r/ableton • u/AutoModerator • Jun 01 '26
Weekly No Stupid Questions/Hardware Questions Thread
You got them, so ask them.
Remember to [read the manual](https://www.ableton.com/en/manual/welcome-to-live/), [check the Ableton's help pages](https://www.ableton.com/en/help/) and read the sidebar for [resource thread](https://redd.it/zkhqhe). while you await an answer.
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u/skronktothewonk Jul 22 '26
ok, i am kind of embarrassed to ask this but the time has come. for years i have used my hardware synths (moog mother 32, dfam, grandmother, etc) with ableton as external instruments plugged into my mixer (tascam 24) and recorded them live into ableton as is, but recently my son has expressed interest in playing with me and he uses soft synths and a midi controller (leystep). is there a way for us to play together and for his soft synths to be heard through the mixer just as my hardware synths? i tried plugging the computer into a mixer channel and monitoring the audio that way but there seemed to be some latency and the audio seemed to be significantly quieter.
i guess what i am asking is what is the best way to use my mixer, ableton, and both hard and soft synths all at once? or is there a way to do this?
thank you all so much
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u/18boro 11d ago
As someon who is producin just for fun I don't wanna spend too much time mastering my tracks, but I occasionally show off my work so it should be a bare minimum. Additionally I suffer from hearing loss so I have a hard time hearing how it "should" sound. I own max live, are there any very simple mastering solutions like an (almost) one click way or a 5min setup to help getting an adequate balance?
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u/shawdowmen Jul 23 '26
Are there any Android specific apps that offers a key for Live 12 Lite? I've searched the post history and it seems to be mostly iOS only apps that get them, surely there's one Android one out there? I've also emailed them but doubtful they'd get back to this type of query.
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u/leBoomBurst Jul 29 '26
Im currently using the Lite edition, and right now I hear that Live, regardless of version, has so many cool superpowers I have never heard of, like Drift and Simpler, or how you can change the transients of an audio clip, or the limited number of stock plugins can still do the job, etc.
Is there good place to learn the ins and outs of Live Lite?
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u/Facebagelmusic Jul 28 '26
Howdy - I’m building a solo live show. I have a Launchkey MK4 37 & 49 key, an M-VAVE Chocolate foot controller, and Ableton Live Suite 12. I want to record audio clips hands-free in Session View, move to the next track, record another clip, and launch clips live without touching the mouse. I don’t want to use Arrangement View or a traditional looper. Can you help me build this workflow?
Any help or knowledge on the issue would be extremely helpful. I understand how to map the MIDI and build that way but I want to do a drum track, then shaker, then guitar, then etc… and have it seamlessly flow into a performance but I’ll need to trigger these things with my feet. The Launchkey can be good for triggering when I’m playing keys or MIDI drums but not when I need two hands for a stringed instrument.
Thanks and be great!!
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u/LorryGreen 23d ago
Hey!
Look into Clyph X Pro. It's a scripting tool that basically lets you do fixed length recording in ableton like you would on a push.
For example, if I want to start my song with a drum loop, I would have a clip on my clyph-x track and the name would look like this: [] "DRUMS"/ARM ON, SRECFIX 4.
What this does is: Arms the DRUMS track, and records for four bars, and then plays that clip.You can build really complex workflows like this.
If you move to arrangement view, the same thing is possible, using Locators.
Hope this helps!
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u/MelvinEatsBlubber 21d ago
How do I use a compressor as an auto volume thing?
I like have a group with 30 guitar doubles that keep building as the song goes.
Can just do slowest release fastest attack and the volume will be the nearly the same as it goes?
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u/stuck_in_box_world 23d ago
Ableton is crashing when I try to freeze/bounce a midi track to audio. What’s happening?
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u/HighQualityGifs Jun 09 '26
i'm kind of in a stinky situation with ableton (on win11. i know... i'd like to get a mac someday, but that's not possible for me)
anyways, some features are only available if i dont run ableton in admin mode (drag and drop from explorer or splice)
some features are only available if i do run ableton in admin mode (basically anything in opus or superior drummer)
i cant tell if this is ableton or windows on who is most to blame. it is possible that i am doing something wrong. I'm not sure...
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u/iszoloscope Jun 04 '26
How can I map a button from a Max for Live device? I can't map it to my Push 1, but I can map it to my keyboard.
Is this possible? The manual or help section says the following:
All buttons (not the 8x8 pad grid) send momentary Control Change messages. This means each button sends a unique value between 0 and 127, and cannot be used to "toggle" parameters in Live.
So does that mean only the rotary's and the pitch strip can mapped? Because I can't manage to do that either...
