Jon Margulies - Ableton Live 9 Power!: The Comprehensive Guide

The Comprehensive Guide

Jon Margulies

Cengage Learning PTR

Ableton Live 9 Power!: The Comprehensive Guide
Jon Margulies

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Ableton, Ableton Live, Operator, Sampler, and Push are trademarks of Ableton AG.

Mac, the Mac logo, Mac OS, Macintosh, and QuickTime are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. The Audio Units logo is a trademark of Apple Computer, Inc. Windows, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and DirectX are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other countries. Intel is a registered trademark of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. SONiVOX is the brand name trademark of Sonic Network, Inc. VST is a trademark of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH. ASIO is a trademark and software of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH. ReWire and REX2 are trademarks of Propellerhead Software. Mackie Control is a trademark of LOUD Technologies, Inc. All other product and company names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2013932037

ISBN-13: 978-1-285-45540-2

ISBN-10: 1-285-45540-1

eISBN-10: 1-285-45541-X

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Many thanks to everyone whom Ive had the pleasure of working with on this book: Marta Justak for editing me and making sure I make sense, Brian Jackson for really knowing his stuff and being a great technical editor, and Orren Merton for giving me the chance to do this book and overseeing the project. Id also like to extend my gratitude to the fine folks at Ableton for all their support, particularly Dennis DeSantis who was always available to answer questions and kick around tricky concepts.

Jon Margulies is a producer and performing artist who has been called the Mr. Miyagi of Ableton Live. A lifelong professional musician and computer wizard, Margulies has performed as Hobotech at festivals such as Coachella, SXSW, Winter Music Conference, and Burning Man. He is the author of Ableton Live 7 Power! and Ableton Live 8 Power!, and the co-author of Your Ableton Live Studio. Visit hobo-tech.com for Jons latest Ableton Live tips and music downloads.

Ableton Live 9 Power!: The Comprehensive Guide is an all-inclusive guide to making music with Abletons revolutionary live performance and studio software. Written for all Live users, from beginners to seasoned pros, this book explores each fundamental feature in Live, although it does presume a basic familiarity with music making and digital audio. This book is intended to supplement and expand on the information included in the Live manual and built-in lessons, so dont forget to take advantage of these great resources. Finally, this book also includes downloadable materials, which can be found at www.hobo-tech.com/livepower.

Youll find the following areas covered in this book:

Composing, arranging, and mixing music with Live.

Using Lives built-in instruments and effects, and working with plug-ins.

Performing with Live on stage.

Essential information on Lives add-ons including Max For Live and the Push hardware controller

And much more!

This book is for anyone who wants a solid foundation in using Ableton Live. While it contains all of the basic information needed by beginners, it also delves into deeper topics, providing real-world tips and examples for power users.

This book starts out with an overview of the most important concepts of Live, explaining essential aspects of the interface and outlining Lives unique workflow. The following chapters provide a detailed and highly practical reference guide to topics such as clips, tracks, devices, and hardware control. The final chapters of the book are devoted to important concepts for performance and useful advanced techniques.

You may download the companion website files from www.hobo-tech.com/livepower or www.cengageptr.com/downloads.

EVERY SO OFTEN, a new piece of technology or software application makes an indelible mark on the way things are done. Abletons Live has instigated a revolution in the audio software world by transforming computers into playable musical instruments, without sacrificing the power that digital audio workstations are known for. Youll find all the features youd expect, such as multitrack audio and MIDI recording, nonlinear editing, quantization, pitch shifting, freezing, delay compensation, and more. This comes as the culmination of years of software development infused with DJ and electronic music-making instincts.