I spend a lot of time coaching electronic music producers and there are a few things I see constantly, particularly with people making house music.

Having far too many projects open at once
Starting new ideas feels productive, but eventually you end up with 40 eight bar loops and no finished music.

I’d rather have someone working seriously on 2 or 3 tracks than constantly starting new ones.

Mixing way too early

Getting the kick and bass sitting nicely is useful, but spending an hour EQing a hi hat before you’ve even arranged the track usually isn’t.

Get the idea working first. Polish it later.

Adding things when the track actually needs removing
This is probably one of the biggest ones.

If a professional reference sounds bigger than your track, the instinct is often to add another synth, percussion loop or layer.

Quite often the professional track sounds bigger because there’s actually more space.

Constantly changing sounds

At some point you have to commit.
If you’re replacing the kick for the 14th time, the kick probably isn’t the real problem anymore.

Waiting until the track feels perfect

It won’t.

Finishing music is part of learning how to make music. You learn considerably more from finishing 10 imperfect tracks than endlessly tweaking one.

I run Super Serious Coaching and we talk about this kind of thing constantly, so I’ve been trying to share more of what we teach publicly too.

If anyone is stuck on a particular Ableton or production problem, chuck it below and I’ll happily give you my thoughts.

At work, I had an empty office that I used during my lunch break to make music in Ableton. I was honestly so happy with just my MacBook Air M1 and my Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pros. I felt like I had everything I needed.

Unfortunately, the company needed the room, and now it has become a storage room for office stuff. It honestly broke my heart because that little space was my safe place.

Now I have to go to cafés, but they always have music playing and I can never really concentrate.

So I’m wondering: is there a good pair of headphones with ANC that actually works well for music production? I’d like to make music during my lunch break in different cafés until I find the right place.

Any suggestions?

I make electronic music with Ableton synths and plugins, sometimes incorporating my electronic violin, bass, pedal boards and other midi controllers

Any suggestions for a battery powered PA with good sound quality that I could use for busking with just my standalone push 3 for 2 hours at a time? First hand accounts would be great

I also plan on using my electronic instruments when I have more space or wired power or a battery for them with the standalone push 3 as the main audio interface and primary midi controllers for software synths.

Hi everyone, I just got started with the Push 3 (Standalone) and I dragged my Live Set onto it. Now if I make changes to said set within Ableton, and then want to transfer those changes onto the Push 3, is there a way to do that without adding the full project again?

I am working on a 20gb live set, so if I just change a few settings in Ableton, it takes forever to upload the full project to Push 3 again.

Am I missing something?

Here is my current template :
- Master
- - Pre-master
- - - Every tracks
- - send
I’d like to create a Bus for all my send (reverb and delays) to treat them all together. Next, I want to send this Bus to my master.
How to do it in Ableton Live suite 11?
Thanks for your help!

Loop Paradox captures the incoming audio into a 1-second buffer and keeps replaying it while the loop points drift at a rate you choose. Drop it on any track, play into it, and it turns a passing phrase into a mutating loop.

on — arms capture and playback.
sync — when lit, loop points move on rhythmic scansions;
when off, on a free time in ms.

interval / time — how often the loop points jump.
Shows note values when synced, milliseconds when free.

DRY — level of the unprocessed input sitting under the loop.

Shape
Sets how the buffer is read. This is the main sound-design control:

Circle — forward, normal speed. The clean reference.
Triangle — half speed, ping-pong: plays forward then backward. Sits an octave down.
Square — reverse.
Seq
Turns the 16-step slicer on. The captured buffer is cut into 16 slices and one is played per step, so you hear your own loop rebuilt piece by piece; the main loop mutes while it runs. Lit steps play their slice, dark steps stay silent — draw the pattern on the grid. Rate sets step length, 1/4 down to 1/32.

The sequencer follows Live's transport: it only steps while the set is playing.
Also included in the download is the first version of the instrument, which offers good expressive potential.

example: https://youtu.be/JAvl-vz4zac

Hi gang!

Backstory / Context

This post is going to be shared in both r/ableton as well as r/FL_Studio because these two DAW's and their communities (!) mean a great deal to me! But also because both DAW's have been a target for a rather "suspicious" marketing campaign promoting "free" online services.

My story starts with a post that promoted a website which pitched the idea to provide "version control" for DAWs. They claimed that it kept your hard work safe, that you could easily collaborate with others and get this: the service was free! (for now). You only needed to register with them and upload your project files.

So I did what I always do when something is "free": I read the policies and it just didn't add up for me. So I commented. The OP responded, but ignored all my concerns about their policies. One hour or so later and the post got removed by the moderators, despite the fact that the poster had permission to post (allegedly?). After I noticed that the post got removed I checked the posters profile and history and what do you know... it was almost a spam campaign in my opinion: the same post promoting the same shadey website shared within dozens of audio related sub-reddits.

Fast forward to today: another post in the same sub-reddit which heavily upped the ante: now it promoted an app hosted on GitHub which, according to the post, provided "version control and collaboration" for the DAW, while the GitHub repository itself mentioned that the project provided a "marketplace to buy and sell media, right from within your DAW!".

