How to Make Generative Ambient Music in Ableton Live from Scratch

[@JannisLeWolff]

Thanks for watching! 👉You can download the device for free, including around 20 macro presets that demonstrate the variety of sounds this rack can produce: bit.ly/3VTKWYp

[@johausen5074]

Thanks Jannis, this is quite a very interesting lesson with all those MIDI-tools! One Question: Do you have a version for LIVE Standard too? Or can you offer a little reduced version that works without having the ABLETON Suite?

[@a65urd]

With great pleasure i took a cup of indonesian tea and spend a couple of hours with this not so easy but interesting topic. Next time will try something with non stock Ableton plugins with this canvas in mind, thank you Jannis

[@JannisLeWolff]

That's how this video should be consumed 🫖 Thanks for the warm comment, I'm really glad you had some inspiring time with it! 💚

[@CtrlZMusic]

Indonesian tea !!!

[@authentikpaper]

I’m an ambient junkie❤ thank you for this tutorial

[@JannisLeWolff]

Thanks for the nice comment 💚

[@a65urd]

Advanced Note Choices is a fresh concept that i see for a first time, cool trick

[@JannisLeWolff]

Thanks! I feel like the chain selector is quite some hidden gem, since you can come up with all sorts of controls for different effect settings.

[@Hoghoof]

Thank you for sharing your knowledge of this! While I'm new to Ableton and this is pretty much an overload to my slow brain, seeing the possibilities you present is impressive and inspiring.

[@JannisLeWolff]

Thank you :) wishing you the best for your Ableton journey, there is no rush 😊

[@thibautmacquart5365]

Awesome video Jannis ! With very high rate, and a lot of reverb, I get incredible swells that I can modulate with noise, gaps, tone variety, and so on ! I miss the fact that I can't play the first note myself though. I'm gonna try another version, some kind of a "random arpeggiator", where I can play the first note (or the first chord) with the "hold" option in the Arpeggiator. I think that some "fancy" Max for Live devices can do the same job for us, but your method and all your explanations are precious, so thank you. Take care

[@JannisLeWolff]

Hey, thank you so much for your warm words 💚 well, for me building those devices is like a very simple Max for Live version 😅 but I also want to learn some Max basics, because especially for randomizations it can do amazing things!

[@pemungkah]

Really excellent tutorial. I worked through it in parallel and learned a TON in the process. I haven't been using Live a lot other than as an instrument staging platform (yeah, I know, bad me), but this has opened up a lot of possibilities for experimentation. Thank you immensely! I'll be playing with this and variations on it for quite a while. :)

[@JannisLeWolff]

So cool to hear, thank you 💚 and have some fun!

[@lX-NDR]

loving your videos, im into future garage/ambient using cubase for many years. since a year also ableton i must make more to make the switch final to ableton:)

[@JannisLeWolff]

Thank you 💚 and good luck for your Ableton journey!

[@DanChristos]

@6:26 You should try the convolution reverb on the Hybrid device. It's really awesome! You can select from a bunch of different audio files that it uses to generate the reverb, and you can even drop your own sound into it, similar to the Wavetable. It's really powerful and sounds incredible. Then you can blend it in with the blend control to your liking. Very cool, try it out.

[@DanChristos]

Also Live 12.1 has scale awareness which is awesome. Also they've fixed the macro mapping problem, you can now add a group inside a group and all mappings are preserved, with correct names and everything.

[@DanChristos]

@12:24 Another way you can get gaps in the generated note sequences is to apply two Velocity MIDI devices immediately after the Arpeggiator. On the first one if you set it to fixed mode, set the Out High to 64 and random to full (64) you should get completely randomised velocities. On the second one you set the mode to Gate and then adjust the incoming range. This way, any notes outside of the incoming range will be dropped. So if you want to drop half the notes, set the range to something like 0-64, or 64-127. Then you can adjust the Out Hi and Out Low to suit the desired dynamic range of your generated melody.

[@JannisLeWolff]

Hey, thanks for sharing 💚

[@JonDigitalTV]

Amazing! So many great ideas here. Thank you! Looking forward to seeing what you have planned for future videos :)

[@JannisLeWolff]

Thank you, really glad you enjoyed the video!

[@maggowitschwittbronsky8222]

thx for sharing, Jannis - worthy insights here.

