5 Plugins that Complete an Ableton Setup

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Ableton Live, especially Ableton Suite, is a complete A - Z music creation suite. You can easily create "chart topping" modern music using just the native tools within the DAW. There is a giant marketing hustle attempting to convince users that they need external plugins. There are some rare cases however where there are external plugins that actually do new and novel things and can generally increase the speed of workflow. In this video I go over 5 different areas where this is the case. Trackspacer from Wavesfactory, Pro-L2 from Fabfilter, Decaptitator from Soundtoys, Saturn 2 from Fabfilter, Polymath from Novel Music, and Soothe 2 from Oeksound all offer new and useful ways you can enhance Ableton's shortcomings.
00:00 - Intro
0:55 - Trackspacer - SC Dynamic EQ
6:00 - Fabfilter L2 vs Ableton Limiter
16:13 - Decapitator and Saturn 2
25:25 - Sequencing with Polymath
29:25 - Oeksund Soothe

[@kozihoppy]

You need to adjust the attack in Trackspacer so it sounds as snappy as Ableton's compressor. You can access the envelope panel by clicking on the little circle on the lower right corner of the spectrum analyzer.

[@davidbunyai2294]

hmm that makes his whole point kinda worthless i thought trackspacer soundedf much better....

[@darrelljohnston562]

Didn't know that....thanks

[@SylvanPaul]

Yup, you can also adjust mid-side targeting, which is super useful

[@Mopark25]

​​@@davidbunyai2294I'm not sure why he chose to demonstrate Trackspacer with drums. It's better for ducking specific frequencies, like where vocals and a lead may clash. Though you can also achieve that with stock plug-ins by controlling the gain of an EQ node with a envelope controller.

[@novelmus]

Thanks for recommending our tools! 28:17

[@WDIPJordi]

I really enjoy your videos man, thanks. Your knowledge of the subject matter combined with the way you manage to explain things in an understandable way are just great. Also, some tutorials on KZbin take negative views of certain software or gear, or present things without nuance. You're very positive and you take time to explain both good and bad use cases of software, without discrediting gear altogether.

[@josipvulic5471]

Great explanation of why the versatility of Fabfilter L2 is important to consider when trying to limit a track for the final mastered release.

[@wintermute2874]

you have an awesome, super in depth but clear teaching style

[@alfredomanzano8436]

Saturn and L2 are always in my master chain. Room, Vintage Verb, Delay and Supermassive by Valhalla dsp are also essential for me

[@psychotronicsquirtgun]

Thanks for these tips, Anthony! Will definitely check these plug-ins out! ✌️

[@tyeblee23]

Just saying I love this channel and all the information has helped me tremendously ❤

[@moritzlattemann8317]

I got myself a Push 2 Like one year ago and Had absolutely No clue what i was getting into. Whenever i Had or have an insue about anything i find the right Video in your chanel. and Most important i understand Most of what you are talking about. There ist plenty of videos but for me yours are the best 💗. I Just wanted to let you know. Thank you for everything you really Made my Last year!!!!! If i wasn't broke Like a half way crook i would Love to spend some Money on your Tutorials. Once again thank you so much!

[@divergentmedia1239]

Loved it bro great tutorial ! Thanks S2S fam ! 🎉

[@SteveAdamsChannel]

That track is funky!!

[@johnnytacos5529]

Been following this channel for a short time. Been following dosio since...kinetic playground, Chicago 2011. Put two and two together today. I never said I was bright.

[@carptackula7536]

Awesome video! @Ant - Can you PLEASE do a tutorial on how you made that LOW BASS sound ? - I LOVE that BASS sound!!! (I can hear the notes, and obviously it's in wavetable and there are some filter sweeps and pitch bends, but I can hear something else modulated in there...)

[@rebirth4119]

Something to note is with resonance suppression plugins is that it will lessen the peaks so that it matches that of surrounding frequencies(to create more of a flat frequency response). This means at times it may make the sound less at the forefront of the mix so you would have to use an eq or midside eq to emphasize certain frequencies like 1-5k.

[@KMcirca82]

i agree with you as usual. you are wise and often on point. your selection of tools is much the same as mine.

