Ableton Live - Comprehensive Tutorials

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I obtained an Oxygen61 keyboard and Tascam US-122L external soundcard a whiles ago, and have recently started playing about with Live 7 to try and create some musics. Ideally I'd be looking to create dubstep stuff, but any form of dance/house/trance is on the cards, if I can figure out how.

I've been using the tutorials from sonicacademy.com which are fine and dandy but don't go into much detail, after my first day of playing I've already exhausted them.

So, can anyone recommened a good comprehensive site for tutorials, or a forum for advice, specifically on Live?

My current sticking point is creating the long, undulating basslines you find with dubstep. I can generate bass frequencies, and envelope an auto-filter etc to make them undulate, but at the end of the bar/clip the note is released and a new one starts and I want it to be continuous across multiple bars/clips (when in the arrangement) instead (I think?).
 
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Yeah I've seen a few on youtube, but it's a case of, if someone on here already knows and can share the knowledge of where's good and reliable, that's infinitely preferable to trawling through potentially dozens of vids

dubstepforum looks like a good start, thanks!

Any others?
 
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Cheers, are there many people using Ableton, I find it a little wierd myself tho I'm hoping 8 is a little nicer...
I don't think you can expect much from 8; from what I've seen it's an incremental improvement over 7.

I'm stuck with using 5 at the moment, as my version of 7 [legit!] doesn't want to play ball with my system in a way I can't work out. No sidechaining! No tempo maps! No 'Split to MIDI'! No racks! :(

Anyway, Tetsujin: If I'm reading your post correctly, you've got, say, a 4-bar bass loop but you want that filtered over, say, 16 bars, right?

If you look at the little 'Clip' info box when in Session View, you'll see three round buttons underneath marked "L", "(musical notes)" and "E".

Clicking on "E" opens up the 'Envelopes' panel. If you switch Region/Loop to "Unlinked" you can then set the length for any parameter, filter, softsynth control etc.

If you want filter sweeps or whatever that span a number of different clips, however, I think you'll have to do that on the Arrangement View, yeah. But maybe someone with more experience knows better :)
 
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i have the oxygen49 keyboard but mainly use this with cubase sx3. However i did obtain a musictech mag which was dedicated to ableton live one particular month.there was quite a few tutorial articals and it came with a tutorial dvd. See if you can get a back catalogue.
 
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Anyway, Tetsujin: If I'm reading your post correctly, you've got, say, a 4-bar bass loop but you want that filtered over, say, 16 bars, right?

If you look at the little 'Clip' info box when in Session View, you'll see three round buttons underneath marked "L", "(musical notes)" and "E".

Clicking on "E" opens up the 'Envelopes' panel. If you switch Region/Loop to "Unlinked" you can then set the length for any parameter, filter, softsynth control etc.

If you want filter sweeps or whatever that span a number of different clips, however, I think you'll have to do that on the Arrangement View, yeah. But maybe someone with more experience knows better :)

I think so, but it's less about filtering and more about the note not stopping and restarting. If you've heard Skream's remix of LaRoux's 'In For The Kill' (pretty hard not to have!) it seems to have a bass note playing for the whole duration, not stopping and being re-played every bar or anything, so I was wondering how that's done.

As a side issue the knobs on my keyboard aren't working with Instant Mappings for some odd reason, though I'm hitting up Ableton's own forums with that issue (as soon as they auth my account).
 
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I don't think you can expect much from 8; from what I've seen it's an incremental improvement over 7.
I had a quick look over at the forums yesterday and it does seem people have their fair share of 8 problems, but I guess they should sort this with a patch...

I'm used to using renoise/reason/logic, but have been meaning to give ableton a whirl, and they have a 14-day trail of 8 on the ableton site so I'm gonna have a play. :)
 
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I'd experimented with Cubase before Ableton, and while that was a messy pile of gumph which crashed every few minutes for no reason, wouldn't save core configuration settings like midi mappings (even when it didn't crash), and was a messy mess, Ableton (instant mappings issue aside) worked straight out of the box and has a nice simple UI. Definitely check it out, Mr Hunt
 
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Yeah I just read on the afore-linked dubstep forum that Logic is perhaps preferable to Ableton as Live's more geared to performances than recording, which version of Logic would I be looking for, for just production purposes? From Apple's site there's Logic Pro 8 and Logic Studio and Mainstage and... a lot of things I'm not entirely sure of the purpose of
 
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If you're running osx, Logic Pro 8 is the way to go...

Under windows, Logic 5.51 still kicks ass IMO...

Ableton looks to be very capable, if you're starting out I'd be tempted to stick with ableton as it looks easier to use.

Logic is powerful but it can get a little too complex if you're just starting out... :)
 
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I'd experimented with Cubase before Ableton, and while that was a messy pile of gumph which crashed every few minutes for no reason, wouldn't save core configuration settings like midi mappings (even when it didn't crash), and was a messy mess, Ableton (instant mappings issue aside) worked straight out of the box and has a nice simple UI. Definitely check it out, Mr Hunt


Never really had problems with cubase like that, but I think Ableton is better for learning, however cubase sx has far superior producing abilities over ableton, which although can produce, is more suited for live sets.
 
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its how you use the software rather than the software itself. id always say try all the demos and use whichever one you can work with best. there isnt really anything you can do on one piece of software that you cant on another

for example a good video on you tube of benga going through production and hes using really old old version of logic on a PC and fruityloops...

as for ableton tutorials then ive always found the ableton forums the best for em
 
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I've finally got Ableton installed, stable and running well, plugged up my MIDI controller, and gonna give it a go tonight or tomorrow. :)

Tetsujin: How are you getting on? It does seem quite different to a normal DAW app...

Andy: Got a link to that Benga vid? I have a feeling I've used the same version of Logic. ;)
 
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I'm getting on ok, at the mo just trying to get to grips with all the different stuff, instruments, and what all the terminology means, and how to achieve certain effects, and then ultimately trying to figure out how to actually make a tune, heh.

Still no replies on my instant mappings issue, mind, but that's of minor concern, really.
 
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