10 Newbie mistakes in Ableton

Here are some common newbie mistakes people make when writing in Ableton. This isn’t all Ableton specific as some tips apply to music production in general. It also isn’t in any specific order and doesn’t necessarily assume to be the Top 10 of newbie mistakes. These are just some mistakes I’ve seen people make over the years and are certainly some mistakes I have made as well. If you are new to Ableton or cumputer music production, these should be of some assistance.

1. Assuming Ableton’s auto-warping will warp your songs perfectly :

This is a fairly common but huge mistake when working with Ableton. Although Ableton is excellent at warping loops without much trouble (as long as the loop is already seamless), a full song is a different animal altogether.

I suppose it can be pretty misleading to see an option called “Auto-warp” and wonder why your songs aren’t syncing up to tempo perfectly. While the auto-warp function does do a lot of the work for you, it’s your job to fine tune it so that every thing is 100% on. Learning this process  is the single most important thing you need to master if you want to unleash 95% of Ableton’s true capabilities.

Here’s are a few videos to get you started.

For Ableton 8:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waLeq8-2UBo

For previous versions of Ableton:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JddbTkyKVTE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AbfMe5Tklo

2. Recording parts on the same track in both arrange and session window:

A common mistake for people who are new to Ableton is assuming that the session window (the window with all the boxes for clips and scenes. Also home to the mixer) and the arrangement window (the window the most resembles other audio recording software) are separate entities.

For example you will have a clip on audio 1 in your session window but audio 1 in your arrange window is empty.  If you are new to Ableton it is easy to assume that it’s fine to record on that track in the arrange window but that would be a big mistake. You will quickly find that one of your parts is no longer playing.This is simply because you have put 2 parts on the same track at the same time.

Once you understand how the session and arrange windows are intertwined, it will make complete sense what is happening. The simple rule to follow is:

1 instrument per track.

Think of each clip in a track (audio or midi) as representing what 1 instrument will be doing in different sections of your song. For example, one clip might be for the intro, the next for the verses, another for your bridge and another still for a chorus.

If you have ever programmed a drum machine, clips are similar to patterns on your drum machine. When you want to chain those patterns together to make your complete song, you would do that in the arrange window.

If you are recording something start to finish (like a full vocal take), you would also want to record in the arrange window. The important thing to remember is that at the end of the day, everything will need to go into the arrange window before you mixdown (render) your song. If you are arranging your instruments from loops or recording separate parts of your song to arrange later (like with drums) you would most benefit from starting in the session window and then chaining those parts together in the arrange window.

*As a sidenote, some would argue that you can do everything in the arrange window, and I wouldn’t disagree, but i’d suggest you learn the basics of both windows and then decide what works best for you.

Here is a video that might make the concept a little easier for you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZBVeNGU6_U

3. Too many loops or parts fighting for the same frequencies:

If you are building your songs with loops and samples, a common mistake is to think that the more loops you add, the more full and complex your song will sound. You are only half right though. It’s true that more layers can give your song more complexity and depth, but the downside is it can easily make your composition sound muddy, off pitch or just plain not right. Keep an eye on your fighting frequencies when choosing your loops. A good way to finding these conflicting frequencies is to use a spectrum analyser. Ableton 8 has one built right in, but if you are using an older version of Ableton, you can use one of this free plugin.

BS – Spectrum Vst

4. Not removing needless frequencies – Keeping on the subject of your EQ’s and frequencies, it’s really important to keep in mind what is the most important part of a an instrument and cut out the frequencies that aren’t needed. You won’t want 2 or 3 parts all playing a deep, heavy kick drum. You’ll need to choose which one has the best lows, and remove the low end from the other loops. Same with your hi frequencies. You’ll want to make sure your hihats are coming through clean by removing the highs from your othertracks. For snare and percussion in your mid frequencies, you may need to attenuate certain frequencies so that each part has it’s own space and doesn’t sound muddy. In most cases, you’ll find that popular music doesn’t have too much going on in any given frequency. Everything is balanced and that is what you want. The goal of this blog isn’t to tell you exactly how to dial in all of your EQ’s but rather to point you to where you should look if your songs aren’t sounding as good as you had hoped.

