Ableton Live Tips and Tricks - The Velvet Shadow

Here’s a collection of very helpful Ableton Live tips.

Related: 200 Free Ableton Packs

1. Show/Hide Mixer Components

Screen shot from Ableton Live showing Mixer view options. — Ableton Live Master Channel

By selecting the tabs next to the master bus you can show / hide the following from the channel strips:

Input/Output
Sends (Session)
Returns
Mixer Section
Track Delay
Crossfader (Session)

Related: How to Install an Ableton Pack

—Back to Free Ableton Live Packs

2. Edit Info Text

Right-click and select ‘Edit Info Text” to edit the info box for each track / group / FX or Clip that you want.

Screen shot from Ableton Live showing Edit Info text menu option.

Useful for noting ideas and reference notes down during your sound design, mixing and collaboratorations.

Screen shot from Ableton Live showing Notes written using Edit Info text option. — Ableton Live Instrument Rack Containing Notes

3. Adjust Cue Mix Output

Adjusting the light blue level on the Master track changes the volume of the cue mix.

The screenshot of Ableton reveals three tracks labeled "A Reverb," "B Delay," and "Master." Highlighted in purple and pink respectively, "A Reverb" and "B Delay" stand out visually. The Master track, indicated by a red arrow, shows a cyan blue cue input level of 1.6.

This is great for balancing your monitoring level at a live gig or reducing the preview volume of samples.

Related: Free Ableton Templates

4. Test Tone

The test tone can help you test monitors and signal paths as well as optimize your audio buffer. Use to find problem frequencies in the signal chain too. You will find it in the Audio tab of the Preferences menu.

Ableton test tone menu showing options for tone settings. The "Test Tone" option is highlighted in yellow and set to "On." Other settings such as "Tone Volume," which is at "-36 dB," "Tone Frequency," listed at "440 Hz," and the "CPU Usage Simulator" showing a value of "50%," all appear in light blue against a gray background. — Ableton Live Test Tone Menu

5. Getting notes in time

Quantize allows you to fix timing errors on MIDI notes that you’ve played or drawn in. This will tighten up your performances and make them sound in time. You can select which division of time your notes are quantised to e.g 16ths, 8ths and the amount of quantisation which will be applied. (How much they will lock to the grid).

Cmd + U on Mac or Ctrl + U on Windows applies quantize immediately.

Shift + Cmd + U or Shift + Ctrl + U If you want to open up the quantize setting and edit the parameters.

The Adjust Note parameter sets whether the start or end of a note is quantised.

Screen shot from Ableton Live showing Quantize Settings. — Ableton Live’s Quantize Menu

Related: The Best Keyboards For Ableton

6. Resampling

You can resample the master bus by creating a new Audio Track and setting the input to ‘Resampling’.

Once you arm the track and record the output will be recorded. This is great for quickly bouncing down processor intensive channels, recording DJ sets or recording live modulation of FX over the master bus.

The screenshot of Ableton Live, showing various tracks. Labels for the tracks include "Hats," "Amazing Bass," "Drums," and "Resample." — RESAMPLE track recording the master bus in Ableton Live.

7. Playback Types

Hitting spacebar will stop and play Ableton. This happens from the same point in a project, try these more specific commands to start play from elsewhere:

Shift + Spacebar to continue playback from the last stopped point.

Hit Option + Spacebar (Mac) Alt + Spacebar (Windows) including part of the arrangement selected and it will play just your selection.