[@gregcarlino7906]

Great video! Another essential tool for me is an automatic gain compensator for my plug-in chain, the best solution I’ve found is MAGC from Melda Production

[@Mr.Foggybrain]

Very well done video and very informative! Thank you for making these kinds of videos! Will be subbing for sure!

[@Robert_11911]

I like that Soothe2 Frequency Shaper and the Fab Filter plugins!

[@thespecialist6831]

I use trackspacer on my tracks to make room for vocals , very subtly in the final mix it makes a huge difference. STFU is a free plugin I use for ducking and it works amazing. imo ducking>compressor for sidechaining bass.

[@TaiBaSs40]

Very good explain !! Thx for your videos

[@thepatzer]

The Tokyo Dawn Labs (TDR) Limiter-6 (GE, in particular) is another nice option with lots of ability to dial things in.

[@SHONSL]

You can also use Soothe2 for frequency sidechaining much like how you did with Trackspacer.

[@donniem6783]

Interesting watch, thanks. Do you have any similar videos going through the best vst synths?

[@static-san]

One of the best explanations of where the limitations are in some of the Ableton Live effects.

[@yago8672]

Super cool and well thought video

[@KevinBadloe]

Hi Seed to stage, really appreciating your vids, they approach learning ableton in a whole different way. I do have a question though: what are your thoughts on analog compression vst’s? One of the things plug-ins chase are those ‘analogue’ sounds and how does something like FaBfilter’s pro c2 compare and do you actually need it?

[@5amsound]

Wooah Polymath is sick!

[@machinemademan]

im using an instrument rack split into three bands and dividing the mid and high bands into mids and sides..you can put any effect on any part of any band and toss a mono utility on the low band. its so much less resource heavy than saturn 2. but the mythical 3d preset on the master is just so good

[@iuliantimar]

thank you for this great informative video!!! is this epic song you use to demo the techniques released somewhere? would love to listen to it!

[@chandeleerjet5637]

🔥🔥 ive always found that instead of using a compressor to duck a bass, putting a utility plugin on the bass and automating the gain of the utility to duck right when the kick hits works very well. Might take longer to copy each kick hit in an 8 bar loop but you can get the perfect envelope, select the range of the envelope and copy and paste that envelop Anywhere a kick hits. Plus i work better seeinf whats happening instead of confusing myself with sidechain sends etc…The reason i don’t use regular volume automation is because you still want to be able to adjust the overall track volume while keeping the gain ducks on utility.

[@compucorder64]

I like Decapitator for gnarly saturation, and Black Box Analog Design HG-2 for smoother. At some point, in a sale, I'd maybe like to get Softube M.A.S. Overstayer. I think you are right that you don't need much outside of Ableton. But, saturation is one area. For me, the other areas are Granular processing with more finesse and power (Portal, Novum) and character Reverb (Arturia Plate, Eventide Spring, Valhalla VintageVerb). I wonder if Sonible Smart:Limit might suit people starting out from Ableton better than L2? The last thing is tape emulations and effects, loads of choice, but I have a soft spot for Sketch Casette II and it's very affordable.

[@kavinath]

Very informative.

[@Mincher]

I quite liked the way Ableton's limiter smashed that snare. :D

[@troybjones4]

There is also an open source loudness meter max for live device which I think works well, gives instant or integrated loudness

[@maximrueegger]

Would you care to share said loudness meter with the community? :)

[@GuidoGautsch]

Great vid! Did you happen to record the camera to OBS? It's a bit choppy (dropped frames ) and I've found this happens when I connect my mirrorless camera to OBS and record that way (versus recording to SD).

[@tripixhexagonius2716]

Thanks a lot for your work :) What about Rift from Minimal Audio? Is it compareable to Saturn 2?

[@haphaz7ard]

If you work with vocals I would also recommend a pitch-correction plugin as I don't think Ableton really has anything great stock for that (although there might be some good m4l devices)

[@raheemkhanasa884]

Talk about the Color limiter in Ableton 11.

