Hi Kids! Welcome to the “Using Ableton Live For Worship” crash course.
DISCLAIMER: This is NOT the be-all-end-all on how to use Ableton – there are a lots of ways. This is simply a look at how we at North Point use Ableton for Click, Count-Off, Loops and Auxiliary Tracks playback.
Backstory:
Years ago we used to use Pro Tools for live playback of click & auxiliary tracks because of the ability to route to various outputs via external hardware. However we abandoned Pro Tools a few years ago and started using Ableton Live.
Ableton Live has abilities for live playback that are unparalleled in traditional Digital Audio Workstations (DAW). For the reasons we’ll discuss below, Ableton Live has become our new standard in playback of click & tracks for a live performance setting.
Although I do still use Pro Tools as my primary vehicle for creating loops, tracks, aux programming, composition for film, song editing, etc. Some other guys are fond of creating in Apple’s Logic, which is also a great program.
But you choose the DAW that is most comfortable for you to use for creation. Then after completing the aux tracks & programming that will be used in live performance, just bounce the tracks to a WAV file, then import them into that week’s Ableton session.
While it is possible to create using the Arrangement view of Ableton, as it is relatively similar to the traditional linear-based DAW (Pro Tools, Logic, etc.), most of us feel it is still inferior in regards to creation. Although I will admit, Ableton’s Arrangement view has come in handy as a quick edit or pitch-shift tool while sitting in a creative meeting. There are some features Ableton has in Arrangement view that the other DAWs wish they could do half as well…
BUT, for live performance playback of click, count-off cues and loops, there is no equal to Ableton’s Session view.
Leave your email in the comment section and I’ll send your our NPCC TEMPLATE, the document I start with each week. The file has the count-off and click audio files included, and is only about 1.4 MB.
Hopefully the Template will help you make more sense of Ableton and its abilities.
But be warned! Ableton’s functionality is high, but so is the learning curve! It does not follow the thought process of most traditional DAWs, and the reigning in Warp feature has caused many to stumble in their faith… 
Fortunately there are lots of helpful training videos out there. We’ve learned a lot from YouTube!
And Ableton offers a free 30-Day trial, so go ahead and download it, open the attached Template and follow along with this crash-course tutorial.
http://www.ableton.com/download-live-trialAbleton Advantage: Session View is non-linear, which means your click and loop can play for eternity.
Ableton Advantage: In Session View, a song’s tempo can be changed without affecting the other songs in your set-list. (HUGE bonus versus traditional linear DAWs)
The Session view consists of Scenes, Clips and Tracks.
Scenes are the master “go” control for each song. It’s also where you customize each song’s tempo.
Clips are the actual audio files associated with the song that you have created (loops, aux programming, count-offs, etc.). Clips for each song are arranged HORIZONTALLY in line with the song’s Scene. (Not vertically, like traditional DAWs!!)
Tracks are the vertical “channel strip” down which the audio signal travels, and can be routed to the Bus or Output of your choosing. Clips from multiple songs can travel down the same Track.
Under the Master column are the list of Scenes. Ableton’s programmers assume folks will use each session for just one song, and that these Scenes are just parts of one song (Vs, Cho, Brg, etc.).
But the worship & live performing community have discovered that these can be not only parts of one song, but completely different songs altogether.
So in our case, each Scene is a different song in the set – each with its own custom tempo. Triggering the Scene will launch all the associated horizontal Clips.
To change the name and tempo of a song, click on the Scene and type Cmd-R, or “Rename” under the Edit drop-down menu.
BE SURE to include the letters “bpm” one space after the numerical tempo!! Other wise it will not change tempo.
Ableton Scenes
We then trigger these Scenes (aka Songs) using an external USB pad controller, and assign Scenes, Stop, etc. via Live’s MIDI Mapping feature (Ctrl-M).
There are dozens of USB controllers on the market. We’ve used the Akai LDP8, Akai MDP18, and Korg padKontrol. Choose the price, size and features that are right for you.
Ableton and Akai MPD18
Controllers can be set up to be used as remotes via the Preferences / MIDI Synch window. Be sure to enable the Remote feature to make Ableton open to receiving messages from the controller.
Ableton Advantage: Enabling the Warp feature (described later) in conjunction with your desired tempo will speed up or slow down your loops & tracks with little-to-no discernible change in the audio’s quality or pitch.
That is huge! And it process the audio in real time, so if you want to speed up or slow down your song, just re-type the tempo and everything adjusts – instantly!
Clips:
You can drag-and-drop your audio files into the horizontal clips. You can always add additional Tracks in which to add your files.
Ableton Clips
We do many songs that have no programming at all (nothing but Click), a bunch with just an open-ended loop that cycles infinitely, and a small handful of songs that have dedicated linear programming.
That means we may range from no Track channels used on one song, to 4 or 8 or more on another song!
