Ableton Live Tips #1: Professor Nalepa - Add Life to Your Pads

[desirebluesky]

śmiecham z jego nazwiska

[24hrpub]

has this guy made any hits and who has this guy worked with

[rharold]

I didn't think much of this while I was watching this, but then I added comps and verbs to my sends and it was something fresh to what I couldn't have done any other way. Great tip, I recommend people try this on channels when-in-doubt.

[shutupandsuckitup]

i have no idea what any of this means..

[IIHOGZBREATHII]

Nalepa, you rock dude.!! It's a pleasure to learn from you.

[sammypotato]

good tip! thank you for reminding how to, um, enable the sends on my return tracks too. woops =D

[sammypotato]

good tip! thank you for reminding how to, um, enable the sends on my return tracks too. woops =D

[breakphreak]

Well, but could be better imo. Why not to make an effects group with all the reverbs and put it on insert? How about attaching a different delay and/or moving filters to each reverb path? How about compressing (ableton compressor or Waves Rvox) all the output to glue all the pad elements together? And, finally, why play sine wave with simpler?

[DubSpot]

@breakphreak those are all good suggestions. Certainly there are many many ways to go deeper with this, our goal here is just to provide a quick tip to give people some ideas and simple usable stuff for their productions. In our online courses at dubspot.com we go in depth and teach many of the techniques you recommend.

[breakphreak]

@DubSpot I see your point. Seen some other DubSpot tutorial before and feld that this particular could have a bit more (tips) in it. But hey, this is my own feeling, that might be triggered by the wrong thing in the wrong moment ;)

Thanks for sharing, for replying and good luck with all kinds of courses :)

[snalepa]

@breakphreak Yes to all of the above. There's many ways to achieve the same result in Live, and certainly more techniques than I covered in this video. This was mainly about the addition of several differently timed Auto Pans and how it can add some nice motion. I did make a note about the Audio Effects Group in one of my earlier comments. I stuck with built-in effects and instruments because not everyone has Waves or other synths. Spice up w compression, delays, Utility w/ diff width settings

[breakphreak]

@snalepa true about Ableton flexibility. Also, completely understood your point about the simpler usage. Just wanted to say that if a material is taught in a "layered" way (so that every turnaround is a bit more sophisticated), then more then one type of target audience can benefit :)

[DirtyJ214]

@breakphreak Keeping it simple, showing use of sends with effects on the returns.

[troelsbk]

Oh and another tip: If you make 2 effect racks inside each other you can get the same effect but with a much more tidy layout and you can even assign some macros for quick and easy control.

[snalepa]

@troelsbk Yes. I made a note/comment of that almost immediately after we had posted the video, definitely would have been nice to include that in there. Very good point.

[troelsbk]

Nice video, but maybe you should mention that you usually set the dry/wet on the reverb to 100% if you're working on a send (i'm assuming its intentional for this particular effect). Its an extremely common mistake made by people who dont understand dry/wet and general signal flow. As it is now its not _just_ the reverb the panning affects. Just a heads up :).

[DubSpot]

@troelsbk agreed, good point.

[snalepa]

@troelsbk Yes, indeed. I usually use this technique on strings and background vocals which are sent out to a Reverb, and I only end up panning the Reverbed part. If it is not 100% wet, then I am in fact panning some of the dry as well. It adds a level of complexity to the part, makes it more full sounding. The whole point is to show a concept and let people go with it where they will. Experiment, and have fun. There's no right or wrong techniques in my opinion, if it sounds good, then go with it

[Ops1s]

Awesome

I'll enroll inl the Live online program on January 30, cant wait!!!!!

Thanks

[musicCway]

thank you! so simple and clear!

[snalepa]

Alternatively, you can also create an Audio Effects Rack and add three separate chains, each loaded up with three differently-timed Auto Pans. This would give you the same multiple timed panning action, and you can also save it as a preset so you can just drag it in on another session without having to recreate it every time. I'll show that in a future video...

[FinalFragment]

Really neat trick. Got a question for you though.

Do you always use the send for reverb? I usually use the arrangement view when I produce, and I put a reverb effect on each track. Mostly so I can specify the reverb uniquely for each sound, but also to control the amount along the track more easily.

I this always your approach?

I been wondering if it was better with the send/return tracks.

[DubSpot]

@FinalFragment it's usually better to use send tracks. It saves CPU time so there's less latency, and by using sends, it gives the whole track a consistent feel, rather than different tracks.

So you overall you can use different tracks, but it's better workflow to use sends and a great habit to get used to.

[FinalFragment]

@DubSpot Allright I think I will try that for my next few tracks and see how it turns out.

Btw thanks for the video, cannot wait ti next week. And as others pointed out, please do some mastering tutorials later. It a world on its own =)

[troelsbk]

@DubSpot cpu use doesnt have a direct influence on latency...

[snalepa]

@FinalFragment I use Reverbs as an Insert effect sometimes too, but like @Dubspot pointed out, Reverbs can definitely eat up your CPU. If you want a variety of uniquely dialed in reverb fx, using multiple instances is the way to go. Used as inserts, you can use the dry/wet knob to control the ratio of unprocessed to processed sound. Once you get it dialed in, if you are starting to tax your computer, you can Right Click on the track and Freeze it to free up CPU. You can't Freeze a send track.

[mxkallstrom]

@FinalFragment I can tell you that you save a LOT of computer power by using sends! However, using reverb as an insert plugin is not wrong by any means, like you said, you have more control. That control gain is to the sacrifice of computer power. Also understand that using a lot of different reverbs can make it harder to make the sounds fit in your mix just because you are using to many different room simulations. Just some pointers in the right direction!

[FinalFragment]

"Less going on with each element sounding better"

-The first lesson every single music producer in the world should get.

[MrKleinTV]

Great vid! Thanks!

[3dask]

great

[snalepa]

@colbertvp @Niblet007 @Thespambomber Thanks! @karmagreen We will definitely be tackling mixing and mastering in this series. There's a great book on mixing: The Mixing Engineer's Handbook by Bobby Oswinski, I highly recommend it.

[snalepa]

@withaspoon 1) If you have a chord progression, nix the reverb or just use a shorter time. 2) This trick is great for spicing up a string part or background vocal, the multiple auto pan aspect gives life to a part in a subtle way that will help it stand out in the mix. You can also play with adding Utility Plugins on the autopans to vary the overall width of each

[withaspoon94]

issues: 1) over complicated

2) wont work for more than 2 chords (reverb/pan will carry over into the second chord)

[colbertvp]

very helpful. thanks dubspot

[Niblet007]

Great tut, simple yet effective! Can't wait for the rest of the tutorials throughout the year :)

[karmagreen]

you guys should do a video on mixing and mastering . I'm still new at all this and I have no idea where to start with these two things

[TheSpambomber]

great series awesome stuff as always