If you’re planning on diving into Ableton Live this weekend, Ableton’s new YouTube video channel should give you some inspiration, ideas, and advice:
Many of these have been available for a while, but it’s nice to see them in one place. You also get Ableton “outtakes” like a Robert Henke (Monolake) video on the new Sampler instrument that won’t be released officially because of poor sound quality.
My personal favorite, Shawn Pelton raiding his kitchen to record some new drum loops. Ableton’s Dave Hill shows up a bit like the next door neighbor in an old sitcom, and Pelton gets to say things like “let’s get that to whirligig around” and “it sounds like we went to Pluto and whatnot” when using the AutoFilter. Space is the place:
In other great moments in Ableton video history, Telefon Tel Aviv has some terrific glitchy beat construction and manipulation tricks, and Robert Henke does something really crazy with the grain delay and six effects sends routed in a big feedback loop. And, of course, if you haven’t seen Kid Beyond at work, you absolutely need to.
If you want to download these to a MemoryStick on the PSP you’re using to wirelessly control Ableton Live, you’ll want to head straight to the Ableton Live video pages, where you can download videos, you know, Web 1.0 style.
I really like that these videos are straight-up inspiration rather than advertising propaganda; some of the techniques would even apply to other programs, though it’s clear that these are artists who are really happy in Live. I hope we see more of this for Live and other music software, as well. (Renoise, anyone?)