As a rule, we try to avoid linear programming (aka. Pre-Recorded tracks) on worship songs if at all possible. Linear programming means you NEED to start at the right time, which can unfortunately stifle a Worship Leader. Instead of saying something meaningful between songs, they are paralyzed, listening for the count-off.
For this reason, out of all the worship songs we that are in our current repertoire, only 3 songs have actual linear tracks. In those cases they are some programmed strings, etc. That’s an extremely low percentage! Just 3 worship songs!
Special songs, like Openers or Closers are a bit different, and we’ll add linear programming – but only if the song really, really needs it. Again – slave to a count-in and aux tracks means more room for error…
If you have multiple Clips traveling down one Track and desire a volume change to normalize the Clip volume levels, do NOT use the Track’s level. Instead, each Clip has a window with a ton of customizable controls, including that particular clip’s volume.
Ableton Clip edit window
Ableton Advantage: This window also allows you to TRANSPOSE your audio file in real time without negatively affecting the speed of the audio file (when Warp mode is enabled).
Ableton Advantage: This window also allows you to LOOP an audio file, so it will play, well, forever! This is perfect for open-ended loops and a custom click track.
NOTE: Always label your programming’s file name to include the original tempo. eg: “Mighty To Save LOOP 81″
Ableton’s Warp and Loop features can be very difficult to learn, and knowing the audio file’s original tempo will be extremely helpful. The original tempo should automatically show in the Seg. BPM window, but may occasionally need to be manually corrected.
This is especially important when importing linear files without strong waveform transients, like pads & strings. Ableton was originally designed as a DJ’ing tool, so it seeks spikes in the waveform – called transients – to determine an audio file’s source tempo.
When this goes awry, it can lead to a horrific warp experience. Trust me – it took us a LONG time to figure that one out!
One ESSENTIAL way to avoid most warp nightmares is to change your Preferences / Record Warp Launch to:
Loop/Warp Short Samples: AUTO
Auto-Warp Long Samples: OFF
Default Warp Mode: COMPLEX (Live 8 full version only, not available on Live Intro)
Ableton Warp Preferences
Also, whenever possible, import WAV or AIFF files – not MP3 files – for your audio programming.
Unfortunately, when files are encoded to MP3, an extremely small amount of silence is placed at the beginning of the waveform, which drives the Warp function crazy. To overcome this, you need to zoom into the beginning of the clip’s waveform, find the first transient, then right-click on the marker above the transient and chose “Make this 1.1.1″.
Total pain… Avoid if possible.
Finally, the click track….
NOTE: This Click track is already created in the NPCC TEMPLATE file. The following is an explanation of what we did and how it works…
One reason we avoided Ableton for a long time was the horribly annoying click sound, and the inability to sub-divide it without falsely manipulating the tempo and time signature.
But then we had a brainstorm. We loved the MPC Click sound from Pro Tools, and so we sampled one beat of it, and trigger that sampled file using Ableton’s drum machine, Impulse.
First, create and insert a short, silent WAV file into a Clip. Then drag an instance of Impulse on that Clip.
Then drag your desired click sample into one of the blank slots on Impulse.
Ableton Impulse Plug-In
The click audio file is then triggered as a MIDI event, complete with desired velocity, which can adjust the volume & timbre if you desire an accented downbeat.
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Ableton Impulse MIDI Note On Info
Another easy way to do this would be to record two different bars of your desired click sound at an average tempo, about 90 bpm – one bar regular quarter notes, and one with sub-divided 8ths. Then insert that audio file with Warp activated, and it will warp to the tempo you entered in the song’s master Scene, just as though it was playing back a drum loop.
The only disadvantage to this method is the inability to adjust MIDI velocities, and thus add / eliminate / adjust the downbeat volume. But that’s totally up to you!
Tracks:
The Tracks can then be routed to your desired output on just about any audio interface.
We first route all tracks to a Master Bus for each hardware output. This is especially helpful for us as we bring the Masters down -20 dB since we are balanced output from our MOTU hardware, and not using DI’s. Kind of a pain, but an easy solution.
Ableton Tracks
Price = Features:
There are three different levels of Live: Intro, Regular and Suite.
Suite ($700) includes a massive amount of plug-in instruments and effects, which are probably not needed if you already have other DAW software.
Regular ol’ Live ($450) is what we use. It has a few instruments and effects (again, that we don’t use), but does have the ability for infinite external hardware routing (imperative!) and the ability to Warp in Complex mode, which is most effective for tonal audio files (vocals, pads, strings, etc.)
Live Intro ($100) has most of the needed functionality of the regular version, except that it does not have Complex Warp mode, and is limited to just two outputs (one stereo pair).
We know some drummers that have bought the Intro version to use on their own independent gigs for all of Live’s functionality, and just split the lines coming out of their laptop’s headphone jack. Click is routed to Left, and Loops to Right.
Alrighty – there’s your intro crash course – hope it helps! Please feel free to ask any more questions as you learn and experiment!
And if you’d like the NPCC TEMPLATE, let me know, and leave your email in the comments section.
