• Music

  • the production thread

Amps Fuckin yes Jay!!! I knew they would be called something other than ‘lasers’ 😆 Damo’s link was spot on, but hard to emulate in the newer version of Ableton for a noob like me. ‘Risers’ seems to get me some more recent results. Big thank you peeps!

Filter automation is also your friend on this. The easiest one to do is take a white noise sound, use a low pass filter and automate Ableton to open up the filter so it slowly progresses.

Another term is ‘sweeps’. Lots of tutorials out there on this. Why’d you settle on Ableton instead of Cubase after all those years of poking my brain about Cubase? Hehe.

As far as sound design goes, this is a good one to get stuck into because it allows you to understand basic concepts in synthesis and audio sample manipulation. That sort of stuff will give you a foundation in doing other things later down the line, so you picked a good lesson to learn, young padawan.

  • Amps replied to this.

      Amps Spoken like a native!

      I’m probably one of only 3 people on here who knows who you actually are. Haha.

        loopdokter having to stem/bounce out entire tracks manually instead of having a queue and automating it

        that one is annoying at best and i don’t think it would be that difficult to fix. i could see myself switching away from ableton at some point if i find something i like better, but the idea of learning another daw isn’t something i’m overly interested in either.

            Amps Lay them on me! Using Ableton 10 intro… but willing to buy laser orientated plugins as long as my Tesla stock continues to blow up.

            As far as actual ‘pew pew’ laser/Star Wars noises, this is all very easy to do. Much of this is down to the ADSR (AKA envelopes) and the settings you have. Set the resonance to pretty much maximum and cutoff to just above naught so some signal comes through. Draw or play a MIDI note. Make sure your attack is down to naught, release is set to naught and the same for your decay. Sustain settings you’ll have to play with a bit. If you’re doing this in Ableton, I’d recommend using Analog as the device for this setting and a saw wave or square wave as the default. You only need one oscillator turned on for this.

            So basically tweak your settings in these areas until you get that zappy kind of feel you’re looking for by tweaking the filter cutoff, resonance and ADSR settings. To throw a bit of a wrench into the Matrix for extra pew, add in some LFO and modulation that effects the filter cutoff frequency. Play around with the rate of the LFO for rapid fire ‘pew pew’ sounds or ease it back for slower, more evolving sounds.

            This is making me think I really should do a YouTube channel on sound design.

            • Amps replied to this.

                303abuser

                Once you learn one DAW, it’s not hard to figure out another. I started in Cubase and once I figured out how things in Ableton worked that were the same concepts, but implemented differently, it was a piece of piss. I have applied those same concepts to working in Logic - although I don’t like the workflow in that DAW at all and think it’s terribly named.

                Plus now with YouTube being so prevalent, I guarantee you that you’ll pick up stuff pretty fast and be pretty crafty in pretty much anything if you have the core skillset already down. Basically just Google what you don’t know how to do.

                  303abuser that one is annoying at best and i don’t think it would be that difficult to fix. i could see myself switching away from ableton at some point if i find something i like better, but the idea of learning another daw isn’t something i’m overly interested in either.

                  That gets on my tits a lot because I have several projects I want to individually stem out for stem mastering, but can’t because Ableton crashes.

                  Plus in general, Ableton has been crashing on projects that used to open - and they’re things that are basically completed but I need a vocalist to track over without the temp vocal, but I can’t access because it crashes. Ableton Support has been fucking useless. The guy who’s working my ticket actually got back to me and told me he gave me the wrong advice when I told him there’s no way what he was saying was possible. Useless muppets!

                      loopdokter that has to get your blood pressure up. i’ve had a few crashes, but i think they were all plug in related. i learned not to stack certain plugins together to prevent it, but i’m not sure that’s ableton’s fault. overall, it does well for my workflow at the moment.

                          303abuser that has to get your blood pressure up. i’ve had a few crashes, but i think they were all plug in related. i learned not to stack certain plugins together to prevent it, but i’m not sure that’s ableton’s fault. overall, it does well for my workflow at the moment.

                          ‘Mildly annoyed with Ableton’ is a slight understatement at the moment.

                            Sensing your rage Loopy. Ableton has been really solid for me though. When I have had issues it has been related to 3rd party instruments and plug ins. Support I find really slow. However nowhere near as bad as N.I. who basically tell you to post it on the user forum.

                              loopdokter I think you should get straight on it and do a video just on laser sounds… I can guarantee you at least one view! 👍️

                                  303abuser I’m using Ableton 10 Intro, didn’t want to go all in on the full bundle as I have a sneaking suspicion that I am completely devoid of any musical talent.

                                      loopdokter understand basic concepts in synthesis and audio sample manipulation

                                      This is very much the current issue. Think I might have to fork out for the full version of Ableton though as so many tutorials use stuff I don’t have in the ‘Intro’ version.

                                        Amps haha fair enough. stick with loopy’s advice for now then and let me know if you struggle with it.

                                          i have a samples from mars code that i’m not using. if you need stock drum samples (all the roland boxes plus a bunch of others) this is the best you’ll find. it’s $19 for every one of their samples or $17 for everything they did this year, if you already have the rest.

                                          reply here or dm me if you want the code, first person gets it.

                                            and BFD2-2999 is the plugin alliance code for today and tomorrow, same deal as earlier.

                                            Fuck it. Just took the plunge with Arturia V Collection. Love their stuff. That should be me finished with buying another soft synth for a lifetime.

                                            i looked at it after you mentioned it last week. if i didn’t have software already covering that territory, i’d probably buy it too.

                                            It’s amazing mate. The CMI V is superb. Although will take me a lifetime to work it out. Really love what Arturia have done emulating the old synths.