Ableton Live Session Organization
Ableton Live Session Organization // Music Production Tutorial
In this music production tutorial, I walk you through one of my own Ableton Live project sessions and offer tips on session organization, workflow and other ideas to increase creativity. It can be easy to spend hours working in a session and then eventually end up completely lost as we work in such a deep focused state and throw organization and cleanliness to the wolves. Of course, there's a time a place for just being creative, but eventually you're going to get to the point during your project where some good housekeeping and organization will go along way. This video is intended to help with that! My session workflow and organization has come a long way throughout the years. So I thought I'd be a good idea (since I'm quarantined and have literally no where to go) to make a video on this topic and share some of those tips with you. Here they are!:
Tip 1: Use Ableton's session markers to outline the sections, outline, or structure of your track. Now of course, you don't have to have a super crazy specific structure, but it is good to have a road map of your track and where you want it to end up. Using Ableton's markers is a great way of doing this.
Tip 2: I recommend using a blank midi track to house empty clips which then can be used to write notes in (renaming the clips) or reminders for things you want to add/fix/change in the various sections. I think this really offers one additional way to keep or sessions organized and ready to go so that we can seamlessly get back to work when we return.
Tip 3: In addition to Ableton's markers, I really enjoy color coding all the clips based on the section of the track that they make up. For example, all the choruses could be light blue, all the verses pink, the pre-choruses orange etc. etc. (why did I type that out in such an odd order?).
Tip 4: I so so so recommend automating the gain knob on Ableton's utility device in place of the track volume faders. The reason for this is that if you automate a track volume fader, you lock it in place, and thus cannot change the overall track volume during mixing without disabling the automation. Which is of course very frustrating and time consuming to manually resolve. So my way around this is to add a utility to every track in Ableton and adjust/automate each track as needed.
Tip 5: One thing I really enjoy is making full use of the "places" tab in the Ableton browser. By properly linking your session files, you can seamlessly pull in track and samples from any of your past songs or projects. This is great if something gets accidentally deleted (replace instrument from a backup) and you've made changes or saved since it was lost; or, if you want to pull a track from a session to sample or use for inspiration in a different project. The options are limitless and this is a great function to have at your disposal.
Tip 6: The faster you get in Ableton and with music production, the less you'll want to waste your life away repeatedly adding an EQ Eight to every new audio track you create. To solve that problem, I like to set up my go to audio and midi tracks, and then save them as the track defaults. That way, anytime I load up a new track, those devices are pre-set and ready for me to use! Yay for less fiddling around and more time producing!
As always, thanks for watching! Stay healthy and safe friends. Honestly though, please stay home. Trust me, it's not worth going out right now.
This video is NOT sponsored.
Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Some product links are affiliate links and if you buy something I'll receive a small commission.
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