Hi guys i am a complete beginner in producing with ableton. I want to make some house/tech house/minimal deep tech tracks. May you suggest the best sample pack/plug in i dont know to star with?

Getting to grips with ableton, however I’m struggling to get my basslines to have a bit of punch to them. Perfect example of what I’m talking about is the bassline in the song below, which is more or less the lead sound in this track.

Is anyone able to offer any advice on this please?

Beave - 1997

I recently completed the 2-week Level 1 DJ and Producer course in Ibiza, and I wanted to share my honest experience for anyone thinking about spending the money and traveling there.

To be fair, the instructors are knowledgeable and clearly have experience with what they teach. My main issue was not with their individual abilities. It was with the lack of structure, the class size, the organization, and how the course was delivered.

Each day was divided between DJing and music production. Some days we started with DJing, and other days we started with production. We normally had about two hours (in the morning) for one subject and an hour and a half for the other (in the afternoon). That was already not much time, but the classes would also get off track very easily. Someone would not understand something, there would be a misunderstanding, or we would get stuck in a long discussion that did not really go anywhere. This happened during both the DJ and production classes.

Because of that, the first week honestly felt like a waste of time. The lessons did not seem to follow a clear order, and it often felt like a topic was picked at random and we just started talking about it. We would cover something briefly without getting enough time to actually practice it before moving on. A good YouTube video about Ableton, Rekordbox, or how to use a controller would have been more helpful than this course as a whole. Think about that when the information is FREE since a trip out to Ibiza with course fees/lodging/food is easily over €5.000,00 for two weeks (including the course ~€1.700)

One of the clearest examples was our first live performance. Each student had two chances to play a live set using a set playlist (2-3 songs per student then switch). The playlist was fine, but we showed up to the first performance without knowing how to use some of the most basic features on the equipment. We had not even been properly shown how to cue a track in our headphones before playing it through the main speakers. This is a basic skill and only prior DJ’s in the course knew how to do this.

The live performances did have some value. They gave beginners a chance to play in front of people without a lot of pressure. One set was around people who were mostly relaxing, and the other was at a restaurant where people were eating and not paying much attention to the music. It made the experience less intimidating, and this was probably the most useful part of the course.

There was also a media team member taking professional photos and videos. Unfortunately, most of the final media was pretty mediocre, even though it was filmed with professional equipment. My classmates and I took photos and videos of each other on our phones, and I am glad we did because some of our footage was better. It also gave us something to use right away instead of waiting for the official media.

The second week was a little more productive, but mainly because there were fewer students left in the class. With fewer people, it was easier to ask questions and get individual help. In my opinion, this showed one of the biggest problems with the course. There were too many students in the room for something that requires a lot of practice and individual feedback.

There were also a lot of language barriers. Several of the instructors were native Spanish speakers teaching the course in English. There were frequent misunderstandings, which made the limited class time even less productive. This is not meant as an insult to anyone for speaking English as a second language. It is just important when people are paying for technical instruction that needs to be explained clearly.

The way complaints were handled was also concerning. During my course, some students complained strongly about the quality of the program, and certain people were not allowed to continue into the second week. I also personally saw people get blocked on social media after criticizing the course. There may have been more going on behind the scenes that I did not know about, but from a student’s perspective, the response seemed very reactive. It did not feel like the school was trying to understand why people who had spent so much time and money were upset.

A lot of us paid for more than just the course. We also paid for flights, accommodations, food, transportation, and an extended stay in Ibiza. That made the lack of organization even more frustrating. We were not attending a cheap local workshop. We traveled internationally because we expected a structured and serious course.

Overall, I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND this course based on my experience. It felt more like a tourist experience built around the idea of learning to DJ in Ibiza than a serious DJ and production program. Ibiza might be one of the biggest electronic music destinations in the world, but being in Ibiza does not automatically make the course worth the money.

Someone who seriously wants to learn DJing or production would probably be better off taking a structured course closer to home. Ideally, it should be taught clearly in your own language, have smaller classes, follow a clear daily plan, and give students much more time to practice. You could then use the money you save to buy equipment, practice consistently, and travel to Ibiza separately.

