From the Ground Up: Watch Tracks Being Built in Our Video Series, Made in Ableton Live

The limitless possibilities at the start of a new project can make it hard to know where to focus your inspiration. With that in mind, the Made In Ableton Live video series shows artists from different genres taking a track from conception to completion.

Every step of the way, the producers explain their process in detail, making these videos accessible to production newcomers and intermediate users too. Learn how to generate new sonic material, apply all kinds of processing techniques and approach arrangements and mixdowns from a spectrum of knowledgeable music makers. Once you’ve seen how it was made, listen to the full track via the link beneath each episode.

Ori Moto

Ray Wassef, aka Ori Moto, shares a step-by-step guide to getting a track made in Live ready for performance. Learn how to prepare and clean up stems and clips so that they’re easy to trigger and tweak on the fly, and see how to make the most out of Live’s performance capabilities with a minimal hardware setup.

Reid Stefan

Watch Reid Stefan bring an EDM vocal track to life using Live’s stock plugins. Get tips on how to use comping, EQ and compression to help vocals sit right in the mix, and learn techniques for adding character and depth with doubling, saturation and reverb.

STRANJAH

Watch STRANJAH shine a light on the art of slicing breaks and see how he builds an evocative drum & bass track from the ground up. Learn how to craft grooves with a human feel and process your beats to give them a gritty, pumping sound. Plus, find out how he creates transitions with impact, designs a rave-ready Reese bass, and transforms sung melodies into MIDI for instrumental leads.

Rossano Snel

Watch Rossano Snel build an emotive neoclassical remix around piano, synth, and violin recordings. See how he uses comping to sculpt the perfect take and adds space to sounds with devices like Spectral Time and Hybrid Reverb. He also shares some tips for creating energy in your mix through layering, volume automation, arrangement structure, and more.

Tom Cosm

Tom Cosm crafts a richly layered neurofunk track using call and response as the basis of his arrangement. He shows how to design buzzing, futuristic bass sounds with a host of Live devices and shares insightful tips for processing transients, cleaning up your low end, and generating movement in your productions along the way.

Catnapp

See how Berlin-based songwriter and producer Catnapp gets started crafting a tense slice of hyper-modern rap. Watch her lay down an initial structure and some icy vocals before digging in her demo archives for inspiration.

Mad Zach

Mad Zach uses homemade samples to piece together a heavy, futuristic hip-hop beat. The San Francisco producer quickly maps out a dynamic arrangement using external synths, Instrument Racks, ghost tracks for automation and the expressive power of MPE.

Afriqua

Afriqua turns an initial Rhodes idea into a summery jazz-funk track. Learn how the accomplished pianist uses MIDI editing tools to find the right groove, transforms elements of his Rhodes part into other instrument lines, and captures improvised melodies on the fly.

Bad Snacks

Bad Snacks uses live takes from her electric violin as a starting point for a warm and melodious house track. With methods like creative panning, MIDI effects and lo-fi processing, she brings warmth, vibrancy and character to her creations.

Eomac

Eomac creates a full-frequency sample pack using field recordings captured in the street on his phone, and produces a techno track with it. Watching his methodology in action is a valuable lesson in sound design, and a perfect demonstration of the idea that there is music everywhere.

Rachel K Collier 

Rachel K Collier guides us through intuitive audio routing and live improvisational looping to craft a distinctive, uplifting club track. She introduces the concept of cue mixing, demonstrates her workflow on Push and layers up vocals in this expressive performance. 

Abayomi 

Abayomi integrates analog hardware and in-the-box sequencing and synthesis to make a detailed, melodic techno track. He guides us through practical project templates, creates unique presets and employs sound design to achieve a style all his own. 

Keychee 

Keychee builds up a hard-stepping hit of hip hop-flavored funk using drum layering, automated envelopes, sidechain compression and master effects chains. The end result is a textured, dynamic track layered with rich synth hooks, all created in the box. 

Novaa

Novaa showcases inventive ways of processing her voice while remixing her own track for a brooding take on hyper-modern pop. Using effects like autotune and vocoder, she takes her singing in new and exciting directions while promoting the idea of embracing imperfections.

Underbelly

Underbelly structures his track composition around different energy levels. Organization is key as he shows us how he builds Instrument Racks and navigates his library, but equally important is the sound design involved in making a killer bassline. 

Anna Disclaim 

Anna Disclaim turns samples and her own voice into data using audio-to-MIDI techniques to craft a distinctive strain of pop-noir. As well as creating melodic elements using her voice, she also highlights the creative potential when re-sampling existing parts of a track using Simpler. 

Freddie Joachim 

Freddie Joachim chops up some Rhodes samples, slices drum breaks and lays down some live guitar. From turning shakers into hi-hats to creative quantizing and creating stereo width, his session is loaded with classy techniques to make a seriously smooth jam.