Ableton is great, Lets make some fun music with it.
I remember the time when I was a teenage boy back in Lahore, sitting in a living room behind a Pentium laptop browsing music forums to find cool electronic dance music. I would spend hours after school on Living Electro, often times exploring branches from there. It was node based exploration and despite the inefficiency of my methods, I was hooked. I loved how a community of musicians exists who use expert knowledge of computers to provide "patched" software of really expensive studio software and then the same community also makes great music and art and shares it with the world.
Keep it legal, girlie.
It is essential to keep in mind that any patched software you obtain could potentially be devastating to your machine and network. Please do your own research and understand the risks of your actions. As a teen still living in Pakistan, such concerns never came to mind but I would not be repeating those actions in the future.
I got my hands on some patched FL studio instances and later, Ableton Live 11. Ableton is definitely my software of choice. It integrates wonderfully with MIDI controllers, analog gear and everything in between. Also, having the ability to navigate from Session to Arrangement view really opens up room for truly dynamic workflows.
What the heck are you talking about?
Ableton Live is a digital audio workstation for macOS and Windows developed by the German company Ableton. In contrast to many other software sequencers, Live is designed to be an instrument for live performances as well as a tool for composing, recording, arranging, mixing, and mastering audio. It is also used by DJs, as it offers a suite of controls for beatmatching, crossfading, and other different effects used by turntablists, and was one of the first music applications to automatically beatmatch songs Continued in Wikipedia
- developer(s): Ableton
- initial release: October 30, 2001
- written in: C++
What does it look like?
/// Ableton on startup ///
My Approach to a new set
Back in the day I used to try all kinds of nutty techniques to get inspiration to start a project on Ableton. It can be daunting, yes. You are about to create sound which would then inspire you to make more sounds? Sounds like wizardry. I like it.
Now I try to keep it simple.
1) Drum loop 2) Pad or something ambient 3) catchy melody or bassline to maintain groove
Keep those three playing before you introduce the rest of the elements.
DRUMS
I went with Ableton stock "Beard Kit" to get the pattern going. That sounded nice to me.
pattern
/// Here is the pattern I came up with. The drums have a nice jungle vibe to them with a nice 4 on the floor pattern. ///
PAD
I used Xfer Serum but you may use whichever VST you like, even the stock ableton plugins kick ass!
Pattern
Values
In this case I am using 3 sine oscillators with a high pass filter and modulation.