We all lead busy day–to–day lives, so the time we spend making music should serve as a little escape from those daily obligations.
Sure, picking up an acoustic guitar may seem like the simplest way to accomplish that goal, and likewise, many people believe that it’s impossible for a musician to have that same relationship with software.
In response to Floodrecords. From memory: asd = Ableton Live audio analysis files (contain no sample data) nki = Kontakt instrument files, may contain sample data as well. Sfk = Soundfonts (instrument data & contain sample data) akm, akp = Akai program files (instrument data, contain no sample data) nov = never heard of. The sizes will tell you. The Export Audio/Video (see 5.2.3) command renders Live’s audio output to a file on disk. Rendering is a neutral operation under certain conditions: the sample rate of the rendered file is the same as that set for the audio hardware in Live‘s Preferences. No non-neutral operations have been applied.
But with a little bit of setup and customization, you can make Ableton Live into an instrument that’s as simple to use for noodling as it is songwriting.
All of these organizational tips are based around the simple principle that you can maximize your productivity in Live with some simple, one–time prep. With everything you need right there in front of you every time you open the program, you’ll never again kill that productive headspace by searching for that perfect bass sound or sample you used last time.
Cook Up Some Good Defaults and Presets
Much like organizing a home studio or a refining your pedalboard's signal chain, getting all of your ducks in a row in Ableton Live can make it a lot easier for you to sit down and get to music making whenever you desire. Fortunately, Live has a lot of customizability built right in.
Save a Default Set. If you have a workflow you’re always creating — like always creating a track with an 808, an armed input track for vocals with a reverb effect, and an instance of Operator — you can save that workflow as your default project.
Just lay all of those tracks out, then open the Preferences to File/Folder and click “Save' next to Save Current Set as Default.
Save a Default Track. If you like to use the same effects on your audio or MIDI tracks all the time, you can save that configuration as a default for an audio or MIDI track.
Simply right–click on the track title, and select Save as Default [Audio/MIDI] Track. Now, whenever you create a new audio track, it will come loaded with your favorite saturation and compression configurations.
Build out your User Library. In Live, you can create a custom folder in your User Library (found all the way to the left under Places) where you can drag devices with your favorite settings. This is a great way to save your own synth or effects presets.
If you find yourself creating the same kind of Simple Delay effect in projects, why not drag it to your custom folder so that you'll have it ready go whenever you create?
It’s probably simplest to organize your folders by the instruments and effects they contain. But you may find it more helpful to organize by, for instance, the album you’re working on. Do whatever makes most sense for your workflow.
Build and save an Effects Rack. Maybe you have a few effects that you use together quite a bit. You can create an Effects Rack that houses all of your favorite effects and save that as a preset in your User Library, too. Think of this process like you would building a pedalboard. It’s really nice to have those effects available in the order you use them, every time.
Racks also let you save eight of your favorite parameters on any of the devices inside of them. That means you can always have your preferred combination of 8–Band EQ and reverb dialed in for every time you need to spruce up some vocal tracks. All you’ll have to do is tweak those saved settings in your effects rack to fit the context perfectly.
Maintain a Sound File Structure
A key to making sure everything is always where you need it every single time you go back to a project — whether you’re working on an Ableton Session tomorrow or three years down the road on a new computer — is making sure your file structure is in great shape.
Best torrent client reddit mac. Some of that can be done before you even open Ableton and some can be done from the program itself.
Organize your external folders. Create a dedicated folder where all of the samples that you’ve sourced will live. This is a great place to put unzipped folders of drum sounds or tracks you plan on sampling.
You can use Add Folder in the Places menu to Live to give you direct access to that folder right in the Ableton Live ecosystem. It will now just live in that menu on the left, always accessible without digging through your file structure every time you want to bring in those drum sounds you sampled from your friend’s kit.
Keep a Sessions related files together with Collect All and Save. Even if you don’t mean to move files out of Ableton’s file structure for your current session, anything can happen. You could be working with a track saved in your Downloads folder, for example, and forget there was something important in there when you clear it out one day.
To prevent that, you can ensure all the samples a specific project are always available to you. Just go to the File menu and select Collect All and Save.
This feature will gather up all of the data associated with a sessions from all over your computer — be that a sample, User Library, or Live Pack — and save it all in one place associated with your session. Now your project is self–contained.
Replace samples using Manage Samples. Of course, you won’t always be able to avoid misplacing samples somehow, and it’s just about inevitable that you’ll see that dread “Sample is Offline' at some point in your relationship with Ableton Live.
There are simples fixes for this. The most straightforward is just finding or re–downloading that sample and then dragging it straight into the relevant Clip, Simpler, or Sampler. Make sure you do Collect All and Save before you exit your project so you don’t lose the sample again.
If you’re multiple files have vanished from your project, you may get a message saying, “Media files are missing…' Right–click on this message, and it will take you to the Missing Samples portion of the File Management dialog.
There, you’ll see a list every file you are missing. Drag the file onto the title, and it will be restored.
Format flash drive mac to windows. If you need to search — and you’ve set up that exclusive folder where all of your Ableton Live samples will live — hit “Set Folder' to select the folder you want to search, turn off “Search Library unless needed,' and hit “Go.' Live will scan the folder to find all copies of the files you are looking for.
Live may prompt you to select specific files if there are multiples. Click on the question mark to select the correct file while in your browser.
Organizing Projects for Backup and Sharing
Optimize projects for backup and sharing. If you have been organized in your file management this next step should be quick.
Making a Ableton Live Pack is a great backup method and way to share projects. Live Packs are like zip files in that they can dramatically reduce the size of a project folder, leaving more space on your storage drive. This makes them easy for backup and simple to upload and download when collaborating with someone remotely.
Create Pack is located in the File Management section, the same dialog you work in when replacing lost files.
Ableton This Sample Contains No Audio Data File
Go to the File menu, move your cursor over Manage Files, then selecting Manage Project and Create Pack. All of your collected files and hard work will be taken and compressed into a .alp file. You can then take that and send it or store it.