This video might give you the basic idea:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGFzYh_C7to

You can also read this Blog

5. Not arranging your songs in multiples of 4 :

Now I know that there are many other time signatures than 4/4 time but I just want to give  some basic tips here for people struggling with producing songs.  If you are struggling, it’s probably best that you learn to write in 4/4 timing before getting into complex time signatures.

That said, it’s very important in popular music and club music that you create your parts on multiple of 4 bars. For example, if you have a verse that goes 7 bars instead of 8 and then you jump into a chorus, it’s most likely going to sound all wrong. This multiple of 4 predictability in music seems very natural. Don’t try to get too tricky until you’ve successfully got this down. Once you know how things are “supposed” to sound, you can tweak the timing to create more tension successfully.

6. Doing your songwriting and sound design in the same session:

I’ve written a whole blog on this subject if you want to get deeper into this, but basically, you don’t want to be fumbling around trying to get THAT sound when you have a melody or bassline in your head. In the time it takes to create this amazing sound in your head, you will likely have lost the original idea that inspired you. It’s best to work fast with a template of sounds or presets that you have found to work for you and touch things up after the rough idea is saved.

7. Adding parts to compensate for bad sounding parts:

Each part in your song should be able to stand on it’s own. It shouldn’t sound crappy when you solo it. Of course I know that sometimes it takes a couple layers to get that certain Bass sound. It’s totally ok and even encouraged to layer your sounds but at the end of the day those sounds need to all stand together as 1 Bass or 1 Stab sound or whatever.

If you find yourself adding melody on top of melody in an attempt to make something sound “right”, you might be better off redoing your melody.

Make sure your drums, bass, pads, melodies and vocals all sound great on their own. You aren’t going to make good tracks by burying so-so parts deep in your mix. If you can break your song down to 6-8 elements, it will keep you focused on if you are adding too much stuff. You may end up with 40+ tracks in your song, but you definitely don’t want all those elements playing at the same time.

If you have 3 different melodies, you should only have one out front at any given time. Even complex songs should come across sounding fairly simple and there should be empty space between the parts. Put on a CD and listen to how many elements are going on at any given time. Notice how each sound has it’s space to come across clearly.

The less you have going on in your song, the bigger each sound is able to be. That’s why with a 3 piece band like Nirvana, each instrument can sound so big.

Regardless of the style of music, we are all limited to a certain frequency range. When you have parts fighting for the same frequency, both parts are bound to have to sacrifice something in order to fit into the mix.

Another way to look at building a song is to ask “What frequency am I going to fill in now?”, then you want to use a spectrum analyzer to find what works in that range. If you have 2 parts you like but they are taking up the same frequencies, perhaps you can take one up or down and octave so it has it’s own range. Once you have filled up your full spectrum you can see how strong each element is before adding any extra layers.

8. Too many options:

Having too many choices with instruments and plugin’s without having made yourself a “go to” collection can become a huge time and energy waster. It’s far better to have a few “go to” plugin’s and instruments that you know really well than it is to have 100′s that you aren’t familiar with. Using unfamiliar software can really slow you down and give you below par results.

Find 4 or 5 synths (or even less), 2 compressors, 2 or 3 reverbs, a couple delays etc.. Then take some time to find out what each one is really good at and build some “go to” presets. This will make things much easy and you’ll be getting the sound you are looking for much more quickly.

It’s fine to have lots of plugins in your arsenal but it’s best to find out what each one does before you start your songwriting process. Believe me when I say that I am writing this for myself as much as for you!

Before the days of free plugin’s and fast computers, we pretty much had to make due with whatever equipment we had. Given those limitations, it’s easiest to get to the process of making music instead of trying to fiddle with every toy in the toy store.

Another thing that you’ll find is that when you get comfortable using certain equipment, those limitations become your sound and gives you some consistency. Get your “go to” collection started asap.

9. Not making a template:

Templates are a saving grace when it comes to songwriting. When you have a setup that works with your favorite effects settings or your send/returns, drumkits, synths etc take the time to save it as a template songfile or to drag it to your presets for later use. This will save you loads of time trying to figure out how to get that certain sound you had before.