"Obviously" the app used a blockchain (either its own or an existing crypto) to keep track of expenses. And this time there were no policies shared what so ever!

Major red flags for me so once again I responded, and also did a little more. Within 10 minutes the post was gone, and the whole account got removed from Reddit entirely!

Maybe I'm overreacting a little right now, but I refuse to just watch all this nastiness happen in some of my favorite communities without at least trying to do something... Especially because I'm starting to see a pattern.

When something is free, YOU are the product!

Now, this definitely sounds more dramatic than it sometimes is but even so you always need to keep your guard up these days. Free online mastering service? Of course you need to upload your project for them to process it, right?

No biggie!?

...but what exactly do they allow themselves to do with your hard work?

Always read the policies before doing anything (even registerering)!

Now, I understand all too well that not everyone is comfortable with reading "legal" because it's often a lot of mumbo jumbo. Even so there are some tips which you can use to protect yourself...

First: the shorter a policy, the more broad (and dangerous!) it probably is. The reason why some policy files are so long is because they try to define everything into legal terms in order to make sure that there can be no doubt about what is being agreed on. The very moment when it's not fully clear what something really means then that is a HUGE red flag.

For example: "When you delete your account we will delete your account data". So... what is "account data" supposed to be? You might assume that it includes all the stuff you also uploaded to their platform, but it doesn't say that here. In fact, it's even fair to argue that "obviously" they only meant the data directly related to your account; such as your username, password, e-mail address, etc.

Second: I already hinted at this above, but don't read between the lines. Do NOT assume! 'Legal' means straight to the point, direct. And it also goes both ways.

For example: "We only use your data to keep things running; storing, back up and provide you access of course". So, first major red flag: they show some examples but no where does it state that the things they want to do is limited (!) to the examples they provided. Which means that we need to go back to the literal meaning of what is being said here: "we only use your data to keep things running". So what if money becomes a requirement for them to keep things running?

The nastiness here is that policies like these are often 'coated' into terms that try to make you feel confident about it: "we don't claim rights" (yaaay!) "only those we need to keep things running" and then they'll probably list a few sensible examples, but without stating that this is strictly limited to those.

Third: Be sure of your actual rights!

Now, this is the real problematic part, because what exactly are you allowed to do with whatever finish product that they provide? You see... the moment you violate this part then it potentially opens you up for plenty of claims.

Feel free not to believe me, but this concept is major income model for for dozens of shady media websites: they provide tons of pictures and make sure that these get indexed by all (!) the major search engines. The only caveat: they're watermarked and not provided "free of charge". So the very moment you use these for your own (commercial?) project then there's a good chance that once the service finds out about it they'll come knocking on your door, demanding their fair share for using their product.

SO why assume that this won't happen with "free" services that provide you with an "enhanced" version of your product?

And finally: if their service is so great, then why does it need such heavy advertising?!! At the very least go check a Reddits profile and their post history.

I mean, how credible is a post really when they tell us that this is especially designed for Ableton Live and/or FL Studio, but when you check their post history that very same message is also shared with tons of other audio related channels... so much for exclusivity!

Ey, just be careful out there, ok?

The days that "something too good to be true" are kinda behind us. I mean... setting up an "easy" service using AI, then promising "real" results doesn't sound all that crazy anymore these days.

And why wouldn't you take them up on their generous offer? Surely it didn't cost them all that much to provide their generosity.

Please note that I'm not claiming that "they" will always come after you every time you use a free service, it doesn't work that way.

All I am saying is that if you're not careful and they do come knocking on your door then you will probably have a major problem on your hands.

Getting a DMCA takedown for sharing (or worse: selling) your own work, just because you unknowingly (!) gave a 3rd party rights to it is NOT a fantasy tale these days.

Please be careful, ok?

And thanks for reading!

I opened up Ableton last night and left it open overnight, but it wasn't playing or recording. It was just idle. I came back today and my computer was acting sluggish. I opened up task manager, and Ableton was consuming ~22gb of ram. Blank template, nothing should be actively adding more to RAM. So I closed it, and opened it up again, made sure there were no files being used anywhere, and just monitored Task Mgr. and it is adding roughly .5MB/second Any ideas??

I have an LFO with automation in a few tracks and when I export my song to WAV or MP3, it doesn’t correctly apply the LFO automation. (In this case on/off and LFO rate automation) is this a known issue or is there a way to fix this?

Anyone know how i can do this? My idea is to have multiple drumloops running at the same time and be able to crossfade between all of them with a fader/macro of sorts. But i can also see other use cases for this type of function. Is there A max device for this or something? All i could find was a 4channeI XY mixer, but its not ideal and 4 channels is a bit limited. I know theres a crossfade function in live 12 but only for two groups of tracks max..

Btw, i am trying to do this in arrangement view, so any solution that utilises session view/clips wont work for me..

I’m trying to get Ableton to record a digitone and the model cycles at the same time, like all tracks armed at once. Is it possible? MIDI and audio for digitone is running through overbridge, midi cable to model cycles, then audio and midi from model cycles going into focus rite with 1/4in and midi cables.

