I've been working with Live a lot recently and spending much time in my new 'studio' producing and I'm curious about a few things:

1) When you automate something (e.g. volume) in Arrangement View, is there a way to automatically place the envelopes on an exact beat/bar? Currently, I zoom in as far as possible in order to place the envelope as perfectly on the (for instance) end of a bar as I can; but is there an easier way to do this? The way I do it now is quite time consuming.

2) At what dB level (or perhaps range) should your master track be before you apply a limiter to it? A friend told me to aim for -3dB; I also recall reading on this forum that -6dB to -9dB is preferable. So, what's the correct answer? (While we're talking about levels, please feel free to comment on the appropriate ranges for different sounds. E.g. the kick 'should' peak somewhere around 'x', your bass-line somewhere around 'x', and so on).

3) What are some of your favourite tricks for building up a track? Let me rephrase: what kinds of effects in Live (or elsewhere) do you use when building up your main riff (e.g. synth)? I've experimented with filter delay, simple delay, ping pong as well as altering the cutoff frequency, attack, release, and so on. Are there some obvious techniques that I've missed here? Give me an idea of some of your favourite ways of increasing the intensity of your main riff.

As always, I appreciate the help you guys offer!

Last edited by Nicolas Oliver on Jul-23-2008 at 12:44

quote:

Originally posted by cenik I've been working with Live a lot recently and spending much time in my new 'studio' producing and I'm curious about a few things: 1) When you automate something (e.g. volume) in Arrangement View, is there a way to automatically place the envelopes on an exact beat/bar? Currently, I zoom in as far as possible in order to place the envelope as perfectly on the (for instance) end of a bar as I can; but is there an easier way to do this? The way I do it now is quite time consuming. 2) At what dB level (or perhaps range) should your master track be before you apply a limiter to it? A friend told me to aim for -3dB; I also recall reading on this forum that -6dB to -9dB is preferable. So, what's the correct answer? (While we're talking about levels, please feel free to comment on the appropriate ranges for different sounds. E.g. the kick 'should' peak somewhere around 'x', your bass-line somewhere around 'x', and so on). 3) What are some of your favourite tricks for building up a track? Let me rephrase: what kinds of effects in Live (or elsewhere) do you use when building up your main riff (e.g. synth)? I've experimented with filter delay, simple delay, ping pong as well as altering the cutoff frequency, attack, release, and so on. Are there some obvious techniques that I've missed here? Give me an idea of some of your favourite ways of increasing the intensity of your main riff. As always, I appreciate the help you guys offer!

1) Use the "Draw" (pencil icon) function, click it, zoom into the appropiate level in arrangement and press the left mouse button and hey presto.

2) SEARCH BUTTON. There are many posts asking this question. Also there are a few usefull bits of information on the tutorials page regarding mastering and what frequency ranges certain elements lie within.

http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...7&forumid=48&s=

3) Try automating some reverb

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Originally posted by Acton 1) Use the "Draw" (pencil icon) function, click it, zoom into the appropiate level in arrangement and press the left mouse button and hey presto.

Much easier now, thank you sir.

1) As mentioned use the pencil tool as it snaps to grid. You can then remove the breakpoints you don't want. A cool tip here is if you click and hold on a breakpoint whilst holding shift key, you can then drag the breakpoint along removing any other breakpoints in the way.

So, say you have a breakpoint on bar 1, a breakpoint on bar 2 and say 5 breakpoints inbetween and all you want is a straight line from bar one to bar two. Then click and hold breakpoint on bar 1. Hold shift and drag along to breakpoint on bar 2 and all the ones inbetween will disappear. Big time saver in certain situations.

3)Experiment with everything. The effects in ableton are really cool and easy to use. I'd recommend spending time with grain delay and beat repeat. A bit of tweaking and automation can give excellent effects.

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Originally posted by G-Con 3)Experiment with everything. The effects in ableton are really cool and easy to use. I'd recommend spending time with grain delay and beat repeat. A bit of tweaking and automation can give excellent effects.

Yeah and that lol, i haven't quite mastered grain delay yet, but beat repeat is brilliant.

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