Ableton live 5 manual

Thomas Dorsey's Ownd. Ableton live 5 manual. Welcome to Live The Ableton Team Says: Thank You Live is the result of musicians wanting a better way to create, produce and perform music using a computer. A great deal of effort has been put into making Live easy and fun to use, yet at the same time capable of helping you create music with unlimited depth and sophistication.

Then you can arm the track and record into any of its empty clip slots see Until the Set is saved, they remain at the location specified by the Temporary Folder see These routings, albeit potentially confusing, enable many valuable creative and technical options. Via the mixer, inter-track routing can work two ways:. In this scenario, soloing Track B will still allow you to hear the output of the tracks that are feeding it.

Also, you can still solo Track A and hear its output signal. In this case, all other tracks are muted, including those that might also feed into Track B. Approach 2, on the other hand, leaves Track A unaffected except for Track B tapping its output. If a track contains one or more Drum Racks see Each Rack will also be listed in the Input Channel chooser:. Soloing a track that taps a Chain at any of these points will still allow you to hear the output at that point.

It is certainly powerful to have a separate effects chain per track for applying different effects to different takes — after the fact. You might, however, want to run the guitar signal through effects a noise gate or an amp model, for instance before the recording stage, and record the post-effects signal. This is easily accomplished by devoting a special audio track for processing and monitoring the incoming guitar signal.

We do not record directly into the Guitar track; instead we create a couple more tracks to use for recording. Those tracks are all set up to receive their input Post FX from the Guitar track. Note that we could also tap the Guitar track Post Mixer if we wished to record any level or panning from it. This output lends itself more to representation as an audio waveform than a single note in a MIDI clip, particularly when comparing the editing options.

A setup similar to the one described above see We have one MIDI track hosting the virtual instrument, and we use additional audio tracks to record the audio result of playing the instrument. Suppose we have the individual drums of a drum kit coming in on separate tracks for multitrack recording. In the mix, we can easily change the volumes of the individual drums, but adjusting the volume of the entire drum kit against the rest of the music is less convenient.

Therefore, we add a new audio track to submix the drums. The individual drum tracks are all set to output to the submix track, which outputs to the Master. The submix track gives us a handy volume control for the entire drum kit. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".

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The purpose of the cookie is to determine if the user's browser supports cookies. If Release Mode is OFF, this pattern continues until the volume envelope has completed its release stage. Release Enabled — When the volume envelope reaches its release stage, playback will proceed linearly towards Sample End. Release Loop Enabled — When the volume envelope reaches its release stage, playback will proceed linearly until reaching Sample End, where it jumps immediately to Release Loop and continues looping until the volume envelope has completed its release stage.

Back-and-Forth Release Loop Enabled — When the volume envelope reaches its release stage, playback will proceed linearly until reaching Sample End, then reverses until it reaches Release Loop, then proceeds again towards Sample End. This pattern continues until the volume envelope has completed its release stage. Release Loop — sets the start position of the Release Loop.

The end of the Release Loop is the Sample End. Sustain- and Release-Loop Crossfade Crossfade — Loop crossfades help remove clicks from loop transitions. By default, Sampler uses constant-power fades at loop boundaries. Tip: this is especially noticeable with very short loops. With Detune, the pitch of these regions can be matched to the rest of the sample.

Interpolation Interpol — This is a global setting that determines the accuracy of transposed samples. This mode can give better performance when modulating start and end points, but loading large multisamples into RAM will quickly leave your computer short of RAM for other tasks. In any case, it is always recommended to have as much RAM in your computer as possible, as this can provide significant performance gains. Additionally, you can zoom in or out of playing or looping regions, depending on which Sustain and Loop Modes are selected.

Vertical Zoom slider — Magnifies the waveform height in the sample display. This is for visual clarity only, and does not affect the audio in any way. Sampler features one dedicated modulation oscillator per voice, which can perform frequency or amplitude modulation FM or AM on the multisample. The oscillator is fully featured, with 21 waveforms available in the Type chooser , plus its own loopable amplitude envelope for dynamic waveshaping.

Note that this oscillator performs modulation only — its output is never heard directly. What you hear is the effect of its output upon the multisample. FM — In this mode, the modulation oscillator will modulate the frequency of samples, resulting in more complex and different-sounding waveforms. AM — In this mode, the modulation oscillator will modulate the amplitude of samples. Subsonic modulator frequencies result in slow or rapid variation in the volume level; audible modulator frequencies result in composite waveforms.