Fumbling through presets and setup takes time and can easily distract you from your goal: To get your ideas down while you are inspired.

Templates give you a basic setup with all your “go to” stuff included. You can even make different templates for different styles of music. Having several options will allow you to be ready to go regardless of what creative mood you are in.

10. Using low quality samples:

Using low quality samples with the intention to “fix it in the mix” is another big mistake. Now I’m all for lo-if and I’ve been known to use less than optimal quality sounds to great effect, but you need to make sure it works for your track and that you aren’t building your track off a bunch of lo quality sounds.

If you have to doctor it up with tons of effects and eq to make it sound decent, you should probably use a higher quality sound that has most of the tone you are looking for from the get go. For example, a kick drum that doesn’t have good low end from the start is never going to sound deep,punchy and professional.

Using a lower quality sound might not seem like it will make a noticeable difference, but just wait until you have a whole song full of these sounds and the overall quality will become pretty apparent to you.

Using mp3 quality is something I wouldn’t recommend. Generally speaking 16bit 44.1 should be the minimum you accept. If your computer can handle 24 bit recording at 96kbps you will likely hear a difference, just keep an eye on your hard drive usage. I personally stick to 16bit for most of my work and I get good results.

I hope this has been helpful for you.  Feel free to email me your newbie mistakes and I’ll consider updating this Blog to perhaps 15 newbie mistakes.

Happy music making,

Jason

Follow me: http://twitter.com/AbletonVids

Website: http://www.musicsoftwaretraining.com

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Is technical talent truly inspiring?

I watched a live performance of Shadowplay by Joy Division from 1978 on Youtube the other day. The performance was raw, the playing was amateur and the vocals were out of key and..

it was still amazing.

I proceeded to read the comments below and was pleasantly surprised that 90% of the comments were also praising the performance. Only one person mentioned the lack of technical skill and everybody jumped down his throat.

Then of course everyone was dogging the Cover version of this song by The Killers basically calling them a bunch of hacks. Now technically speaking, The Killers version could easily be considered better. It was sonically recorded and mixed better, the instruments were well played and the vocals were on key.. but nobody cared. Now I’m not here to say The Killers are shit, but rather I want to explore why bands like Joy Division, Bauhaus and The Cure are practically worshipped despite their lack of what some would call musicianship.

Why are bands like these so well respected despite(or perhaps even because of) a lack of technical talent? What is that magic formula? Why is it that we excuse their lack of technical talent and in fact rate them much higher than bands that clearly have better musicianship?

Some of you reading this will simply say these bands are completely over-rated or popular for being popular in the underground. I’m going to have to say that I believe there is more to it and I would like to explore this a bit deeper.

Being a proud non-musician myself, I enjoy the idea of mucking about on an instrument like a curious child. If I already felt I knew everything there was to know, I probably wouldn’t be very interested in making music. I suppose what I do mocks people that slave over their instrument of choice, but I don’t think that is the whole picture. I, in fact, have slaved over music, but the things I am interested in are how to convey a vibe.

Sometimes pure talent shows little humanity.

Often times talent is something you hide behind. Nakedness and vulnerability can evoke much more emotion.  I personally think it takes bravery to stand up on a stage with little but a handful of chords and some ideas that you want to get across.

Don’t get me wrong, there are times when you need talent to convey a complex idea and those are amazing moments, but those moments are not driven by the desire to “show off” talent but rather to get across your message as accurately as possible.

There is also something to be said about having pent up emotion and being a bit frustrated that you can’t express it accurately. I think I can hear this in bands like Nirvana and Joy Division. Those bands were very vulnerable and spoke for so many who were afraid to speak for themselves. Those who were afraid of their own normality. We can see ourselves in those who show themselves, warts and all.

It might be safe to say that those who are true fans of music don’t base what is good on pure talent but rather on how the music hits them whether it be Mozart, The Who or Velvet Underground. I think it’s likely that “musicians” might get off on complexity for complexities sake because having the skill to learn it can be an ego boost in the same way as mastering a difficult video game. However, music is in a completely different field altogether. Some of the best music defies logic. Sometimes the words are nonsense and the simple parts that construct the song is laughable yet we still find something intriguing about it.

