1.8 Performance Scenes Update

Below is the Session View from the performance on the 17th of June.

It proved possible to reduce the number of scenes by re- using the same 8 bar (1) Bridges and 4 bar (2) Bridges and Riff 3 (7), although it would have been even better to standardise on single bridge and riff scenes right from the start. Moving to the requisite scenes during a performance would have been more in keeping with Ableton’s way of doing things. The Extension (3) and Riddle (4) sections of four scenes each were reduced to single long scenes and this allowed time during the performance to apply Delay and EQ Three effects live. The three OK V1 (5) and two OK C1 (6) scenes were reduced to single scenes.

It was extremely useful to go through this process and take on board the lessons learned for next time.

1.6 Processors in Insert Mode

The Acoustic compressor was inserted into the Vocal Track by double clicking it with the track highlighted, or dragging from Live Devices into the Clip Pane. A number of compressors in the Audio Effects folder were tried but this one gave the best results.

EQ Three was added in the same way to reduce the bass on the Verse 1 Vocal clip and remove a “growl” in that particular recording. This also made sure any similar sound was removed from all the clips. The compressor and EQ Three were also inserted in the Harmony track.

These vocal clips in the project were subsequently replaced by audio clips created in Sonar as part of the Area of Expertise study. The clips shown here were processed by the V-Vocal processor in Sonar to remove any pitch anomolies in the original recordings and “bounced” to new audio tracks. These were dragged from Sonar into Ableton and processed with the compressor and EQ Three.

Final Review Notes

My performance went smoothly and seemed to be well received, as were all the performances on the night. One scene was triggered early towards the end and I did not manage the second tempo change on the slider all that well. This made it difficult for the guitarist to adjust his playing in the section before final fade out. Several people commented we obviously enjoyed ourselves, as both of us were singing our respective vocals along with the recorded verses.

The build up through the day was uneven, with controller keyboards not working properly and the volumes in the short practice session making it virtually impossible to rehearse the performance with the guitarist. In the end we changed the intended guitar sound to suit the venue setup and late modifications to the project.

For me the project and performance strengths lay in the decision to write a song specially for the project, as the course was taking place, and to introduce a “live” playing element. This meant the composition process adapted to Ableton’s approach, as I hoped it would, and consequently introduced a greater musical variation overall. However, this meant I could make only limited use of effects “live” during the perormance.

At the end of the course I can see how different it would have been if the project had been developed totally in Ableton from the start e.g. the riffs, bridges, links etc. would have been common, instead of being slightly different, with an obvious overall sequencer feel about the piece. The number of scenes would have reduced and there would have been greater movement between scenes. However, it would not have been possible to do this within the course duration.

My concentration on how I would use Ableton to write songs and integrate with the other applications used meant I have not fully exploited the processor and effects aspects of the software. Having used orchestral instruments almost exclusively, I found the use of synthesizer instruments difficult, especially when I had to change all the instruments I intended to use, to those available in Ableton.

It was difficult to keep to the blog timetable, because I did not complete a blog until it was incorporated into the project. Working on the project at home was also fraught, as there were problems packing live sets and opening them on another machine, even after machines were upgraded to the same version of Ableton. The hardest part of the project for me was making the last bar of each verse play in the following scene.

Through the course I realise how useful Ableton will be to my song writing, and crucially how well it works with other applications I use already. The portability with Sonar was fantastic, dragging complete sections from the sequencer into Ableton. All vocals were recorded and processed there, as the project had lead and harmony parts plus an orchestral section. Because it is so intuitive, Ableton has introduced me to aspects of other software that previously I had found too difficult e.g. V-Vocal processing and Audiosnap in Sonar. I’ve already started to input music using a keyboard and midi guitar, instead of a staff editor – far more creative and time efficient.

Thanks to the tutor and participants on the course I have become a true Ableton believer, with still a lot to learn.

2.4 Area of Expertise

Integration of Ableton into the other applications I use for writing songs.

Over the first 5 weeks of the course I wrote a song, using Guitar Pro and Sonar, that I thought would be suitable for development in Ableton . Based on a four chord riff with bass and drums, I assigned instruments in Sonar as a rough prototype, but had very little idea how it would progress beyond the first verse of 16 bars.

