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3. Creating scratch effects in Ableton Live

1 Convincing, DJ-style scratches are fun to create, and these techniques apply to any DAW. After importing the files beginning HipHop into Live’s Arrangement View, double-click Sample. wav and disable warping. Next, copy the sample onto every beat of every bar to start creating our virtual scratch routine. Let’s mimic some turntable movement… 2 Add a Simple Delay device to the Sample channel, then set its Feedback to 0% and Dry/Wet to 100%. After linking the left and right Delay Times and disabling Sync, right-click on the plugin’s header and select its Repitch mode. Now adjust Delay Time, and you’ll hear an effect that’s similar to scratching a record back and forth. 3 Let’s automate this Delay Time parameter over four bars and give our sample some authentic, turntablist style back-and-forth movement. Drawing in Delay Time changes over half or full notes will give a basic, baby scratch-style sound; while finer automation bumps over eighth- or 16th-notes will give a scribbleesque effect. 4 Now we’ve got some scratching, let’s throw some crossfader action into the mix. Set up a new audio track, then route the output from the Sample channel to the empty channel, with Monitor switched In. Add Live’s Auto Pan device to the empty channel, then set Phase to 0 degrees to turn it into a tremolo (ie, volume modulator) effect. 5 Pushing the Shape dial up to 100% will shape Auto Pan’s waveform into a square wave, which is best for mimicking the sharp ‘on/off’ curve of a scratch crossfader. After setting the Dry/Wet amount to 100% to fully modulate the sound, set the LFO Rate Type to Tempo Sync, so our virtual cuts are precisely in time with the track’s tempo. 6 To finish, we can automate Auto Pan’s Rate to give the impression of a crossfader being opened and closed. Slower rates (around 1/2) will give a more simplistic sound, while going for faster cuts of 1/16th- notes gives a transformerstyle effect. Bypass Auto Pan for the last beat of every two bars – this plays the full sample in isolation, as a scratch DJ would.