LEARN THE BASICS OF ABLETON IN 30 MINUTES - guaranteed.
Welcome to Ableton 101: The Basics online course, the beginner’s guide to using Ableton Live for playback. Whether you're a musician, artist, or tech director, this course equips you with everything that you need to know to begin running playback sessions in Ableton.
If you want to…
Show up to your next event with ease & confidence
Put a stop to the endless cycle of Youtube searches
Run Ableton like a professional
…than this course is for you.
Led by Dan Alber, this 30 minute course covers everything you need to know to begin using Ableton Live for playback. From outlining the transport to creating new tracks, each lesson is designed to provide practical insights and actionable techniques to get you up to speed on Ableton quickly - GUARANTEED.
In fact, we’re so certain that by the end of this course you will be equipped to run a basic playback session, that if not, we’ll jump on a free zoom call with you to get you up to speed!
Join below for just $50 $38 - limited time only.
-
001 - Introduction
-
002 - Preferences & Overview
-
CHAPTER 2: PREFERENCES
Let's go ahead and kick things off by firing up Ableton. We’re going to start from the AICS playback template - which is available for purchase on the site, I’m working in Ableton 11.3.10 currently. You’ll notice that a lot of the functions…
-
CHAPTER 3: VIEWS
Now that we've got Ableton Live fired up and customized to our liking, it's time to take a lookthrough the interface. If you’re not familiar with the way ableton is laid out, it can feel overwhelming and backwards from a traditional…
-
-
003 - Transport & Layout
-
CHAPTER 4: TEMPO & TIME SIG.
Let’s take a look at the transport controls, starting in the top left corner. In this course about the basics, I’m not going to show you everything, just the stuff that you’ll need to understand to run a playback session, so don’t feel overwhelmed. The first thing…
-
CHAPTER 5: TRANSPORT
This is Ableton’s built in click. Now in this session, we’re going to use midi clicks as that gives us some more flexibility with subdivisions and accents, so we want to make sure this is set to off, or not highlighted. The volume control for that is down here…
-
CHAPTER 6: MIXER SECTION
Let’s move to the tracks. Let me make this a bit bigger so we can see. Here we have the input selection, in the case of playback we aren’t using an external input, so we don’t need to worry much about that. This is the monitoring selection…
-
CHAPTER 7: TRACK OVERVIEW
Now I have a few other tracks here. First I have this group labeled 911s, which are automated to be off, but if I turn them on, they’ll pass audio through my bus tracks above. I use these to keep stems that are being covered by someone playing live easily accessible…
-
-
004 - Dealing With Audio
-
CHAPTER 8: SHORTCUTS
Before we move on to dealing with audio clips, let’s talk about a couple of very useful shortcuts within the timeline. To create a new track, press CMD + T. To make a new midi track press CMD + SHIFT + T. To create a new return track, press…
-
CHAPTER 9: IMPORTING
Let’s talk about audio clips now. If I open up my browser (CMD + OPT + B), I can navigate to my desktop, which I’ve added to places. My stem folder is here, and I can select all of the stems by holding shift and dragging & then copy them…
-
CHAPTER 10: WARP MODES
Let’s talk about editing. If I double click on the clip I open up my clip view selector. Here I can see more information on the file, as well as adjust the clip gain, or turn on warp to change the tempo or key…
-
CHAPTER 11: EDITING AUDIO
Now that we understand warp modes, let’s talk about editing and some useful shortcuts. By selecting up here, where my cursor turns to a hand, I can move each stem. This is going to follow the current grid subdivision, or I can hold…
-
-
005 - Saving
-
006 - Conclusion
MEET THE CREATOR
I HAVE BEEN LUCKY ENOUGH TO SPEND THE LAST 10 YEARS WORKING IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY AS A TOURING BASS PLAYER AND PLAYBACK ENGINEER. MY PLAYBACK SESSIONS HAVE SUPPORTED A VARIETY OF CLIENTS INCLUDING KARI JOBE, CODY CARNES, LENNON STELLA, BENJAMIN WILLIAM HASTINGS, AODHAN KING, BROOKE LIGERTWOOD, GABBY BARRETT, LAINEY WILSON, MATTHEW WEST, CARLY PEARCE, RITA SPRINGER, CHARITY GAYLE, MICHAEL W. SMITH, LEELAND, JP SAXE, JOSH BALDWIN, PATRICK DRONEY, ANNE WILSON, AUSTIN SNELL, HARPER GRACE, TAUREN WELLS, HOPE DARST, SEAN CURRAN, BRIAN AND KATIE TORWALT, MARTIN SMITH, MATT MAHER, PASSION CITY CHURCH, PASSION CONFERENCE, THE BELONGING CO, RYAN KEY (YELLOWCARD), THE STRUTS, DILLON CARMICHAEL, AND COLTON DIXON, AMONG OTHERS. I’VE BEEN THE MAN BEHIND THE COMPUTER ALL OVER THE WORLD AND IN VENUES OF ALL SIZES INCLUDING CARNEGIE HALL, MERCEDES-BENZ STADIUM, THE DOVE AWARDS, BONNAROO, AND THE LA FORUM, FOR DJ’S, BANDS, CHURCH CONFERENCES - I EVEN ONCE MANAGED TO SLIDE ABLETON INTO A COFFEE SHOP’S SOFT LAUNCH. IN 2022 I CO-FOUNDED A COMPANY CALLED SPACEWALK LIVE THAT DOES EXACTLY THIS AT A LARGER SCALE THAN I CAN MANAGE ON MY OWN. HAVE I MASTERED ABLETON? NOT AT ALL. HAVE I THROUGH TRIAL AND ERROR DISCOVERED A METHOD THAT WORKS IN A HIGH STRESS LIVE ENVIRONMENT - MOST DEFINITELY.
-
"After many years of making music and touring with Dan in a variety of environments, venues, countries, and even artists, I know for a fact that he's seen it all and has had to navigate solving problems, rolling with set changes and building arrangement changes on the fly in Ableton. He's an expert to say the least, and I highly encourage anyone who's arranging tracks for live performances to take a leaf from Dans book."
Brenton Miles - Kari Jobe, Cody Carnes
-
"dan has helped me and my team create flexible and reliable playback sessions that have allowed us to navigate the countless challenges that come with live shows. He's an invaluable resource and my first call with anything ableton."
Mitch Parks - Spacewalk Live, Ed Sheeran
-
"I've been teaching myself Ableton with the help of Google and YouTube for about a year now, but still lacked some basic understanding of how it works. "Ableton 101: The Basics" was concise and helpful, filling in the gaps of my knowledge of the software. I'd highly recommend it to beginners or anyone wanting to learn some new tricks and get a well-rounded crash course of Ableton."
Gideon Schlichter - First Christian Church
Course FAQ
-
No prior experience with Ableton Live is necessary for this course. It's designed for all skill levels, from beginners to experienced users. Whether you're just starting out or looking to refine your playback techniques, you'll find valuable insights and practical techniques tailored to your level of experience.
-
There are no software requirements to access this course, although you will be limited in your ability to implement the knowledge presented. If you don't already have Ableton Live, you can download a free trial or purchase a license from the official Ableton website.
-
We're so certain that we can teach you the basics of Ableton in under 30 minutes, that if at the end of the course you don't feel like you are equipped to understand the basics of Ableton, please reach out to us through the contact form on the site to schedule a free zoom call for Dan to walk you through any problem areas.