Producing Music with Ableton Live

This is a basic book, clearly intended for someone with no prior experience.That's fine, I'm new to Ableton (though not to DAWs generally) and wanted a clear and concise intro.The Ableton manual isn't bad, it's just not organized as a progressive tutorial that builds on each lesson to a final track. I was looking for a "let's roll up our sleeves and go step-by-step through hands-on techniques, in the order you'll need to learn them to make a song with Live."And though what is in here is generally more clear and step-by-step than the manual, it isn't really a progressive tutorial that ties it all together cleanly, and it doesn't do as much filling-in gaps in the manual that you otherwise only learn by trial and error as I was expecting.Furthermore, about 20 out of roughly 170 pages are spent on things not directly relevant to Live (touting but not explaining operations of 3rd party plugins, very mediocre explanations of basic DAW theory and studio layout). This appendix is touted as a feature, but it's far from the best explanation I've read of anything in it.That wasted 20 pages is unforgivable when you consider the title of the book, an the fact that the following things are omitted:- composing using the piano roll ("piano roll" doesn't even appear in the index)- how to record midi note events in arrange view- automation and automation lanes- MIDI anything, actually ("MIDI" also doesn't appear in the index -- seriously)- Dealing with Ableton agr files (though there is a section on warping, quantization and grooves as applied to clips which is the best part of the book)- Grooves with anything other than clips (i.e. nothing on how to lay down a drum track with grooves and export it to a looping clip)- Ableton instruments, or for that matter, any instruments or tracking with anything other than clips- Ableton Racks (there's some basics on effects, but nothing about big effects racks)The author appears to promote the idea that Live is *strictly* a clip-based audio looping, sequencing and processing tool -- and that nobody would ever want to play notes (despite mentioning several VST softsynths in the appendix).Considering the book is called "Producing Music with Ableton Live" and not "Looping and Arranging Clips with Ableton Live", those items above seem like very serious oversights which those 20 pages (and more, really) of nonsense ought to have been given over to.I learned enough from the manual and YouTube videos to now know some of what it is I don't know, and am now going through that trial and error phase I'd hope this book would help accelerate or jump over. And Ableton is not trivial, it has lots of cool stuff (and seemingly a glaring deficiency -- only being able to record non-note MIDI events into MIDI session clips not MIDI arrange tracks), enough so that I had to scour the manual and WWW rather than turning to this book as I'd hoped to.If this book actually described the whole range of (out of the box) ways to produce music in Live with the same clarity as the rest of the book (and maybe added a bit more depth, and/or continuity of tutorial), I would've given this book 4+ stars.But I think the title is misleading and the content insufficient in some very important respects.

This book was a disappointment. I bought this book, along with the companion book "Sound Design, Mixing and Mastering with Ableton Live" by the same author and publisher last year when I made the shift from my previous DAW to Ableton Live. Ableton Live already comes with a hefty, generally very thorough manual; for an "after market" instructional guide to compete with the vendor's manual, it would have to offer something the manual doesn't - like more sophisticated tricks, or clarity where the manual is turgid and obscure. This is not the case with this book. It is like "Manual Lite" - it is more superficial than the manual, and omits a lot of features and spends dozens of pages explaining the subtle nuances of very basic stuff that anyone with a mouse and more than 1 day's experience using computer software could figure out, like how to create a new file or save a file (called "sets" in Ableton-speak).It is clear that the author or the publisher saw a money grabbing opportunity by taking what should have been a comprehensive 200 page book on using Ableton Live and splitting it into two 150 page books for twice the money. If you are doing the math, the reason why the two books add up to more than 200 pages is because there is significant duplication of content between the two books.So what is the difference between this book and its companion? This book only covers the use of audio files in Ableton Live. There is no coverage of MIDI. This book will teach you how to insert an audio file into a set, how to record it into an arrangement, how to trigger it in Session view, how to use warp and groove features, and how to apply audio effects.Anything related to other features, to the extent covered at all, are covered in the companion book. Using MIDI Controllers? No. Applying MIDI effects? No. Using built in "instruments" or third party VST soft synths? No. Creating "racks"? No. For any of the foregoing, do not look for it in this book - it is out of the scope. Strangely, I/O is covered (very superficially) in this book, although it begs the question, why in a book mostly dedicated to making music out of pre-recorded WAV files?The most important feature of a third party after market guide is missing completely, and that is the "above and beyond, how to really use it" features. There is not nearly enough discussion of I/O, which for me is one of the most important features of Ableton Live (probably because I play with so much external hardware). Another feature covered in a very disappointing way is the use of racks - racks are powerful, and the author tells us that, but does not show us how or why they are so powerful. The clever use of racks, return tracks, and I/O can result in some very mind-blowing music production environments, none of which is remotely suggested by these books.There is something a bit illogical about the split also. If a book begins by introducing audio files and completely leaves out the creation of MIDI clips until book two, that presupposes that the beginner has an abundance of audio files just sitting around, waiting to be inserted into a set. But how does that happen without either (a) making a bunch of audio files from either live recordings or from bits of MIDI flown through instruments or VSTs to produce sound or (b) acquiring a bunch of pre-made, off-the-shelf commercial audio files from the numerous "loop" stores in the cybersphere. But there is a certain school of music production that says commercial loops should be used sparingly, if at all. It is a much more professional approach, this school would assert, to begin from scratch making your own MIDI files, running them through instruments, and recording the results. This is generally how I use a DAW. I will not say I do not own commercial samples, or play with them for ideas or to add a missing sound or effect here and there. But how can anyone say you are producing music if you are just looping together a bunch of purchased WAV files that sound nifty when played together? Do not get me wrong! I use WAV files in my own work - especially WAV files I make myself either from live recording or by running MIDI through VSTs. Sometimes it is very useful to take a series of clips and record them all into a WAV file in advance of continuing to work on the composition because it takes a load off of the computer resources not to run a bunch of VSTs every time you play back the tracks together.But to this point and to conclude: all of this is to say, the books do not cover enough, what they do cover is covered in a very illogical and superficial way, and it was commercially inappropriate to sell these books as two books rather than one.