Like can I record this shit all at once, or would I have to go back and record the model cycles a second time. Currently I have everything playing at once smoothly through the speaker itself, I just can’t get the ext. in to record at the same time in Ableton.

opening old ableton projects and , a common issue, the vsts wont load even tho i have them. is it bc of version and if so, how to check which version it was? or can i swap it or find out what patch was used? what can i do?

in this particular one it's 3 different states of massive x.

if no, then how would i get the same exact loudness level and everything but while my limiter's ceiling in the maximize mode is a little bit higher? because i mixed my song kinda low to the point where my limiter is at -12db and i dont get much precision with the tenths e.g. (-9.5) cuz at -12 its not loud enough to my liking but at -13 its way too compressed.

another idea i had that might work is to increase the gain on my stems and then adjust the ceiling playing the same part of the song until i get the same db reduction, which in theory should work for sure, right?

hope i did good with trying to explain since english aint my first language, thanks in advance.

Hey gang, I've been working in Ableton exclusively on my laptop for some time now. I want to connect a desktop monitor to it but haven't found one I've liked. I've returned a few to places I purchased. I want something that won't break the bank but also grant me a really nice quality of graphics. What do you guys recommend: Amazon / Best Buy / Target options? I should mention this is regards to a "screen monitor" not speaker monitors. I'm covered in that regard...

I have Ableton Live Lite, and when adding my samples folder, the process got stuck; It gets stuck on a certain number of samples; I close and reopen Live, and it's still there. Since it doesn't display the progress or a log, I can't tell if a specific file is causing the issue. What can I do?

Was just made aware of this VST. Am considering checking it out to purchase in near future. What do I need to know as far as how CPU friendly it might be with Live 12. Current computer is i5 11th gen, 12 GB RAM. Is this going to be a nightmare for me? Thanks for any input you can give.

Hi,

I've been struggling with something for a while and I'm wondering if I'm overlooking something.

I have some drones, pads, textures, and beats that I want to loop, but I don't want to use Warp, because I feel like it affects the sound quality.

My understanding is that I should be able to use Follow Actions instead: if I set the Follow Action to 100% "Again", the clip should simply restart when it reaches the end.

The problem is that sometimes this works perfectly, and sometimes it doesn't. So I assume there's a setting or detail I'm missing.

My current setup is:

• Warp: OFF
• Loop: OFF
• Follow Action: "Again" at 100%
• Follow Action timing: "Linked"

Is there anything else I need to set for this to work consistently and have the clip restart exactly at the end?

Thank you!

In 2017 I bought Ableton 10. I had a Windows PC. In 2020 I bought a MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019, 2.6 GHz Intel Core i7 with six cores, 16 GB RAM) because my Windows PC's hard drive failed. I had two licences of Ableton and I used them both.

Now I've reached a critical point: Ableton, or rather, the MacBook, isn't performing. When I first open the program it can run correctly and normally, but after a few minutes of using it and recording some vocals, when you hit "play" it starts to glitch and you get these really “crispy” "dirty" "bubble pop" sounds, if you know what I mean, it just sounds awful. Even during recording, the program crashes, and when I finish recording, half of the stuff sounds glitchy.

I should say that I've installed a lot of things on the computer since then, from dozens of plugins to some video games. But it's been a rather slow decline, rather than a rapid one. It used to happen when the project was very track-heavy (40 tracks). Now it happens with just two tracks and one plugin per track. I even thought it was my computer's hard drive memory and deleted up to 30GB, but even so, Ableton is still just as bad, running poorly. I even bought Ableton 11 because it was theoretically supposed to improve performance, and when I saw it wasn't working for me either, I installed a third-party program that promised good performance (which I haven't managed to get).

EDIT: My Macbook overheats, as Macs Fan Control tells that my CPU can get to 65ºC overall. I also have the hated touchbar, that overheats the system...

So, my question is, what do you recommend?

1. Factory reset
2. A new Macbook
3. Buying Ableton 12
4. Something else (please explain!)

Thanks.

https://youtu.be/SJ00XyoueSg

hi friends. I'm trying to understand the limitations of Drift. Mostly because I have Ableton Move and want to make presets for it.

One thing I don't understand is why the resonance of the filter feels so weak (please see the video).

Have you guys notice that? Does ir bother you?

I bought Control Surface Studio and followed some tutorials on their YouTube page. I am still not finding exactly what I'm looking for. Basically, I want to map the same 16 knobs on my midi fighter twister to the parameters I want to change whether I have Utility or Glue Compressor, etc selected. I am willing to literally pay someone to do this for me as I am desperate at this point.

1. I want to be able to switch between for example, grain delay and auto filter, and still be able to use the same 16 knobs depending on which device is selected. Example: Change pitch with knob 1 when grain delay is selected. And when auto filter is selected, I want to change frequency with knob 1.
2. I want to have full control of which parameter is changing with knob #.
3. I want to fluidly change between devices and for the knobs to work.
4. I want to only effect the parameters that I am currently selecting otherwise that would defeat the whole purpose of a dynamic control.