Working with clips

In this part we will have a look at how to add new clips to the set and how to manipulate them.

Download and open the following Ableton live set:

working with clips ableton set

Subsections of Working with Clips

Adding New Clips

browsing and adding new clips

prelisten

When you click on a loop, ableton will play the sample in the tempo of the song and quantized to the beginning of the next bar. This is called warping. you can turn it off(and on) here:

you can adjust the volume of the preview here:

If you listen to a loop you like to add, simply drag and drop it onto an audio track or onto a blank area. A new audio track will be created.

Loop Length and Start Position

length of a loop

you can easily adjust the start end position of a loop. There are several ways to do this:

You drag the looping marker in the sample area:

you can also select an area and press cmd-L (or look for the command in the edit menu):

or you can type or change the values in the Start-End - Loopposition-Length section:

changing the start position of the clip:

Loop Envelopes

play just a part of a loop

e.g. you have a drum loop sample where you really like the sound of the backbeat, but you don’t want to have the whole beat playing. That is a great example of how you can use clip envelopes.

1) open up the envelope tab

  • select the clip you want to edit
  • if not already open, click on the right button in the bottom of the clip overview:

2) select the parameter and draw a curve

  • Select Clip from the dropdown menu
  • Select Volume from the dropdown menu
  • Activate the draw mode either by clicking in the upper right or by pressing B
  • draw the curve to blank out everything beside the backbeat