For detailed information on how these work, see the Sample Playback section see Additionally, the right side of the modulation oscillator section features the following controls:. This determines the depth of the modulation.

This is only available when Fixed is set to Off. The pitch envelope modulates the pitch of the sample over time, as well as of the Modulation Oscillator, if it is enabled. On the lower-left of the Pitch Envelope section is the Amount slider. The actual range depends upon the dynamics of the envelope itself. Spread — When Spread is used, two detuned voices are generated per note.

This also doubles the processing requirements. Good for getting interesting artifacts from multisamples. Glide — The global Glide mode, used in conjunction with the Time parameter to smoothly transition between pitches. Time — Enabling a Glide mode produces a smooth transition between the pitch of played notes. This parameter determines the length of the transition. Sampler features a polyphonic filter with an optional integrated waveshaper. The filter section offers a variety of filter types including lowpass, highpass, bandpass, notch, and a special Morph filter.

Env button. Below the Filter is a waveshaper, which is toggled by clicking the Shaper button. Four different curves can be chosen for the waveshaper in the Type selector: Soft, Hard, Sine and 4bit. In addition, the signal flow direction can be adjusted with the button above the waveshaper area: with the triangle pointing up, the signal passes from the shaper to the filter; with the triangle pointing down, it passes from the filter to the shaper. Each Sampler loaded with the legacy filters shows an Upgrade button in the title bar.

Pressing this button will permanently switch the filter selection to the newer models for that instance of Sampler. Please see the Sample Playback section see This envelope can also be looped via the Loop chooser.

For Loop and Trigger modes, if a note is still held when the Decay stage ends, the envelope will restart from its initial value. The time it takes to move from the Sustain level to the initial value is defined by the Time parameter. For Beat and Sync modes, if a note is still held after the amount set in the Repeat slider, the envelope will restart from its initial value.

Time Global Time Envelope will proportionally shrink or expand the length of all envelopes in Sampler. Finally, the Voices selector provides up to 32 simultaneous voices for each instance of Sampler. Voice retriggering can optionally be enabled by activating the Retrigger button R to the right of the Voices chooser. When activated, notes which are already playing will be retriggered, rather than generating an additional voice. Turning Retrigger on can save CPU power, especially if a note with a long release time is being triggered very often and very quickly.

The Modulation tab offers an additional loopable envelope, plus three LFOs, all capable of modulating multiple parameters, including themselves. This envelope can be routed to 29 destinations in both the A and B choosers. How much the Auxiliary envelope will modulate destinations A and B is set in the two sliders to the right.

With the note head selected, the LFO will be synced to beat-time, adjustable in the Beats slider to the right. Use this, for example, to gradually introduce vibrato as a note is held. Volume Vol — LFO 1 can modulate the global volume level. This slider determines the depth of the modulation on a scale. Pan Pan — LFO 1 can modulate the global pan position.

Pitch — LFO 1 can modulate the pitch of samples. In phase mode, the right and left LFO channels run at equal speed, and the Phase parameter is used to offset the right channel from the left. At the bottom is a Pitch Bend Range slider 0 to 24 steps. The bit range of pitch wheel values can be scaled to produce up to 24 semitones of pitch bend in Sampler.

Finally, clicking in the Sampler image on the right will trigger a scrolling, movie-like credits for Sampler. These are the people you can thank! Sampler can use multisamples created by a number of other software and hardware samplers.

This will import it into your User Library. Note that some multisample files will be converted to Instrument Rack see Chapter 20 presets that contain several Sampler instances used to emulate the original more accurately.

This means the new Sampler presets will work regardless of whether the original multisample file is still available. Note: Kontakt. Simpler is an instrument that integrates the basic elements of a sampler with a set of classic synthesizer parameters. A Simpler voice plays a user-defined region of a sample, which is in turn processed by envelope, filter, LFO, volume and pitch components. Warped samples will play back at the tempo of your Set, regardless of which note you play.

Warping in Simpler works in much the same way as it does in audio clips, and bringing a warped clip into Simpler from an audio track, the browser, or your desktop preserves your manual warp settings.

When using this expanded view, the parameters in the Controls tab fill Simpler in the Device View. The Sample Tab displays the sample waveform.

Samples can be dragged into Simpler either directly from the browser, or from the Session or Arrangement View in the form of clips. Samples can be replaced by dragging in a new sample, or by activating the Hot-Swap button in the lower-right corner of the waveform display.