So, after Tuesdays and Wednesdays at BSS, Thursdays were dedicated to completing the composition ready for loading from the sequencer into the Ableton Session View. I have been compiling an album of songs I’ve written, including some composed separately by my friend David Westmoreland, and he agreed to help me get the song finished in time for the performance. Although we’ve been working closely together over the last 12 months, this is the first time we’ve collaborated on a song, and it was a tremendous experience. Each week I would have the next phase roughed out and we would progress from there. David is particularly strong on percussion and linking the various themes together and of course working together was more creative than composing on my own.

Although Ableton is not designed for the type of music that interests me, Session View is a great way to develop a song in conjunction with the other applications. As a guitarist, it is simpler for me to lay down chord structures in Guitar Pro with a suitable drum loop. It is probably easier to enter a melody line using the tablature editor or a staff editor too. However, in future I’ll probably just create the scenes to export to Ableton, or via Sonar, instead of the whole song. Sonar is an extremely competent sequencer and more, but I can see how useful the Ableton approach is going to be to try out different arrangements.

From the possible topics listed in my outline on the 6th of June I decided to concentrate on a couple that figured in the final stages of the project, prior to performance on 17th of June. Within the general area of how Ableton works in conjunction with Guitar Pro and Sonar, I selected two related capabilities in Sonar that I needed for my project, that were not available in Ableton:

• Creation of an Edirol Orchestral audio clip from its midi track
• The V-Vocal Voice processor to correct vocal tracks for pitch etc.

My normal composing and recording procedure is:

• Compose the music and preliminary lyrics using the guitar.
• Manually enter the song into Guitar Pro and finalise the lyrics.
• Assign General Midi instruments and export tracks as a midi file.
• Import the midi file into a Sonar template and assign instruments.
• Record the vocals and any other audio tracks in Sonar.
• Master and mixdown to CD.

With a few minor complications this procedure is straight-forward.
Advantages of Guitar Pro are its simple tablature/staff editor and entry of chords to create the structure for a song. To continue to have these facilities available I would need to keep using Guitar Pro, as neither Sonar nor Ableton have suitable alternatives. It’s easy to import and create midi drum tracks in Guitar Pro, which transfer readily into Sonar for use with its Session Drummer. If channel 10 is common to both applications there is no need to map drums, as you need to with Ableton. Because Guitar Pro enables lyrics to be matched to the music, there aren’t any surprises when these come to be recorded elsewhere.

Sonar has the advantage that it has everything you would want from a sequencer, without being as intuitive as Ableton. The staff editor is OK for minor changes, but difficult to use when modifications to tracks are needed, e.g. insertion of a bridging section. It is generally better to revise in Guitar Pro and re-import to a Sonar track template. This keeps both syncronised, with the Guitar Pro version remaining the master and amendments made in one direction only. There is also a mis-match of midi editors, as Guitar Pro only has the tablature/staff editor.

 

Sequence versus Ableton’s Session View

Initially it was difficult to overcome the sequencer mind set, but as the project song was being written piecemeal in Guitar Pro, the concept of “scenes” became more attractive. At first I cut the individual Guitar Pro sections and exported them as midis. These were dragged into Ableton as scenes. However, it seemed simpler to import all tracks into Sonar before dragging into Ableton, where bars needed for each scene could be edited into clips. The ease with which the Sonar tracks are split and dragged into Ableton, made it possible to insert new scenes and amend the song’s sequenced arrangement. In a very practical way this revealed the benefit of using the Session View to compose and develop a song. Only Ableton has this excellent drag and drop ability. Sonar and Guitar Pro rely on import and export routines.
The original concept of the song had orchestral instruments, but there were no suitable equivalents in Ableton’s library. Although the Edirol Orchestral VSTi soft synth did install as an Ableton plug in, it proved impossible to assign it to any of the tracks. There seemed to be general confusion on the forums about getting it to work in Ableton, and most examples were of the DXi version used with Sonar. Determined to have at least one clip as an orchestral instrument, I decided to “bounce” an Edirol midi track in Sonar and drag into Ableton as an orchestral ensemble for the “Slowdown” clip in the project.

