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Lesson Info

Recording Audio in Ableton Live

Now we're going to move on to recording so you know, using our own using the sounds that we've either downloaded or have been given to us by abel teo on lee gets us so far it's only so interesting, but with recording we can start making our own this is great for singer songwriters someone who wants to record some drums, put it in there and then they can play along with it or you can record your vocals anything you name it very easy to record and manipulate the first thing we need to talk about is setting up our many controller I'm sorry setting up our sound card because uh you might be able to record or think it's all right if you just record off your computer mike on your mac or pc but it's only going to get yourself are so at some point if you're going to do this seriously, you're going to need an external sound card because that sound card like this one has preempts and all these different things to allow me to record a lot easier. So we're gonna look at setting that up within able ...

to now everyone set up is going to be different, but there are some things that were going to have to go over, so with recording new parts we're going to look at how we can set up external audio devices using our io routing arming tracks monitoring global record metro no malta tracking editing these recordings and sullen we're gonna go over all this port over this section all right? So cyril audio interface an external audio interface or sound card lets you connect microphones, instruments and other external sounds to your computer and turn and in turn able to life you don't need an external audio interface, but you will be limiting your sound quality and your ability record if you don't have one of those an external interface is either usb or firewire thunderbolt, I guess now and connects to your computer like I was saying before on this sound card, I have a usb this is the mo to what audio express I love mo to their an american company absolutely fantastic, but the usb comes out and into my computer, and then I said, able to to look at that us b so there's some steps for connecting our external audio interface. I'm going to go through this this slideshow shows it, but I'm actually gonna walk through in able tend to make this easier. And like I was saying that throughout this course, if you get the course you're gonna be able to download all these examples sets this example set if you open up it's called sound car right on the side, it says, setting up your sound card connect your sound card open preferences and it just walks you through it and then I'm also going to show us you can walk through these examples all right? So I would have this plugged it right that's the first thing plug it in easy next thing is you're gonna have to goto option preferences and then under here it depends if you have mac uh you guys use mac? I'm assuming I think it's his core audio so there is there's two parameters are always just core audio. Okay, okay, cool. So so I heard that so it basically says microphone or then it has core audio and pc is similar but it says and then e direct x or a cyo so we don't have core audio it's just a different way of doing the same thing. So your news corps audio and mac out use s I ow I press that then under my audio device I can pick the device now I've used all of these different devices have used tractor audio too for my life sets I've used um motew is what I'm using now so I click that now it's looking at this motor device great then I can put my input this is how many on my device on the back there's all these inputs and outputs aiken set that and then I can also set my outputs and then your hardware setting is your bit rate stuff like that we're not going to get until late see and all those things but those your settings within your sound card now that I set that up we did go over key mixing before because this one has two stereo input to stereo outputs I can set my cue mix like you out right here two, three and four that way I can hear something without playing it over my speaker's, which is great for previewing stuff or making sure synth sounds good before you start playing it in your jam or whatever it might be and we have our master out. Well, this right here is your in announce and we're gonna be looking at that quite a bit through the recording but now that I have that set up I have my sound card great. That was the first step. Now we're gonna look at actually recording audio again. This is going to be different set up for your card but it shouldn't be too difficult, especially with youtube videos or the manual by those whoever makes it so now I have my sound card here is able to how my record how do I get things in here? Well, the important setting to know is that in and out in out is right over here in this side right now it's set to audio from so where's the audio coming from nowhere there's no input so I'm gonna have to set what that isthe now aiken set other tracks to send into it that's a weird way of routing other audio into this one or I could do external in which is my sound card so in the external in aiken then shoes what I'm going to record for me in this example in here this is my one slot of my input and it's going out to my auto harp on that type of guy and uh so with the autoharp all I have to do is this is totally d I y I put a pie zio contact making here and then I just I taped it on the back classy um I'm going to turn down the volume so we don't get a pop all right so that's plugged in great now right off the bat you might notice that I'm only getting on one side and my mixer that's because it's looking at a stereo and I just need to change it when you when I play it you can actually see the volume right there it makes it really easy so I go toe one great I'm already sending sounding it's in life perfect so now if I have something like this beat then to record there's two things that have happened first of all it needs to be armed there's a little record arm right there without that great and then wherever I wanted to record I just hit this little wherever those circles are and that's report so now if I did it again this is basically like a mix of super super easy I can come in here I can look different sections make different versions very, very easy once you set this out now if you're a vocalist story guitarists just think about that sit here lay down a bunch of things whenever I want you just just right now here's a great example of what we've learned already uh I've told you I have terrible rhythm right? Well, great example of this is pretty good but it's a little off so I'm just