I like to think that there is more that goes into music than just the instruments and vocals. I think there is something that gets recorded between the notes that weaves through the empty gaps. A sort of “ghost in the machine”. I believe emotion and intention comes through the music and those subtleties are picked up by those who really “listen”  and “feel” the music.

Although all of my examples in this blog are talking about live bands, I think the same “ghosts” can come through in electronic music as well. All instruments whether played by hand or programmed are soul-less until the soul is injected into it.

I am beginning to get into another tangent, so I will simply leave you with this Joy Division video. I hope it intrigues you to reconfirm or re-evaluate your attitude towards music and the shallow definitions of talent.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LdEM9xhMUM
Happy Music Making

Jason

Follow me: http://twitter.com/AbletonVids

Website: http://www.musicsoftwaretraining.com

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Musical Meditation

As I’ve said in previous posts, I can’t read or write music notation. However I do have something that I think makes up for it.

Let’s call it “Musical Mediation”

I have the ability to build a song idea in my head. It can start from a riff, a drum pattern or a lyrical phrase. I can “hear” inside
my head what works and what doesn’t.

For example I can try out certain vocal harmonies in my head. and hear how slight variations can create a better or worse result.
I can tell if something will sound too full or too empty before I’ve physically played or sung a note. Sometimes I don’t know exactly
what is missing but I know it’s not quite “right”.

Although I have this ability, I don’t actually use it as often as I should.

The main reason is that I find it works better for me when I’m making  guitar based songs. I figure electronic songs are more difficult
because the soundscape is largely unfamiliar. I think many great composers are so great at dreaming up symphonies because they are
so familiar with each instrument that would make up a symphonic piece of music.

I was thinking about this today and pondering how I could develop this skill of mine and perhaps help others develop as well.

Here is an approach that I’ve come up with:

Dreaming up sounds:

In order to accurately get a unique sound that is in your head into your computer or recording device,  you are going to need to
understand the fundamentals of sound.

*Try going into a synth and only use 1 oscillator.

*Turn off the filters and effects and just listen to each type of waveform, Sine, Square, Triangle, Saw.

These are the basic sound palates to every sound you will create. Understand these basics and you have the fundamentals to
dreaming up great sounds and being able to put the sound in your head into an actual song.

Although getting sidetracked can lead to some wonderfully surprising sounds, for this exercise it’s of utmost importance that
you see this process through without losing focus.  I think it can be argued that this loss of focus is one of the leading causes
of not completing songs.

Here’s the scenario:

You had an original idea in your head but lost focus early on and just went with whatever interesting sound jumped out at
you first. Soon you are listening to a loop or collection of sounds over and over without anywhere to go. You have essentially
lost your steam.

It’s no wonder you get bored with the idea so quickly. You aren’t creating anything close to what inspired you in the first place!

What if you were able to quickly get the ideas out of your head accurately before you lost focus?

My guess is that you would probably find more satisfaction in your work.

Then of course once you got the basic idea out of your head you could allow for more experimentation and happy accidents.

Remember, this isn’t a lesson in inflexibility but of focus.

Having trouble dreaming up your own sounds? Try dreaming up someone else’s.

*Pull out a CD or pull up a song in your computer.

*Listen just a bass tone that attracts you.

*When you find a sound you like, listen to it as closely as possible.

*Listen to how the sound characteristics change with each note.

*If there are volume variations, take note of those too.

Breaking it down:

If the sound you are trying to recreate in your head is complex, break it down into the separate parts that make the sound up.

If you have a hard time doing this, think of it as 3 different sounds. One sound in the lower frequency, one in the mid frequency
and one in the high frequency. In the same way you might break down a harmony into each separate voice, many sound designers
and musicians break down sounds to their most basic elements.  When you can mentality break sounds down to their basic elements,
you can better predict how to build your own complex tones as well.

Now that you have that sound in your head, close your eyes and try to vividly recreate that sound in your head. Try to hear it
all by itself instead of in the context of a song. You may want to give this bass sound a name so you can mentally access it more
easily.

Recreate the bassline you heard in your head in as much detail as possible.