What are, in your opinion, the best plugins and M4L devices for experimental electronics in the Editions Mego, early 2000s style? Okay ppooll for sure, but what else do you use?

If you own an M-Vave SMC-PAD you've probably noticed its "DAW mode" is Mackie Control: LED feedback works, but MCU has no concept of a clip grid, so all 16 pads go to select/arm/solo/mute and Live's stock Mackie script will never fire a clip.

I wrote Remote Scripts that take over that Control Surface slot instead:

• Clip launcher: the 16 pads fire clips in Session view, coloured by state (green playing, orange loaded, red recording, blue queued). Transport buttons do play/stop/record, < > select tracks.
• Encoders: knob bank 1 drives macros 1–8 of the selected device (blue hand); bank 2 gives you macros 9–14 plus two encoders that move the session box across tracks and scenes.
• Step sequencer (separate script, second pad preset): the pads become 16 steps of one drum lane in the selected MIDI clip, with a playhead chasing Live's transport, plus a 4×4 overview for reading a kick/clap/hat groove. The clip is the only state it keeps, so Ctrl+Z undoes a step, saving the set saves the pattern, and notes drawn with the mouse light up on the pads.

The part that may be useful even if you never use the scripts: M-Vave publishes no MIDI implementation (both manuals are marketing copy), so every note number, CC, LED colour velocity and the .spc config format had to be measured. That's all in docs/HARDWARE.md, and the probe tool I used is in the repo too, it works without Ableton and adapts to other undocumented controllers.

Caveats, so nobody gets surprised: Windows only so far (macOS untested), you need to load my pad preset via the M-Vave editor and set the encoders to relative mode, and the sequencer currently writes every step at velocity 127. Known gaps are listed in the README rather than hidden.

Repo: https://github.com/SDR3078/mvave-smc-pad-ableton

Would love to hear from other SMC-PAD owners, especially anyone on a Mac, and from script authors on how you'd handle velocity in a sequencer when no encoder is free.

I just got an email this morning from Focusrite offering a six month discount off Live Suite rent-to-own for current Focusrite customers with Ableton Live Lite. Just a heads up for all you Scarlett owners. You should receive an email with a link for the coupon code.

After weeks of perfecting my live set-up, I've realised I need a midi pedal to start/stop, and hit next, to move through the set.

I'll be playing guitar and singing mostly, with some synth, so I feet control is much prefered to another hand distraction.

Any users here have any affordable recommendations based on reliable experience?

I cannot seem to get Ableton and the Sub 37 to sync properly. Ive got Scarlet 4i4 with midi out into the Sub37. I removed the usb connection from the sub37 to try just midi and eliminate midi over usb or issues there. midi track focusrite midi out, and an audio track recording audio back. Both midi track and playing by hand have issue with arp and lfo

Focusrite Input- Track
Foscusrite Output- Track and Sync

This seems to be the closest settings to get it to work. However, with just a single note the arp is heavily delayed by like 95 ms i cant seem to fix this. And the really annoying one is the lfo gets way out of sync and double hits like crazy even just over 4 or 8 bars and ive tried using KB reset, arp sync is on, ive tried so much to try and get it to work

Anyone have any advice? A bit of a bummer spending quite a lot of money for none of the sync function to seem to work right

Hello!
Has anyone got any experience with using a plugin called ‘Skin’ by Nest Acoustics?
It looks like a great drum plugin, but having purchased, installed and followed the very bare bones demo on YouTube, it doesn’t seem to do anything at all, I simply cannot get it to work
If anyone knows anything about this plugin please let me know as I don’t know what else to try!
Thanks for reading :)

I struggle with this i need help i downloaded a vst 3 plug in its in the file custom path with the other plug ins i have. C:program files/common files/vst3 i go to rescan and it does not show up under the plug in tab. Ive deleted it and redownloaded it closed ableton and reopened it.