How To Program A Beat Using Ableton Live 11 | Music Radar
Tutorial using Ableton Live 11 Lite with Ski Oakenfull - part of the Music Radar series
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00:00Hi everyone, welcome back to this video series on getting started with Ableton Live Lite.
00:05So in the first video I showed you how to set everything up as well as giving you a
00:09quick tour of the different areas in Live. Now it's time to start making some music.
00:14In this video we're going to lay down the foundations of a track by programming a drum
00:17beat and introducing a few tricks and tips along the way. So let's get into it.
00:23Okay, so you can see here in the tracks area we have two MIDI tracks and two audio tracks by default.
00:30So we're going to look for some drum sounds. So let's go to the browser, click on drums
00:34and we can actually audition these kits to see what they sound like.
00:47I quite like that one, that's called Drill A Kit. So how do we actually use that kit
00:51to program a beat? Well there's a couple of ways we can do this. We can either double
00:55click on it and it will load into the track that's selected here. Let's just try that.
01:02There we go. Or you can actually drag that onto the track as well. There we go. And what
01:09we can see here is something called a drum rack and we can just click on these sounds
01:15here to hear what they sound like. So on the tracks you can see these spaces here are
01:22called clips and this is where we can actually record in some MIDI information and loop it.
01:28So we're going to record one into this first clip here and I'm just going to create a blank
01:33clip just by double clicking. And you can see that it shows this clip view here and
01:38then all the drum sounds are listed on the left hand side. Now if I click on this little
01:43button here, this is called the MIDI Editor Preview button, and what that will allow us
01:49to do is just click on the little keyboard there and listen to the sounds. So I'm just
01:57going to open this up a little bit to make it a little bit bigger. There we go. And we're
02:02actually going to draw some of these sounds in. So let's start with the kick drum and
02:06we're going to go for a very simple house pattern. So let's draw in a pattern using
02:11the grid here. So I'm going to use the pencil tool and we can access this just by pressing
02:17B. And you can see the cursor turns into a pencil. We can also control click and we can
02:23turn draw mode on there as well. So let's just put in a very simple kick pattern. So
02:32that's coming on every beat of the bar. And you can now press play on this clip and it
02:37will play as a one bar loop. So now let's try adding a clap sound. So let's just play
02:46that again. And I'm going to put that on beat two and four. And now let's try a hi-hat and
02:57that's going to be on the offbeat. So that's going to be on beat two and four. And now
03:07let's try a hi-hat. So that's one method of creating a pattern. We can also actually use
03:13a keyboard or even our QWERTY keyboard to play sounds over the top live. So this is
03:17currently a one bar loop. I'm going to click on this button here, duplicate, and then that's
03:22going to turn it into a two bar loop. So you can see it's copied over everything I've just
03:26programmed in. I'm going to press B again to get out of the draw mode. And this button
03:31here turns on or off the computer MIDI keyboard. And you can see it's actually turned on at
03:35the moment. So what I can do is use these keys here to actually play the sounds. Now
03:39there's nothing coming out at the moment. That's because I need to change the octave.
03:45If I press the key here, you can see that it's lighting up yellow there. But I need
03:49to put it down to two octaves so that it actually plays something. And Z and X change the octave.
03:54Here we go. Let's put it down one more. So that's the pattern. Now let's try to play
04:05it. Okay, so let's play the clip and we can jam something over the top of it. And note
04:10that we can actually switch between the clip view and the device view just by clicking
04:14here. So I'm going to play along, come up with some ideas, and then when I'm ready,
04:19I'm going to click on this button here, which is the session record button, and this will
04:24overdub onto this MIDI clip what I've just played. So let's just press play now. I quite
04:32like that. So let's just hit this now and we can record it in. So when I was drawing
04:44in those drum sounds, it was snapping them automatically to the grid, whereas just playing
04:48in live, it means it might not be in time. And if we just zoom in with our mouse here,
04:56you can see that it's not completely lined up to the grid. So there's a function in Ableton
05:03Live called quantize, and this will actually put anything we've played in time for us.
05:09So if we go up to the edit menu here and go to quantize settings, and this is where we
05:15can determine what type of quantize we want. We're going to make this to the current grid,
05:20click on okay, and you can see that it's actually just quantized it for us. And once
05:26we've set our quantize settings, we can just go to quantize any time and it will quantize
05:31it for us, or there's a key command which is command U, and that will put it in time.
05:38When using keyboard shortcuts with Windows, just use control instead of command, for example.
