Quite a tough couple of weeks somehow. Grey days. I've put in a lot of hard work. I don't think there's been any actual creative musical construction at all but set-up wise I've got a bit done. So here's an update on my progress. I hope it helps give you some ideas for constructive approaches to music-making. It's for real people, not those geniuses that arrive free-formed and ready to go with their hearts attuned to the harmonies around them. It's for working musicians who, like me, struggle to make music.
Collect All and Save
Samples. Yeah, so I got worried about the diminishing free space on the music (Windows) side of my PC. Two partitions there (an SSD and part of an HDD) that max out at 250GB each. It's not going to cut it long-term so I purchased a Toshiba 2TB Canvio Basics Portable External Hard Drive for £48 on the (sorry) Amazon Prime. 2 terabytes or 2000 GB room for lots of samples. I transferred my whole sample collection over from some other backup external drive. This took a lot of work because I'm moving those samples from one operating/file system (Linux so EXT4 maybe) to another (Windows and NTFS). Tricky.
These samples have all been acquired freely over the years. They are not going to be the best samples by any means but they are something to start with. In total there's around 250GB of samples here. The Computer Music (80GB) and Music Radar (25GB) directories are my biggest collections.
The trick and tip is to 'Collect all and save' when working on musical projects. This ensures that when saving musical projects the samples used get automatically copied to the project folder. I can then sort and rearrange my main samples library to my heart's content without projects breaking ('Unable to find bassline_90bpm.wav' etc).
Benefits Broadband
Oh and I'm getting home broadband set up here this week. A decent BT broadband package (36Mbps advertised) for £15 a month with, after all these years (!), a free phone-line installation, plus really decent contract exit guarantees. Home Essentials BT Broadband for benefits claimants. Civilised!
And Ableton...
So it's the number one DAW according to Music Radar. Anna Meredith uses it. Loraine James uses it. 'The choice of countless pros' says Music Radar. Ableton's key feature has always been the twin view setup: Arrangement View (tracks arranged over a horizontal linear timeline; the standard DAW approach) and Session View (mix and match audio clips; play loops; all nicely synced beats and tempi; a more DJ-based or creative workspace approach to making music). This makes for a smoother workflow, so they say.
And then you get a page on the website like Integrated Hardware which shows what controllers will not just work with Live but instantly have their keys, pads, knobs and faders mapped to settings in the Live window. Ableton is clearly working very hard to get connected and accessible to musicians. Even when they have their own Push controller and sampling device to retail.
So... quite suddenly Ableton Live comes into focus as my new favourite DAW. At the moment it seems to me like the easiest option for making music using a computer. Maybe it won't be. I may really struggle to get with the Session/Arrangement workflow again. And the device rack (?) at the bottom of the window with its boxy devices with so many little labels and buttons looks pretty complex. My relationship with Ableton Live isn't certain to work out. For now though I'm giving it a try with the 90-day demo of the full suite.
Learn Live 11
I really appreciate the simple clarity of the introductory e-mail on signing up to Ableton’s website. The website itself is fairly easy to navigate. There’s a nice lightness here. The web design looks a little amateur at first glance but I think this is all part of Ableton’s kind of lo-fi Berlin hack-tech vibe. On reflection, it seems to be hinting that making music should be fun.
The Learn Live series of tutorials is kind of strange. It’s an odd mix of videos targeted at beginners (Setup and Interface) and more advanced users (New Features and Instruments & Effects). This last section is particularly strange. Ableton Live provides up to 17 software instruments to users and yet the many videos of this section focus on just two or three of these instruments and effects (mainly Wavetable - Ableton’s newest synth). I’ve watched a lot of videos on Ableton’s website now but still haven’t really had a look at much of the software that comes with the full program. I still have the Workflows section to watch which should introduce me to more devices and techniques. Simpler, the less advanced of Ableton Live’s two samplers (the other is called Sampler - nice!), is covered in this section.
But my 90 days of a free trial is ticking down all the time. Soon I’ll have a go at making some music with Live and I’ll report back here with my findings. It feels mildly exciting.