How to write a song in Ableton:(Master Template):
Stabs – Part 6
The 6th part in the process of walking you through my How to write a song in Ableton Live process using the Ableton Master Template is ready to go. If you haven’t yet watched the first part of writing a song in Ableton, you’ll want to Start Here
Now understand that this isn’t necessarily a walkthrough of the Ableton Master Template as I only planning on using what I need to make a tune, instead of trying to fit every tool into this video. I have a series of videos if you want a detailed walkthrough of the template.
In the video below I share the following:
Creating the Stab
This part was easy with my master template as I pretty much had the sound I wanted at the get go. All I had to do was choose the chord & the riff. I typically keep my stabs less harmonically rich by only using 2 note chords. I think add a little LFO to give is a slight off key element. This can sometimes help a part stand out nicely if you don’t overdo it.
Layering the Stab
In playing with the decay time of the corpus instrument (This is an effect that adds some physical modeling to a sound. In my case, I wanted a more percussive, metallic sound). I liked both the warmer tone & the brighter tones & decided to have both by duplicating the track.
Unlinked automation
Ableton has a great feature that allows you to create automation separately from the timing of the loop clip itself. Say you have a 1 bar loop, but you want to have a long slow filter automating over 32 bars. This is how you do it. In this case, I automated one of the stab layers Corpus decay, which changed the tone from warmer to brighter over time. Very effective.
Freeze & Flatten
I freeze & flatten one of the stab tracks which changes the midi into audio. I find it easier to edit audio as well as what I do next.
Reversing the Stab
Once flattened I duplicated the stab loop and reversed it. Then isolated just 1 stab to add as another layer in the song. I play around with the start point of the loop to test out different timings of the reverse stab to see what works best.
Reverb tail
Also, when adding some saturation & compression to the stab, it emphasized a nice reverb tail that I then duplicated and isolated as yet another track. It sound like all these layers would clutter up the mix, but by placing them nicely in the mix, creates something much less predictable to the ear.
Enjoy part 6!
Coming up next in Part 7 I’ll be working on some interesting Ableton Atmospherics to keep things even more interesting!
Happy Music Making,
Jason
With that said, if you are benefiting from these posts, you will absolutely love my 2 bestselling books:
The Mental Game of Music Production
The Process for Electronic Music Producers
You can also Check out the: Ableton Courses & Instruments
If you are looking for personal guidance with your music production or Ableton, you can set up a free chat with me to go over exactly what your best next steps are to create the best music of your life. If it seems like a good fit, we can move forward from there. https://musicsoftwaretraining.com/private-coaching
Happy music making!
Jason