I didn't want to spend a lot of money on a physical book if I couldn't tell what version it referred to, so I bought the Kindle version.The book is based on the reader using song templates. I ddn't know if they are provided on a CD or downloadable: I could not get them.Added to that, it looks like this book is based on an old version of Live, perhaps 9. It is, therefore, of very limited use.

Only have one issue with this, - the copy of Ableton That I have is a "Lite" version and as such, much of this book does not apply or work in my program.& that sucks.If you have the full version , its a great book - very informative and gives a logical tour of the programs features. - Comes with a CD full of examples - you guessed it - only some of them work in the lite version supplied with Launchpad S or similar controllers , (which is limited to 8 tracks - even the Launchpad Demo track won`t play fully in it.)so - not a reflection on the book , just the version of Ableton that most people will have. & information that you may like to be aware of , if buying this book to make sense of the program supplied with most MIDI controllers.

Excellent book, excellent read and quite easy to follow even for a beginner using Ableton. I have learned a great deal from using the first few chapters of the book and as you ply through them slowly it comes together superbly well. I would recommend this book to any Ableton user more as an extremely useful addition to the product guide. It shows and explains the immense possibilities this DAW has in both studio as well as Live environments. It is to say the very least easy to read and provided me with a lot of interest and fun discovering new ideas and ways of doing things. Well worth every penny in my opinion.

If you are new to Ableton and interesting in producing your own music. Buy this book. Trust me, Jake will take you on a journey in such a way that you will be left wondering why you didn't start making music years ago. If you like electronic dance music he will show you how to build a track from the word go and in his own unique way will teach you how to use Ableton. The book is written in such a way that reader will not feel overwhelmed by the software and in return will give you a solid platform on which to build upon. By the end of the book you will have made your first track and along the way learnt some great techniques for making your own music.Ableton is unique in that it uses clips of audio that you are able to manipulate in a very powerful and easy way. When you hear about workflow, this is what Ableton excels at. His explanation of how to use the properties of audio clips in the context of a song is the best I have read and I am betting that even Ableton veterans will be pleasantly surprised in realising features of the software that they don't normally use.The good thing about the book is the way it is structured, for instance the reader will not have to worry about using things like EQ, compressors and effects until such time they are required by the song being made. What makes the book even better is that when you use a slider or twiddle a button, you know why you are doing it because an explanation is given it and what you will achieve by following the instruction.Honestly, as a step by step guide goes, this book is excellent.I understand that in the next book things are progressed and more features of the software are explored. My only hope is that this series is continued with each book moving on to more advanced production techniques and usage of software.Well done Jake and thankyou.

I have been using Logic pro for a while and have some experience of Cubase, Reason etc..for me it was a great introduction to quickly get into both:a. How to do things in Live that I know how to do elesewhereb. More importantly, how to take advantage of some of the things that Live offers that some other DAWs don't (at the time of writing although Logic Pro 10/X coming soon??) such as session viewWould be good to see an updated version for Live 9 which will is due quarter 1 2013 - at this price I would probably get the updated versionI guess I could have worked all this out without the book but I would probably have picked up bad habits and spent a lot of time trawling through tutorials that contradict each other due to personal ways of doing things. This saves you all the troule by getting you started in the right way and i can adjust my workflow from here on