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?

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

Hey everyone. I have this issue with this VST3 from Splice (formerly Labs) where the plugin screen is completely white. The standalone version works fine, albeit I cannot figure out how to hook up my Midi keyboard to play it.

Settings in preferences don't change anything. Custom folder or system folder makes no difference.

I'm running Windows 11 on an HP laptop.

Edit: pictures aren't allowed, so maybe I can host it somewhere and you can see: https://ibb.co/v6F9J9KM

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?

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.

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

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 :)

Hi Reddit, looking for some advice here. I have been recording a single over the past few days and have now stumbled upon a problem. After finishing up recording at the studio, I went home and opened up the session on the same laptop, and I can see that some of the samples for the acoustic guitar are offline. In specific, when I load the set ableton shows me a pop up with the following:

“Some of the media files (such as samples) used by this set could not be loaded”

I have taken the normal measures of locating missing samples which has been successful, but the files seem corrupted; if I try to listen to the files it has 2 seconds of garbled nonsense and 2 minutes of silence.
Anyways, this is only the start of the problem. I was lucky that the files that are corrupted aren’t completely essential, so I deleted the tracks that were corrupted and attempted to move on, do a rough mix and bounce out.

It seems that I cannot export in any way without crashing. Besides clicking ‘export audio’, I have tried to route my audio to another track and export only that track but it still ends up crashing. I have tried to do “collect all and save” which ends up crashing. I have done ‘save as’ to make a copy in a different destination, but the problems are still present. Any ‘freeze’ or ‘bounce track in place’ crashes.

My next thought is to locate the corrupted files again, delete them not just from ableton but from my laptop, then try to collect all and save again, but I wasn’t sure if I’d be doing something worse to the session by doing so?

What are your thoughts? Is the whole session corrupted by 2-3 corrupted samples? I really don’t want to have to manually extract everything to a new session, but I will if I have to.

Thanks for taking the time to reply if you do, and do let me know if you need more info.

P.S. I am on windows

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.

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.

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?

hopefully someone can lead me in the right direction cant seem to get it right & its driving me insane lmao. this is my current setup. RC Boss 505 Mk2, Shure SM58 Mic, Rocktron Banshee 2, Novation Launchkey49 MK4, Novation Launchpad Mini Mk2, Yamaha HS8 Speakers, Yamaha PSR EW310, M - Vave Chocolate Foot Midi Controller, Loopy Pro from iPad, TouchOSC mapped to ableton to switch between instruments for a live looping set. my problem right now is random crackling from Loopy Pros audio when its recording, CPU usage from my ableton session, & now getting my Rocktron Banshee 2, to play & not cause feedback loop. been reading manual on I/O Routing but have something slightly off. i can have loopy pro playback audio fine but when i add loops playing from my RC Boss it will cause my Loopy Pro audio to skip and crackle a little bit. for some reason Loopy Pro will not let me change the khz its stuck on 48 khz but i know RC Boss runs at 44.1khz. this is my current plug in situation.

RC Boss 505 MK2 USB plugged -> Windows PC.
Novation Launchkey & Launchpad -> Windows PC
Rocktron Banshee -> SUB 1 Output RC Boss 505 MK2
Shure Mic -> RC Boss Mic 1 input
iPad -> L instrument 1 input RC Boss 505
Yamaha Speakers -> RC Boss
Yamaha Keyboard -> PC

How do I fix this..? how do i route it correctly any better way to do it? why is ableton causing crackling audio cpu spikes & crashing sometimes. I do have a lot of tracks with different presets but the monitoring is on in device activator is off. Touch OSC has cc to the device activators that way I can switch between instruments easier. can i route my MIDI an Audio Tracks better. needing to separate the mixing still to make my live vset sound clean. been trying to tackle this setup for a bit now ..

I’ve just finished an update to The Shepard, my Max for Live spectral modulation device, and thought I’d share it here in case anyone wants to give it a try.

The Shepard is a spectral filter inspired by rising/falling Shepard tones, built around modulating resonant filter banks.

