been an abletonite for over 6 years, just decided to look into legato and this is what I find. excuse me while I clean my brains of the wall, I seem to have lost my mind over this. holy fucking shit... exactly what I needed, thanks mate
You bet. All you have to do is create other clips with different follow action lengths. For example, if you had 8 clips, you could set them all to different lengths under the launch menu and randomize them all, so when each on triggers it will trigger the NEXT one at a different rate than the others would. Another option would be to create a separate 8 clips for each follow action length and just make sure they are all consecutive in the vertical session track.
Great information. But I think a better example would be to jump between drum patterns in the same time signature using different sounds and live effects. Cutting up loops chops off reverb trails and other time dependent effects. But using legato MIDI clips allows for really complete patterns without chopping effects.
@islilje No doubt. Although waveform chopping definitely has its time and place, and I still love doing things that way, working with MIDI really can have a more organic & natural sound to it. Glad you enjoyed ;-)
I was referring to how the actual track in ableton was clipping (going into the red). the actual audio wasn't clipping. its a bad practice to leave a channel in the red, which is what i was referring to. Krk Rokit 6 G2's definitely aren't crappy speakers as well.
I'd export my tracks out of Reason as audio stems. Make sure they are all of equal length (the entire length of your piece) regardless of audio content, then import into Live's Arrangement. For each section of your song (intro, chorus, verse, breakdown, etc.) split all your stems identically. Then drag the cut up stems into the Session view and Live will automatically drop them in as separate Scenes. Now you can arrange your song on the fly live using your APC40! Tweak some effects for more fun!
The APC40 is definitely the Launchpad's big brother in a lot of way, the Launchpad has always been more of the "budget" option. AKAI's hardware is much better quality than Novation's all across the board, but the Launchpad does offer a few cool features not natively available on the APC without hacks. For example the Launchpad can be used like as a pitched midi controller for playing drums or synth plugins, the APC does not do that by default.
Very good tutorial and even better music. I like the sound of that guitar! Thanx for posting this, learned quite a lot. Could you do one on drum programming? ie How to make programmed drums sound like they were played by a real drummer.
Good eye mate! Indeed these are samples from the Maschine library. Best thing I can say about programming rhythms: don't try to make them sound complex, but rather build up simple repeating patterns of varying speeds and lengths from simple elements on each instrument (kick, snare, hats) and they will naturally work themselves out. For example think of the hat loop as a loop lasting 5 8th notes with hits on 1, 2, and 4 and how that will sound against a straight 4/4 kick snare loop.
This one could be either. I definitely use this in the studio when composing. You could simply hit the Global record button in the transport at the top of Live and then all the various clips getting launched would record to the arrangement view in the order they are triggered. Sort of a way of recording your performance while composing, right? Or recording the random follow actions mentioned at the end of the video.
Very well explained! Btw, does anyone know if this technique of changing between multiple synchronised beats on the fly has a name? It would be easier for me to look up this kind of things if I knew some keywords!
I have a Akai APC40, i don't know what's the best way is to use it live? Right now i produce my tunes in Propeller-heads Reason, then i take each track (drum, guitar, bass, synth etc.) and i put them in Ableton, so i can launch each scene as a track. If you know what i mean? But i don't feel i use my Akai APC40 to it's fullest? Can you help? Cheers. PS. Can you send the drum samples? They're nice, especially that rim!
@DJVespers I know, but running it red is probably not the best thing to practice. surely you would run into problems later when encoding to something other than 32 bit?
Im extremely curious about that 5 to the quarter feel, what are you doing? How do you subdivide that in abletons piano roll? How would you get quintuplets
Hi! I'm new with ableton, and this tutorial made me even more curious. My question is; how do you get everything to work with legato in the arragement window? When I try to move it over there, they're just copied into their full lengths and not made randomly like legato should do.
Open a new audio track in clip view, set it to resampling via the audio input little menu, then copy the recorded audio of the performance in the arrangement view (press the clip, keep it pressed, click tab, drop the clip in the arrangement).
+James Laws quintuplets. Triplets are 3 notes in the space (time) of 2 (i.e. quarter tripplets is 3 notes in the space of 2 quarters). Quintuplets is thesame concept but with five in the space of 2
Unfortunately this one never really made it beyond this tutorial. Maybe I'll dust it off someday and see if it can be fleshed out a bit into a full track!