Variation:

Next try changing some notes around and creating variations. Try not to lose the image in your head and don’t change the bass sound in your head. It’s very easy to get bored and wander off, but what we are trying to do is ingrain this sound into your memory as vividly as possible so you can add it to your mental palate.

Imagine changing the eq, or filtering out the high frequencies, then the low frequencies.

Imagine the sound with a bit of distortion, flange,delay or reverb. If you can’t vividly imagine these effects, you may want to spend some time adding these effects to some basic sounds so your mind has something to work with.

Practice makes perfect:

When you are able to do this with some proficiency, You will be able to add more an more instruments in your head and know how to get exactly what you want before you’ve even played a note. You’ll be able to build and arrange full song ideas in your
head and work out the kinks before you waste any time in the studio.

In the same way that it takes a while to become good at meditating and blocking out all of the days thoughts, it’s also difficult to start using “musical meditation” to focus on an idea without distractions. You may not get it right immediately, but with practice I am confident you will have an amazingly powerful tool that will just continue to get better and better.

Happy Music Making,

Jason

________________________________________________________________________________________

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Website: http://www.musicsoftwaretraining.com

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Basic Synthesis and Sound Design essentials:

I wanted to give you some basic concepts to synthesis that you can quickly use to better your sound design abilities. My hope is that I am able to help people who haven’t yet had the ability to grasp it quite yet. I will do my best to share what I understand in a way that is easily digestible. This stuff has taken me years to understand. With any luck, this will shave a lot of time off of your learning curve. Feel free to correct me if you find more useful or more simplistic definitions for the following terms.

Waveforms

Sine wave – The simplest of all waveforms. It has no harmonics so is quite pure in sound. a Sine wave is best used for Sub-bass.

Square wave – This waveform only exsists as highs or lows with nothing inbetween. It’s produced by only odd harmonics which gives a more hollow sound. Good for creating wind instrument tones, widening strings and pads and deep wide bass tones.

Pulse wave – This is basically like a Square wave  with adjustable highs and lows which can vary the harmonic content of the sound. can create reed like tones.

Sawtooth Wave – Produces all odd and even harmonics which is great for raspy dirty tones as well as brassy sounds. Also good for lead sounds and in your face bass tones.

Triangle wave – This only contains odd harmonics and is great when mixed with Sine, Square or Pulse waves to add some brightness or glitter.

Noise wave – A random mix of all frequencies instead of actual tones.  White noise has an equal amount of amplitude throughout the frequencies which Pink noise has differing energies giving it a perceived deeper tone.Noice waves are excellent for percussive sounds (especially snare and handclaps) as well as wind or ocean sounds.

Additive Synthesis:

If you are using a waveform that is more complex than a simple Sine wave, then you are using a form of Additive synthesis. Anytime you add harmonic content to a wave to create a Saw, Square, Triangle or Pulse wave, you are using Additive synthesis. When you see wave options that say, for example, Saw 16, Saw 32, and Saw 64, just know that the higher the number (16, 32, 64 etc), The more high frequency harmonics have been added to the sound. You may want to think of this as fuller or brighter in tone.

Oscillators:

An oscillator is basically a sound generator. This oscillator generates a Sine wave in its most basic form. Square, Triangle and Saw waves are all derivative of the Sine wave. The only difference are the harmonics added to the sound at different frequencies and amplitude (volume) levels. The process of adding harmonic frequencies to a sine wave is called Additive synthesis.

Lets use the Operator instrument as an example…

The Operator instrument has 4 Oscillators, meaning 4 simple sound generators,  which can by mixed together in a number of ways to create a final sound. Operator offers both Subtractive and FM synthesis algorithms.

One approach would be to to make 4 separate waveforms and mix them together(This could also be a form of Additive synthesis). This would give you more predictable results as you can fairly easily distinguish each separate sound of each oscillator that creates your completed sound. In it’s most basic form, this is similar to having a 4 track recorder and simply mixing each instrument together to make a song by adjusting the volume and a few other parameters.

Envelopes:

Any thing that happens to a sound over time involves envelopes. Amplitude(volume), Oscillators and filters all have Envelopes as can pitch. Each of these Envelopes can be completely different within one sound which can drastically influence the final sonic results.