[@JannisLeWolff]

Thank you 💚

[@synthusiast2911]

Great idea 👏! This reminds me of the Marbles eurorack module. But your solution is even better 👍!

[@JannisLeWolff]

Thank you so much for the warm comment 💚 don’t know that module but sounds quite cool 😊

[@Julian-qu2wj]

great video, thanks

[@JannisLeWolff]

Thank you 💚

[@Serge_Era]

Good tutorial for good ambient!

[@JannisLeWolff]

Thank you!

[@ickebins6948]

Pure gold! Thanks for sharing.

[@JannisLeWolff]

Thank you, really glad you liked it 😊

[@AljoschaLahner]

top top top

[@JannisLeWolff]

Thank you 😊

[@CtrlZMusic]

Great ideas there ! thanks

[@JannisLeWolff]

Thank you 😊

[@robstorer1078]

The fact that you don't have 100k subscribers is a crime.

[@JannisLeWolff]

Ah, thank you 🥹

[@johausen5074]

Hello Jannis! any success on the device as a LIVE 11 STANDARD version ?

[@brentonrowland8613]

Pity I couldn't follow on Live 10, I love the use of Ableton as an instrument. Not sure this old pensioner will ever upgrade.

[@JannisLeWolff]

Ah, I really hear you. But are the devices/instruments in Ableton Live 10 so different from the ones I use here?

[@johausen5074]

Hallo Jannis! Back from vacation i ask myself (and you ) : Are there any news on your great device as LIVE 11 STANDARD version ?

[@JannisLeWolff]

Hey! I didn't manage to properly do it yet, since I was quite busy and didn't make the noise work in the way I wanted to with another audio effect. Will give it another try soon!

[@johausen5074]

Thanks Jannis, this is quite an interesting lesson with all those MIDI-tools! One Question: Do you have a device version for LIVE 11 Standard too? Or can you offer a little lite version that works without the need of ABLETON Suite?

[@JannisLeWolff]

Hey, thank you 💚 Thanks for the feedback. I realized the only non-compatible device with Standard is the Hybrid Reverb. I might add an alternative option with another type of Reverb!

[@johausen5074]

@@JannisLeWolff sounds great .... looking forward to this one! 🙂

[@johausen5074]

@@JannisLeWolff Do i find it somewhere yet or do you announce it when its ready ?

[@johausen5074]

STANDARD version available yet? Hallo Jannis! Any news on your great device as LIVE 11 STANDARD version ?

[@JannisLeWolff]

Hey, I didn't find time yet to do it- will let you know once it's there!

[@JannisLeWolff]

Hey! I just added a standard version to the download. Both the free and the multiple scales version include a sampler instrument that has the normal reverb instead of the hybrid reverb. Hope you enjoy it 💚

[@johausen5074]

@@JannisLeWolff Hi Jannis, thanks first ... but sorry to say : its not working! I open the folder "compatible with standard", import the device and Live "says" the Instrument ANALOG is not available, activate your SUITE Licence. ANALOG is in SUITE and it seems, that it is still in your "STANDARD" version somehow.

[@johausen5074]

@@JannisLeWolff Hey again, just want to say: i am willing to pay your work, no problem ... i just need something that works for my version. Thanks again for your content!

[@JannisLeWolff]

@@johausen5074 damn it, you're right! I forgot about the Analog instance that serves as a noise generator. Thanks for letting me know. I'll take off the version again until I replaced it with another noise effect.

[@pritsyoutubification]

Can you use this method in Ableton Live 10 too??

[@JannisLeWolff]

I think most devices, if not all of them, are available in Live 10, too.

[@joseborges6239]

Bought it and i'm using live 11.0.5, doesn't work :/ i'd just have to drag the .adg files onto the tracks, right ? it appears in orange below something like "the preset could not be loaded. It is probably broken" please help me, thanks

[@JannisLeWolff]

I'm sorry to hear that! I know that sometimes people have issues with this "broken" message. You could try updating to a newer version. But still, I did not recognize a system what causes the message. If it doesn't work just let me know, and I'll refund you the money, but it definitely should work because hundreds of people have downloaded and used it already. It's more like an Ableton bug as far as I understand.

[@ChelHamilton]

Curious to know who makes that small controller you are using in this vid!? 🙂

[@JannisLeWolff]

It's the EC4 from Faderfox.