Great little tutorial - had no idea that function was there. In addition to getting random jumps to the other clips in the track, is it also possible to vary or randomize the quantization? eg: jump from 1/8 to 1/6 to 1/32 etc.
thank you for the video man! gotta love a useful tutorial. had no idea about the legato function. i can think of all kinds of neat stuff i could do with this. do you ever use it to jump around vocal tracks?
I appreciate your time, Ryan. Just subbed. That was right up my alley -- sound design. How do you go about programming in "odd" time signatures? Are you using Groove Pool or is there a basic mode of thinking where the beat should fall on/off grid in a certain place in the measure/bar? Thanks for any insight!
Great tutorial. Thanks! Quick question - what controller would you recommend for producing with ableton? I'm looking for 1 to control clip launching mainly. Cheers
Hey! Do you know if this is the standard way to do things like this? I'm trying to understand how drum variations are played live, both ones like this you showed (aphex twin style) and amen breaks type of drum loops with variations (venetian snares style). Most of the time they seem more random or improvised than actually purposefully written in advance. Can you tell me what the standard procedure(s) is?
Nice, are those Maschine kit sounds in a drum rack? (Leibing, Apparat...) I was wondering what the hell legato was. Any tips on programming some of those crazy polyrhythms?
The truth is I would obviously fix something like this in the mixing stage, but it probably is not great practice to be putting these bad habits on display. That being said, I am a firm believer of "if it sounds good, it is good". Trust your ears. Vespers is right, but it's simpler than that: regardless of what you SEE, do you HEAR clipping? Engineering has its time and place (you aren't wrong) but sometimes it's good to get your ideas out fast when songwriting, which explains this neglect.
sorry but this was rather funny to me - at 4:55 you say "all these clips are quantized" and bam you hit that "triplet feel" clip which has an obviously out of quantization hat (not even on the 1/32 grid Live is using at that point). just saying. the video is very good so far anyway, i didn't knew about legato thing at all. thanks
searched for "ableton aphex twin" and this is perfect
lol same
"drums Ableton aphex Twin"
same
This is probably the best "trick" i have seen in ableton, especially that follow action of all the variations of the same drum loop.
Is anyone else bugged by the fact that he's peaking like fucking crazy
The straight and straight busy sound great. Taking it to 5 over 4 or 6/8 makes the beat too chaotic for my taste. But great tut! +1
been an abletonite for over 6 years, just decided to look into legato and this is what I find. excuse me while I clean my brains of the wall, I seem to have lost my mind over this. holy fucking shit... exactly what I needed, thanks mate
This is one of the most helpful, not overexplained though clear tutorials i've seen since a while! Thank you, really, much appreciated!
There is possibility that you've saved me from frustration and not understanding how ableton is amazing. Thank you for sharing your wisdom!
its about time someone explained the launch section thoroughly! gracias!
Wow, very interesting. I've used Live off and on since 2004 and I never knew about these.
You bet. All you have to do is create other clips with different follow action lengths. For example, if you had 8 clips, you could set them all to different lengths under the launch menu and randomize them all, so when each on triggers it will trigger the NEXT one at a different rate than the others would. Another option would be to create a separate 8 clips for each follow action length and just make sure they are all consecutive in the vertical session track.
i appreciate this, i wouldve never thought to put crazy effects like this on my drums
I really enjoyed this, had no idea about the potential uses for the Legato function. Thanks!
Great information. But I think a better example would be to jump between drum patterns in the same time signature using different sounds and live effects. Cutting up loops chops off reverb trails and other time dependent effects. But using legato MIDI clips allows for really complete patterns without chopping effects.
One of the best vids ever of the genre! Congratulations, man, and thanx for sharing your Art :)
@islilje No doubt. Although waveform chopping definitely has its time and place, and I still love doing things that way, working with MIDI really can have a more organic & natural sound to it. Glad you enjoyed ;-)
who writes such stupid criticising comments ? this video is the coolest - thanks a lot bro - really nice
IT's not the coolest but it isn't bad. He shows how to do something Abelton. It's helpful to beginners. Good guy.
looks amazing for breakcore
Thanks for this great tip. Haven't seen this explained anywhere else yet. 15 minutes well-spent. Your music sounds cool, btw
oh my god thank yooooooooooouuuu for this. this is so cool and easy it feels like cheating
Phat hands on the APC 40
Holy shit you haven't done a video in 5 years - you still out there???