In any sound or effect there are 4 components over time that make up an envelope. We will use an amplitude envelope as an example:

Attack – how quickly a sound reaches it’s peak level after a key is hit to trigger the sound
Decay – how quickly a sound drops to a level that it will remain at after the Attack peak. Sometimes the sound will remain at it’s peak level. Other times the sound will jump up quickly in volume and then settle at a lower volume.

Sustain – The level that that sound remains at after the decay until the key is released (this is a volume setting not a time setting)

Release – How quickly the sound level fades to nothing after the key is released.

Since each sound can have multiple envelopes, a sound can get really complex, but that doesn’t mean the building blocks of these sounds can’t be made from a basic knowledge of synthesis.

Subtractive Synthesis:

Subtractive synthesis is a model of sound design where you chip away at the frequencies of a simple or complex waveform with a filter (Complex waveforms being the result of additive synthesis, or, the adding of harmonics to a simple sine wave). You are subtracting certain frequencies from a rich,  full range sound to create a tone you find satisfying.  You can think of subtractive synthesis sound design in a similar way to how a sculptor creates his art. The “art” is already their, he just needs to chip away what isn’t needed.

FM Synthesis:

With this approach, the results of how each oscillator will effect your final sound is less predictable. Basically FM synthesis uses 1 oscillator as the main sound and each other oscillator as a waveform that modulates the first sound. This combination makes for much more complex results. You can look at subtractive synthesis like a salad. In a salad you have a combination of vegetables but with all it’s separate parts completely recognizable. FM synthesis is more like baking a cake. The sum of each ingredient may result in something that looks nothing like the original raw ingredients. The math involved would make your head spin, so just trust me on this. Another way to look at it is that subtractive synthesis is like a mixture of wet and dry signal on a reverb whereas FM synthesis is like having the reverb set to 100% leaving none of the original signal. This isn’t the perfect analogy however as Subtractive synthesis can be a mixture of several tones whereas classic FM synthesis is the processing or modulating of one single tone.

With FM synthesis you will need to rely on experimentation in order to build a vocabulary of familiar combinations. If you have never heard what a square wave sounds like when it is modulated by a triangle wave, which in turn is being modulated by a saw wave, you won’t be able to predict in your head the outcome. Do not feel like an idiot that you can’t simply think of a sound in your head and bang it out using fm synthesis. It’s going to take some time to understand how one waveform alters the sound of another. For now, just clear your mind and mess with the oscillators until something sounds cool, then take note of how you created it. You’ve now built your vocabulary. Repeat this step until you can start to predict how something will sound. Then you will move to a combination of predicting and experimenting.

Whereas with Subtractive synthesis frequencies can be altered with a filter, FM synthesis can create rich harmonics when one oscillator is modulated by one or more other oscillators. It is advisable to start with a darker tone and build the harmonic frequencies with other oscillators and then use the filter at the end if desired. The use of a filter on FM synthesis is supposedly not necessary since modulating oscillators can do that for you and classic FM synthesis doesn’t involve a filter. The use of a filter is kind of a mixture of FM and Subtractive synthesis.

Other forms of synthesis:

Other forms of synthesis includes:
Granular synthesis which uses a sequences of short grains(waveforms) to form a longer output sound.
Physical Modeling which uses some very complex mathematics and waveforms to create a realistic sound of wind a drum hit or bowed instruments.
Wavetable Synthesis which is usually made with a small collection of waveforms spliced together and looped. These loops can be measured in milliseconds. Think of it as microscopic audio samples mixed together to create a complex texture.

I’m not going to dive any further into those as my goal was to help you dive into the basics of synthesis. If you would like to really elevate your sound design skills, I highly recommend you purchase the Sampler or Operator video collections by Nick Maxwell at www.NicksTutorials.com.  Much of what I am sharing with you has been made much more clear through watching his videos and being lucky enough to chat with him on the phone. This guy goes DEEP into what is possible with sound.

Hopefully this has cleared a few things up for you, now go make some music!

Jason

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Download the High Quality Synthesis Video Mini-Pack for only $5

(looks great even on a 24″ monitor!)

Although the lower quality videos will always be available for free right here on the blog, making the $5 purchase helps support my ability to continue offering free content to those who can’t afford to pay.

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