[@WazzapMate48]

I like that one very much

[@infinitedurr]

With resonance suppression & dynamic EQs, they're absolutely awesome, but they can really easily suck all the character out of the music by reducing all those resonant peaks. Sometimes a bit of janky frequencies is exactly what makes something interesting. Then again, I saved one of my mixes today by using a resonance suppression plugin on the master bus :D So it definitely has it's place.

[@SeedtoStage]

for sure youre right. I would also caution against using these on the master or on busses too because there is the potential for phase issues. If there is a peaky signal its best to use these kinds of tools at the individual track level

[@cheesepatrol2376]

very true. it almost never really does what i really want it to do. usually it's better just doing it with dynamic eq

[@hallocine]

Yeah but it is like every single plugin. You always need to adjust the settings subtly. Because at the end, every little issue is going to be a big one on the mastering stage.

[@maximrueegger]

Thanks for sharing yet another great insight into your sound design and mixing approaches. Have you tried Vastaus by Wavegroove as a resonance reduction tool? It's free, and sounds quite nice and natural. Obviously it offers far less control and accuracy than soothe. But I often ask myself how much surgical resonance taming is really necessary, or even desired during sound design, and if not the simplest, more natural solution would be to apply a dynamic EQ (surgical, e.g. Nova from TDR) for problem frequencies. Also, I was wondering why you don't apply oversampling on the Ableton stock saturator, when you are applying it on all the other clippers/limiters/saturators. In the end, it's all about what sounds better, taking into consideration how much aliasing occurs, depending on your project sample rate.

[@superlynx98]

One massive glaring hole in Ableton's stock offering is pitch correction. They need to integrate something like Melodyne into the audio editor, and make something for automatic real-time tuning.

[@alvesdeejay]

Do you use the saturator trick for headroom in every elements or just in some main elements

[@neopunkmusic]

Very good channel with USEFUL INFORMATION. Subbed. Liked. :)

[@Soulmachine72]

I miss Autotune in Ableton. I use alot of stock plugins in ableton. As a matter of fact I'm kind of minimalistic in going for outside plugins. I'm trying to get by with the stock plugins as far as I can... But really quickly I needed to buy an outside plugin and that was an autotune plugin. I sometimes use the pitch stuff you can use on audio clips for minor adjustments - but if you want the autotune sound you'll have look elsewhere. The most common question I get from vocalists is "Do you have autotune?" 🙂 Great stuff from you by the way 🙂👍

[@peterreynolds558]

Would be good to look at Tokyo Dawn's Nova for a couple of these applications

[@Jdinrbfidndifofkdndjoflfndjdk]

Amazing video

[@timpilney2197]

I wouldn't say the ableton limiter is "bad" but compared to the free loudmax limiter it uses more latency which means you can't use as many. Also when you run a sine through abletons limiter or even ff pro l (half the settings are fairly transparent) you'll find that loudmax makes the least distortion of the 3 in even the most aggressive settings

[@tdtrecordsmusic]

the distortion thing is why I bought the UAD apollo , with near zero latency I can use external distortion effects :) any external sound thing

[@maykit]

The VU meter on Decapitator makes me wonder why it's there. Is it possible that the signal feeding the Decapitator is to loud? It's an excellent video, thx.

[@REYNmusician]

Nice!

[@rochellevincentevonk]

Great info .. how do u rate the Isotope Plugins?

[@bluematrix5001]

Play with the settings in track spacer to get rid of the clicky sound

[@Disisions]

Can you do a gate in Ableton review? For vocals

[@danbient]

0 ms lookahead versus 3ms in the limiter section so pro L would have even more latency! Have you tried Glue Compressor in a limiting capacity?

[@rebirth4119]

As someone who uses Soothe 2, I was wondering whether Soothe 2 or Trackspacer does a better job at frequency sidechaining for space?

[@hahaxolotl]

i would love for you to test out bitwig, since you can build pretty much anything you want in there. If youd want to

[@jubeijackson6602]

Love TrackSpacer

[@rola8597]

doesn't soothe 2 do what trackspacer does when sidechained but better with more control?

[@keveydaking]

Is a limiter with a slow attack essentially a soft clipper?

[@shakeeljessa9619]

Make the fabfilter referencing video! I was just wondering about that

[@zenluiz]

Good info there. The comparisons should be done without stopping the song though, otherwise our brains can't get the difference.