Again! You're everywhere! Hahaha
Present
GREAT STYLE TO USE LEGATO ON DRUMS BRO. NICE
13:30 is beautiful. Do You have whole track?
This functionality is an important one to understand. Thanks for the tip :)
I was referring to how the actual track in ableton was clipping (going into the red). the actual audio wasn't clipping. its a bad practice to leave a channel in the red, which is what i was referring to. Krk Rokit 6 G2's definitely aren't crappy speakers as well.
I'd export my tracks out of Reason as audio stems. Make sure they are all of equal length (the entire length of your piece) regardless of audio content, then import into Live's Arrangement. For each section of your song (intro, chorus, verse, breakdown, etc.) split all your stems identically. Then drag the cut up stems into the Session view and Live will automatically drop them in as separate Scenes. Now you can arrange your song on the fly live using your APC40! Tweak some effects for more fun!
The APC40 is definitely the Launchpad's big brother in a lot of way, the Launchpad has always been more of the "budget" option. AKAI's hardware is much better quality than Novation's all across the board, but the Launchpad does offer a few cool features not natively available on the APC without hacks. For example the Launchpad can be used like as a pitched midi controller for playing drums or synth plugins, the APC does not do that by default.
Very nice Sir. You really bring imagination to music. So much fun... Thanks!
It sounds like someone's playing Breakcore and toying with the flanger. I like it!
thank you for sharing! this will take my music to a new level
ABLETON GANG, wow this was exactly what I was looking for!!!
Thank you so much for sharing this man! Solved many of my problems... Your tutorials are awesome and really clear
Very good tutorial and even better music. I like the sound of that guitar!
Thanx for posting this, learned quite a lot.
Could you do one on drum programming? ie How to make programmed drums sound like they were played by a real drummer.
thanks a lot for the knowledge, really helpful and clear tutorial, also R.I.P. my ears at 1:06
damn dude you gotta do more tutorials on beat grooves you really know how to switch up time signatures like a BOSS
Good eye mate! Indeed these are samples from the Maschine library. Best thing I can say about programming rhythms: don't try to make them sound complex, but rather build up simple repeating patterns of varying speeds and lengths from simple elements on each instrument (kick, snare, hats) and they will naturally work themselves out. For example think of the hat loop as a loop lasting 5 8th notes with hits on 1, 2, and 4 and how that will sound against a straight 4/4 kick snare loop.
@Tommerry11 i should also clarify this is more along the lines of intentional saturation than digital clipping. different beasts.
Nice, I was starting to tire of only having waveform chopping to back up my breakcore stuff. Immensely useful :3
Both Educational and inspiring. Great work!! Love the music.
Hey:D So nice tutorial, could you maybe make a video explaining how to do beats like those you use:D?
This would be cool with vocal samples
This one could be either. I definitely use this in the studio when composing. You could simply hit the Global record button in the transport at the top of Live and then all the various clips getting launched would record to the arrangement view in the order they are triggered. Sort of a way of recording your performance while composing, right? Or recording the random follow actions mentioned at the end of the video.
Great technique, could apply to synth and keep drums straight..
now i suddenly realize how tim exile's "family galaxy" has been created. thanks for the ideas
Very well explained! Btw, does anyone know if this technique of changing between multiple synchronised beats on the fly has a name? It would be easier for me to look up this kind of things if I knew some keywords!
I have a Akai APC40, i don't know what's the best way is to use it live?
Right now i produce my tunes in Propeller-heads Reason, then i take each track (drum, guitar, bass, synth etc.) and i put them in Ableton, so i can launch each scene as a track. If you know what i mean? But i don't feel i use my Akai APC40 to it's fullest? Can you help?
Cheers.
PS. Can you send the drum samples? They're nice, especially that rim!
@DJVespers I know, but running it red is probably not the best thing to practice. surely you would run into problems later when encoding to something other than 32 bit?
I would like to know if it would sound more synchronized if the general bar were at the same BPM of the loop tracks.
Im extremely curious about that 5 to the quarter feel, what are you doing? How do you subdivide that in abletons piano roll? How would you get quintuplets
Hey man, check this out: ruclips.net/video/MpAAQyQfEQo/видео.html
Sounds a lot like Anika Nilles. Nice!
Can you post a link to the track it's very good
That was GREAT!!! Thanks for sharing
Excellent tutorial. Thanks!
oh man! i'm gonna do this asap! so glad you made this tutorial!
AWESOME! Can't wait to try this out! Thanks!