A similiar approach was used for lead and harmony vocals, except it made more sense to combine the recorded takes into single tracks,  before bringing them into Ableton to create the individual audio clips. Volume recording levels of takes were adjusted at the same time using V-Vocal’s dynamics and amplitude envelope.

 

The V-Vocal processor was applied in automatic mode to remove minor pitch anomolies. V-Vocal works non-destructively by overlaying its clip on the original audio, which is muted. The “bounce to tracks” was from the V-Vocal audio clip, rather than a midi track with Edirol Orchestral patch applied. However, both procedures gave new audio tracks, which dragged into Ableton. It is worth noting that both these audio tracks were extended and modified in Sonar to allow for the changes made to the arrangement in Ableton, and mirrored in Guitar Pro, so that the vocals commenced at the same bar count and dropped straight into Ableton.

As vocals were not too far off pitch, the automatic pitch correction was applied to the whole track. When this is not the case, sections of a waveform can be made to conform to a musical scale or manually adjusted. Vibrato can also be edited. Vocal timing can be adjusted in a similiar manner to warping in Ableton. The latest version 7 of Sonar even has a pitch to midi converter. This allows you to sing in a tune, pitch correct it for any anomolies with V-Vocal and adjust the vocal timing, then convert those pitches to midi notes.

By using the right to left method for warping i.e. anchoring track ends and working backwards to the beginning, it was quite simple to syncronise vocals with each other and to the other scene clips. This also made the task of starting vocals on cue a lot easier. Vocal recording was not included in the course, so the four verses, with their harmonies, were recorded in the Sonar version of the Touchstone song. I look forward to recording directly into Ableton and having access to orchestral instruments, once I have my own version of Ableton that reliably creates live packs that transfer to other systems.

I feel the decision to prototype a song in Guitar Pro, Sonar and Ableton simultaneously has been well worth the effort involved, as it has shown me where Ableton would fit with these other applications and improve my music.

 

1.8 Performance Scenes

Default sections of the performance – collecting the clips into scenes

This screenshot shows the status of project in Session View as at 1st of June 2008. My major problem now is to reduce the number of scenes before the performance, without losing their existing musical variations.

1. Scenes progress as required except for vocals, because the 13th bar of VERSE vocals needs to continue to play with the next clip. This has now been resolved as detailed in the 1.2 Audio Clips blog.

Note VERSES 1 and 2 are identical, as are 3 and 4, but the pairs are different, so loss of two scenes is possible if the vocals for each pair of verses could play in a single scene.

2. This 13th bar is repeated in Theme and Lyrics tracks, as both mirror the melody line sung in the vocals. This is OK with a 1 bar clip following each verse, but it makes the Bridge and Riff clips different, when otherwise the number of scenes for each type could be reduced to single clips. If this had been developed In Ableton and not a sequencer programme, variations in the “bridging” type clips would have been more considered and the number of scenes reduced. Is Ableton capable of “building” a song using such bridges and riffs if these are reduced to a single scene each?
THIS PROBLEM HAS BEEN PARTLY RESOLVED AS DETAILED IN 1.2 AUDIO CLIPS BLOG.

3. Verses 1 and 2 lead vocals have been warped, but the recordings for 3 and 4 have yet to be brought into Ableton and warped. All are imported without any Sonar processing (compression) or effects (reverb).

4. The same applies to the four harmony tracks, but here I want to apply the V-Vocal utility in Sonar, to correct any notes slightly off key and reduce vibrato, and then “Bounce” the processed tracks to use in the project. This will be covered in my Area of Expertise section.

5. The four INSTRUMENTAL scenes of 6 bars could be reduced to two 12 bar scenes quite simply.

6. Similarly the four EXTENSION scenes of 8 bars can be reduced to two of 16 bars.

7. Also, the four RIDDLE scenes of 6 bars each can become two at 12 bars.

8. The LINK C scene currently uses a slide control to progressively lower the tempo of the song from 107 bpm to 90 bpm. I would prefer this automated as start and end points in the 18 bar section are important to the song.
UNDERSTAND EASY TO DO IN A SEQUENCER BUT DIFFICULT IN THE ABLETON SESSION VIEW.

9. The OK V1, V2 and V3 scenes can be reduced to one and allowed to loop as required. These were originally sequenced this way for a vocal track, which I probably will not have time to do.

