top of page

Intro To Ableton Live

Ableton Live (Live) has been used for live playback of audio tracks for many, many, years. For those who have never worked on a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) before, it can be quite complicated, but it is by far the most versatile tool for the playback of multitracks. It is the most expensive option ($99 to $749). However, there are Live templates that certain worship groups sell or give away that will allow you to jump right in to Live without any previous experience. For example, Ian McIntosh from Jesus Culture makes his Ableton template available for others to use. 

 

Over the last few years, the biggest complaint that I have heard against Live is that it is complicated. First, I totally agree. For someone who has never used a DAW, Ableton can be very confusing.  I worked with Ableton Live for my entire time at Cherry Hills. For the first three years it was very confusing. Part of that is because Ableton has many different routes to achieve the same result. This unfortunately causes it to be very difficult to just jump right in and use. That is why people like myself and Ian McIntosh have developed templates for multitrack playback that simplify the process. The way that we were running multitracks was so time consuming and confusing that I ended up developing my own template for live playback which helped me to streamline the preparation and execution processes of our tracks at Cherry Hills. These templates allow churches of all sizes to learn a very minimal amount to be able to utilize Live, the most  powerful and versatile software on the market.

In this next video, I talk about how to get started in Ableton Live, what you need to purchase and where to get it. Also included on this page are some helpful hotkeys that will help streamline your programming process.​​

​

  • For Mac: â€‹

    • Select All = Command + A

    • Group tracks = Select tracks you want to group and press Command + G

    • Zoom in and out = Command + Mouse wheel when you have a mouse. Also, you can zoom in the same way you would on a laptop or if using a trackpad. Another way is within Ableton itself. There is a bar on the top of the arrangement view window that when hovered over, turns your cursor into a magnifying glass. You can click here and drag your mouse up and down to zoom in and out. 

    • When you select multiple items in Ableton, the changes that you make to one track apply to all the tracks.

    • The numbers that are lit up yellow on the channel are your on/off buttons.

    • When you click and drag in the arrangement window and press Command + L, it will loop that selected section. Simply hit Command + L again to disable this when you’re done looping. 

    • To solo a track, either click on the S in the track or select the track and press S on your keyboard. 

    • To select multiple tracks in succession, shift+Click will select them.

    • To select multiple tracks not in succession, command+click will allow you to do this. 

    • Switch between Arrangement and Session view with the Tab key. 

    • Open detailed view = Shift + Tab

Since we’re specifically talking about multitrack playback in Ableton, before diving into preparing your tracks you will first need to purchase Ableton Live (Live). There are three different versions: Intro, Standard, and Suite. For multitrack playback, you will want to buy either Standard ($449) or Suite ($749). This is because Intro ($99) only allows you to have up to 16 audio and midi tracks. For multitrack playback you will need much more than this. Once you have acquired the Ableton Live software from their website (ableton.com), the next part of the process is acquiring your tracks. This can be done by going to multitrack.com. Once there, on the top right create a new account or sign in if you have an existing account. Once you have an account, on the top right of webpage you will see the magnifying glass for searching. Simply click on this and search for the song you are want tracks for. Once the results populate, you click on the song. It will bring you to a page with many options, and what interface you decide upon will determine your purchase. For Live, you will need to purchase the multitrack stems for $39 per song. There are two different options though, m4a and WAV. You may be tempted to purchase m4a since it’s $5 cheaper, but don’t do it. Just purchase the $39 WAV bundle. It includes a lot of things that will help you get going and interface with Live better. 

bottom of page