What type of beasts did you saturate? Is it safe to assume they weren't mystical? That's not in my sample pack I just downloaded.
Which effects did you use? I'm more interested in that rather than how you used the legato function. Thanks in advance!
So how do you actually use it then? I have legato switched on but it doesn't sound any different and I cant switch to different times or anything.
You can quantize to a triplet grid
Great tutorial! thanks.
I loooooove the sample you use in the end. could you shere what it is / where its from?
cheers man.
Hi!
I'm new with ableton, and this tutorial made me even more curious. My question is; how do you get everything to work with legato in the arragement window? When I try to move it over there, they're just copied into their full lengths and not made randomly like legato should do.
Open a new audio track in clip view, set it to resampling via the audio input little menu, then copy the recorded audio of the performance in the arrangement view (press the clip, keep it pressed, click tab, drop the clip in the arrangement).
2nd half of vid 10x better then first half
This is an Aphex Twin tutorial lol
Could you explain the 5 to the quarter technique? I really liked the sound of that
+James Laws quintuplets. Triplets are 3 notes in the space (time) of 2 (i.e. quarter tripplets is 3 notes in the space of 2 quarters). Quintuplets is thesame concept but with five in the space of 2
Unfortunately this one never really made it beyond this tutorial. Maybe I'll dust it off someday and see if it can be fleshed out a bit into a full track!
Great little tutorial - had no idea that function was there. In addition to getting random jumps to the other clips in the track, is it also possible to vary or randomize the quantization? eg: jump from 1/8 to 1/6 to 1/32 etc.
Thanks...v useful info. Need more on the 'five to the quarter'. Can you point me somewhere ? Ta.
thank you for the video man! gotta love a useful tutorial. had no idea about the legato function. i can think of all kinds of neat stuff i could do with this. do you ever use it to jump around vocal tracks?
Hands down the Akai APC40. Nothing else even comes close to it.
I appreciate your time, Ryan. Just subbed. That was right up my alley -- sound design. How do you go about programming in "odd" time signatures? Are you using Groove Pool or is there a basic mode of thinking where the beat should fall on/off grid in a certain place in the measure/bar? Thanks for any insight!
Great tutorial. Thanks! Quick question - what controller would you recommend for producing with ableton? I'm looking for 1 to control clip launching mainly. Cheers
6:09 - awesome shit dude
great tutorial, just to ask, how do you easily record a beat from midi to audio, and with effects? thanks for answering ::))
wow this seems so powerfull, thanks mate!
Hey! Do you know if this is the standard way to do things like this? I'm trying to understand how drum variations are played live, both ones like this you showed (aphex twin style) and amen breaks type of drum loops with variations (venetian snares style). Most of the time they seem more random or improvised than actually purposefully written in advance. Can you tell me what the standard procedure(s) is?
awesome gonna try it out!
@ryandmca woh. i see what your getting at man. yeah. I can definately agree with that.
Nice, are those Maschine kit sounds in a drum rack? (Leibing, Apparat...)
I was wondering what the hell legato was. Any tips on programming some of those crazy polyrhythms?
Thanks for the tips!
I wonder if Koan sound uses this method in their production, anyone else think so ?
You have a new subscriber! Thanks for the vid :)
really cool
holy shit this is cool
those drum tracks do they have grooves?cuz it sounds pretty human.do ppl use grooves all the time?
great tips! thanks!!!
wonderful!
Thanks!
It's one way.I'm still a piano roll,resampling and Drum synthesis kind of guy.Although this does look interesting.
Great video! thanks for the tip :)
thank you
Thank you
you are my hero
thanks
well done
possible to do this in FL studio?!
yeahhh great tutorial.. thanks
good stuff.
The truth is I would obviously fix something like this in the mixing stage, but it probably is not great practice to be putting these bad habits on display. That being said, I am a firm believer of "if it sounds good, it is good". Trust your ears. Vespers is right, but it's simpler than that: regardless of what you SEE, do you HEAR clipping? Engineering has its time and place (you aren't wrong) but sometimes it's good to get your ideas out fast when songwriting, which explains this neglect.
@Tommerry11 intentional clipping courtesy of Ohmicide my friend ;)
sorry but this was rather funny to me - at 4:55 you say "all these clips are quantized" and bam you hit that "triplet feel" clip which has an obviously out of quantization hat (not even on the 1/32 grid Live is using at that point). just saying. the video is very good so far anyway, i didn't knew about legato thing at all. thanks