balance between mid and sides, a single Utility device can be very helpful. Use values on the Width parameter of lower than 100% to narrow your stereo spread towards mono at 100%.

A final way to achieve a sense of depth is to push back the pokey, boxy-sounding part of the lower mids. This will generally live below 500Hz and will sound unpleasant when boosted using additive gain. When this area has been identified and the Q amount is wide enough to only boost the offending range you can use subtractive Gain settings to achieve a more scooped and deeper sound.

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MTF Feature 20 Ways To Supercharge Your Computer For Audio

MTF Feature 20 ways to…

SUPERCHARGE YOUR

COMPUTER FOR AUDIO

“Get the best computer you can for music production!” they say. But Hollin Jones disagrees. You can easily spruce up your existing system for audio work, and it won’t cost you a fortune…

I

t’s a fairly safe bet to assume that most of the people reading this make music using a computer as the heart of their studio. And while there may be lots of outboard and instruments thrown into the equation, the computer is the nerve centre – the brain that ultimately runs the session. As computers have become ubiquitous in the pro audio world, it has become increasingly important to understand how they operate and how they do their job. Where once an Atari just ran your MIDI, now a Mac or PC handles every aspect of the production process.

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They might be giants Although almost infinitely more powerful and stable than they were just two decades ago, computers are still complex machines that need to be treated properly. Pro audio work is one of the most demanding things you can ask of a computer, short perhaps only of 3D video processing. And although computers have become much faster, our expectations of what we should be able to achieve with them have gone up as well. So where once you’d be grateful to run a couple of virtual synths, now we’re prone to loading up lots of

20 Ways To Supercharge Your Computer For Audio Feature MTF

You can easily do the following techniques to get a much better performance out of your music system multi-GB sample-based instruments without giving it a second thought. All of this is fine as long as your machine can cut it. There are very important considerations that come into play when buying a new machine: Mac or PC, how big should the hard drive be and what format, how many cores to go for and how fast should they be. For many people, however, getting the best performance out of the hardware you already own is a more pressing issue. Luckily, it’s not as daunting a task as you may have imagined. Many people that take a computer to a specialist believing it to be on its last legs are amazed to discover that after a spring clean or the fitting of some more RAM it’s as good as new, if not better.

Make the most of what you have You don’t have to be a tech wizard to optimize your computer for audio performance, and a lot of the tips we’ll show you are actually free and involve no expense. One thing that is important to stress before you start, however, is that you should always maintain current backups of your system, especially before starting to delete files or make changes to hardware. Also if you are not confident in swapping RAM or hard drives it’s well worth the small cost of getting a professional to do it, as this should avoid any slip ups. On the whole though, most of the following tips and techniques are things that you can easily do yourself and they will help you get the very best performance out of your music system.

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MTF Feature 20 Ways To Supercharge Your Computer For Audio

The old debate

PRO TIP SOLID STATE DRIVES SSD drives use no moving parts and as such are much faster than conventional hard drives and use less power. Though more costly, their price has come down a lot and they are easy to fit to any computer that allows user access to the drive bay. Once you’ve gone SSD, everything else feels incredibly slow by comparison.

UNDERSTANDING YOUR HARDWARE The bits that make up your computer will determine how well it performs… Let’s get one thing straight at the outset: your five-yearold PC or a cheap, off-the-shelf laptop is probably not going to be all that much cop when it comes to running big music projects in the latest DAW. Budgets are always an issue, but just as you wouldn’t expect an old banger to win a Formula 1 race, a basic computer isn’t going to deal with the rigours of pro audio production. If you are buying a new machine, you’ll have the chance to specify it properly for audio work and if you’re upgrading an existing machine you should know which components to pay particular attention to.

Slightly controversially, although Macs are comparatively more expensive, an off-the shelf Mac will provide a better all-round solution for many users, thanks to the excellent build quality and the stability of Mac OS X. If on the other hand you prefer much wider customization options or perhaps use a Windows-only DAW, a PC can offer more bang for your buck. The CPU is the brain of your computer and any half decent machine will now have a dual core processor at the very least and probably a quad core one if you’re going for a more serious setup. Opting for the fastest clock speeds usually adds greatly to the price, but software is increasingly well optimized for multicore processing, so you might be better saving that money for other components that will make more of a real world performance difference. Intel’s i5 processors are good but the i7s – admittedly more expensive – are great. In a full-fat system you might even get Xeon processors.

Don’t forget… Memory, also known as RAM, is also crucial as the more you have, the greater the headroom in the system. Data stored in RAM is accessed very quickly and DAWs and virtual instruments love it. 8GB should be considered a sensible amount, preferably 16GB or more for a heavyweight music setup. Hard drives are also common

The faster the clock speed the higher the price, but you might be better off saving that money… performance bottlenecks. A standard 5400RPM drive will feel horribly slow, so go for a 7200RPM drive or preferably a solid state (SSD) drive. Upgrade your existing drive if it’s old, slow or otherwise creaking. There’s other peripheral stuff like optical drives, screens and connectivity, but these are the most important things to look at when considering how well your music system is performing.

PRO TIP RAM IT HOME RAM used to be really expensive but now it’s much more affordable. Most computers allow you to manually upgrade the RAM, and www.crucial.com is a good place to look. A few thin laptops, especially those from Apple, don’t allow user upgrades so you should specify as much as you can afford while ordering the machine.

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PRO TIP CONNECTIVITY MATTERS Though USB2 is everywhere, consider what ports your computer has. All Apple models now have Thunderbolt, and ports like FireWire, USB3 or eSATA can be added to desktop PCs via expansion cards. USB2 is the baseline standard, though adaptors do exist to connect some older equipment to newer machines. Some are completely incompatible though, so always check before buying.

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