How To Program A Beat Using Ableton Live 11 | Music Radar - video Dailymotion

Music Radar

Tutorial using Ableton Live 11 Lite with Ski Oakenfull - part of the Music Radar series

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00:00Hi everyone, welcome back to this video series on getting started with Ableton Live Lite.

00:05So in the first video I showed you how to set everything up as well as giving you a

00:09quick tour of the different areas in Live. Now it's time to start making some music.

00:14In this video we're going to lay down the foundations of a track by programming a drum

00:17beat and introducing a few tricks and tips along the way. So let's get into it.

00:23Okay, so you can see here in the tracks area we have two MIDI tracks and two audio tracks by default.

00:30So we're going to look for some drum sounds. So let's go to the browser, click on drums

00:34and we can actually audition these kits to see what they sound like.

00:47I quite like that one, that's called Drill A Kit. So how do we actually use that kit

00:51to program a beat? Well there's a couple of ways we can do this. We can either double

00:55click on it and it will load into the track that's selected here. Let's just try that.

01:02There we go. Or you can actually drag that onto the track as well. There we go. And what

01:09we can see here is something called a drum rack and we can just click on these sounds

01:15here to hear what they sound like. So on the tracks you can see these spaces here are

01:22called clips and this is where we can actually record in some MIDI information and loop it.

01:28So we're going to record one into this first clip here and I'm just going to create a blank

01:33clip just by double clicking. And you can see that it shows this clip view here and

01:38then all the drum sounds are listed on the left hand side. Now if I click on this little

01:43button here, this is called the MIDI Editor Preview button, and what that will allow us

01:49to do is just click on the little keyboard there and listen to the sounds. So I'm just

01:57going to open this up a little bit to make it a little bit bigger. There we go. And we're

02:02actually going to draw some of these sounds in. So let's start with the kick drum and

02:06we're going to go for a very simple house pattern. So let's draw in a pattern using

02:11the grid here. So I'm going to use the pencil tool and we can access this just by pressing

02:17B. And you can see the cursor turns into a pencil. We can also control click and we can

02:23turn draw mode on there as well. So let's just put in a very simple kick pattern. So

02:32that's coming on every beat of the bar. And you can now press play on this clip and it

02:37will play as a one bar loop. So now let's try adding a clap sound. So let's just play

02:46that again. And I'm going to put that on beat two and four. And now let's try a hi-hat and

02:57that's going to be on the offbeat. So that's going to be on beat two and four. And now

03:07let's try a hi-hat. So that's one method of creating a pattern. We can also actually use

03:13a keyboard or even our QWERTY keyboard to play sounds over the top live. So this is

03:17currently a one bar loop. I'm going to click on this button here, duplicate, and then that's

03:22going to turn it into a two bar loop. So you can see it's copied over everything I've just

03:26programmed in. I'm going to press B again to get out of the draw mode. And this button

03:31here turns on or off the computer MIDI keyboard. And you can see it's actually turned on at

03:35the moment. So what I can do is use these keys here to actually play the sounds. Now

03:39there's nothing coming out at the moment. That's because I need to change the octave.

03:45If I press the key here, you can see that it's lighting up yellow there. But I need

03:49to put it down to two octaves so that it actually plays something. And Z and X change the octave.

03:54Here we go. Let's put it down one more. So that's the pattern. Now let's try to play

04:05it. Okay, so let's play the clip and we can jam something over the top of it. And note

04:10that we can actually switch between the clip view and the device view just by clicking

04:14here. So I'm going to play along, come up with some ideas, and then when I'm ready,

04:19I'm going to click on this button here, which is the session record button, and this will

04:24overdub onto this MIDI clip what I've just played. So let's just press play now. I quite

04:32like that. So let's just hit this now and we can record it in. So when I was drawing

04:44in those drum sounds, it was snapping them automatically to the grid, whereas just playing

04:48in live, it means it might not be in time. And if we just zoom in with our mouse here,

04:56you can see that it's not completely lined up to the grid. So there's a function in Ableton

05:03Live called quantize, and this will actually put anything we've played in time for us.

05:09So if we go up to the edit menu here and go to quantize settings, and this is where we

05:15can determine what type of quantize we want. We're going to make this to the current grid,

05:20click on okay, and you can see that it's actually just quantized it for us. And once

05:26we've set our quantize settings, we can just go to quantize any time and it will quantize

05:31it for us, or there's a key command which is command U, and that will put it in time.

05:38When using keyboard shortcuts with Windows, just use control instead of command, for example.

