"My Ableton Live set won't open!"

If you've found this post because you're panicking that you may have lost your work in Ableton Live, there may still be hope of recovering it.

A few times I've been unable to open an Ableton Live set that I'd saved previously. My HD would churn away for a long time, and Live would eventually crash and disappear. Very frustrating.

If it was ever to turn out that the .als file was really unopenable, It wouldn't be a complete disaster since I always 'Save as' using an incrementing version number: "MyTrack1.als", "MyTrack2.als". So that if the last file I saved really was corrupt, and unopenable, I'd still have a previous version I could go back to and work from. I strongly recommend saving a new version of your track each time you save.

So far though, I've always been able to recover the current version.

Delete Live's preferences file

On my machine the file is located at ~/Library/Preferences/Ableton/Live 7.0.1/Preferences.cfg. This often solves the problem and its the fastest fix, so try it first.

Remove your plugins

Many times it's been the case that removing a particular .au or .vst plugin from my plugins directory allowed me to open the file again. In particular I've noticed that if I've been using a demo of a plugin, and the demo has expired, then the demo plugin would cause Live to crash on opening a set (I experienced this recently with demos from Nugen Audio). If Live opens a set which uses a plugin that's no longer in your plugins folder, you will be notified by a dialog window, just click 'Ok' to instruct Live to continue loading. If the set loads, missing plugins will be represented by 'empty' plugin graphics. You can delete these or replace them with working plugins.

Remove corrupt audio files

Another thing that can stop a set from opening is if some of the audio files it depends on are corrupt. If removing plugins hasn't helped, try looking in your live set's Samples directory. See if any of the audio files are ZERO kB. If they are, remove them and try opening the set again.

Import the set track-by-track

A trouble-shooting technique that can be useful in this situation is to open an empty set, and import the tracks from the set you're having trouble with one by one. To do this, browse you your set in Live's browser, expand the set's folder using the arrow icon, and drag the individual tracks that have appeared, into the arrange window. It can be a pain to recreate a set this way, especially if you used return effects and master track automation, which can't be recovered like this (afaik), but this approach can still be useful for identifying where the problem is.

Post in the comments if you know of any other tips for those times a Live set won't open.

basement_crossfade 0.2

Here's a new version of basement_crossfade (a pluggo plugin for mac users) that uses a graphic interface.

basement_crossfade_0_2

If you prefer your plugin GUI-less, stick with the previous version. Here's a video showing how it can be used in Ableton Live.

Trivia: The interface graphics are based on the stylings of Stanton's scratch mixers.

Smooth crossfade plugin for Ableton Live

Smooth crossfade plugin for Ableton Live from basementhum on Vimeo.

basement_crossfade is a very simple mac plugin designed for use in Ableton Live.

It accepts two audio inputs, and a single crossfade control determines the mix sent to its output.

Download the plugin

To run this plugin you'll need to install the free max/msp runtime environment.

If you want to use this plugin in your own creations you can download the max/msp source document.

The plugin is a wrapper for the crossfade~ object from the RTC-lib.

Plugin: Auto Audio Humanize

I've just finished up another small utility plugin in sonic birth (mac only). It's a device designed to randomly delay or advance audio clips in Live by a small amount, though it should work in other hosts too.

There are only two parameters:

Early/late base: sets a kind of base delay for the audio.

Random delay: represents the amount of random delay that is added to the Early/late base value.

The random delay value is re-generated each time the incoming audio drops to digital silence, so it works well for 'monosyllabic' audio clips separated by empty space (if the device is preceded by a plugin that adds a tail to the sound, such as a reverb, the random delay value might not be recalculated before the following sound begins).

Here's a video to give a quick idea of how it works. Here I've duplicated a track containing a pattern of drum hits and applied the Auto Audio Humanizer to the duplicate track. You can hear a phasing effect when the displacement is very small, and a more distinct repeat when it is large.

If you'd like to use the plugin, do the following:

1. If you don't already have it, install Sonic Birth (provides the framework necessary for the plug to work).
2. Install the Auto Audio Humanize component
3. If you want to tinker with the circuit, download the source file

Faking swing for audio clips in Ableton Live

Ableton live has a swing function, but its effect is limited to midi notes and warped audio clips. A recent post over at Wire to the Ear talks about how to use Live's swing capability. But if you're like me you have lots of separate, unwarped audio clips on your timeline, little 'monosyllabic' sounds. And if you want these to swing, Live won't help you.