This switch is found on the left side of the Sample tab or along the bottom of the expanded sample view. In Classic Playback Mode, the various sample position controls change which region of the sample you play back. The left flag sets the absolute position in the sample from which playback can start, while the End control sets where playback can end.

Start and Length are then represented in percentages of the total sample length enabled by the flags. The Loop slider determines how much of the available sample will loop. This parameter is only active if the Loop switch is enabled. While this might be exactly the effect you want, it can cause very high CPU loads, particularly when working with the Complex or Complex Pro warp modes.

Zooming works the same in all three playback modes. Note: Snapping is based on the left channel of stereo samples. It is therefore still possible, even with Snap activated, to encounter glitches with stereo samples. The transition from loop end to loop start can be smoothed with the Fade control, which crossfades the two points.

This method is especially useful when working with long, textural samples. The Gain slider allows you to boost or cut the level of the sample. This parameter is available in all three playback modes. The Voices parameter sets the maximum number of voices that Simpler can play simultaneously. For example, if your Voices parameter is set to 8, and ten voices are all vying to be played, the two oldest voices will be dropped. Simpler does try to make voice stealing as subtle as possible. With Retrig enabled, a note that is already sustaining will be cut off if the same note is played again.

If Retrig is disabled, multiple copies of the same note can overlap. Note that Retrig only has an audible effect if the sample has a long release time and the number of Voices is set to more than one.

The various warp parameters are the same in all three playback modes and are discussed below see In One-Shot Playback Mode, the left and right flags set the available playback region, as they do in Classic Mode, but there are no Loop or Length controls.

There is also no Voices control; One-Shot Mode is strictly monophonic. With Trigger enabled, the sample will continue playing even after the note is released; the amount of time you hold the pad has no effect when Trigger is on.

You can shape the volume of the sample using the Fade In and Fade Out controls. Fade In determines how long it takes the sample to reach its maximum volume after a note is played, while Fade Out begins a fade out the specified amount of time before the end of the sample region.

With Gate enabled, the sample will begin fading out as soon as you release the note. The Fade Out time determines how long it will take to fade to silence after release. Snap works similarly to its function in Classic Mode, but only affects the start and end flags because there are no loop options.

The Playback chooser determines how many slices can be triggered simultaneously. Mono is monophonic; only one slice can be played at a time. When set to Poly, multiple slices can be triggered together. When set to Thru, playback is monophonic, but triggering one slice will continue playback through the rest of the sample region. The Fade In and Out controls behave slightly differently, depending on the setting of the Playback chooser.

With Mono or Poly selected, the Fade times are measured from the beginning to the end of each individual slice, while with Thru selected, they are measured from the triggered slice to the end of the region.

This means that the fade times may sound different depending on where in the region you trigger. Automatically created slices appear as vertical blue lines on the waveform display.

Double-clicking a slice deletes it. Double-clicking on the waveform between slices will create manual slices, which appear white. Manually created slices in Transients mode are preserved regardless of the Sensitivity amount. In some cases, this is exactly the effect that you want. But when working with samples that have their own inherent rhythm, you may want to enable Warp. This will cause Simpler to play back the sample in sync with your current song tempo, regardless of which notes you play.

For more information, see the section called Adjusting for Good Stretching Quality see 9. The Warp as Live makes its best guess about what this value should be based on the length of the sample, but if it gets it wrong, you can use the :2 or x2 buttons to double or halve the playback speed, respectively. Filter cutoff frequency and resonance can be adjusted via the knobs or by dragging the filter response curve in the display area. Each Simpler loaded with the legacy filters shows an Upgrade button in the title bar.

Pressing this button will permanently switch the filter selection to the newer models for that instance of Simpler. Simpler contains three classic ADSR envelopes, as seen in most synthesizers, for shaping the dynamic response of the sample. Amplitude, filter frequency, and pitch modulation are all modifiable by toggling their respective buttons in the envelope section. Attack controls the time in milliseconds that it takes for the envelope to reach its peak value after a note is played.

Decay controls the amount of time it takes for the envelope to drop down to the Sustain level, which is held until the note is released. Release time is the amount of time after the end of the note that it takes for the envelope to drop from the Sustain level back down to zero.

