For some people, Ableton Live’s paradigm makes perfect sense. But others just can’t wrap their heads around it, so let’s explain — and start with a short story.

You Already Work with Loops. Really

I was talking with a friend at a music store that used to sell Apple Logic, and he was unhappy. “We can’t sell Logic anymore because Apple’s selling direct. The owner wants us to learn Ableton Live instead. But I’m a guitar player — I’m not into loops at all!”

I said, “Sure you are.” He looked at me incredulously. “Hum the first two measures of ‘Brown Sugar’ by the Rolling Stones.”

He obliged me: “dum-dum, dum dum da da-dum.”

“Okay,” I said. “Hum the next two measures.”

“Dum-dum, dum dum da da-dum.”

“And the next two measures.”

“Dum-dum, dum dum da da-dum.”

And then I pointed out that Keith Richards was looping the first two measures of “Brown Sugar” until he eventually changed it up. I said, “Just take the Live manual, do a find, and replace ‘loop’ with ‘riff,’ and it will start to make sense.” But let’s go further.

Session View Explained

When Ableton Live was introduced, one unique feature was the ability to load audio loops (since enhanced to include MIDI loops) into Cells in a matrix. The malcontents said it looked like a spreadsheet; but while Live’s matrix approach has since been imitated in other programs, it remains a breakthrough that reinvented how audio recording can work .

You can trigger any loop in any Cell at any time, as long as you don’t try to trigger more than one loop per matrix column. If a loop in a column is already playing, triggering a loop in the same column will transition to the new loop.

Placing loops in the same row of the matrix gives the option to play them as a Scene. When you click on a Scene, you trigger all loops in the row’s Cells simultaneously .

You may also trigger any Scene at any time, but you can’t trigger more than one Scene at a time. When you trigger a new Scene, the existing Scene transitions to playing the new one.

Live has another view — the Arrangement view, which looks like a familiar, linear DAW interface — and you can work with it as you would a DAW. However, you can also record what you do in Session view into the Arrangement view. So you can use Session View as a scratchpad and edit in Arrangement view, play your performance in Session view, and record it in Arrangement view, or combine the two approaches.

I’ve always considered Live a musical instrument disguised as software more than a recording studio disguised as software.

Loop Quantization

What makes Session view ideal for performance is that you can quantize loop starts to the beat, a measure, start immediately, etc. So if you quantize transitions to the nearest measure and trigger a Scene just before a new measure, the new Scene’s loops will start seamlessly — with no stuttering or hesitation—as soon as the new measure hits.

Furthermore, because only one Scene can be active, as soon as you click on a Scene, it will stop any Scenes that are currently playing, even if some of the longer loops haven’t finished yet. For example, suppose a Scene consists of 4-measure loops. If that Scene is playing, you’ve quantized to the nearest measure and trigger a new Scene just before the loops have played through the second measure, then the currently playing Scene will stop at the start of the third measure, and the new Scene will begin playing.

In a way, this is very much how the real world of musicians playing together works. Here’s why triggering scenes is like being a conductor or session leader.

Suppose you’re directing a quartet of musicians — drums, bass, guitar, and keyboards — and you want to cue when they play. Translated to Live, here’s what you’d see in Session View .

You tell the drummer to start playing and set a groove for four measures, which would happen when you click on the Scene Intro Groove. To signal the bass player to join in with the drummer and play four measures of a bass riff, you’d wait until just before the drums finish playing four measures and then click on the Scene Bass Starts.

When you want the keyboard player to join in, you click on the Scene Keys Start. Then suppose you want everyone to lay out except the bass; click on the Scene Bass Only. After you’ve had enough of the bass solo, click on the Scene Entire Band, and then everyone will be playing.

Meanwhile, you can solo over this, add vocals, return to previous scenes, add loops on the fly to create a new Scene, play loops in other columns — whatever you want. It really is that simple to get started.

As You Like It

One of the most interesting aspects of Live is that it seems like no two people use it the same way. I tend to set up all my Scenes in advance, hook up the faders to a control surface, and step through the Scenes while mixing the levels in real time. Others drag in loops when they feel like it, trigger loops in particular columns, and don’t use Scenes at all. Still others do a combination of the two techniques, while DJs use Live’s outstanding warping capabilities to create sets on the fly.

In terms of the user interface, Live has always had a drag-and-drop foundation. When I first started using Live and couldn’t figure out how to do common operations, it was a revelation when I realized I could just drag and drop most of the time. Other programs have adopted drag and drop as a mainstay since then, so it’s not quite as shocking today as it was 17 years ago. But you can drag loops, effects, instruments, and more in from the browser and click away.

Finally, a wide variety of hardware controllers is available for Live, and these controllers give the kind of hands-on control you’d expect with a musical instrument. And I’ve always considered Live a musical instrument disguised as software more than a recording studio disguised as software. Check out Sweetwater’s Ableton Live page to see all the available versions of Live, including a selection of controllers designed specifically for it.

I don’t necessarily see Live as something to replace a DAW, even though it can do that type of recording very capably. It’s a unique software program with a unique design philosophy, and once you wrap your head around what it can do, you’ll understand what makes it so fascinating — and satisfying — to such a wide group of musicians.

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