If you need a simple swing for your audio clips, here's a quick and rough way to fake it.

Open a new set. Using audio clips, lay out a skeleton drum beat with a hihat line on every 16th. Open the song tempo automation lane on the master channel. Zoom in so that you're seeing a grid line on every 16th division, and use the pencil tool to draw this step on the first two 16th notes.

Select the first two 16ths of the master channel automation lane and duplicate them (apple+D) until the first bar is filled. Play through the pattern and experiment with different timings until you have a feel that your satisfied with. The greater the size between the tempo steps, the more extreme the swing will be. To make sure the automation steps always repeat the same two values, use the duplicate to copy them to the rest of the bar whenever you want to try a new feel.

Once you're happy with the feel, duplicate the automation pattern until it extends further than you expect your track to be long.

As with the groove quantize hack, the same gotchas apply:

1. If you need to change tempo during a track this method isn't suitable.
2. Be careful that you disable warp on single-hit clips that you place on the timeline, unless you want them smeared as the master tempo changes!
3. Currently, Live only 'notices' the song tempo automation at the beginning of each 16th measure, so you may find in order to transfer a groove at an acceptable 'resolution' it may be necessary to double the song tempo before beginning this process.
4. If you're using tempo synchronised effects (eg. a delay), these will behave unpredictably if your master tempo is fluctuating rapidly.
   

Song tempo automation in Ableton Live is not continuous

I just figured something out that would have saved me a lot of trouble if it had been mentioned in the Live manual: Live's song tempo automation is not continuous (in version 7 and below). Although you can draw a ramp in the song tempo automation lane, Live will only sample its value, and adjust the song tempo accordingly, at the beginning of each 16th grid line.

In the following diagram we can see that the tempo automation changes at A and B have no effect on the song tempo (we can tell because the waveform display of the repeating audio clip stays the same). The only tempo change that is picked up is C, because Live is only sampling the automation value at the beginning of every 16th.



This is pretty disappointing, and has consequences for anyone wanting to implement the 'fake groove quantize' approach that I talked about in a previous post.

Sidechain compression with Reaktor and Ableton Live

Back in 2006 I wrote the following how-to guide for achieving sidechain compression using Reaktor with Ableton Live (v4). Live 7 now has a sidechain capable compressor which may do everything you need, and there is an increasing number of third-party sidechain compression plugins available that also make this effect simple to achieve. But the information in this article may still be useful, particularly if you're interested in setting up sidechain capability in other Reaktor ensembles, and using them within Live.

Requirements:

• Ableton Live, version 4 or higher.
• Reaktor, version 4 or higher.

The aim is to get the audio from one channel (percussion) to influence how the audio from a different chennel (a pad sound) is attenuated over time. One of the ensembles included in reaktor can be modify to achieve this.

Setting up the channel that will get compressed

To begin with I created a pad sound stretching over a few bars. Pads are good for this example because you'll need a sound that remains at a fairly steady level to hear the final effect as clearly as possible. I'm using rendered audio files rather than midi so you can see how the waveforms look. Pad mp3

I'm adding a compressor to this channel because in the end this is the channel whose level i want to dip each time a percussive sound happens.

I'll add an instance of the 'Reaktor5 Surround' vst to the pad track. It's important to choose the surround vst since it allows you to feed multiple inputs to your reaktor instance. We'll need this to feed both the pad audio, and the percussion audio (from a different track) to the compressor.

In reaktor, open the 'Two Knees Compressor' ensemble (you can find it in the 'Effects' section).

Open the structure view of the Two Knees compressor. Select the 'L' and 'R' input modules and choose 'Duplicate Selection' to create two new inputs. For clarity you could rename these 'Key L' and 'Key R'. Attach the new inputs to the In1 and In2 of the 'max of 2 (abs)' module (this will automatically delete the existing connections to In1 and In2).

At the top level of the reaktor structure, attach the inputs 3 and 4 to the new 'Key L' and 'Key R' compressor inputs.

You can think of a compressor as having two parts. A level detection circuit, and an attenuation circuit (that typically does the 'squashing' of a signal's dynamic range by reducing it's level by varying amounts). Normally, the same signal is fed to both circuits. When the level detection circuit detects a level above the compressor's threshold setting, the attenuation circuit reduces the volume of the signal.

We now have the possibility to feed two independant signals to the two circuits. The changing level of one signal will determine how the other signal is attenuated over time.

