Starting a Club Track in Live 9

Sample Selection

See that, yes, in fact all the samples chosen for this project are all randomly picked.

Loading up the Channels

Learn how you can make your own time saving default channel strips for MIDI and Audio channels. Watch as Tim splits up the random samples into appropriate drum racks/simpler channels and then goes through to audition each of the samples and loops that were chosen for the project.

Pre-Planning

Tim goes over the thought process for what kind of track you are going to make. Before starting, have at least a vague idea of what you'd like to accomplish… this isn't always true, but it does help with coming up with a direction initially.

Making the Tough Lead

In this video Tim sets up the master compressor and limiter. He then gets going on the initial lead sound creation. Using Analog, watch as Tim uses the fine art of "Noodling" to come up with a selection of MIDI clips which later get chopped and changed in arrange view. Learn how to use Session view to create a palette of sounds and riffs to use later on in arrange view. You'll also learn some valuable time saving navigation and editing tips to help you find those golden gems in your MIDI recordings.

Extending the Tough Lead

In this video you'll see how to layer up your sounds to make them sound large! You'll see how to make sounds bigger by applying the same concept as frequency splitting, but using different sound sources. Volume, saturation, EQ and reverb are the tools used here to make the sounds cohesive, plus a healthy dose of side chaining to make room for the kick.

A Bit Off The Top

This short video shows how to squeeze a bit more volume out of main lead, and taming some of those digital peaks which may be present after saturation and sound combining.

Adding Drums

In this video Tim starts to add drums to the mix. See how Tim layers up some claps, snares and rides to find a good balance between them and the lead sound. You'll also learn some great clip naming advice which will help you later on down the track when it comes to arrangement time. See and hear the inner workings of good sample selection, and how choosing the right sound initially is almost always better than applying processing to a poor sounding sample. After the sounds are programmed in, Tim explains how to keep your short loops more interesting automatically by applying random parameter changes. Finally, you'll see how the Glue compressor is used on a drum group to keep things in line.

Making Some Percussion

See how Tim does the splice and dice technique to create a new percussion sound using the attack and tail of two separate sounds. Learn how the browser and arrange view are your best friends when it comes to fine audio editing. You'll also see how to beat the lack of zero crossing snapping in Live by using subtle cross fades. At the end, watch as Tim programs in a tom pattern and explains why you might want to adjust the release time for a better sounding kick.

Put on the Hats

It's time to add a few hi hats to the mix! You'll learn why it's always good to EQ your sounds in the mix, as well as a few ways to use Live's warping and pitching to extend and stretch your samples. We'll also experiment with sidechained reverb to keep our mix pumping.

Starting the Melody

Now is the time to get out of the toughness and focus on making a melody! You'll learn what you need to think about when trying to join two totally different parts together. See how Tim takes the tough riff and is able to turn it into the start of an epic chord progression as well as a melodic arpeggio. Use Operator to make a few quick patches to jot down ideas, and learn how one knob is all you need to create your own build ups. You'll learn how to separate different patterns from the same midi clip and which synth parameters make the most impact in order to create variation and impact in your track.

Making the Chord Progression

Tim goes through the initial melody and turns the simple chord stabs into an 8 bar epic chord progression. Those of you who don't have a lot of music theory training will feel right at home as Tim demonstrates how you can simply use your ears to program in great sounding progressions in a few minutes.

Making a Pad

In this session we take our chord progression and use one of the great new Live 9 features to easily turn it into long chords. Using Analog, we'll sculpt out a great sounding background pad song which will fill up the sonic space, and provide a great background for buildups and intros. You'll learn how adjusting a synths max polyphony can make or break your pads release times, as well as how a good sounding chorus can be all you need for lush pad sounds.

Arpeggio Sound Design

In this video Tim uses one of the randomly selected synth hits to layer with our Arpeggio. You'll see how to use a samples release time to test your loop settings in order to check for clicks. Tim demonstrates how to map the most used parameters to Macros to keep things automated, interesting and of course for build ups! You'll also see how using macros occasionally gives you a few happy accidents and how odd parameter tweaks can lead to new sounds you'd not have usually created.

Chord Progression Sound Design

Watch as Tim applies some creative techniques to enhance the sound of our main chord progression. You'll be able to hear the gears spinning as Tim goes through the few available samples, tweaking them to fit in the mix. See how even a failed attempt can still be used for sound design and layering. You'll learn how to make a tuned synth from any sample, ready to use and play in your project. Again, you'll learn how to use macros on multiple synths in order to adjust many parameters simultaneously, as well as how to apply reverb to only part of your sounds in order to widen up those specific areas.

Sub Bass

Everyone's favorite subject, bass! You'll learn why sometimes it's better to use waveforms other than pure sines for your sub. See how spending a bit of time tweaking your bass notes to not follow the chord progression can provide a bit more harmonic interest in your tracks. See a few tricks on how people with less than ideal monitoring setups or cheap headphones can still work with sub bass and get your notes sounding right.