Arranging a whole album in ableton

[Krazyfingaz]

Has anyone here done or currently does it? I'm trying to arrange my instrumental project in it mainly bc of the automation techniques at the same time ableton is growing on me. I've tried youtube for tutorials but came up short outside of ableton for beginners lol. I dont want anyone asking the "typical" "why would you want to do that". Bc I already stated why. Thanks!

 

[Formant024]

i dont use ableton but eh, why not export the tracks and load them all in a new project ?

 

[Krazyfingaz]

I have them all exported tho I want to do different automation tricks in ableton with my Controller. I also want to have a mix tape feel to them.

 

[Formant024]

why not do most of the automation in their own projects so you can minimize the mixtape automation stuff

 

[Krazyfingaz]

bc I prefer to do it this way.

 

[mercurywaters]

break each song down to a few groups of elements, maybe drums, vocals, samples. that way you're not trying to wrangle every track from every song, but have more flexibility than if you were just arranging full songs.

 

[djfeedme]

^^ What MercuryWaters Said. I use Ableton for everything in my productions. Breaking songs up would give you the most flexibility. Utilize the Scene Titles to make BPM changes, utilize warped material vs. unwarped material for transitions and interludes. This would be for live use/performance.

If you are just making a studio album, well then you can just use the arrangement view to build your album piece by piece and use automation for whatever interesting change ups you are trying to do. I guess I would just think of an album as one long track with whatever changes you want to happen.

I am kind of unsure exactly what you are looking for in regards to tutorials.

 

[2GooD Productions]

Why would you want to do that?
Jk. It seems a bit longwinded and overcomplicated imo. Would probably take a pretty powerful computer to run an albums worth of plugins. Either that or copious quantities of automation on the plugins. Personally i would mix the tracks in their own projects and then arrange the already mixed songs into a mixtape. Or better yet actually mix the songs with turntables/controller + serato. Keep in mind that on our studio pc i can have the thing struggling on one songs worth of plugins.

 

[God]

Has anyone here done or currently does it? I'm trying to arrange my instrumental project in it mainly bc of the automation techniques at the same time ableton is growing on me. I've tried youtube for tutorials but came up short outside of ableton for beginners lol. I dont want anyone asking the "typical" "why would you want to do that". Bc I already stated why. Thanks!

No offense, but why the fuck would you use Ableton to arrange an entire album?

Have your plugins done in Ableton and make to mix that shit down to a stereo song track and export the .wav file. Export all your songs and arrange your album in something like WaveLab or SoundForge and make a redbook version of the album.

Then you can properly master that shit in a wave editor.

I wouldn't use Ableton or any sequencer to set up an entire album, man.

 

[Greg Savage]

I know people who do it

 

[God]

I know people who do it

You know people who release a professional, record company funded album where the album's Red Book is created in Ableton?

I believe we may be thinking along separate lines here.

 

[Greg Savage]

You know people who release a professional, record company funded album where the album's Red Book is created in Ableton?

Yes

 

[Krazyfingaz]

No offense, but why the fuck would you use Ableton to arrange an entire album?

Have your plugins done in Ableton and make to mix that shit down to a stereo song track and export the .wav file. Export all your songs and arrange your album in something like WaveLab or SoundForge and make a redbook version of the album.

Then you can properly master that shit in a wave editor.

I wouldn't use Ableton or any sequencer to set up an entire album, man.

I get what your saying but if I was going to use sound forge or wave editor and rebook it I would. It's called trying something different. I posed this question to those who use Ableton and not to debate on what DAW or any other program to use.

 

[Krazyfingaz]

@mercurywaters what I did was exported the finished wav versions and put them in Ableton to use automation. @2GooD Productions yea that's what I wanted to do but I don't own serato tho the process I'm doing is a but long winded its still interesting doing it this way. Thanks fellas.