Ableton Tricks, Tips and 'How do you...?' thread

[EffinHard]

Originally Posted by MOD ONE

How do I get new VSTs to show up? I know the VST folder is located in Audio/plugins/VST, but I drop the folder in there and nothing happens?

Goto Preferences, RE-SCan Plugins Folder... and then - in the explorer on the left-hand side, there is a tab that specific for VST Instruments.

[mrtunes]

Originally Posted by DaPhatConductor

freesound.org

everybody who produces should be a member... i use samples form there in pretty much every single tune these days.

mmmmm.... searchable copyright free field recordings.... tasssssty....

i don't mean to be a wet towel, but they are not copyright free. the majority of the sounds on there are creative commons with the non-commercial clause enacted. meaning if you put the samples in a track and then sell it, you are breaking their rules.

i think this is the one most people use on freesound:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

anyways beats the hell out of me why people would contribute free samples and then put that license on it.

[MOD ONE]

Originally Posted by EffinHard

Goto Preferences, RE-SCan Plugins Folder... and then - in the explorer on the left-hand side, there is a tab that specific for VST Instruments.

Yeah I hit that button a million times so far with no luck at all. When you DL a VST it comes out as an .dll or exe file are those the ones you're suppose to put in the folder? I know I'm doing something wrong I just can't pin point it.

[Isosceles_CAT]

Originally Posted by mrtunes

anyways beats the hell out of me why people would contribute free samples and then put that license on it.

It basically means "You can use these samples and have fun with them. If you release anything (free) that includes them, you have to give me credit. If you want to make money from the release, you need to contact me and we will make an arrangement.".

This prevents someone from taking inappropriate credit, or 'repackaging' free samples as a commercial product. It means that people who want to share the sounds they've created can do so, while retaining a measure of protection for their intellectual property. If someone took one of these free samples and based an entire song around it (ref. hiphop), and the song exploded, it seems reasonable that the creator of the sample should benefit.

[Wiseman]

Originally Posted by MOD ONE

Yeah I hit that button a million times so far with no luck at all. When you DL a VST it comes out as an .dll or exe file are those the ones you're suppose to put in the folder? I know I'm doing something wrong I just can't pin point it.

if it's a .dll just place it directly in your VSTplugins folder. If it's an exe run the exe and it will likely place a .dll in that folder for you.

[mrtunes]

Originally Posted by Isosceles_CAT

It basically means "You can use these samples and have fun with them. If you release anything (free) that includes them, you have to give me credit. If you want to make money from the release, you need to contact me and we will make an arrangement.".

This prevents someone from taking inappropriate credit, or 'repackaging' free samples as a commercial product. It means that people who want to share the sounds they've created can do so, while retaining a measure of protection for their intellectual property. If someone took one of these free samples and based an entire song around it (ref. hiphop), and the song exploded, it seems reasonable that the creator of the sample should benefit.

right, and that all makes sense. the main thing is if you use sounds on freesound, keep track of what sounds belong to who, so that if you want to use it in a release you can contact them and ask for their permission.

as lazy as i might come across by saying this, it was a bit too much work for me to bother with. especially if you wanted to use their stuff on a paying film sound design project where the amount of sound fx add up quick, it's just not worth it.

especially after everyone blew up about crystal castles sampling a CC track and posting it on their myspace page. they didn't even release it.

[Isosceles_CAT]

Yuppers... Personally, I don't get why anyone would use *anything* that they didn't create/record themselves. The exception, of course, is for foley work where you need sounds that would be impossible to record yourself. But in those cases, if you are getting the sounds from freesound, you're a fucking douche and don't deserve the work.

[DoubleDown]

Originally Posted by MOD ONE

Yeah I hit that button a million times so far with no luck at all. When you DL a VST it comes out as an .dll or exe file are those the ones you're suppose to put in the folder? I know I'm doing something wrong I just can't pin point it.

If it's just a .dll (which I think Glitch is for instance) file and nothing else.. yes you can either just put it in your VST folder (a common path would be c:\program files\stienberg\vstplugins)

I normally put a subfolder in the VST folder for each author or manufacturer of each vst. So for instance on my system the glitch path is c:\program files\stienberg\vstplugins\dblue\glitch. just for the sake of staying organized and keeping the ableton browser list shorter.

If the VST you download is an install file like a .exe then yuo need to run the install and in most cases point the install to your VST folder.

Once you have done either of the above Ableton should re-scan your vst folder on start up. If for whatever reason it's not in your VST folder in the ableton browser then hit that rescan button in the options.. if it still doesn't show.. well... I'm not sure what to say... other than maybe you are looking in the wrong folder in the ableton browser... (if I am picturing it right in my head) It's the 3rd round button from the top on the left side of the browser window.

