Ableton Live Class 4 :: Making a Remix Blog

Class four was all about starting our own remix, to achieve this we went over the fundamentals of Ableton Live taught in the first three classes. Jon handed out a ‘Workflow & Technique checklist’ that summarized what we have learned up to this point, the main bullet points in the list are Navigation, Making Variations in the Session View, Programming MIDI, and Arrangement Editing. By understanding all of the techniques in the checklist, we will be able to take sounds, use them as ‘raw material’, make variations to the sounds, add original parts with MIDI, and then edit the sounds in the arrangement view.

The overall goal DubSpot’s Ableton Live: Level 1 class is to remix a song. To achieve this, Jon recommended that we work with a song that is suitable to our individual taste. Jon directed us to websites that host online remix contests, such as ACIDplanet or Beatport where they give away / sell loops cut directly from the master tracks of featured songs. Until we pick our track, we will use song samples in DubSpot’s library.

After plugging our portable hard drives into the Apple Mac G5 computers, we loaded our musical sketches that we worked on over the last week into Ableton Live. We added various components from DubSpots library into the session view, making copies of the clips to create variations of the samples, and renaming each clip to help us identify the remixed loop. Feeling comfortable altering the clips, Jon had us record a sketch into the arrangement view.

Arrangement View

For two minutes, we recorded an improvised jam session, and then Jon had everyone play back his or her sketches to the class. As Jon listened, he mentioned a common rookie mistake: introducing new material too quickly, and having too much material. To keep songs interesting, we should make variations, and use the delete key. Jon talked about two different approaches to remixing a song: either you can experiment, or you can come into a song knowing what you want to do.

Jon Margulies

In the Session View, clip loops are not only fun, they are a great way to establish an understanding of what you want to do in your remix. Jon warned the class that, “you can screw around all day creating various loops and never finish anything.” To get into the habit of completing pieces, we need to start thinking like producers, Jon emphasized, “producing a lot of music – creates great producers.”

In order to finish a song in Ableton Live, you should record it into the Arrange View where it makes you think in a new context of adding and subtracting. Arrangement view asks, ‘what does your composition mean?’ On average, Jon spends 75% of his time in the arrangement view.

As our class concluded, Jon gave us our next assignment for the week: find a track to remix, alter the clips in the Session View, record two minutes into the Arrange View, and edit it down to two minutes. Next week we’ll interactively add new material by recording MIDI with the M-Audio Axiom 25 MIDI keyboard controller into the Arrange View.