r/abletonlive

really love this little guy! the move has increased my output tremendously in the 2 months ive had it.

Hi all, I know this is going to be almost impossible, but I still wanted to give it a shot.

In the picture there is a processing chain where I just cannot see what the first plugin /vst's is.

I think the second one spells FabfilterProQ4, and the third one is obviously a Delay, but the video is just a little too blurry to see the name of first plugin, which is the most important one since it is the audio source.

Does anybody by any chance recognize the length or something else? I know this is a stupid question but thanks in advance anyway! All the best!

Hi r/MaxForLive!

We're releasing an early version of a Max For Live device we've been working on, and would love to hear your feedback on it, including suggestions on how it can be improved.

It generates multiple MIDI loops in parallel (drums, bass, and synth) and inserts them directly into MIDI tracks in Live. Generation is controlled by 6 genre knobs (Acid, House, Techno, Trance, D&B, and Hip-Hop), 6 mood knobs (Darkness, Energy, Complexity, Density, Groove, and Weirdness) as well as an optional musical key. So you can really dial in the sound you want and mix between genres dynamically.

The idea behind it is to quickly generate editable ideas in MIDI that you can play back with any instrument.

You can download the device and user guide here.

In the device itself there's also a link to a feedback form. If you try it out, we'd appreciate any comments or feedback there or in the thread here as well.

https://youtube.com/shorts/59APukzIH8k?si=rNPw\_6BMkEnfd8AS

Hi everyone, im going to be writing this short post on my approach to music production, mixing and getting songs done after completing 1000+ songs in the last 15 years of my career.

I want to start by saying that most of the stuff i will be writing here are my approach and there is not right or wrong of doing things, whatever sounds good to you, go with that. Yes there are some basic universal rules but i found that sometimes breaking them leads to new ideas and discoveries.

1. Always finish the arrangement.
Whatever the genre — pop, EDM, R&B, build the habit of finishing, even when you hate the idea. You can trash it later. Finishing is what actually teaches you arrangement. Most of the time we just do the intro, drop and call it a day, avoid doing this.

2. Don't delete ideas you hate.
The song in this video sat untouched for almost a year. I reopened it one day and got a whole new wave of inspiration (idea #1). Fresh ears can spark new ideas.

3. Sound selection is everything.
When producers hate their mix, the real problem is usually the sounds, not the mix. Learn to pick good drums, basses, etc. from the start. Don't expect a mixing or mastering engineer to save it

4. Nail your drums first.
If the drums sound professional, everything else follows. I'll spend 4–6 hours getting them right, and it's always worth it.

5. Use sidechaining properly.
I use ShaperBox, but any decent volume sidechain plugin works. This one habit can improve a record by 30–40%. It's that important for a balanced mix.

6. Aim for -8dB to -10dB of master headroom.
It shifts by genre, but that's my usual target. It leaves room for the "glue" stage — the saturators, compressors, and coloring effects I add to the master bus that push the volume up.

7. Try vocal (frequency) sidechaining.
Most pop mixes I sidechain the synths and basslines to the vocal with Soothe2. It ducks those frequencies out of the way only when the vocal is playing, carving out the exact space your vocals need to sit perfectly. (will make a video on this coming.)

8. Multi-band Compression (A MUST)
One of my MOST favorite tricks is the LinPhase multiband or a similar multiband compressor like the ableton stock one in the master. Multiband does soo much for balancing your mix and gives it so much life. There is this preset on the Linphase multiband plugin called "Multi-Electro Mastering" by greg wells that just makes your mix get so much balance, highly recommend!

Last one and this is optional depending on what type of genres your going for but saturate your master, not distortion tho! - I personally use Tape Saturation on my master from the J37 and use this preset called "Fat Tight & Open" and slightly adjust the output - gives the song more weight/character, another option that works almost as good is the Magma Tubes.

As for the project file, please DM directly if you want a full copy, its done in Ableton Live 11.

Hope you find this useful! blessings

So I just got my Akai MPK mini 4 and tried to set it up.

Everything went good until I actually started to use it and I'll explain:

When I'm plugging it to my computer everything works fine, I'm able to jump from DAW to plug in mode

The problem start when I go to either Studio Instrument Collection (Akai new software) or Ableton Live 12.

No matter what mode I'm in, whether it's DAW or plug in, I'm able to play both the SIC or the DAW.

It causes weird problems on the Ableton Live which is where I try to mainly work.

Seems like the USB input doesn't understand that I have DAW channel and Plug in channel.

I added pictures in the links of the setting in Ableton and picture of the Mpk mini while connected. Also notice that sometimes the RGB of the pads are working, sometimes they don't and sometimes they just randomly pick all kind of colors..

Really need help guys I'm lost and want to start make music

https://i.imgur.com/jJk1rw7.png https://i.imgur.com/SgSwEEV.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/KkuTgKT.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/HaynUs4.jpeg

Edit:

Another weird thing that happens: I can control DAW function (record, play, etc.) in plug in mode! It's so frustrating..