[MOD ONE]

I sent the tech team an e-mail. I know I found the right VST folder because there are two plugins there that work, but what I noticed is that the plug ins that work have a file name of .vst not .exe or .dll. Do those files change once you rescan them somehow?

[MOD ONE]

Also from what I'm reading not all VSTs work with Ableton 8?

[Wiseman]

that could be the problem. what VSTs are you trying to load?

[DoubleDown]

Not sure... sounds shadey.. I've never seen a legit plugin with a file name ending in .vst

meh! change it to .dll and see what happens! Maybe someone just named in .vst to represent what it was?!?! no clue I'm just grasping at unlikely straws here..

a lot of cracked vst's are dodgy by the way..

Also.. some vst's that need a Key Code or some sort of piracy protection applied wont show in your ableton VST folder until they are actually registered or validated as being legit... regardless of them being in the right folder or not.

[MOD ONE]

I just read DLL is for PC only and VST are for macs, so that may be the problem. I'm using a mac so it wont read any DLL I take it lol. Where do I get VSTs that are friendly to Macs?

[Wiseman]

Ohhhhhhh there you go. I don't use a MAC so I don't know. try google?

[MOD ONE]

I can't believe that took me almost 3 hours to figure out lol.

[DoubleDown]

Originally Posted by MOD ONE

I can't believe that took me almost 3 hours to figure out lol.

I cant believe it took you more than 3 hours to tell us you were using a Mac

[MOD ONE]

Yeah lesson learned lol... I just DLed a mac friendly VST and it worked fine. I'm just glad I figured it out, but even in the manual they don't even explain the difference between DLL, EXE and VSTs. For a noob like me that little piece of information will stir me in the right direction... all I can say is thank god for google because I would of been at this for hours trying to install DLLs and EXEs on my mac lol... I do however appreciate the help.

[MOD ONE]

When Djing with Ableton do you find EQ Three useful, so what I'm getting at is how do you set up your Highs, Mids, Lows and Trim. I was messing with the Three EQ, but it doesn't feel the same.

[mrtunes]

Originally Posted by MOD ONE

When Djing with Ableton do you find EQ Three useful, so what I'm getting at is how do you set up your Highs, Mids, Lows and Trim. I was messing with the Three EQ, but it doesn't feel the same.

i personally don't really like it, but i think the idea is it's meant to just cut frequencies. so in a normal DJ eq your knob sits in the middle by default, in EQ3 your controller knob would sit at almost full value by default(to the right). then you pull the knobs back(left) to cut the frequency. and you can also assign buttons to just do the full cut.

i'm certain this is how it was intended to be used cause it only has 6db of gain on it, but can cut like 70db. apparently the new ableton 8 has a EQ4 in it though, i wonder what that one's like.

[EffinHard]

There are some great guides on the abletonlivedj forum about using EQ-8 for these pursposes.. You can really set some fine control over your response curves. EQ3 is useless in this application - i was quickly looking for a replacement...
learning how to create your own racks with EQ8 is a great way to familiarize yourself with those effects - check out the HP LP BP filters + the fade-to-gray stuff from JeremyJive.

[MOD ONE]

Yeah I was looking at EQ8 and realized that it does have way more options. I will have to read up on the guides on the Ableton forum.

I know when you're DJing with live you need to set your memory higher because it's handling bigger files. What is the best setting for DJing in the preference tab? I'm noticing now since I've been building up my set at moments it kind of cuts a little, and sounds like shit lol.

I also DLed this rack called JethroeDJFK it has 2 Fade to Grey options it's called Fade to Grey 2 and Fade to Red, which both work pretty well to fade out a track and do cool stuff with loops. It also has a bunch of other useful Audio effects on it.

[Borzoo]

"scanning custom vst folder" !!!
has anyone had that problem before basically it doesn't let live launch... this happened when I was trying to get some new plugins to work and set the wrong directory I guess.. I uninstalled live a few times and deleted all the vsts and even tried installing a newer version of live and interestingly enough the same thing happened with the newer version then tried ableton forum and they suggested deleting "preferences.cfg" which should've solved the issue but it didn't so I'm out of ideas!!
any help is highly appreciated.
btw I'm on a mac...

[MOD ONE]

I was reading the CPU using of the Alebton and it mention to freeze your tracks to save you from over working your computer, but when you do that you can't add anything to your loop/track, so I take it it's not useful when playing live?

[Dr Funk MD]

Another noob question that I can't seem to find an answer to: Can you export audio as an MP3? I like to listen to my stuff on my mp3 player when I'm working on it and right now it's a two step process which is a little annoying.

[EffinHard]

Originally Posted by Dr Funk MD

Another noob question that I can't seem to find an answer to: Can you export audio as an MP3? I like to listen to my stuff on my mp3 player when I'm working on it and right now it's a two step process which is a little annoying.

as far as I know ableton does not have an Mp3 Compressor... 2 step process