10. Similiarly, the OK C1 and C2 scenes can be a single looped scene.

11. The slide control on the final FADE scene would be better than on LINK C, especially if live guitar is used at performance time, see point 16 below.

12 Sadly, I might have to abandon using Edirol Orchestral as I can not get it to work in Ableton, although it does seem to have installed corectly as a plug in. If it can’t be configured in Ableton I’ll “Bounce” a midi track with the Orchestral soft synth in Sonar and include bring into the project as audio for the Slowdown clip. I’ll include this in my Area of Expertise section. The other possibility is use of French Horns for High 2, but as the original sound of the piece has now completely changed this may no longer work.

13. Besides orchestral sounds there were several other instruments used from the Cakewalk TTS and General Midi that couldn’t be found in the Ableton libary I am using. Hopefully they may be available on a supplementary disk e.g. Koto and Shamisen.
FURTHER INSTUMENTS NOW TO HAND.

14. The only processor and effects currently applied to the project are compressor on lead vocal and chorus on the Echo track. I don’t want too many effects introduced during performance as there is already a lot of musical variation in the clips . The minimum will suffice.

15. The only keyboard controllers setup at the moment are a slide on Link C, that I would still prefer automated, and the trigger for launching the next scene.

16. My friend Dave is still up for playing guitar live on the 17th of June if we know what provision could be made – either acoustic or electric and he would be prepared to come for afternoon rehearsal.
GUITAR and AMP ONLY REQUIRED – CONNECTED VIA THE MIXING DESK.

17. I’ve had an invitation to contribute up to 3 songs to a new on line magazine being launched by a company I register for copyright reasons, closing on the 16th June. If we had a decent mp3 by then I would like submit the final Touchstone.

18. There are additional lyrics written and to write, but it’s probably too late now to make such amendments.

19. The Midi tracks from SONAR and GUITAR PRO in the first scene named “0 SONAR” need to be deleted and the clips created from them cropped to tidy up the project.

20. I have had a problem with the later version (7.0.2) of Ableton installed at home, to work in conjunction with the Sonar and Guitar Pro applications not available on the BSS machines, in that saved live sets will not load into the earlier 7.0.1 version used in the course. Graham has successfully loaded my latest live set into version 7.0.3 and has arranged for the BSS workstation I use to be upgraded. However, this has lost me a few days working on the projest and delayed submission of blogs.

1.4 Two Ableton Instruments

IMPULSE

Introduction

I decided to use one of the drum kits in the Ableton library for the project,  but have included a section on how to build a custom kit in Impulse using samples.

1. I had problems with drum tracks created in Guitar Pro for my project, because too many drum instruments were used in the sequences that were created and added to over a number of weeks.  On inspection there were a number of inconsistencies which required correction e.g. four or five different toms were used in the track.

2. The entire track was manually edited, e.g. to restrict toms used to two, before importing into Sonar, so both sources could be used to prepare the clips for the Ableton Session View. A copy of the original track was saved to check later if the data was completely portable over the the three applications. See my Area of Expertise section.

3. The “Big Rocker” drum kit from the Acoustic kits was chosen and the entire Sonar midi track re-mapped to the kit in Ableton to use for the Scene clips, because it was easier than editing individual exports from Guitar Pro. The device contols were adjusted for the required balance of the instruments.

Without Impulse

4. The drum kit was selected, double clicked or dragged onto a midi track header.The drum clips used in the tracks were prepared from a midi export from Guitar Pro of the scene, or from the first scene row labelled “0 Sonar”. This contains a complete drum track for the song dragged from Sonar into Ableton. The drum tracks were created from midi loops, modified in Guitar Pro with fills etc. to produce a sequence percussion track.

5. The drums had to be re-mapped for the selected drum kit, which meant it was simpler to re-map the whole track in Ableton, instead of individual scenes cut from Guitar Pro and exported as midis. As I already had the Sonar tracks loaded, most individual drum clips for the project were prepared from this Sonar master track, which would be deleted later and induividual clips cropped.

Acting Impulsively

1. The Impulse drum plug-in is dragged from the Live Devices instruments in the file browser onto the header of an empty track in the Ableton Session View.