Quick backstory: I came up from Grand Prairie, TX doing my "YouTube learning" on my school's library computers because we couldn't afford one at home. Years later I ended up in LA getting mentored by one of Lady Gaga's producers. I walked in thinking vocal production was all about EQ, compression, tuning, and gear.

I was wrong.

1. Record EVERYTHING. Every mumble counts.

First real session, I froze up just watching everyone. My mentor snapped me out of it: "whenever you have an artist in the studio, everything they mumble, sing, or suggest counts, capture it on a voice memo." The best hook of the night usually isn't the take you were "rolling" for. It's the thing the artist throws out casually in the back of the room. If you're not capturing it, you're losing songs. "High Right Now" for Tyla Yaweh literally started as the songwriter mumbling a line no one was recording on purpose.

2. The performance is 90% psychology, 10% mic technique.
My mentor would get an artist into the zone by asking "why do you do what you do?", which pulls them back into old memories and real emotion. Suddenly they're not performing, they'refeeling.

He'd tell them to take their pain, look at it like a third person, and turn it into fuel. Your brain retains and performs better under emotion. A comfortable, emotionally-open artist gives you a take you can't fix in post no matter how good your chain is.

3. Mirror the person before you touch the vocal.
He'd match the artist's energy, posture, vocabulary, even dress similar to them. It builds this instant familiarity and trust, and a person who trusts you drops their guard and actually sings from a real place. Get to know them first. Talk life. THEN hit record.

4. You learn it by being thrown under THE BUS!!!.
They'd hand me the main chair mid-session with no warning, "engineer Tiffany while I take a break." Terrifying, but you learn faster performing under pressure than watching for a year. My Mentor would call it the Pygmalion Effect. Stop just studying it. Go do the reps in the room.

Extra Gems:

Melody first, lyrics second, always. I noticed noticed this was my mentor's repeating pattern on every song. Nail the melody for a section (say the chorus), then write the lyrics into that melody from the chosen topic. Most amateurs do it backwards (lyrics first, then force a melody on).

Talk before you write. Before a single note, He would just talk random life stuff from the previous weekend, or something emotional from the past. He lets the conversation "evolve and evolve until a dope line or cool phrase pops up," then builds the section around that phrase. The song is hiding in the conversation, not the DAW.

The "5 personal questions." He'd literally tell an artist "okay, now I'm going to ask you 5 personal questions" like an FBI-interrogation style to find something real the artist is actually going through. You write around that, because it's something anyone can relate to. That relatability is the whole point.

The gear/technical stuff you can learn on YouTube for free (trust me, I did). But knowing how to make a human being comfortable enough to give you their best take, that's the actual job. My mentor used to say it best: "The music is the easy part."

Now for the song/video attached, this is a singer/artist that was going under so much stress from personal life challenges. I took everything i learned from my mentor back in los angeles and applied everything. If you have a great singer in the room and great execution skills, this is what you get out of the artist most of the time. Sometimes you tear up a little bit during these deep conversations but once they get on the mic, it's game over.

As for the technical stuff, less is always better. You cant make a turd smell good no matter how much you try to spray it with febreze lol. If the vocal feels off, you will never fix it no matter how much EQ or reverb you add.

Gear used:

Mic - Neumann u87
Neve Pre-Amp
Kaotica Eyeball
Universal Audio - Apollo Twin
the MOST IMPORTANT ONE - Pillow and a blanket fort lol
Emotions

I attached the project file if anyone wants to learn from it. Much love!

Session File: https://app.mvssive.net/session/82ba6e4759c240838053d71d0e395680

Hope this helps somebody. Stay hungry, stay humble. 🙏

Been working on a Max for Live device that builds out arrangement skeletons based on genre/style templates (Jump Up, Neuro, Liquid, Jungle, etc.) pick a style, hit Build, and it drops locators + labeled clips across the whole track, sets BPM/Key/Scale to match, instead of starting from a blank timeline every time.

The part I keep going back and forth on: how genre-specific should arrangement logic actually be? Right now each style has its own bar map and section breakdown modeled after real reference tracks, but I'm curious whether other producers here template their arrangements at all, or if it's something that resists being systematized past a certain point, different scenes tend to have very different ideas about where a build-up should sit or how long a drop should run.

Still ironing out some UI issues on the mode selection side, so this isn't a finished/polished thing yet, more curious about the underlying approach than showing off a final product. Happy to share the device with anyone who wants to poke at it, no strings attached.

Hi guys! I recently started making music in Ableton. I love synthwave, and this was my first attempt at making a song. It's not finished yet and it hasn't been mastered—I’m still working on the final mix.

I’d love to hear your thoughts! What do you think I should add, remove, or change? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

how am i getting whole 1.32db reduction on the true peak limiter?

this is like my mastering chain for beats