These parameters can be adjusted via their dedicated controls or graphically, by dragging the handles within the envelope visualizations. The influence of envelopes on pitch and filter cutoff can be set using the envelope amount Amount controls in the top right of each of these sections. The Amplitude Envelope can be looped via the Loop chooser. For Beat and Sync modes, if a note is still held after the amount set in the Rate slider, the envelope will restart from its initial value.

The LFO low-frequency oscillator section offers sine, square, triangle, sawtooth down, sawtooth up and random waveforms. The LFO runs freely at frequencies between 0. LFOs are applied individually to each voice , or played note, in Simpler.

The time required for the LFO to reach full intensity is determined by the Attack control. The R switch toggles Retrigger. Note that Offset has no effect when Retrigger is disabled. A high Key setting assigns higher notes a higher LFO rate.

Simpler also offers a special Spread parameter that creates a rich stereo chorus by using two voices per note and panning one to the left and one to the right. The two voices are detuned, and the amount of detuning can be adjusted with the Spread control. Tip : Whether or not spread is applied to a particular note depends upon the setting of the Spread parameter during the note-on event. To achieve special effects, you could, for instance, create a sequence where Spread is zero most of the time and turned on only for some notes.

Tremolo effects can be achieved by allowing the LFO to modulate the Volume parameter. Pitch can also be modulated by the LFO or pitch envelope. The pitch envelope is especially helpful in creating percussive sounds. You can also modulate the Transpose parameter with clip envelopes and external controllers. Simpler includes a glide function. When this function is activated, new notes will start from the pitch of the last note played and then slide gradually to their own pitch.

Two glide modes are available: Glide, which works monophonically, and Portamento, which works polyphonically. The speed of the glide is set with the Time control. By default, Simpler uses constant-power fades. Note that the Fade parameter is not available when warp is enabled. Presets created in Simpler can be converted for use in Sampler see In this way, presets created in Simpler can be in a multisample context in Sampler.

Note that this command is not available when working with samples that have been loaded from official Ableton Packs. Normalize Volumes adjusts the volume of the loaded sample so that its highest peak uses all of the available headroom. Crop removes the portions of the sample that are outside of the Start and End points, while Reverse plays the entire sample backwards.

Note that both Crop and Reverse are non-destructive; they create a copy of the sample and apply the process to the copy, so your original sample is not changed. When working in Slicing Playback Mode, two additional context menu options are available: Slice to Drum Rack replaces the Simpler with a Drum Rack in which each of the current slices is split onto its own pad.

Additionally, when slicing to a new track, a clip is created that plays back the slices in order. For more about slicing, see the dedicated chapter for this topic see Real-time synthesis needs lots of computing power. However, there are strategies for reducing CPU load. Save the CPU spent on Simpler by doing some of the following:. Tension is a synthesizer dedicated to the emulation of string instruments, and developed in collaboration with Applied Acoustics Systems.

The synthesizer is entirely based on physical modeling technology and uses no sampling or wavetables. Instead, it produces sound by solving mathematical equations that model the different components in string instruments and how they interact.

This elaborate synthesis engine responds dynamically to the control signals it receives while you play thereby reproducing the richness and responsiveness of real string instruments. The combination of these different elements allows for the reproduction of a wide range of string instruments. Finally, Tension offers a wide range of performance features, including keyboard modes, portamento, vibrato and legato functions. It is the vibration from the string which constitutes the main sound production mechanism of the instrument.

The string is set into motion by the action of an excitator which can be a hammer, a pick or a bow. A damper can be applied to the strings in order to reduce the decay time of the oscillation. This is the case on a piano, for example, when felt is applied to the strings by releasing the keys and sustain pedal.

The vibration from the string is then transmitted to the body of the instrument, which can radiate sound efficiently. In some instruments, the string vibration is transmitted directly to the body through the bridge. In other instruments, such as the electric guitar, a pickup is used to transmit the string vibration to an amplifier. In addition to these main sections, a filter section has been included between the string and body sections in order to expand the sonic possibilities of the instrument.

The Tension interface is divided into two main tabs, which are further divided into sections. The String tab contains all of the fundamental sound producing components related to the string itself: Excitator, String, Damper, Termination, Pickup and Body. Each section with the exception of String and the global Keyboard section can be enabled or disabled independently.

Turning off a section reduces CPU usage. The modelled string can be played using different types of excitators in order to reproduce different types of instruments and playing techniques. The excitator is selected using the Type chooser, and the choices available are Bow, Hammer, Hammer bouncing and Plectrum.

