Electronic Music Production with Ableton Live

Welcome to this online course in Ableton Live 10. Over the next 12 hours of videos you’re going to learn a huge amount about the unlimited possibilities for music production within Ableton Live. By the end of the course, you’ll be making full tracks!

The course is structured into 4 modules, shown along the top of the page. As a complete beginner you should start with Module 1 and progress through the course using the tabs. Across the four parts and 58 videos this will build your knowledge to the point of being able to construct a full track on your own.

You should be trying out what you learn in each video as you go through the course to get the most out of it, and at the end of each part it is recommended to start a fresh project and try and build up everything you’ve learned so far from scratch.

To get started, head to the link in the Resources and download the sample pack and projects that go along with the course.

In this video you will learn about how to navigate round Ableton Live including the browser, transport and mixer sections.

Discover how to use Live’s handy Impulse device to create your beats from scratch! We’ll cover:

• Bringing sample packs into Live

• Using MIDI tracks

• Creating a kick with Impulse

Please note the ‘Skin’ in Ableton Live has been changed here to be clearer for you. You can play with different skins yourself in the Preferences – press Ctrl + , or Cmd + , (Mac) to quickly access the preferences.

You’ll find the Skin settings at the bottom of the Look & Feel tab.

Flesh out your kick drum with additional percussion. We’ll cover:

• Adding ‘Core Percussion’ – kick, hats and clap / snare

• Tweaking percussion sounds

• MIDI clip functions

Time to get creative! Play around with other percussive parts to
flesh out the groove. We’ll cover:

• Using additional percussion

• Setting levels

• The Master track

Learn how to save your project properly and also some of the key preferences that you might want to tweak. We’ll look at:

• Saving / Collect All & save

• Audio Preferences

Here we’re looking at how to use a complete Drum Rack to make some drums. We’ll cover:

Introduction to Drum Racks
Adding 808 / 909 sounds to your project
Tweaking Drum Rack sounds

In this video we’ll start to add some dynamics to our drum beats by using Velocity.

Get taught how to manipulate Live’s clips to create interesting patterns. We’ll cover:

• Extending your clips to longer lengths

• The loop brace

• Creating polyrhythms

One of the amazing things about Ableton Live is the ability to play your track as a live performance using scenes. We’ll take a look at

• Adding extra scenes

• Using additional clips to create variations

• Making music in a live workflow

In this video we start to look at some of Ableton Live’s powerful audio effects. We’ll look at:

• What Dry / Wet means

• Adding and tweaking Reverb

• Adding and tweaking Delay

In this video we’ll look at some audio engineering principles to get a better grasp on what sound is, and how to manipulate frequencies. We’ll look at:

• The Spectrum audio effect

• What is sound? Understanding frequencies.

• Using Filters

In our last video of Part 1, we’ll take a look at some modulation effects to give movement to some of our elements. We’ll look at:

• Grouping tracks

• Adding Chorus / Flanger / Phaser

• Tweaking the effects

Practice

By now you should be starting to feel confident putting together some beats for your track. Take some time to do this from the beginning a couple of times to solidify the knowledge. You should be aiming to use:

• at least 6 MIDI tracks

• at least 4 Impulse instruments loaded with samples

• at least 2 drum rack instruments

• at least 2 different MIDI clips per MIDI track

• at least 2 reverb effects

• at least 2 delay effects

With the above guidelines you should try creating at least 2 different beats and once you feel confident then move onto Module 2 – Sound Design.

Welcome to Module 2 of this course. By now you should be comfortable with building beats and using Impulse and Drum Rack devices. You should be playing around with adding audio effects to your sounds and experimenting with how that changes the vibe, particularly with Reverb & Delay.

This module deals with sound design in all its glory. First of all you’ll learn a detailed approach to sound design with synthesisers, recreating classic acid TB-303 sounds, house pads, trance bass and lead sounds and much more.

Then we’ll look at warping, audio mangling and manipulation, how to work with drum loops and how to sample music to make edits to give you a well-rounded skillset for sound design inside Ableton Live.

Every producer should know some music theory – here we get to grips with piano notes, major and minor chords. We’ll cover:

• Introduction to a piano keyboard

• Major & Minor Keys

• Creating a chord

Next we’ll take a look at how to add MIDI notes in for a musical element. We’re going to take a look at:

• Live’s Synthesizers

• Adding MIDI clips and drawing notes

• Playing with note lengths

In this video we’ll look at using your laptop or desktop keyboard to play in musical notes. We’ll look at:

• the shortcut for going into MIDI Keyboard mode (M)

• playing notes

• shifting octaves

Next we’ll take a look at using a MIDI controller to play in notes – by far the most fun way to play in musical information. We’ll cover:

• choosing a MIDI controller

• Setting up preferences correctly

• Playing in notes!

To get the most out of your MIDI keyboard you’ll want to do some MIDI mapping, to bring parameters in Ableton Live into the real world and give you controls to play with. We’ll cover:

• Making sure preferences are correct

• MIDI mapping

• Advanced mapping techniques (mininums and maximums)

Time to get stuck into synthesizers and start creating sounds from scratch. We’re going to use Ableton Analog to get up and running with sound design using synths, make sure you have it installed. We’re going to look at:

• Oscillators

• Filters

• Envelopes

Learn how to create acid house sounds using Analog. We’ll look at:

• The history of the Roland TB-303

• Examples of what it sounds like

• How to recreate the sound inside Ableton Analog

In this video we’re going to look at how to recreate some of the classic house sounds found in Mr Fingers – Can You Feel It. We’ll look at:

• THAT bass sound

• THAT chord sound

• Adding an acapella for fun!