2. In the File Browser samples of individual drums can be set up in Impulse if none of the library drum kits are suitable.

3. These drum instrument samples are selected and dragged in turn to 8 available slots in Impulse to build a custom drum kit.

4. Double click on the empty track below the Impulse header to make an empty track to record the drum pattern using the keyboard or by hand with the midi editor.

5. Any drum slots that aren’t assigned are shown empty in the clip.

6. There are three Global Controls:

Volume
Time
Transpose.

7. The other controla from left to right are:

Start: To delay the start of the instrument
Transpose: To change the pitch
Stretch: To lengthen or shorten the sample
Decay: To define the way the sound fades

8. The following screen-shot shows Impulse applied to the midi clip used in the adjacent Big Rocker track and re-mapped with the same instruments, but using samples from Live Devices browser, for comparison.

OPERATOR

Smooth Operator
1 The Operator synthesiser was dragged onto the header of an empty midi track in Session View.

2.Here a clip of chords exported as a midi file from Guitar Pro had various pads loaded to the track, either by double clicking in Live Devices or dragging onto the track. They included “Mercury Vapours” to try a replicate the Cakewalk pad called “Fantasia” used in the Sonar version of the song. The present choice “Epiano” is as close to the original Sonar instrument selectio as I could find.

3. Unlike the problematical midi drum clips from both Guitar Pro and Sonar, which had to be re-mapped in Impulse, all the other midi clips could be dragged into the Ableton midi tracks from the midi export file from Guitar Pro or directly from Sonar. Eventually it proved easier to have both Sonar and Ableton open, highlight all Sonar midi tracks and drag them into Ableton as the first scene. It was then straight-forward to isolate the bars required for clips.

4. The same chords were duplicated for use by other instruments in the same scenes to compliment and emphasise EPiano chord clips.

5. Ten of the tracks in the project use Operator.

Operator Clip Pane

1. The Operator Preset “EPiano” is displayed in the Track 6 header.

2. The Clip Pane shows a 12 bar loop for the Scene called 8 Inst 1.

3. This midi clip is from a Guitar Pro midi export.

 

One of the most important elements in the project is the “Echo” track. This was originally envisaged as a vocal track, a “hook” perhaps, echoing the word “touchstone”. Later in the song the track carried an instrumental, so it was important to choose the right instrument and effects. Below are Operator settings for “Switched on Bach” with the Flanger settings.

1.2 Preparing Audio Clips

All the audio for the project i.e. the verses and harmony vocals, had to be recorded in Sonar and imported into Ableton. There were no facilities to do this other than at home, and I did not have an Ableton system up and running until much later. Once in the Session View the individual verse clips had to warped to have the lyrics fall on the beats and begin and end  correctly.

1. A Sonar recording of lead vocals for Verses 1 and 2 was dragged from the Sonar Track View into an Audio Track in Ableton’s Session View.

2. Verses 1 and 2 were recorded between bars 12 and 25 and between bars 28 and 41 respectively.

3. Warping was carried using the right to left technique, anchoring ends of the clips at grid markers 25 and 41 with warp makers and working from right to left, turning grid markers to warp markers and moving transients progressively onto the beats. This warping technique is advised for longer audio clips per the tutorial by Chad Carrier taken from the Ableton website. It is vital to note that the Complex Warp Mode must be used for audio otherwise it will sound strange after warping. The Warp Mode options are in a drop down to the left of the Loop on/off button, immediately below the half and double tempo buttons. All the screen shots show the option set to the default setting of “Beats”, before this was changed to ”Complex in the project.

4 The final bar (13th) in each verse on the word “stone” caused a problem as it needs to be heard in the next scene. It has since been resolved by deleting the Clip Stop Button in the track in the next scene and switching the Loop off. As an aid to performance the Loop End was moved forward to the end of the 12th bar, to help trigger the next scene in the 12th, and not the 13th bar. (Unfortunately, this could not be seen during the performance as the clips can not be viewed when moving through the scenes using the keyboard controller.) All midi tracks syncronised with the word “stone” required the same action with deletion of surplus bars in subsequent scenes.

