Get Your Guitar Groov e On A Tutorial for Using Live With Guitar by Michael Ross

To think of Ableton Live as something that is only for DJs or electro-techno-computer music folks is really missing the point. For guitarists, Live works as a handy studio partner for composing, practicing and performing music in almost any genre. Technically speaking, you can use Live as an arrangement tool, an effect device, or for creating ambient guitar loop collages. And this is just the beginning of what is possible. With a bit of practice, Live can help you with everything from quickly recording song ideas to completing full compositions and large-scale productions. In short, using your guitar with Live is a powerful combination (and really pretty easy). To see exactly what Im talking about, sit back and let me take you through a session that incorporates just a few of the cool things you can do with Live. The first thing you see when you open Live 4 is the Session View, a blank grid ready to house your musical ideas. If you are at all familiar with recording, you will notice that the Session View resembles a mixing board, with faders and sends. The labels at the top of each strip should also look familiar: Audio, MIDI and Master. Each vertical column represents a track or channel. Before I begin recording, Ive decided that Id like some accompaniment for inspiration. I can use Lives Browser to search for a simple drum loop on my hard drive. You can get drum loops from just about any music store, or even online. Actually, the boxed version of Live also comes with hundreds of different rock, pop and hip hop loops that are great for quick inspiration. Once I find a loop that I like, I drag it from Lives Browser on the left-hand side of the screen into one of the tracks labeled Audio. Then, I launch the loop by pressing its small play button. Of course, I could also just play along with Lives click track, but a real loop is usually more fun.

Select a loop from the Browser, and drag it into an audio track. Then, launch the loop by pressing its triangular play button.

Next, I plug my 65 Strat into a Line 6 POD and then into a DIGI 001 sound card. Of course, you can use any audio interface or guitar amp-modeling device you choose, or even, gulp, record your amp. I could even bypass the POD and use an amp modeling plug-in such as Native Instruments Guitar Rig or IK Multimedias AmpliTude. To prepare for recording, I have set up Lives preferences to receive audio from the 001, so all I need to do now is arm a second audio track for recording.

Arm a track for recording by pressing its Arm button at the bottom of the mixer.
Since I am recording a mono signal, I need to tell Live this by choosing an input channel in the lower Audio From chooser, as shown below. (Note that you may need to check the View menus In/Out option to make this chooser appear.)

Here, I am choosing the mono signal of my audio interface.

To begin recording, I press any circular record button in the tracks Session grid. Live is already playing the drum loop, and now its time for me to play along. Making life easy, Lives auto-monitoring automatically allows me to hear the source (my guitar) while recording. When I decide to play back my newly recorded loop by hitting its play button, Live will stop monitoring until I begin recording again. Now I need a bass line, but you will soon see that I dont need a bass. I listen to the drum part and experiment with some possible bass lines on the guitar. When I find one I like, I just click on a clip slot in the armed track and play it. I can just keep playing bass lines until I get one that feels locked in. I then click on any square-shaped stop button in the same track to stop the clips playback for editing- the drum part will continue to play. I

double-click on the clip I just recorded to open Lives Clip View at the bottom of my screen. Here I will trim the loop to play just the best version of what will soon be the bass line. In this instance, Im thinking that it would be cool to have the guitar double the bass line, so I copy the clip and paste it into another audio track to have both at my disposal. (I can create a new audio track, if necessary, from the Insert menu.) Next, I go into the Clip View for clip that will become my bass line and turn the Transpose knob down to 12 semitones to transpose the guitar clip down an octave.

Transposing a guitar loop to create a bass line.

Creating another audio track, I record an arpeggiated chord part starting on bar three. On still another track I try out a funk chord rhythm.

Create new audio tracks and record to build a set of clips.

So far so good, but I want to pep up the drum groove as I get further into the tune, so I audition some more drum loops from the Browser. Notice how Live plays them right in time with my track, so I can instantly hear how they sound. When I drag the one I like into the blank space next to the tracks, Live will automatically create an audio track for it. Hearing the two drum loops playing in tandem, I notice that the bass drum groove is sounding a bit muddled. To alleviate the conflict, I drag an Auto Filter device from Lives Audio Effects

folder in the Browser into the track with the new drum loop and set it up to filter out the lower frequencies- cool!