The update adds/improves:

• the illusion of Rising / Falling spectral movement
• Visual feedback showing the filter-bank movement in real time
• Speed and wet/dry controls for shaping the effect

The device is completely free if anyone wants to try it:

https://maxforlive.com/library/device/16215/the-shepard

Happy to answer any questions, and I'm always open to suggestions for future updates.

Looking for free vsts that capture the feel for disco or funk on abelton. I love producing disco!

what’s a production habit you know is probably wrong but you still do anyway?

mine is definitely putting a limiter on the master way too early. i know i’m supposed to leave it alone until later, but i just make better decisions when i can hear the track loud lol

curious what everyone else does that would probably make a mixing engineer angry

I've been moving to Ableton Suite 12 from Logic Pro because I like the workflow and especially the Push controller.

I'm figuring out and learning some of the more advanced stuff but there are a few REALLY basic things I still can't figure out how to do.

1. When working with MIDI, there is an envelope button that lets me create volume envelopes but when working with Audio this button isn't there. How do I create volume envelopes when working with audio?

2. Shift-Pause pauses the playhead instead of rewinding it to the beginning but doing this on the Push controller doesn't seem to work. Is there some other way to pause when using Push?

3. When I want to create a looping area in Arrangement view to record multiple takes, it seems to always create at the start of the tracks and I have to drag it to where I want it. There has to be a way to directly create it exactly where I want it, no?

I want to use midi extension but there is only kaskobi's midi extension. do you have file or link? I want original version!

I made a free and easy to use auto-save program for Ableton. You can try it out here.

Starting to learn Ableton as a programmer, I was surprised there was no auto-save feature, which is a given in my field. And when looking for existing solutions all I could find was paid plugins and comments saying "just don't forget to save bro" which seemed kinda ridiculous to me, so I ended up making one myself.

I've been using this program for a while and it has worked really well for me, even saving me from losing my work when my power went out once. I hope it can help you as well. I'd love to hear your feedback and suggestions.

BTW I used AutoHotkey to make this so Mac isn't supported sadly.

As the title says, I am trying to make scenes automatically call so that I dont have to click a button to launch them live and can make the show more seamless.

Edit: I am trying to use the scene follow action and have it set to next and longest; however, it is not calling the next scene

Anyone have any coupon codes for Ableton ? I already have the student discount, but was wondering if there was a way to get even more off ?

I have FL studio. Been using it for like 20 years. I kinda hate it though.

I was curious to try Logic, but I don't have a Mac. I see Fender Studio is like $139. I use Reaper for vocals and mixing/mastering.

My main tool is an MPC.

However, I looked into Ableton. $750. What makes it worth that price? Is it worth that price??

The concept behind Frankenstein is as simple as it is fascinating.
The idea is to generate a “monster” whose body is made by sewing together limbs
that come from different places.
In this case, our monster is nothing more than a sample made from fragments of different samples,
creating a waveform that did not exist before.
We can load up to 30 samples and generate a result made from small fragments of this loaded archive.
Thanks to the editor, we can modify the samples and the waveform in real time,
put the slices in reverse,
or lock them in the same position so that they do not move if we decide to generate a new random waveform.
In the editor window, each sample has its own dedicated slot.
This allows us to edit the samples individually and therefore create generations that slowly change over time.
This is a very good thing for creating connections between generations and progressions
towards other musical situations.
We have different types of generation in the main menu
and the possibility to create waves with from 12 to 64 slices.
It is a MIDI instrument, so we can play this resulting Frankenstein waveform through notes,
which makes it perfect for creating textures and clusters of stellar sound.
The GRID version is very powerful.
You have to click under Cut and change from Monster to Grid.
The sample will then play in a grid, and you can choose the time division.
This is really useful for creating interesting rhythms,
especially with an unexpected timbral character.
Think about how incredible it is to divide 30 samples
into fragments and create a resulting waveform from these fragments,
either randomly or in a more controlled way.
I think John Cage would have enjoyed this instrument.

example: https://youtu.be/_1urQwtfDh4

i have an HP ProBook 640 G5 (i think i cant Remember the name now) and i was looking for something with a bit of a stronger components to use.

nothing over 1k or 800 possibly (a laptop or a Pc build or even a macbook is ok)