Cover feature Master the essential DAW and become a power user,
Whether you’re switching to Live 10 or an existing user, we’ll tell you everything you need to know
Since its inception in 2001, Ableton’s Live DAW has become one of the most important audio applications ever made, genuinely changing the way music is produced. Yet as each new version has boosted Live’s power and versatility, so its complexity has increased, to the point now where newcomers to Live 10 can find things more than a little confusing at first.
In this extensive guide, we’ll smooth out some of the more challenging bumps in the learning curve faced by new users of Ableton’s production and performance powerhouse. Whether you’re an experienced user of a different DAW or a complete newbie to computer-based music production, the keys to your Live journey can be found over the next few pages.
Live comes in three main tiers, according to the size of your pocket: Intro, Standard and Suite. There’s also a Lite version that comes bundled with various MIDI controllers, including some by Arturia and Native Instruments, that actually represents an economically sound gateway into the Live universe. If you’re buying the software on its own, however, the Intro version is your cheapest option. Limited to just 16 audio and MIDI tracks, and a maximum of eight Scenes, Live Intro is really just a toe-in-thewater solution to see how well the workflow suits your particular needs, but you do get enough sounds and instruments to whet your appetite. The mid-range Standard version comes next, with unlimited tracks and scenes, and a 10GB library of over 1800 sounds. The range tops out with Live 10 Suite, which has a whopping 70GB sound library, 15 software instruments and 72 audio and MIDI effects, as well as Max for Live, a package that allows advanced users to customise and create their own devices for use in the DAW.
The basics: Sets, Clips, Scenes and Views
Live’s main unit of currency is the ‘clip’, the basic building block from which a project or ‘set’ is constructed. Clips are essentially short recorded sequences of MIDI or audio, intended to be triggered, or ‘launched’, and looped for a set number of bars. Live also offers a clever Auto-Warp feature that enables clips to play in sync with the project tempo immediately with almost zero faff. In the standard workflow, clips might be recorded or dragged into the loop-centric Session View for experimentation with different combinations of sounds. These combinations can then be transferred to the linear Arrangement View, either by dragging and dropping or recording a ‘live’ performance, for further editing, arrangement changes and mixing.
In the Session View, each instrument or audio track in your set is arranged vertically and can house any number of MIDI or audio clips, only one of which can be triggered at a time. Clips can be stopped and started individually, or in collections called ‘Scenes’.
A Scene is simply a horizontal row of clips, all of which can be triggered simultaneously from one launch button.
The creative workflow of the Session View’s grid-based layout can be enhanced and made ‘hands-on’ with the addition of a hardware controller that features trigger pads laid out in a grid. Ableton’s own Push 2 controller is the perfect example of this, obviously, and is a very worthwhile investment if you’re planning on making serious progress with Live.
The Session View was originally built as an environment for live performance, and although it works well as a nonlinear means of playing around with clips and arrangement ideas, for most serious production tasks, you’ll likely spend the majority of your time in the Arrangement View. This provides you with a more traditional, linear left-to-right workflow, with tracks arranged horizontally instead of vertically. You’ll be more at home within the Arrangement View if you’re transitioning to Live from another DAW with a conventional, timeline-based layout, such as Logic Pro, Cubase or Pro Tools.
Finally, bear in mind that Live is a true cross-platform DAW, meaning that it can be used with parity between PC and Mac. This feature was written using the keyboard shortcuts found in the Mac version, but all of our walkthroughs apply to both platforms – if you’re on PC, simply substitute the Command key with the Control key when using any keyboard shortcuts.