Drag the Auto Filter from the Browser into a track to filter out unwanted frequencies.
My track is grooving, but I am quickly tiring of the one-chord harmony. I could play a new part or copy the chord clip that I already played and transpose it, but I decide instead to use Live 4s new Simpler sampler. It is as easy as dragging the Simpler to a MIDI track and then dragging the chord clip that I already recorded into the Simpler. I then use my computer keyboard to play a two-chord pattern on the Simpler by pressing any two letter keys. The two chords work well against the pedaled bass line, but the funk rhythm doesnt. Each horizontal row of clips is a scene, and can be launched simultaneously with the play button on the right-hand side of the screen, underneath the Master track. I can play everything Ive recorded up to this point by launching the first scene. Then, I go to the Insert menu and choose Capture and Insert Scene. Now, I have a new scene from which I can remove the funk part, as well as one that contains the funk part from which I can remove the two-chord part (the original). The ideas keep coming: Over the two-chord vamp, I try a single-note lead line. I keep creating and arming tracks as fast as I come up with ideas: harmony lines for the lead and a telegraph style octave part.

Capture and insert scenes to combine clips in different ways.

It is now time to start building my arrangement. Still in the Session View, I use Capture and Insert Scene to create three more scenes containing all my elements. I leave them all in the final scene but start removing elements one at a time from the preceding scenes above. (Note: Referring to final and preceding is just a visual cue from top to bottom. Scenes can be triggered in any order and at any time). For a breakdown part, I copy just the lead line and its two harmony parts into a scene. I add a moving filter to the telegraph part with an Auto Filter, and some chorus to the chordal vamp, and it is time to record an arrangement. But wait- having decided to use a chorus of the funk part, I notice that it isnt quite locked in with the track. I could go back and try to play it again, but with Live I dont have to. By entering the Clip View, I can see the timing of my recording against the master tempo. I then simply double-click any grid marker to create a Warp Marker. I can now shift parts of the audio into line with the track without having to replay it by dragging the Warp Markers to the right or left. Live massages the timing of my recording. Very cool!

Create and drag Warp Markers to fix timing.

Okay, now back to arranging. As I said, you can trigger the scenes in any order just by clicking on them with your mouse, but to make life easier, I shift some of them so that I will be triggering them mostly in order from top to bottom. By setting the Global Quantization to Bar (its default setting), I can trigger a new scene on beats two, three or four of the bar before I want it to play, and it will hit right on the next downbeat.

Quantization will prevent timing errors when scenes are launched.

Next, I arm Lives Global Record button in the transport section at the top of the screen and click on the first scene. Arranging is sort of like a performance. You just click on new scenes or clips when they feel right. Dont worry about making a mistake, things can be recorded over, rearranged and/or edited in Lives Arrangement View (accessed by hitting the Tab key). Playing back my arrangement, I decide that one section goes on for one too many choruses. To quickly edit this, I simply press Tab to see the Arrangement View, highlight the offending chorus and then choose Delete Time from the Edit menu. Live removes the section and seamlessly snaps the parts on either side together. For a finale, I break down to only the lead line and its harmony parts, then capture one note of each part and place it at every

other 16th note for about five bars. Pressing Lives Global Record button again, I then perform a fade-out, which will be recorded as mix automation.

Record an arrangement of clips and scenes.

This is just one way that a guitarist can employ Live. Those leaning toward the techno end of the spectrum might use Lives warping, pitch-shifting or other more specialized effects, or any VST or AU plug-ins on their system. More traditional players can program or import a blues shuffle (or even record a live rhythm section). You can record keyboards, vocals and guitar played through a real amp. Live will allow you to experiment after the fact with tempos, keys and arrangement ideas. Whatever your musical tastes, Live can help you enjoy your guitar and improve your music.

Michael Ross is a freelance guitarist/producer/writer/editor/bon vivant living in New York. He is the author of Getting Great Guitar Sounds (Hal Leonard). He is the gear editor for Guitar One Magazine, and a contributor to amazon.com, What Guitar, No Depression, Puremusic.com and others.