[@shakuganoshanayoutube4112]

Excellent ! Trackspacer can be replaced by soothe though (sidechain feature as well), so that's one less plugin to worry about ! :)

[@franciscoojeda11]

And also you can replace soothe with trackspacer. Both of them can do the almost the same with a few workarounds. And if soothe it's too expensive you can always try dseq

[@keveydaking]

Don't trackspacer and Soothe serve different purposes though? I thought Trackspacer targeted all frequencies in the range whereas Soothe targets particular resonances?

[@viktorkoning1442]

@@keveydaking not if you use it for sidechain compression :)

[@franciscoojeda11]

@@keveydaking Trackspacer works with a external sidechain, but what if your track, for example a lead vox with harsh resonance 1. You create a duplicate, a bus, or a pre fader return track where you have a copy of your lead vocal 2. You insert a trackspacer on the lead vox track (the original one) and in the sidechain select the track that you created on the step before 3. Set the low and high cut of trackspacer the amount knob only works in the area of the resonances. You can also put a EQ on the bus/return track and boost some freqs to achieve a larger reduction in that area, like the soothe does. So basically as you can use the soothe like a trackspacer, you can also use the trackspacer as a soothe !

[@carptackula7536]

Trackspacer doesn't cause phase issues and is lighter on CPU too

[@stephen6272]

so is soothe2 kind of a replacement for sweep-eqing?

[@loristangelan6523]

Awesome videos dude, thanks! Just a quick feedback, @9:10-9:20 you bias the viewer to hear something wrong in the Ableton's Limiter, maybe make us listen to the comparisons first and then make your comment.! Keep it up!

[@voyage2infinity480]

lives drum bus is brilliant too

[@push2talkbox370]

you are my Hero ;)

[@jackthehumanofficial]

luv yew anthony thanks forever ❤

[@kunfu8085]

Nice plugin selection, Saturn 2 is an huge versatile monster. Suprizely I Tought you will present shaperbox 3 in this selection, because it's a real workflow enhancer for mixing, SC and sound design, maybe in another video ;)

[@maximrueegger]

ShaperBox @Cableguys is insane. Almost every time I use it, I discover some new sound design technique. Most of what I thought I knew about filters, volume, time etc. FX has been turned on its head by ShaperBox. In his video about sidechaining, Anthony @SeedtoStage mentions SB among others, but focuses on Duck Buddy. Look up "How to Turn Audio Into MIDI Triggers..." on this channel.

[@viktoronopko1853]

Something like melodyne, linear phase eq with build in pdc, transient designer

[@cubexBeats]

when comparing those limiters you should have used 3 ms lookahead in fabfilters limiter too (or isnt it important?), also abletons limiters doenst have those 8x oversampling you used in pro -L.

[@tmwsmith]

Isn't the "clicky" eq sc ducker first plugin only "clicky" because the envelope needs tightening?

[@ElectricEddieDaus]

I am not hearing a difference between the Pro-L2 and the Ableton Limiter in your comparisons. I am listening on a good system with Adam TV-7 speakers. Not sure why?

[@user-py5fk9ot8o]

why do I get phasing with trackspacer?

[@michaelduff2382]

You may have touched in this in another video but can you explain why oversampling was turned off in the saturator? I always assumed oversampling >

[@jeremyformerlyknownastoken8218]

I am no expert but probably because you can peak above 0db with it

[@SeedtoStage]

@@jeremyformerlyknownastoken8218 this

[@jackthehumanofficial]

yes king please pro q vs eq 8!!!!

[@davidmcgirr]

Would love to see the comparison

[@jawsh1971]

Dan Worrall did a great video on this. He's the voice of the FabFilter instructional videos, but he's quick admit when something does a better job. He really liked EQ 8. kzbin.info/www/bejne/m5OlooNohdmYd7M

[@PeterJaquesMusic]

What exactly is the difference between resonance suppression and regular dynamic eq like pro-q3?

[@adamswierczynski]

Resonance suppression only compresses harsh elements within a frequency band. Dynamic eq compresses all of the frequency band.