coming here I can edit this but those war markers make it snappy time kwan tithe all of a sudden I just turned into a lot better performance like that it's awesome. So that's how I could record and then I can also add audio effects if I want I can add ah, this instrument definitely needs he queuing can add some real quick to show you all and I'm gonna add some reverb remember I just go up to the browser I pick whatever I want like let's put on a chorus dragon in already have something that sounds into sting and I can start making new versions of whatever I'm recording uh it could be a drum said it could be anything beatboxing you name it super fun super easy uh any questions on recording um does modulation work inside of arrangement view when I do volume automation on tracks I used the utility tool so it frees the actual volume fader for the mixed down toilets that is a awesome trick and mixing and that is like like I did a mixing course here and one of the things I taught was do that as quick as possible to great course so we're not going to get too deep into mixing and all those different parameters but you are right whoever asked that and we are going to get into after we get recording enmity we're going to get into recording an arrangement and those envelopes that they're asking those envelopes that were doing before for like ah automating volume and stuff that same concept happens in arrangement except for instead of an envelope sits on the track and you just click it and you create break points and stuff like that um because you know in session view you have all these different elements that you're just bringing in and out it's very playable in arrangement feuds beginning and you're going tohave things that modulate over time you don't want to do that in each a little clips section so you do on the timeline of the arrangement you but we'll look at that we'll look at that a little later so awesome we got recording now and we can bring things in we can also fix my timing right in the program you can also come in here and start editing in modulating and more ping and all that stuff once you've recorded it great so we talked about the in and out routings um oh yeah I should have kept that plugged in because there is something else that's very important especially for live performers out there and that is the routing options specifically the monitoring there's three monitoring options they're very important to know um that is in auto an off monitoring lets you set how the track receives incoming audio there are three different settings like I just said in auto on off so let's look at what those are so in this setting will always play the tracks and put no matter what no matter what else clips or playing no matter what else is happening it plays what input it auto this monitors the track the track that is armed but monitoring does not let an input single through if the track is already playing something. So if you're playing a clip nothing new comes in I'm going to show example of this third is off this turns monitoring off altogether this will let you record an instrument or an input and play it back but not play it live so let me show you what that is I'm gonna plug this back in and putting it in my my input so you do get a listen to me more uh uh all right so right now it's set off so notice it's great out there's no output coming in mableton nothing's happening well if I came in here and I did something like let's just dragging a beat put in here notice how that's playing but it's still not letting my little so and I stop this still nothing so that's off off does not let to input through but if I wanted to not I recorded it it will play it back but it will not play it back a lot of only placed clips that's an important thing to remember with off so that way you could be sitting here and playing something getting it right hit a foot pedal or whatever record it and then plant for everyone that's a different way of looking at it next his auto so five auto I'm not playing anything right now so it's letting my autoharp through right? But the second I play this beat out of part is not allowed so it's in between in and off that way whenever something's not playing I can play great and then the last one is in now if I play these clips you'll never hear the clips it graze everything out you also see it shows it as orange because it's basically saying no it will never play whatever clips I can sit here aiken record clips I can play that clip it will never you'll never hear it's on ly listening to my output now this is awesome if you're a vocalist or instrumentalists that wants to use able to him purely as effects because I can still add effects in here like I can add chorus I can add uh where is it? Reverb had reverb in here and when I play e I have all my effects it is if it was a pedal board, it just goes in and the effects are happening and awesome that's why mon turning in his great um so now you know, for your different live sets for your different applications there are different laundering. Uh, auto is generally the easiest because it's kind of in between the both but you might want to use either one and knowing is half the battle. All right, any questions are their foot pedals for ableto somebody just asked. Well, yeah, there's there's I forget the name of it there's one really cheap it's like three um a three button foot pedal on amazon for like twenty bucks and it's awesome because then you can do like record stop play or whatever um yeah, I forget it just look on amazon five star review and by awesome markets wants to know how do you deal with late and see when you're using monitors? Great question I didn't answer that directly in this part because most people might on those difference but ok live a little so when you said it to in it bypasses all plugging landsea okay, so it takes care of that that's why having in is really, really great I've run into that where if I said it to auto and I have lots of plug ins and I'm playing, I get like a thirty second lanes here whatever, not through seconds but uh thirty milliseconds and it starts annoying me so that's auto and off you won't hear it anyway so it doesn't matter, so if you set it to end it will bypass a lot of that plane see issue other than that, if it's anything beyond that you are getting into the world of plugging leighton sea and that legacy is a whole other issue I have I made a class it worked economy dot com on just let's see it was like a three hour long class on late see, I don't think you'll want to hear that right now, but if you are having issues you could go check that out you go check out information on the wild world of fluency perfect