Bow — this excitator is associated with bowed instruments such as the violin, viola or cello. The bow sets the string in sustained oscillation. The motion of the bow hair across the string creates friction, causing the string to alternate between sticking to the hair and breaking free. The frequency of this alternation between sticking and slipping determines the fundamental pitch. The Force knob adjusts the amount of pressure being applied to the string by the bow.

The friction between the bow and the string can be adjusted with the Friction control. Higher values usually result in a faster attack. Velocity adjusts the speed of the bow across the string.

Finally, the Vel and Key sliders below these three controls allow you to modulate their behavior based on note velocity or pitch, respectively. Hammer and Hammer bouncing — these two excitator types simulate the behavior of soft hammers or mallets. Hammer models a hammer that is located below the string and strikes it once before falling away. This type of mechanism is found in a piano, for example.

Hammer bouncing models a hammer that is located above the string and is dropped onto it, meaning that it can bounce on the string multiple times. This playing mode can be found on a hammered dulcimer, for example.

The mass and stiffness of the hammer are adjusted with the surprise Mass and Stiffness knobs, while Velocity controls the speed at which the hammer is struck against the string.

As with the Bow excitator, these three parameters can be further modulated by note velocity and pitch by adjusting the Vel and Key sliders. As you increase the Damping amount, the interaction between the hammer and string will become shorter, generally resulting in a louder, brighter sound.

It can be thought of as an angled object placed under the string that snaps the string into motion. The Stiffness, Velocity and Damping knobs behave similarly to the Hammer mode. Protrusion, Stiffness, Velocity and Position can be modulated by velocity or note pitch via the Vel and Key sliders. The Position knob is applicable to each excitator model, and specifies the point on the string where the excitator makes contact.

The behavior is a bit different if the Fix. Pos switch is enabled, however. In this case, the contact point is fixed to a single location, rather than changing as the length of the string changes. This behavior is similar to that of a guitar, where the picking position is always basically the same regardless of the notes being played. Pos turned off.

The Excitator section can be toggled on or off via the switch next to its name. With it off, the string can only be activated by interaction with its damper.

You may find that certain combinations of settings result in no sound at all, for example. The effective length of the string is also responsible for the pitch of the sound we hear. Real-world strings, however, are all more or less inharmonic, and this increases with the width of the string. The Inharm slider models this behavior, causing upper partials to become increasingly out of tune as its value increases.

Higher values result in more upper partials less damping. The Decay slider determines how long it takes for the resonating string to decay to silence. Higher values increase the decay time. As you increase the Ratio, the release time decreases but the onset decay time stays the same. The two most important parameters in this section are the Rate and Amount sliders. Rate adjusts the frequency of the pitch variation, while Amount adjusts the intensity amplitude of the effect.

The Delay slider sets how long it will take for the vibrato to start after the note begins, while Attack sets how long it takes for the vibrato to reach full intensity as set by the Amount knob. This control is relative to the value set by the Amount knob. The Error slider introduces unpredictability into the vibrato, by introducing random deviation to the Rate, Amount, Delay and Attack parameters.

All string instruments employ some type of damping mechanism that mutes the resonating string. In pianos, this is a felt pad that is applied to the string when the key is released. Although a damper functions to mute the string rather than activate it, it is somewhat analogous to a hammer, and shares some of the same parameters.

As you increase the value, the string will mute more quickly. Lower values simulate soft materials such as felt, while higher values model a metal damper. Note that very high Mass and Stiffness values can simulate dampers that connect with the string hard enough to change its effective length, thus causing a change in tuning.

The Velocity control adjusts the speed with which the damper is applied to the string when the key is released, as well as the speed with which it is lifted from the string when the key is depressed. Be careful with this parameter — very high Velocity values can cause the damper to hit the string extremely hard, which can result in a very loud sound on key release. Note that the state of the Gated switch determines whether or not the Velocity control is enabled.

When the Gated switch is turned on, the damper is applied to the string when the key is released. With Gated off, the damper always remains on the string, which means that the Velocity control has no effect. The Mass, Stiffness and Velocity parameters can be further modulated by note pitch, via the sliders below. The stiffness of the damper mechanism is adjusted with the Damping knob, which affects the overall amount of vibration absorbed by the damper.

Lower values result in less damping longer decay times. At higher values, the mechanism becomes so stiff that it bounces against the string. This in turn reduces the overall amount of time that the damper is in contact with the string, causing an increase in decay time.