Seeing as though we already have a producer FAQ sticky and that a few of us are developing our skills as digital DJ's too, I thought it would be good to start a sticky thread where we can all share our Ableton tips and tricks.  

I'll get the ball rolling with Dummy Clips.

Below are links to 3 videos which explain this very well.

http://www.vimeo.com/groups/15554/videos/758820

http://www.vimeo.com/groups/15554/videos/775568

http://www.vimeo.com/groups/15554/videos/824612

(Sorry, I couldn't embed those).

In those videos, he demonstrates how you send the audio from one channel directly into the Dummy Clips channel. I prefer to have a few channels for Dummy Clips and share those with all the track channels and routing on the fly straight to the Dummy's is tricky with his method. There is a better way to route to these channels using the sends and returns.

- Set up an audio channel, a return channel and a dummy clips channel.

- Set the return channel to send it's sent signal to the dummy clips channel.

- Set the dummy channel to receive it's audio from the return channel and keep it's monitor source set as IN.

- Using the send rotary on the audio channel, full turn that clockwise to send the full signal to the dummy clips channel. You'll notice that the volume doubles, it's just a case of dropping the volume fader on the audio channel at the same time you turn the send rotary.

- Job done. You can set up as many audio channels as you wish and quickly assign that to the dummy clips channel using that send. Repeat for as many dummy channels as you like.

Basic Sidechaining - Sidechain Compression

Setting up a Pioneer DJM800 to use as a midi controller for Ableton.

(Taken from another forum)

Creating a DJ audio effect rack.

This will show you how to create your own DJ audio effect rack. You can use this on whatever channels you'd like but I'd keep it just for your main deck channels. Once I've shown you the basics, you're free to create an effect rack in whatever way you choose.

- Set up an audio channel.

- Open the browser, select the effects panel, select audio effects and drag the effect rack into your audio channel.

- I'm going to create a rack that contains similar controls to that you would find on a standard high end mixer. This controls would be a set of EQ's, A L/P & H/P filter and Reverb. Therefore, go back into your browser, in audio effects, drag an EQ3 into your effect rack into that audio channel. Also drag 2 auto filters and a reverb.

- In the effect rack, under the on/off switch for the rack, is a macro utility. Select this and click on map mode. Select the macro you wish to assign, click it's map mode and then highlight the effect you'd like it control, say the low on the EQ3. When it is mapped, it'll show unmap on the macro. Exit map mode, click on the glocal midi map mode and select the macro rotary and assign that to your midi controller. Exit midi map mode and turn up that midi controller rotary. You'll see the macro rotary move and also the Low on the EQ3 move too. Now assign the Mid and Hi's on the EQ3 in the same manor. The reason for assigning these to macros is to make it easier to see what's being activated inside the rack. You don't have to use the macro function, you can assign a midi control directly to the parameter you wish to activate but it does make it quicker to look straight at your macro setup to the whole rack. Personal preference really I suppose.

- Now for the first auto filter. Select on the first filter, the H/P function and then play around with the settings to find something you're happy with. Go into the macro window, open map mode, select the macro and then select the KH'z control on the filter, exit macro mapping mode. Enter midi map mode and assign a rotary to that macro. Exit map mode. Now you'll see when you move the midi controller rotary, you now have a lovely filter on it  Repeat sequence for the second filter but assign a L/P accordingly.

- I'll leave you to figure out the Reverb one. Just follow the instructions for the last few.

- It's a good idea to label your macro controls. Just right click on the title of the macro and select rename.

- Under the on/off switch for the effect rack, under the macro option and the next one, the chain option, is the image of the effcts. Make sure this is turned off and it'll hide your effect windows so it becomes a bit neater.

Now you know how to make an effect rack, you're now free to construct one to your own liking.

Here's a good one. I sometimes use my return channels for a standard Delay or Reverb. The problem with this is that the more audio signal you send to the return channels, the volume increases and sounds shit. To stop this from occurring, take a look in your audio effects, under Utlity, drag an inverter on to the return channel, place it before your effect. Now when you send audio, it'll hit the inverter first, drop the signal down slightly and make your effect much more pleasent sounding.

Cutting a tune up into phrases.

As you can see from the video above, that DJ is demonstating phrase DJing. He doesn't explain how to split your tune up into these phrases so I will.

- Drag a tune into an audio channel and warp it then save!!!!!!!!!!

- Set the loop to start from the first beat and give it a length of 32.

- Right click on the loop and select crop sample. This will cut your tune (doesn't actually destroy the original tune, only chops it in Ableton).

- Rename it to say Intro by right clicking and selecting rename.

- Repeat for the rest of the tune. Now it's up to you how you split up the tune. You could split every 32. I split so that I have an Intro, Main Build, Breakdowns, Main Track, Outro loop and I find this works best for me. You might just like it every 32, whatever.

- If you wish to save your loops as a seperate file, I'm not sure how to do that yet as I just save them in my template at the moment. There should be an export option though. I'll have a look later.

Here's a few links to some more effects that you can install.

http://www.abletonlivedj.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=31&func=select&id=1

http://www.abletonlivedj.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=31&func=select&id=6

Midi controllers that I think could work well with Ableton.

