Special Guest - Stallos' Ableton Live Tips

Today's guest tip is from the UK's Stallos - one of the most popular producers on my label group.

http://www.myspace.com/stallos

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Gear List

I've got a real shoe string studio setup.

My desktop is a Intel powered PC and I have a mac laptop for DJing and travelling

Unfortunately I dont have any hardware synths or outboard effects but would maybe look to buy something in the not too distant future - maybe one nice fat analog synth!

Todays plugins are awesome!

I use ableton live as my main host/step sequencer

I use a variety of 3rd party FX

Motu Ultralite

Genelec 8030A

Macbook Pro

Vestax VCM-600

MK-461C Keyboard

UC-33e

X-Session

Faderfox LX1

Faderfox LC2

Some Fave Plugins

synths

NI Massive

Sylenth1

GeForce Minimonsta

Microtonic

FX

DBlue Glitch

Audio Damage Bundle

Antares Filter

NI Electronic Instruments 2

Production Tips - Ableton Live

As an Ableton (Ableton Live 8 Full Version)
 user I find the session view a great way to get things started.

Its so easy to get a groove going and you can throw all your plugins, loops and hits at it.

The trick is progressing things beyond the 16 or 32 bar you have going into a full track!

Its very easy to spend many hours noodling away to your groove and ableton makes things like a giant DJ mix where you keep adding loops and noises. Its a bit of a double edge sword this as for me personally i think the best sounds come out of sessioning live but you need discipline not to while away the hours twiddling the cutoff nob! I am guilty as charged!

I try to use the scene layout to create different sections for my track, intro, bass drop, main part, brekdown etc. As much as I love automation in my arrangements……..for leads and melodies you cant beat a bit of hands on action. I have my synths mapped to midi controllers and usually record multiple versions of my melody line as I mess with different synth parameters. I then experiment with my FX racks and will do another 20 or so edits with different effects applied. Then its a case of finding the best bits and splicing these togther in something cool.

Another tip is for compression. I often deploy paralell compression where I layer up the original signal with the dry signal. This works very well on drums which I typically run through 1 main drum bus channel. You can do this easily inside a rack in live, create a rack with 2 layers 1 dry and then on a second layer add your favourite compressor. You could use a wide notch EQ setting to compress just the high and low end. Then mix dry with wet til you get things soundin nice. You get the punchiness of compressed drums without losing all the dynamics.

Sends are great and I always set up 4 sends when I start a new track so I can easily apply some effects to loops and synth parts. Ableton allows you the option of feeding sends back in to themselves to create some interesting feedbacks. Watch your levels on these as its easy to create some nasty distroted speaker melting feedback. What I tend to do is then route this feedback in to its own channel and record the results. Then I can use a side chain compressor or gate effects to create some interesting patterns from the noise.

One effect I have been loving lately is the new vocoder that comes with live 8. The noise setting on this works great with snare sounds. I like to increase the noise levels over 8-16 bars and play with the release settings to create longer hits with the snare to build tension. Again get this mapped up or automated until you achieve the sound you are looking for.

Final tip, less is more! Its easy to bombard a track with lots of channels but when you are ready to render out listen to each one in solo. Ask yourself if it really adds something or is it just clouding things in the mix. You have to be brutal and lose the mad synth line you spent hours on if it doesnt quite work - not always easy so an extra pair of ears helps for this

Poor Kriece gets to hear all my shadey versions when I have overcooked things with too many synths but can be objective on what parts need to go. Instead of quantity go for quality and spend time getting your individual sounds right - you dont need much to get a strong track going.

I find sometimes going into another room from the studio where i can still hear the music sometimes helps me pick out things that dont seem right.

Get on the forums too, everything I know about ableton I have learned from the manual and the forum. All the big outfits have good forums with users sharing tips and tricks, a great source of inspiration

Perserverance is the key so just keep going!