Setting up the channel that controls the compression

I add a new audio channel and create a pattern from an individual drum hit. I chose a strong kick drum sample to clearly demonstrate the effect. Drum hits mp3

In order to feed the audio from the percussion channel to the key inputs of the compressor on the pad channel, I select the pad track in the percussion track's 'Output Channel' chooser (the pale drop down menu rectangle in the area to the right of the track that says 'Master' by default). Here I select the track number that corresponds to the track with the pad on it. After I do that, the bottomn drop down box becomes active too. This one is used to determine where the audio should enter the destination track, incase there's more than one choice.

In this case the options are: 'Track in', 'Reaktor 3+4', 'Reaktor 5+6'. I select 'Reaktor 3+4' to route the percussion audio to the key inputs of the compressor.

Making the percussion audible again

If I play the track at this point, the pad sound 'dips' wherever the drum notes have been placed, but the drum channel itself is making no sound. Ducked pad mp3

Next it's necessary to use a small workaround in order to hear the drums again. The drums need to be routed to a return track.

To create a new return track for the drums, I right click in the right hand part of the arrange screen and choose 'Insert Return Track'. I right click on your newly created return track and choose 'Rename' to give it a sensible name like 'Kickdrum' for instance.

Back on the drums track, I select 'Mixer' in the rectangular select box that reads 'None' by default. In the dropdown box directly below select 'Kickdrum' (or the name you gave to your return track). Now I drag the horizontal red line that's appeared in track upwards until it wont go any further. Now all the drum audio is being routed to both the sidechain (key) inputs of the compressor, and to the return track (which in turn feeds to the master output). If I play the track now i can hear the drums again, as well as the dipping pad. Drums dipping the pad mp3

The final image shows a new waveform demonstrating how the 'dipped' pad audio looks with the side chain compression applied.

(It's a good idea to save the modified ensemble under a new name if you think you're likely to want to use it again)

Addendum

Thanks to Nokatus for his post on the Ableton forum suggesting a cleverer way of arranging the audio routing:

By the way, have you considered using an effect send to feed the compressor key signal input, instead of doing it the other way around? I mean, instead of routing the drum track directly to the key inputs in Reaktor (in this case 3+4) and listening to it in the mix using a return track, just make a return track which is directed into Reaktor channels 3+4.

After this you don't need to use a return track as a workaround to actually hear the drum track; now you hear it as usual, and can use (and automate) the effect send knob in the drum track (and multiple other tracks as well) to directly control what and how much is used as the key signal at any given moment.

Record stop: Turntable pitch drop audiounit plugin for OS X

So I've cobbled together a very simple AU plugin using Sonic Birth.

For a while I had looked around for a 'record stop' insert plugin for OSX, something that I could add to a signal path, which would recreate the effect of a record slowing to a stop when the turntable platter loses power. Bizarrely, Ableton Live (version 7 and lower) offers no way to recreate this effect. Although you can automate transpose of an audio clip, it doesn't allow you to do so if the clip's warp mode is set to Re-pitch, which it would need to be to emulate the slowing platter.

If you'd like to use the plugin, do the following:

1. If you don't already have it, install sonic birth (provides the framework necessary for the plug to work).
2. Install the Record Stop SB component
3. If you want to tinker with the circuit, download the source file

Ableton Live: How to fake groove quantize

Ableton Live (v7 and lower) is lousy when it comes to working with grooves. But there's a workaround that might be useful until Ableton incorporates real groove quantize support in a future version of Live.

The workaround makes it possible to get midi and audio clips to match the groove of a 'master clip'. To get this working you need to set up warp markers on an audio clip and then specify that the clip's warp grid should modify the master tempo of the set. This creates a master tempo automation pattern. The is automation pattern continually nudges your set's tempo forward and back so that the grid lines in the arrange view correspond to the warp points you set up in the master clip.

If that description was a little hard to follow, watch the video below and it will become clear.

Gotchas:

1. If you need to change tempo during a track this method isn't suitable.
2. Be careful that you disable warp on single-hit clips that you place on the timeline, unless you want them smeared as the master tempo changes!
3. Currently, Live only 'notices' the song tempo automation at the beginning of each 16th measure, so you may find in order to transfer a groove at an acceptable 'resolution' it may be necessary to double the song tempo before beginning this process.
4. If you're using tempo synchronised effects (eg. a delay), these will behave unpredictably if your master tempo is fluctuating rapidly.