05:43There's a link in the description for a full comparison of Windows and Mac shortcuts. Okay,

05:49so let's listen to that now. Okay, now another thing I want to do is to give this a bit more

06:00of a feel, and I'm going to add some swing to do this. So if we go over to the browser

06:05menu here and just click on grooves, this is where we can choose which groove we want.

06:10I'm going to choose this one here which is swing 16th 73, and I'm just going to double

06:17click on that, and that's going to put that into something called the groove pool. Now

06:22once this is in the groove pool, I can then apply this swing or this groove to any of

06:28the clips that I'm working on, and we can just do this from the clip groove setting

06:32in the clip view here. So there you go, it's appeared. I'm going to turn it on. Now let's

06:37play it. You can see it's very, very heavily swung, but over here we have the global groove

06:45amount, so we can actually tone this down so it's not swinging quite so much. The advantage

06:56of this is that we can apply this groove to any of the clips so they all have the same

07:00groove setting. Okay, so we've got our first clip. I'm happy with that. So now what I want

07:06to do is to create some variations of this beat, and what I can actually do is to duplicate

07:11this clip to the next clip slot, and I can just do this by pressing Command D, and you

07:17can see that it creates an exact copy of that clip. So what I'm going to do with this clip,

07:23I'm just going to change the hi-hat pattern so that it's playing 16th notes. So I'm just

07:28going to select all of those previous hi-hats I put in, press delete, and then I'm going

07:33to press B to bring back the pencil tool, and if I hold down Option and just drag this

07:39across the grid, you can see it's created 16th notes. Now the reason I pressed Option

07:49was to make sure that it just stayed on that note. If I didn't, then it's going to move

07:55around, which is not what we want. So let's just delete those, and let's just play the

08:00clip and listen to what it sounds like. And you can see that because I duplicated that

08:07clip, it's also applied that groove to that clip as well. Now I can actually switch between

08:12these two clips. Now the great thing about Session View are the horizontal lines, and

08:22these are called scenes, and it means we can actually build up an arrangement or structure

08:26of our track by triggering them. And we can do that from the master track just by clicking

08:30on play, and then any clips that are in that scene will be triggered. Okay, so we're going

08:38to create one final variation of this beat. So this time I'm going to duplicate the clip

08:43in a different way. I'm actually just going to hold down Option and then drag it onto

08:47that third clip slot. Now for this beat, I actually want to change the clip back to a

08:53one bar loop. So what I can do is just go to loop brace, change it back to one bar,

09:01and I'm going to press Control, and I'm actually going to crop the clip, and that's just going

09:04to get rid of that second bar and just make it one bar again. Okay, so let's just reprogram

09:10the hi-hats. I'm just going to select the hi-hats and those rims as well, and let's

09:15program a bit more of a syncopated rhythm. So I'm just going to draw in these notes,

09:23and then let's listen to that. Great, and let's try putting in an extra snare here.

09:36Let's put in this sound. Great, okay, so we've got three patterns. Let's just quickly play

09:44them through again. Now we're going to look at mixing and balancing our sounds in a later

10:02video, but I just want to show you how we can quickly do that with this drum kit. So

10:06if I just click on this triangle here, and then again there, this is where we can see

10:10the levels of all our drum sounds. Now I want to take this snare down a little bit.

10:17It's a little bit loud. Maybe this clap as well. Now a really important thing to do once

10:30we've done some work is to save it. So I'm going to go here to Save Live Set, and then

10:38that's going to ask me where I want to save it to. Let's call it House Beat 1. Before

10:48we move on with the next video, I wanted to mention templates, as these can be a great

10:52way to get inspiration and get up and running quickly. So we can go over to the Templates

10:56section in the browser here and try this one, Demo & Sketch, and we have a whole range of

11:02different styles. We've got Slow Rock, Straight Rock, Pop, Grunge Rock, Reggaeton, Classic

11:09Disco, and if we click on the Master Tracks here, it's going to choose the appropriate

11:13tempo for us. So let's just click on Reggaeton for example. Go to Classic Disco. And what's

11:21more, if we click on the track, we can actually change the drum kit as well that's being played.

11:33So let's try an 808 kit, 909. Great, and then there are some other tracks set up here, which

11:41are some keyboard sounds, and some bass sounds, and this is where you can record some vocals

11:48as well. So I thoroughly recommend checking out that to get some inspiration and get you

11:52started on a track. Okay, cool. So we've got our first part down. In the next video, I'm

11:58going to show you how to add a bass line to go with the beat, along with a few MIDI editing

12:02tricks.

How To Program A Beat Using Ableton Live 11 | Music Radar

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