Novation Remote Zero SL - £159 http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/product/13732-novation-remote-zero-sl.html

Akai APC40 - £379 http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/product/39972-akai-apc40.html

M-Audio UC-33e - £149.99 http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/product/3826-m-audio-uc-33e-advanced-usb-midi-control-surface.html

CME Bitstream 3X - £309.99 http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/product/15626-cme-bitstream-3x.html

Vestax VCM-600 - £599 http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/product/41548-vestax-vcm-600.html

Allen & Heath Xone 1D - £197 http://www.decks.co.uk/products/allen_heath/Xone_1D_grey

Graphite or Silver.

Allen & Heath Xone 2D - £472 http://www.decks.co.uk/products/allen_heath/Xone_2D_Grey

Graphite or Silver

Kenton Killamix Mini - £249 http://www.htfr.com/more-info/MR248942

DJ mixers that incorporate midi controls.

Pioneer DJM700              DJM700s

     Korg Zero4                Korg Zero 8

           Ecler EVO4                EVO5

Allen & Heath

            Xone 4D                      

     Pioneer DJM800                 DJM800 Rotary

Midi mapping an external controller and adjusting the CC perameters.

Right, to map an external controller in Ableton is simple but first, I'll give you instructions on how to install the controller in Ableton's preferences.

- Connect your controller via USB into the computer running Ableton.

- Look at the top, far right hand of Ableton's window. There is a section of icons. One is a keyboard symbol, the next is the KEY mapping mode, next to that are 2 little boxes. The top one is what you need to look at. Turn a rotary on your controller and you should see a light come on as you move the knob. This shows you that Ableton can see external midi messages. That's good.

- Now open up your preferences window. In OSX, it's CMD + , or LIVE on the toolbar and select Preferences. Not sure what it is on Windows, probably FILE > Preferences, maybe OPTIONS > Preferences, can't remember.

- Move to the MIDI SYNC tab and you should see in the midi ports section, your controller listed. You need to turn on the Track and Remote options.

- Close the Preferences window, go back to your session window and open up an Audio channel (right click, add audio channel). Now click the MIDI icon in the top far right hand screen. All the controls that can be assigned to a controller are lit up in Blue.

- Select the volume control on your audio channel by clicking on it, it will place a box around that control. Now move a fader on your external controller and you'll see some numbers pop on to that volume control. Now take off the MIDI map mode by clicking the MIDI icon again and the blue colours go away. Now when you move your fader, Ableton responds by moving the volume on your audio channel.

- What you'll find is that when push your external fader up to the top position, Ableton's volume fader moves right to the top also. Now this isn't good as that means it'll push that channel into the red, therefore distorting. So, you'll need to enter the MIDI map mode again, making sure that your Browser tab is viewable, now you'll see the browser shows your midi control parameter.

- Look for the CC that says Track Volume and to the far right hand side of it, is a MAX reading. It'll be set to 6.00db. You need to change it to 0.00db, press return.

- Take off MIDI map mode and now when you move the external fader, the volume fader in Ableton only goes as far as the clipping point. 

Now get mapping

In reply to

In reply to

- If you wish to save your loops as a seperate file, I'm not sure how to do that yet as I just save them in my template at the moment. There should be an export option though. I'll have a look later.

Click on the loop to highlight it then File - Render Selection

Nice one DOT, thanks

You must have loads to add to this thread too.

Assigning the loop function to a controller.

If you look in the clip window, there is a loop function. You should be familar with this if you've warped a track according to my method above. What you can do is assign this to a midi device. Ideally you need 3 spare buttons on your controller to do this.

- Enter MIDI mapping mode.

- Double click a track to view it's clip waveform. High light the LOOP icon the press one of your controller buttons.

- Now select the loop start set point, assign another controller button.

- Select the loop end set point and assign again to a controller button.

- Exit MIDI map mode.

Now, this function will work on whatever clip you are viewing. You can only activate it when you can see the waveform. This means that activating this function will not place a loop on all the clips  Just the clip you're viewing.

Depends what mood I'm in mate. I still love the hands on feel when mixing with my CDJ's and don't think I'll ever stop that. I tend to just mix between the two really, few tracks with a CDJ and a few with Ableton. I use a few effects over the Ableton stuff but it's never overused. I'm still messing around with it all at the moment though.

PM me the link Jon an ill have a go, ive only just worked out most of it myself... when it comes to changing in BPM though, i havent got a clue.

Ive spent hours warping tunes only to find ive only made them worse  Yesterday I watched a video though (and ive watched loads which didnt help), an its all starting to come together!

The videos here if ya aint seen it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP9NqBvgptM

find the video any good? I found it better to work with the transients rather than making warp markers.. dont know how it works but seems to work for me. Used to be able to warp every other 1 but aint failed so far.

Probably find it difficult with diff bpm's and time signatures tho..

http://www.cosm.co.nz/index.php?option=com_community&view=videos&catid=3

^^^ Plenty Of Ableton tutorial Vids, and project files to use and follow.

Also all the music he makes is free (loads of genres)

http://www.cosm.co.nz/ 

I use ableton for my productions and much prefer it over cubase

Got myself a akai apc20 last week and have to say that I am loving it, for my fx' I have set up a dummy channel and that works a treat, it's pre mapped what was great to start with but now I started to re-map it to suit me and it's piss easy to do