Using Ableton To Practice Guitar

[@javierf55]

Warping guitar tracks is a tricky thing, as doing it for beats is quite easy, but is challenging for guitar.

[@Mallett98-]

Nice.. I just got ableton and am getting into recording my guitar.. starting also to try other instruments in ableton so keep the videos coming if you can.. much appreciated!

[@mihainicolaescu8757]

This is exactly what I needed, thank you so much :)

[@louismaiden8360]

super well explained, bravo!

[@jomiran1000]

Very useful

[@NimeuMusic]

I have the same book! Probably should do a little bit of practice in Ableton too!

[@joshuaskaja7873]

It's so good! I tried the Berklee funk book and didn't love it.

[@russelljoplin2728]

Thanks for taking the time to make this, Josh. I have used my DAW to practice in the past but the "overhead" of time was too high for the benefit and I gave it up. Looks like it's time to spend a little money and get back to that. I really appreciate this video! Do you know if Ableton Live Intro (the $99 version) allows all of what you demonstrated or should I plan to save up for the big version?

[@SonicVision360]

Good!

[@BluesJammer]

Joshua, thanks for sharing, very useful video! Please advise what screen recorder did you use for this?

[@joshuaskaja7873]

Thanks! I used ScreenFlow

[@chrismullin1869]

Interesting idea but... keeping in mind I am not a recording expert but... I'm wondering if there is inherent latency between the guitar playing and the actual recording of it...? just a thought.

[@joshuaskaja7873]

This is a great question! In Ableton’s settings/preferences menu, you can select the buffer size and see its effect on round trip latency. As I have it configured here, it’s 8.94ms total-not enough for me to notice. This video was tricky to make because the normal audio routing I’d use to capture my screen & resulting audio gave me 40ms of latency-way too much to be useful! If you’re running a Live Set that demands a larger buffer (and thus creates too much latency) you can also use “Reduced Latency When Monitoring.”

[@chrismullin1869]

@@joshuaskaja7873 Thanks for the response. I have done very little recording though I do think it is a great thing to do. I have installed Reaper. Hopefully latency will not be an issue. Thanks again -

[@grade43podcast]

The only time I've found latency to be an issue is if I try to record the guitar and have a lot of plug-ins turned on. Otherwise hasn't been a problem

[@grade43podcast]

Awesome video Josh. Am I able to hear the backing track while I record?

[@joshuaskaja7873]

Thanks! If you want to, yes. You just hit play on the clip or the scene, then record into another clip.

[@slinkyfrets]

Thanks for this Josh. Having some issues to recreate your workflow. I have managed to connect the HX Stomp to send hotkey messages. That seems to be working. My main issue right now is the tempo. How to detect each clips different tempos? Is it automatic somehow? The book doesn't specify on the examples How do you get the tempos next to each clip on the master? Its driving me a little bit mad... 🙂

[@slinkyfrets]

Also record and then play as opposed to overdub is eluding me. Please excuse my ignorance 🙂

[@joshuaskaja7873]

"How do you get the tempos next to each clip on the master?" Just grab the left edge of the Scene Launcher (in the upper right, where it says "Master") and drag it to the left. It'll reveal the Scene Tempo boxes. (And if you drag it far enough, the Scene Time Signatures too) "How to detect each clip's different tempo?" I'll make a video for this, but for now: 1. Drag audio into a clip. 2. Double-click it to open the edit window. 3. On the left, under "Audio," click "Warp." 4. Ableton will guess what the tempo is. It'll be wrong. 5. Find the downbeat (the examples from Funk Guitar have a count-in, so those are pretty clear). Add a warp marker by double-clicking the little gray triangle in the timeline above that downbeat. 6. Delete the squared-off warp marker that Ableton added to the beginning of the clip. 7. Now drag your warp maker over to bar 1/beat 1. 8. In the same Audio box where you clicked "Warp," there's a box for BPM. Drag this up & down until the grid matches your audio. Listen with the metronome on to be sure you've got it correct. If it was recorded to a click, this should be easy. If it wasn't, you'll need to warp the audio onto the grid. 9. While you're here, set the End & Length to match the sample. You can drag the braces into place, or just enter the values into Clip box (it's right by the Audio box where you enabled Warp and adjusted the Clip BPM). Click "Loop" Written out like this, it sounds REALLY involved. But after a few reps, it'll be fast & obvious.

[@joshuaskaja7873]

@@slinkyfrets You might've mapped the Arrangement Record button instead of the Session Record button. (Arrangement Record looks like a normal record button 🔴, but Session Record is hollow ⭕.) Double-check that first.

[@slinkyfrets]

@@joshuaskaja7873 Success! Bro, I really appreciate your patience. I'm gonna play around a little more, but I think I've got it all sorted. Looking forward to more videos. 🤩

[@slinkyfrets]

Ok, so definitely looking forward to that tempo video. It would appear that I'm adjusting the tempo to match the Grid instead of maintaining the clips tempo and adjusting the grid to that tempo....if that makes sense🙁

[@sa1adin]

This is amazing but too hard to follow

[@joshuaskaja7873]

haha yeah I’m watching this on my phone and it’s got a lot of room for improvement. Guess I’ll make an updated version!