5 Plugins that Complete an Ableton Setup

[@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.

[@SHONSL]

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

[@novelmus]

Thanks for recommending our tools! 28:17

[@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.

[@alfredomanzano8436]

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

[@vjmcgovern]

BIGGGGG fan of vintage verb and supermassive, haven’t messed with Valhalla’s delay very much. What would you say is its stand-out feature?

[@altberg__]

I just discovered your channel and i have to say you are an amazing teacher. Love it. Thanks !

[@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!

[@thepatzer]

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

[@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.

[@DJ_MARIANO]

you got what you asked for!

[@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

[@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

[@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.

[@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)

[@wintermute2874]

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

[@Musician_Robert]

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

[@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.

[@raheemkhanasa884]

Talk about the Color limiter in Ableton 11.

[@WazzapMate48]

I like that one very much

[@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...)

[@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

[@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.

[@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!

[@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.

[@ItalianAvalanche]

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what you’re saying about dynamic sidechain EQ in Ableton but I was able to dynamic sidechain EQ using the envelope follower. I mapped the envelope follower to gain reduction on the EQ triggered by bass drum, snare drum, and Toms and applied the EQs to a return with sends from guitar+bass+cymbals. Basically I’m using the transient instruments to drive dynamic sidechain EQ to make space in the sustain instruments only at the frequencies that the transient instruments are present and only while they’re active.

[@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.

[@rola8597]

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

[@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

[@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?

[@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

[@static-san]

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

[@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

[@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.

[@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 🙂👍

[@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? :)

[@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.

[@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

[@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

[@Mincher]

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

[@divergentmedia1239]

Loved it bro great tutorial ! Thanks S2S fam ! 🎉

[@OskarSylwester]

from what i can see ableton roar is somewhat similar to this saturn plugin. i didn't know that the limiter is so weak in ableton. soothe2 is brilliant

[@SteveAdamsChannel]

That track is funky!!

[@stjarnstrom]

Could the Soothe2 sidechain function do the same as Trackspacer, though? Perhaps this could be a list of 4 plugins, not 5 :)

[@donniem6783]

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

[@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.

[@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 !

[@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!

[@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!

[@bluematrix5001]

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

[@lukewarm.egg_6998]

If you're broke, I would recommend Limiter 06 by VladG and Loudmax by Thomas Mundt as some free limiter options with robust controls and a good sound. Ableton's limiter is unusable, but there are some good free limiters out there!!!

[@TaiBaSs40]

Very good explain !! Thx for your videos

[@peterreynolds558]

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

[@Disisions]

Can you do a gate in Ableton review? For vocals

[@tripixhexagonius2716]

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

[@zenluiz]

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

[@AztechNation]

You can make trackspacer in ableton 12.1 beta now I’m pretty stock plugins

[@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...

[@LordofGammel]

thank you very much for this very helpful video!

[@tyeblee23]

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

[@KMcirca82]

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

[@rochellevincentevonk]

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

[@kavinath]

Very informative.

[@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).

[@Illiyinmusic]

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..

[@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.

[@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)

[@rebirth4119]

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

[@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?

[@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?

[@shakeeljessa9619]

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

[@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

[@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.

[@5amsound]

Wooah Polymath is sick!

[@wired-up5677]

Trackspacer turned that first example into sounding like pretty lights

[@alansalomon]

Polymath by Novel Music 👌

[@whoadog8725]

The best

[@stephen6272]

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

[@REYNmusician]

Nice!

[@Mr.Foggybrain]

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

[@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.

[@voyage2infinity480]

lives drum bus is brilliant too

[@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.

[@aaroncross4063]

Might be a new Ableton Limiter coming out soon..

[@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.

[@keveydaking]

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

[@tmwsmith]

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

[@duncanmaclennan9624]

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

[@PretendPassing]

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.

[@yago8672]

Super cool and well thought video

[@jubeijackson6602]

Love TrackSpacer

[@viktoronopko1853]

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

[@GermoStaalfeldt]

why do I get phasing with trackspacer?

[@neopunkmusic]

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

[@jackthehumanofficial]

luv yew anthony thanks forever ❤

[@Jdinrbfidndifofkdndjoflfndjdk]

Amazing video

[@itchyvinyl]

Can you make a whole series on LogicPro real quick?

[@mxndae]

Soothe forever :)

[@marcosrotllan]

Decapitator vs saturn vs roar?

[@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.

[@voyage2infinity480]

izotope sub has unmask if you dont wanna buy trackspacer

[@lowkeylee]

Now we have Roar built in which may even rival Saturn2

[@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