[@jerryhill8281]

I had a plugin/vst addiction for a while where i was just buying away because, "this is gonna make it for me, and im gonna be inspired" and i rarely use the majority of them...nice to have, but after realizing you can do the same thing, or basically duplicate the sound to a t with audio fx and some tweaking, which is actually fun, I wish i would have put that money to new guitars instead lol..

[@wired-up5677]

Trackspacer turned that first example into sounding like pretty lights

[@alansalomon]

Polymath by Novel Music 👌

[@whoadog8725]

The best

[@ancestralvision]

I think it's fair to mention that Fabfilter L2 in Oversampling x8 mode is causing waaay more latency then when reduced, while Ableton Limiter doesn't have any oversampling options.

[@linzenmeyer]

and at the same time, Ableton with 128 samples at 2.9ms vs 2929 samples at 66.4ms ... that's 22.88 times higher than ableton....meaning they are LITERALLY the same (22.88 x 2.9 = 66.352) I call bullshit on this video, he's just selling plugins. He should've added affiliate links.

[@mudboy5]

@@linzenmeyer huh? but that's a good thing for pro L2 right? if it has the same latency with same options AND has more/better options he's just telling the truth isn't he?

[@SoundsBy80K]

in general i turn off true peak limiting, its better to use some proper ceiling instead...

[@duncanmaclennan9624]

Youve got 2 dynamic eq's.... Oeksound Sooth can sidechain = therefore replacing Trackspacer

[@itchyvinyl]

Can you make a whole series on LogicPro real quick?

[@Rokushiiki]

i think fabfilter pro q 3 could be a "better" solution for dynamic eq bands that ableton eq 8 (i believe?!) can't have as a feature.

[@machinemademan]

kickstart 2 in sidechain mode sounds better than sidechaining a comp to me. soothe 2 as a sidechain to kick or snare or vocals is better than either of those imo. nothing ducks better than soothe with as little work

[@marcosrotllan]

Decapitator vs saturn vs roar?

[@Bthelick]

You can mimick track spacer more accurately by having Ableton's envelope generator modulate an eq.

[@linzenmeyer]

So, I'm listening on my studio headphones.....I don't hear any of the "Things" you are talking about.....which makes me wonder.....Does it even matter when the "Listener" is listening to an MP3 off of Spotify with Blutooth ear buds with built-in bass boost and processing? (Beats, etc)

[@alkisliv]

"We can hear that 'Bwwahhhh' sound". No, we cannot. I think I need to improve my critical listening more than everything, and I just noticed it's one of your first chapters in your mixing course!

[@CSPRfilms]

Time to buy soothe

[@giedriusastrauskas2829]

How did he do the switch in 6:50 ? I tried pressing V (I'm Mac user) but it doesn't switch, such an amazing shortcut I wish I could do it too hahah

[@brightonvocallessons]

go to KEY mapping mode - he's mapping the bypass of each plugin to the letter V

[@giedriusastrauskas2829]

@@brightonvocallessons It worked, thank you so much !

[@lowkeylee]

Now we have Roar built in which may even rival Saturn2

[@voyage2infinity480]

izotope sub has unmask if you dont wanna buy trackspacer

[@SylvanPaul]

Soothe is unreal. Nothing like it. I would add Split EQ from Eventide to this list and/or Spiff from Oeksound. That's all the transient shaping you could ever possibly need.

[@worldwidehappiness]

Maybe add a reverb for making a mix sound nice. Ableton Reverb sounds dark and bad, and Ableton Hybrid Reverb is more for sound design and sound mangling.

[@MultiMam12345]

Or use an envelope follower mapped to a utility gain and compress only when it's really needed.

[@tablaninja]

I bought Soothe2 and love it but even with a brand new fully loaded M1, it LOADS that thing down.

[@90lolaso]

I always thought that ableton lacks in vocal manipulation, yea you can edit and do fixes here and there, but things like melodyne or autotune are simply better

[@averagepainter]

i'm so glad that i don't need any plugins because i consistantly can't hear any difference between the limiters.

[@musicproductionclips8928]

Missed Melodyne!

[@SoundsBy80K]

Turn off True Peak Limiting esp if you compare L2 with Stock Limiter.