In the ongoing struggle to make a laptop into an instrument, there’s inevitably the scramble onstage (or even in a studio) to get everything primed and ready to play. You want to adjust settings, launch certain applications, and generally get your laptop ready for actual music making.
Wouldn’t it be nice to make all of that happen automatically, magically, instantly, and robotically? It is, after all, a machine. (They’re supposed to be working for us, I’m told, assuming they’re following the Three Laws.)
Martin Delaney, London-based Ableton Live trainer, has put together a nice tutorial for production education center Dubspot with one way of accomplishing that using Apple’s free Automator. I was always a fan of Automator, particularly in its use in the workflows for the Soundtrack Pro audio editor from Apple, but it seems like almost no one else (Apple included) seems to remember it’s there. So here’s a way to put it to some free, powerful use.
Of course, there are probably other ways of accomplishing this – shell scripts and the like – if anyone wants to suggest something. Automator has the advantage of some serious ease of use.
Have a look, and download this set of Automator actions free:
Video Tutorial: Simplify Your Ableton Workflow Using Apple’s Automator [Dubspot]