Ableton Workflow Pt. 1 – The Setup

Monday April 25th, 2011 at 7:48 AMPosted by: dmschulman
Comment on thisTags: Music

Ableton Live is a great piece of audio and digital DJing software that I’ve used frequently over the last couple of years. There are plenty of tutorials out there if you want to learn more about this complex and intuitive DAW, but like most instruments and things that make noise I find that just playing around with them is the best way to start learning how they work.

Because of how I’ve taken to Ableton and because of the type of work I do in it, I’ve developed my own style and workflow in the software. Many people use Ableton for producing a single track, some use it for making mixed sets, and yet even more people use Ableton for its MIDI capabilities. Ableton is great for everything and that’s why I choose to use it, but where as one might use Scratch Live or Traktor Pro to string together long sets of songs, I like to build out, remix, master, and export all my mixes from Live in the following fashion.

This is a two part series, I’m working with a new set, have just started putting together a new project, and will be following along here as I progress with the mix. Along the way I will throw in some thoughts and advice from my years of working with Ableton Live and maybe have a cool mix to share by the end, so enjoy part one and look out for part two (hopefully) soon.

Ableton Workflow – Setup your set (up)

1. Gather all your songs together BEFORE you begin to warp and cut them up. I’ve started way too many projects by importing just a few songs and warping them individually before I had a full idea of where the set was going. For mixing together a set in Ableton it is important that all of your tracks be initially warped under the same conditions, so we will be setting this up first. Also, I find I get tired of certain tracks the more I play with them and their individual loops in Ableton. When I import a complete crate at once I find the tracks sound fresher to my ears and the mixing feels more spontaneous and fun. Having a full picture of where your set will start and end up is important to establish before you start any of the grunt work in Ableton.

2. Create a new folder in your Projects directory and title it to your needs. Copy all the songs you’ll be using for this set into your new project folder. Similarly, create your new project file in Ableton and configure your global variables before importing anything. This set is made up of some electro house and generally falls around 130BPM, so I’ve set my global BPM accordingly. Re-triggering beats is important for the way I mix so I also set my Transport Control to a 1/4 note:

3. Finally set up your workspace the way you like, drag all your awesome songs into the project, and save your new set while Ableton builds the waveforms of your mix. When I start off with a fresh crate I like to color code the songs I’m working with and warp them through one at a time. All my songs will start off as white, and then as I finish warping them I choose some kind of high-visibility color to set them apart. If you can’t tell I like to keep highly organized:

4. WARP EVERYTHING. I have auto-warping turned off in Ableton because it’s notoriously incorrect and does more harm than good. Select all your tracks, click the Warp button to toggle the warp grid, and go through every track one by one making sure the beats fall in the right places. Ableton will place the start market a beat before the actual beginning of your new tracks, so make sure to set your 1.1.1 position before making any other warp points. Additionally, it helps to warp your track straight relative to the 1.1.1 point (which can be accomplished with a right click on your first warp point and selecting the appropriate warp option). You’ll start to see the beat markers fall into place on your warp grid, warping the rest and keeping it in time is all up to you.

This is enough to just get you started. Warping takes time and patience and mixing takes even more effort, but Ableton offers a lot of features to help bring your set from a stack of singles to one consolidated floor-pounding banger. In part two I’ll go over the finer points of warping, how I plan my track order, and just how I get my musical ideas down on the Arrangement view.