05:43There's a link in the description for a full comparison of Windows and Mac shortcuts. Okay,
05:49so let's listen to that now. Okay, now another thing I want to do is to give this a bit more
06:00of a feel, and I'm going to add some swing to do this. So if we go over to the browser
06:05menu here and just click on grooves, this is where we can choose which groove we want.
06:10I'm going to choose this one here which is swing 16th 73, and I'm just going to double
06:17click on that, and that's going to put that into something called the groove pool. Now
06:22once this is in the groove pool, I can then apply this swing or this groove to any of
06:28the clips that I'm working on, and we can just do this from the clip groove setting
06:32in the clip view here. So there you go, it's appeared. I'm going to turn it on. Now let's
06:37play it. You can see it's very, very heavily swung, but over here we have the global groove
06:45amount, so we can actually tone this down so it's not swinging quite so much. The advantage
06:56of this is that we can apply this groove to any of the clips so they all have the same
07:00groove setting. Okay, so we've got our first clip. I'm happy with that. So now what I want
07:06to do is to create some variations of this beat, and what I can actually do is to duplicate
07:11this clip to the next clip slot, and I can just do this by pressing Command D, and you
07:17can see that it creates an exact copy of that clip. So what I'm going to do with this clip,
07:23I'm just going to change the hi-hat pattern so that it's playing 16th notes. So I'm just
07:28going to select all of those previous hi-hats I put in, press delete, and then I'm going
07:33to press B to bring back the pencil tool, and if I hold down Option and just drag this
07:39across the grid, you can see it's created 16th notes. Now the reason I pressed Option
07:49was to make sure that it just stayed on that note. If I didn't, then it's going to move
07:55around, which is not what we want. So let's just delete those, and let's just play the
08:00clip and listen to what it sounds like. And you can see that because I duplicated that
08:07clip, it's also applied that groove to that clip as well. Now I can actually switch between
08:12these two clips. Now the great thing about Session View are the horizontal lines, and
08:22these are called scenes, and it means we can actually build up an arrangement or structure
08:26of our track by triggering them. And we can do that from the master track just by clicking
08:30on play, and then any clips that are in that scene will be triggered. Okay, so we're going
08:38to create one final variation of this beat. So this time I'm going to duplicate the clip
08:43in a different way. I'm actually just going to hold down Option and then drag it onto
08:47that third clip slot. Now for this beat, I actually want to change the clip back to a
08:53one bar loop. So what I can do is just go to loop brace, change it back to one bar,
09:01and I'm going to press Control, and I'm actually going to crop the clip, and that's just going
09:04to get rid of that second bar and just make it one bar again. Okay, so let's just reprogram
09:10the hi-hats. I'm just going to select the hi-hats and those rims as well, and let's
09:15program a bit more of a syncopated rhythm. So I'm just going to draw in these notes,
09:23and then let's listen to that. Great, and let's try putting in an extra snare here.
09:36Let's put in this sound. Great, okay, so we've got three patterns. Let's just quickly play
09:44them through again. Now we're going to look at mixing and balancing our sounds in a later
10:02video, but I just want to show you how we can quickly do that with this drum kit. So
10:06if I just click on this triangle here, and then again there, this is where we can see
10:10the levels of all our drum sounds. Now I want to take this snare down a little bit.
10:17It's a little bit loud. Maybe this clap as well. Now a really important thing to do once
10:30we've done some work is to save it. So I'm going to go here to Save Live Set, and then
10:38that's going to ask me where I want to save it to. Let's call it House Beat 1. Before
10:48we move on with the next video, I wanted to mention templates, as these can be a great
10:52way to get inspiration and get up and running quickly. So we can go over to the Templates
10:56section in the browser here and try this one, Demo & Sketch, and we have a whole range of
11:02different styles. We've got Slow Rock, Straight Rock, Pop, Grunge Rock, Reggaeton, Classic
11:09Disco, and if we click on the Master Tracks here, it's going to choose the appropriate
11:13tempo for us. So let's just click on Reggaeton for example. Go to Classic Disco. And what's
11:21more, if we click on the track, we can actually change the drum kit as well that's being played.
11:33So let's try an 808 kit, 909. Great, and then there are some other tracks set up here, which
11:41are some keyboard sounds, and some bass sounds, and this is where you can record some vocals
11:48as well. So I thoroughly recommend checking out that to get some inspiration and get you
11:52started on a track. Okay, cool. So we've got our first part down. In the next video, I'm
11:58going to show you how to add a bass line to go with the beat, along with a few MIDI editing
12:02tricks.