The advent of computer-based music production has created a revolution in creativity and has greatly enhanced productivity for the artist. At the same time we now use the computer for so many other tasks in our lives that productivity can suffer as a result. How many times have you started your computer to work on music in Ableton but then find yourself surfing the internet or playing with another application? If you are focused enough to stay on task you may find yourself spending a lot of time setting up simple things like opening programs, setting your system volume and getting your computer ready for music creation.
Thankfully the folks at Apple understand these dilemmas and created a program called Automator that can automate almost any OS X operation and streamline mundane or repetitive tasks. While the program exists on every computer running OS X, many users have never used the program. Automator can be used for a wide range of tasks but our interest is focused on helping create a better music production workflow.
To help you understand how Automator can streamline your workflow we offer this tutorial from Ableton Certified Trainer Martin Delaney who takes you through the setup process of this powerful application.
enables you to create custom workflows with point-and-click (or drag-and-drop) simplicity and allows you to skip complex programming that would normally be required to accomplish routine or repetitive tasks. In Martin’s Automator Script (which you can download below and customize for your own setup), just one click creates an ad-hoc network, turns up the system volume, opens Griid Connector, and launches specific tracks in Ableton Live and Reason.