Slice n' Dice In Ableton - 3 Ways to Chop Your Breaks

[Guest ryanmcallister]

I've uploaded 3 new videos to youtube that demonstrate 3 different ways to slice up breaks in Live. Thought you guys might like em. More content at www.rm-sounds.com.

 

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[awepittance]

thanks ryan, will check these out

[schlucharski]

thanks for sharing man, super helpful for me as an ableton beginner, the way you explain it, is excellent, you cover all the relevant topics, I should say: best tutorial ever, your voice is nice too :)

[Guest ansgaria]

Really neat tutorials. I'm an avid user of the techniques, and you went over them really nice and detailed. Especially in the direct audio chopping it was like watching myself work.

[Guest zephyr]

Nice videos. I hope more people get to see these, since it isn't always apparent to new Live users how many useful editing/chopping workflows are possible.

 

Another common slicing/drums method I like to use involves clips in session view -- here's a simplified description:

 

+ Drop a cropped, looping break in an audio channel, and duplicate it a bunch of times. (Gives you a column full of identical breaks)

+ Set the start point of each copy at a different drum hit.

+ Lastly, assign all of the clips to different MIDI notes OR keys on the computer keyboard (using MIDI/KEY map mode in the upper right corner)

and you can play your break in time with the master tempo -- quantization set at whatever feels right. It's great for performance but also useful because you can record all of your drum noodling into the arrangement view and edit your resequenced drums as AUDIO.

 

if that isn't clear, I might be able to make a half-decent screencap of it

[Guest ryanmcallister]

thanks for watching guys!

[qnio]

the 3rd method is very useful for timestretching

[Guest Promo]

Good stuff I usually just use the audio sample and cut it up that way 'cause I only got Ableton 5 but this is very insightful. I got Ableton 8 on another pc so may have play with some of the features post 5 that you're using.

[awepittance]

 

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love this 3rd video, it's the closest thing i've seen in Abelton to my workflow style in Cubase. Really inspiring!

[Guest ryanmcallister]

Being anal about the tightness of my breaks I thought it was interesting to see you cleaning out the gaps of the break in the first video without zooming in on sample level to check for the transients. Plus, how did you determine the end of the loop, it looks a bit arbitrary. Does ableton automatically snap selection to zero crossings?

 

bit ot, but what program did you use to capture the screen and can you share the settings to get it hd? What's the output format, avi or do you automatically convert to mp4 for upload to youtube? I ask because I want to do some tutorials myself, but been having problems getting the settings right for hd.

jonas, honestly i know what you mean, but i prefer to just use my ears. if it sounds loose, or if i hear clicks, i get anal as well, but it's amazing how forgiving our ears can be with that kind of stuff. actually watching the tutorial again i couldn't believe the gaps in front of the snares in my snare rolls and stuff but it sounds fine so whatever right? ableton doesn't automatically snap to zero crossings, but there is an option to apply a very small fade to all of your clip edges (though i usually leave that off because sometimes it hurts your transients).

 

regarding the screencast, i use Screenflow. i shopped around and settled on that one as it's got a half decent video editor in it as well that lets you layer a bunch of video and audio however you want, and it's got all your bread n' butter visual settings (contrast, saturation, as well as handy functions like zooming, callouts, etc.). it also was one of the few that actually let you capture audio from your computer as well as external input from a mic or whatever, so that was essential.

 

i'm not a video guy so i am not too familiar with encoding settings other than what i learned ripping video in handbrake ;) but when i record i minimize my ableton window down to the exact dimensions for 720p hd video (i have a desktop background that's exactly 1280x720 that i use to align it). that makes a big difference, then i just crop the video down to that so everything is nice and clear. when i export i use the "web - high" settings (h264 .mov?)

 

Another common slicing/drums method I like to use involves clips in session view

i was thinking about including this as a 4th part, but it's too similar to part 2 with the sampler keyzones. with the sampler you just play it in, quantize it, then freeze/flatten it down to audio and you have the same result. the reason i prefer the sampler is simply my playing style, i prefer to play it in unquantized, as i find 16th/8th note clip quantization screws me up sometimes. if i were to turn off clip quantization though i wouldn't be able to correct it after i played it. personal taste though, i've totally used what you explained before and it's pretty cool as well. i was actually playing around with legato midi clip quantization today which is great fun, gonna do a vid up on that in the next few days.

 

love this 3rd video, it's the closest thing i've seen in Abelton to my workflow style in Cubase. Really inspiring!

word, part 3 is the way i do it all the time, just had to include the others for completeness. hopefully this vid will put to rest any doubt people have that ableton is not a capable audio editor. i agree it maybe falls behind a tiny bit, but i love the rest of it to death so much that i put up with it.

[Guest zephyr]

Another common slicing/drums method I like to use involves clips in session view

i was thinking about including this as a 4th part, but it's too similar to part 2 with the sampler keyzones. with the sampler you just play it in, quantize it, then freeze/flatten it down to audio and you have the same result. the reason i prefer the sampler is simply my playing style, i prefer to play it in unquantized, as i find 16th/8th note clip quantization screws me up sometimes. if i were to turn off clip quantization though i wouldn't be able to correct it after i played it. personal taste though, i've totally used what you explained before and it's pretty cool as well. i was actually playing around with legato midi clip quantization today which is great fun, gonna do a vid up on that in the next few days.

 

Yeah, it can definitely be a mess if you don't have really tight timing, and using a whole bunch of clips for drums looks silly when you can keep them organized in samplers/racks. The main reason I revisit this technique from time to time is the ability to manipulate the clip time stretch & transient settings before laying down rhythms/sounds. Unfortunately, sampler still can't do that. Also, it may be the fact that I'm a drummer and feel comfortable w/o quantization, but I like to back off from getting surgical in the sequencer now and then and just play in parts, mistakes and all.

 

The next time I'm doing some slicing/chopping, I'll try my hand at a screencap of some of my own goofy style, if that's cool. Don't want to pretend like I have anything all that eye-opening to piggyback with your videos Ryan, considering you covered everything so thoroughly.

[awepittance]

love this 3rd video, it's the closest thing i've seen in Abelton to my workflow style in Cubase. Really inspiring!

word, part 3 is the way i do it all the time, just had to include the others for completeness. hopefully this vid will put to rest any doubt people have that ableton is not a capable audio editor. i agree it maybe falls behind a tiny bit, but i love the rest of it to death so much that i put up with it.

 

that's absolutely what it did for me, thanks again. In fact im rewatching it right now trying to replicate my cubase editing style

[acid1]

NEVER TEACH THE WU TANG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Guest ryanmcallister]

The next time I'm doing some slicing/chopping, I'll try my hand at a screencap of some of my own goofy style, if that's cool. Don't want to pretend like I have anything all that eye-opening to piggyback with your videos Ryan, considering you covered everything so thoroughly.

i'd love to see it man, as would many other people around here i'm sure.

[wahrk]

I've always shied away from the third video's style of editing because of the inability to go back and tweak the different cuts and effects. I guess with that workflow you learn how to redo stuff pretty quickly though.

 

These are pretty inspiring. I'll have to go try it out.

[Guest ryanmcallister]

I've always shied away from the third video's style of editing because of the inability to go back and tweak the different cuts and effects. I guess with that workflow you learn how to redo stuff pretty quickly though.

 

These are pretty inspiring. I'll have to go try it out.

ah yes the classic fear of commitment. sometimes it's good to take that leap though and just go for it rather than keeping everything open ended. honestly for me the amount of benefits to that method far outweighs the potential commitment issues i may have, but i hear you.