5. Verses 3 and 4 and Harmony recordings were transferred and warped later in Ableton. As part of my Area of Expertise I found it was better to combine the lead vocal recordings into a single track in Sonar before dragging into Ableton. for warping into individual clips. Harmonies were treated the same way.

6. I did not experiment with Sonar “groove clips” in the end and left this for another time.

7. All harmony recordings were processed using V-Vocal, before “bouncing” to another audio track in Sonar, to apply fixes for pitch and vibrato. Again this use of V-Vocal is part of the Area of Expertise study.

Assessment Criteria 1.4

At this early stage of the project I have only incorporated the Ableton Operator and Impulse instruments in my project to drive the initial scenes.

I have not been able to complete Assessment 1.5 blog today as I have had to concentrate on exporting the midi tracks from the song I’ve prepared in Guitar Pro 5 ready to load as scenes into the Ableton Session View. There has been a problem with the drum clips, as explained above in the Impulse section, which means I will have to edit manually the percussion elements in more than 30 clips. The midi drum tracks imported directly into Sonar without problems, so the need to remap/move some of the instruments using the midi editor was unexpected.

On the 22nd of May I hope to record more audio for the project, directly into Ableton this time, and also record some midi using a keyboard. I will then be able to complete the blog for assessment 1.5, with screenshots from the project. Hopefully, over the weekend I will be able to finish off all midi clips required for the scenes.

Final Project Planning

Project Outline

This course coincides with the completion of an album of songs in collaboration with another song writer. In order to progress I need to move to a more intuitive and creative means of composing further songs, that is far less time consuming than the present method. I’ve specially written a song called ‘Touchstone’ that lends itself to prototyping using the Ableton Live approach with scenes in the session view to develop it from the preliminary midi draft that should be completed this week. There are some lyrics to finish & audio to record in Sonar on the 15th of May.

By de-constructing the draft sequences and re-using/editing in Ableton with additional material I should be able to assess how effective the software will be as a composition and arranging tool.

Project goals

1. Completion of the midi song in Guitar Pro with vocals and guitars etc. recorded in Sonar by 20th of May.  It will be neccessary to confirm the Sonar audio clips are compatible with Ableton, and if not, these will be re-recorded in Ableton. I have already confirmed the Guitar Pro midi export will import into Ableton. If the Ableton instruments can’t provide a required orchestral sounds then the Sonar midi tracks will be bounced to audio.

2. Completion of all the audio and midi clips needed for Ableton Session View scenes by the 27th of May. It is likely the transfer to Ableton will require additional midi and audio data as the project develops. As there will be many longer than normal clips I may need some input/further study into how these can be prepared e.g. editing in Sound Forge and warping.

3. Completion of the Session View scenes with all required effects and processors applied by 3rd of June. I will need help with the scenes where there are lengthy clips to incorporate. Dummy clips and Legato use?

4. Setting up and practice performance using the controller keyboard to be completed by 11th of June ready for performance on the 12th of June. I have already covered the live guitar playing, if needed.

Preparation

I don’t anticipate any problems completing the draft song ready for developing in Ableton and I don’t expect to use any other recorded material or samples. I will use the midi guitar and keyboard at home for additional midi and can also record any extra audio to either Sonar or Ableton on my DAW. I’m proceeding on the basis my song-writing collaborator will play lead guitar live during the performance, but this will depend on how the song progresses over the next fortnight.

Other Project Ideas

The performance should last between 4 and 5 minutes, depending on the duration of any live playing. Style of what I regard as a fairly conventional (retro?) song will need a second opinion, so I’ll get one. Throughout the project I’ll be looking to use whatever techniques, processors and effects needed to improve my mixing and mastering skills. Hopefully, this will be the first of many songs created with Ableton. I will need to look into the instrument aspects as I havn’t yet discovered what is available in Ableton. I’ll want to use the Edirol Orchestral plug in on Sonar, as I understand there is no Ableton equivalent I can use.

Areas of Expertise

I want to concentrate of those areas which will improve my composition, arranging, recording & production of songs quickly and in a collaborative manner. A key part of this is playing midi and audio live, instead of having to labourously enter music into a midi or staff editor, which inhibits the creative process.  I see the ability to quickly edit such midi and audio data into scenes to “perform” songs as the most important skill I can improve through this project.