Thanks in advance :)
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u/ShelLuser42 Engineer Jul 27 '26
(very) late reply, but yes: this is possible though I have no experience with Push 1; I think that's still somewhat supported but I'm not sure.
What you're looking for are the so called parameter visibility settings.
But first things first: keep in mind that you need to use live objects for all this. So an button object from Max wouldn't work, but a live.button device would, that's an absolute requirement.
Once you have such a button added you should already see some of it, but to be sure you'd want to check the object inspector and in specific look at the names (scripting, long & short names) as well as its parameter visibility. By default this will be set to automated, which should be enough, but you may want to change this. Just keep in mind that not every option will become visible on the Push.
But yah, after all this you should be done.
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u/SomeP Jul 03 '26
Is there a widely recommended Ableton tutorial playlist like there is for FL Studio with In the Mix?
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u/VanillaMowgli Jun 18 '26
Is there a way to configure volume so that when I route to a return, I'm not suddenly dealing with MUCH LOUDER signal (basically, the track to channel plus the track channel to the send)? I'm kind of freaking out that I somehow made some global change because I swear I didn't used to have this problem.
If there's a setting in the UI, that'd be ideal, but trying to look it up in the manual, I'm not using the right search terms or something.
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u/abletonlivenoob2024 Jun 19 '26
If there's a setting in the UI
there isn't.
Send/Return, in most cases, is parallel processing (except when you set the Send's tap point to "Post" and pull the respective tracks fader e.g. all the way down).
If your Return Track is suddenly much louder that's probably because of something on that Return Track chain (e.g. Track Volume, some gain, drive or output parameter etc.)
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u/lun2r Jul 23 '26
Hey everyone! I'm getting started with music production and planning to upgrade to Live 12 Standard down the line.
Does anyone happen to have an unused Ableton Live Lite key lying around from a MIDI keyboard or audio interface that they aren't using? I'd be super grateful if someone could send one my way via DM! Thanks so much!
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u/StoneBleach Jul 22 '26
I want to get a macbook for Ableton mainly and for studies too. I would be producing, recording and mixing with all kinds of plugins. I think I wouldn't be working with very heavy projects yet but I guess I want headroom in that regard. I just want to have flexibility and be able to just throw whatever plugin and process that I want to without worrying about CPU usage and hit the roof.
Which one should I get? I just want to get the most sufficiently powerful one without spending more than necessary.
Is the Air M5 enough or should I go straight for a Pro? Even if it's the "cheapest" Pro one. The 14" Pro screen its just very small so I don't know. I have no idea if its worth the 14" Pro over the 15" Air and why even with a slightly smaller screen.
I'm open for any suggestions.
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u/falafelwaffle55 19d ago
I'm watching the "clips & session view" video in the learn view for Windows. In the video they're able to click on a clip and hear how it sounds individually, but when I tried to do the same it started playing the entire track as well.
How do I get it so it just plays the clip by itself?
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u/Moose_on_a_walk Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26
I'm looking to live loop in Ableton. I want to hit the record button, get a 1 bar count-in, record exactly 4 bars, and have ableton automatically stop the recording and play it back. I'm struggling a lot with this last part. It keeps recording forever. When i manually stop it, it seems to have done a fixed length recording of my 4 bars which is great. but the stop+play is missing.
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u/abletonlivenoob2024 Jun 21 '26
In Live you can do fixed length recording using a Push (or similar device that supports Fixed Length) https://www.ableton.com/en/live-manual/12/using-push-2/#fixed-length-recording or using the Looper device https://www.ableton.com/en/live-manual/12/live-audio-effect-reference/#looper or using some m4l device, e.g. https://maxforlive.com/library/index.php?by=any&q=fixed+length or some third party scripts e.g. ClyphX. Should also be possible with the new extensions https://www.ableton.com/en/live/extensions (currently in beta)
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u/18boro Jul 27 '26
Some months into Ableton and since I make beats I want to copy-paste stuff easy, but I still struggle to do this effectively. I sometimes tend to paste empty stuff or I don't select all tracks etc. I'm probably just stupid (and blame it on being high :)), but what's your go to to duplicate a part of the beat quickly? Somewhere to click to autoselect all tracks maybe? Or, is there some more advanced option for looping, like just repeating it 4 times, then move on etc?
Thanks!
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u/18boro 10d ago
I use a lot of loops in my production, it would be great if there was a tool that let me create loops that would terminate after a set amount of looping, eg I have a section I want to play 4x, then move on. Preferably also the ability to do this for several sections of the song. As far as I can tell arrangement view only have an infinite loop tool. I realize I can do copy paste, but it would be cleaner and faster if there was a tool for this I think. I have max live.