In this video we’re going to take a look at classic trance sounds and how to remake them inside Ableton Analog.

Without modulation, synthesizers can sound flat and lifeless. In this video we’re going to take a look at how to give movement to your sounds using things like:

• Envelopes

• Low Frequency Oscillators (LFOs)

Create chords and patterns with a single key using MIDI effects! We’ll cover:

• Introduction to MIDI Effects

• Using Chord device to create complex chords easily

Arpeggiators are used to take multiple notes held at once (chords) and turn them into patterns. Let’s take a look at how to use them.

There are various other MIDI effects inside Ableton Live, all of which do something to the notes before they get to an instrument. Adding notes, subtracting them, changing them – this is the turf of MIDI effects.

Let’s look at the others that are available and how you might use them.

Bring audio loops into your project and manipulate them. We’ll cover:

Using audio loops in your music
Core functionality of audio clips
Why to be careful with loops!

In this video we’ll look at how to do simple warping, to make audio loops fit with your project.

In this video we’ll look at how to bring a vocal (without instrumentation) into your project. We’ll cover warping when there are no beats for your to lock on to.

This video contains an overview of the SImpler device in Ableton Live, allowing you to map samples across your MIDI keyboard so you can play melodies from them.

You should now be able to come up with an idea for a track using a combination of audio and synthesizers. To get some practice, use a beat that you’ve built up and make sure that you can put together a track with:

• at least 2 audio loops, manipulated to make them your own

• at least 2 Simpler instruments

• a bassline created with a synthesiser

• at least 4 different MIDI clips per MIDI track

• further experimentation with audio effects

With the above guidelines you should be fleshing out the idea for your track. Try to unleash your creativity at this point! If you’re stuck for ideas then use tracks that you love for inspiration, try to work out what sounds they’re using in those tracks and work out how to make them.

At this point I would recommend spending some time getting a solid idea together. When you’ve got something nice, bundle it up and send it over to us – you’ll be amazed at how much you can learn by getting feedback from an industry professional.

Once we receive your project file we will be in touch to arrange a time for a 45-minute Zoom call, where you can ask questions, get feedback on your work and suggestions for how you can improve it.

You’ll also receive an update project back with the tweaks done in the call, and a recording of the call to watch again when you like.

Welcome to Module 3, focussing on the all-important arrangement of your track. We’ll also be looking at creating a good workflow that suits your style of music prouduction, so there’s lots to learn in this section.

In this video we’ll take a look at:

• Overview of Arrangement View

• Handy shortcuts

• Interface

In order to arrange your track, you need to understand a little about track structure. In this video we take a listen to some tracks and establish a structure that they use which is simple to follow.

Now that we understand a little about track structure, we can begin to arrange our track! There are various ways to get started with an arrangement, but first we need to understand how clips behave.

‘Additive Arrangement’ is the process of building an arrangement piece by piece. You start at the beginning of the track, and build it in sections, choosing how in-depth you want to go.

We’re going to take a look at a nice method for doing this in this video.

Subtractive Arrangement is the process of starting with a full length track of 6-7 minutes with everything playing the whole time and then trimming it back to make the arrangement.

This is a clever technique that works for some producers – just choose what suits you best!

Automation is the process of making parameters in your project move and change over time. In this video we’ll look at how to use the automation lanes in arrangement view.

To get a more human feel to your music it can be a good idea to record some automation by hand. You can do this with the mouse, keyboard or knobs on a MIDI controller.

Of course a MIDI controller is generally best but the mouse can work nicely too!

In this video we’ll take a look at recording your full arrangement, complete with automation, as a live performance! In recent years this has become my favourite way of producing music quickly, as if you do the recording well your arrangement is almost finished by the time you start editing it..

Save your project as something new and try a live arrangement instead of additive / subtrctive arrangement – it’s fun and a great workflow when you get the hang of it.

There are loads of tips and tricks when it comes to automation. In this video we explore some of them and how to use them in your workflow.

Adding FX in multiple audio tracks can give your track tension during the builds and impact during the drops. It’s a very simple way to make your track sound more pro.

Sends & Returns are how effects such as reverb and delay were used in studios in days gone by, when they were hardware units rather than software and you only owned one or two that needed shared between multiple elements in your project.

In this video we look at how powerful they can be for your productions and ways of using them.

Buildups & Breakdowns are vital parts of electronic music, particularly dancefloor-focussed tracks. They provide tension and release tension to evoke an emotional reaction from the crowd.

In this video we look at how to implement them easily in your music.

Practice

Now that we’ve explored the possibilities with the arrangement of your track, you should take some time to really try to implement them into your music and get a strong idea going that keeps your attention over a number of minutes.

You should be aiming to:

• choose one strong idea and arrange it into a track

• aim for at least 4 minutes

• around 1 – 2 minutes of ‘DJ friendly’ intro is ideal

• then around 4 minutes of the ‘meat’ of your track

• then around 1-2 minutes of ‘DJ friendly’ outro

• group elements and process them together

• add automation manually and by recording it

This could also be a good time for some video feedback, to give you an indication of what’s working in your track, but more importantly what could be changed and how you could improve it.