Thanks for the kind words! As I’ve discussed in past chats regarding structure, there is no defining necessity for any break, build-up or drop depending on the intended outcome of the track. This does not mean there is any reason to not have them, rather, it is a great test of all the ideas and cohesion of the elements of a track to not require any of these things to begin with. Try to hold the tension with smaller, less obvious touches first. My suggestion is to focus on the inherent groove and touches of melody over the course of 5 or 6 minutes to make the track interesting by itself without the need for any of these usual suspects. Then, when you do want a build or drop etc it will have even more impact because you’ve got the energy just right in the whole track - and the more pronounced elements will not feel forced, obvious or obligatory.
Sometimes it’s fun to loop 128 bars or so and enjoy noodling/overdubbing with some return fx, or just with cutoff and release of your synths for example. Utilise midi control to the max and group similar sounds etc, messing around with just the mute function on different elements will give you a good feel of how energy can shift in your tracks just by playing around. You might even end with something much more epic this way. Happy Music making…
Thank you for the reply! That helps a lot. I am going to try out these techniques in practice. I am also very interested in the sequencing. I once tried to make a ‘melody generator’ in Max for Live. So maybe I get back into that and use that for a melodic techno track.
Hey, if you don’t mind me asking…why do you route tracks to an audio bus rather than just grouping them? For instance, you take the three synth sounds and send their output to an audio track. Is there a difference or a practical reason behind doing it this way rather than grouping the tracks? Thanks in advance if you can answer my question.
Hi @budsticky… good question! They are essential the same in many ways except for a few things like individual track delay, no individual sends, visual reference… there are a few discussions about it on the ableton forums. If you just want to group and effect together - then the group function is great. I also prefer the traditional bussing because it is familiar. Perhaps the best way to think about it would be to group similar behaving channels together that will only require the same sends and track delay etc… then bus them for mixing later. The beauty is that we have all these options actually.
Hi Christian! I absolutely love your tutorial. Great stuff so far. Especially the bit where you calculate the time for the length of the kick drum. So helpful. I have a question regarding your bass part. I was wondering how you got the second note in your custom bass preset to sound like something is happening with the pitch. It sounds like the note is falling into the next bar when it loops. I was wondering how you did that? With a pitch envelope? Just curious. That little extra bit made a world of difference. Thank you in advance!
Hi @nikimcnally … thanks for the kind words! Great to hear you’re enjoying the techniques. In response to the bass… good question! I loaded up the project (was still in Ableton 9 with ANA original version) and it is definitely the amount of filter envelope for OSC 1 / Filter 1. I checked with both my ears and a tuner and there is a definite pitch slide as one decreases the Filter 1 envelope below zero. At the time of making the track I would have definitely enjoyed that small movement it created and therefore the sound is in the tutorial precisely the way it is. The mod1 for the velocity/cutoff just makes for the perfect little pitch dip/swing. The devil is in the detail. While this definitely does create what you’ve detected, let’s just call it a kind of blue note and a happy little accident. There was no conscious altering of the pitch envelope. In ANA 2 the mod matrix is more developed and there are some really sweet ways to control these sorts of things. In the meantime if you would like to brush up (as I just did) on the old ANA, here is the manual. I could not find any evidence exactly how pitch envelope may have been modulated with the settings on this preset. If you can isolate it then kudos and 100 extra bonus points!
Really awesome course! One thing that I missed is the process of how you created the final melody from the raw, unpolished notes/ideas, but I guess that’s where the magic happens.
@ottucsak … thanks again for the kind words! Glad you’re digging it… and in regards to the process for the final melody? You’ve got the tools now… this is your time to shine and make your own spicy batch of hot sauce. Take what you like, what you really dig, take the time to work on it, edit it, adjust it, cook it all up and let the magic happen
IMO that’s not the way you have to see things in that regard. All the courses on S.A ( and particularly the “How To Make” ones, aim at showing you how tutors create their tracks, design their sounds, put the arrangement together, mix/master…etc.
So it’s more about learning about the techniques, workflow & tricks that are shown in those tutorials.
While every & each tutors would have their own preferences when it comes to plugins & DAW, you can always adapt the lessons and use either stock plugins or find alternative free ones.
Getting to see how a track was made from scratch from established producers as if you were sitting in the studio with them is the real benefit of S.A tutorials, and adapting that to your own gears & tools is a very effective way to learn IMHO
not really.
I am paying my subscription in order to watch a course on Ableton for beginners, ‘How To’ to make something as a follow-along, a beginner like me is not able to find another route or a different approach as we have no idea how to do the basics which makes me question the benefits of such a subscription (canceled already).
for you it might be useful but for me it is not an Academy it is supposed to be but a subproduct, a promo tool to push the VST down the marketing channel while pretending to be a school.
I have made a mistake, it is not about money but more about giving a value for a price which they definitely don’t deliver
Well, that’s your opinion and I can not change it but the advantage of the subscription is to learn at your own pace and in many different areas and at different levels. There’s plenty of beginners courses on Ableton’s Live to start with, just dealing with the DAW itself & it’s stock plugins.
We all have been there once, don’t forget It’s quite confusing to know what to learn and where to grab the knowledge that you really need when you start, and again, that’s why I think that S.A is a real academy in the opposite, because of the diversity of the tutorials & their levels. And just about pricing & value, check other subscriptions or pricing for individual tutorials by other sites and IMHO, S.A is one of the most competitive !
You have to take advantage of the search features on the tutorial page, when starting it’s really important not to overwhelm yourself with too much advanced techniques.
It’s a long and never ending learning curve when it comes to music production, it really is and we all know how frustrating & cumbersome it can be. Give you time, learn your DAW & the “inside the box” method before watching more complex courses involving higher end plugins & tools.
Just as an example here are some courses to learn more about Live when starting, and the last one is a very recent one showing you a full “Filtered House” genre track only using Live 10 inside the box ( except for ANA 2 & KICK 2 )
But OK, not trying to convince you to keep your subscription active here, I’m just moderating & trying to help users, and the folks at S.A won’t blame you either, they are cool guys !
