SOUND DESIGN WITH ABLETON LIVE TRAINING

ABLETON LIVE is THE Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) for composing music, sound design, sound engineering and live performance. In a dedicated work environment, you can create sounds and compose your own music using the included synthesizers and effects or using your own plug-ins.

This course, dedicated to sound design and synthesis with Live, will enable you, as an artist, musician or sound designer, to create sounds using 100% of Ableton Live Suite’s synthesis potential.

After a general overview of the history of sound synthesis and a detailed refresher on elements such as sound and sampling, the MIDI and MPE standard, time and frequency approaches, the basics of synthesis (typical components such as generators, processing, controls and envelopes), the concept of sampling/playback (classic and granular), we will delve into the Ableton Live Suite environment for sound design.

It’s a real journey, with a theory/practice approach for each block of knowledge, so that not only will you master Live’s various instruments and effects, but above all you’ll understand why to use one instead of another, and learn how to combine them to sculpt the timbres of your next sounds.

As the course progresses, you’ll get to know ALL Live’s instruments and audio effects devices.

This exhaustive progression has been specially designed as a pretext to teach you not only to master the tools of Ableton Live, but also to make you more proficient in all the techniques of additive/subtractive synthesis, wavetable synthesis, layering, sample deconstruction and replay (macro and micro/granular levels). And we won’t stop at instruments. Today, modern sound design goes hand in hand with complex processing enabled by temporal effects (distortion, compression) and spectral effects to sculpt timbre (filter, EQ). You’ll also learn how to thicken your sounds using the classic Chorus/Flanger/Phaser effects, as well as the even more astonishing effects offered by the Live environment.

Finally, throughout this dense session with us, you’ll learn how to assemble/cut/paste already recorded sounds or recorded during your sessions to finalize your composition or sound design in the form of a timeline that you can export and reuse in your other projects (film, musical composition, sound installation, live performance).

PREREQUISITES

Basic knowledge of Ableton Live is a plus, but not mandatory.

It is, however, necessary to have some general knowledge of sound creation in a DAW (Pro Tools, Logic, Ableton Live, Reaper, etc.).

If this is not the case, we recommend that you take our Ableton Live training course, which will enable you to master this powerful sound creation environment. This course also covers sound design tools (instruments, effects).

TERMS & HOW TO

Our Ableton Live trainings can be done as One-To-One and Group modes.

You can choose Remote or Face-to-Face Training.

We can propose you the best flexibility by providing all possible combinations: you can start remotely, and come here to end your training, or, we could design a full week for your group, Face-to-Face here in France and get for each one of you some individual one-to-one 3 hours remotely after that…

DURATION

All courses durations can be modulated, but we used to propose you these 3 packages :

• TOTAL (5 days)
• ACCELERATED (3 days)
• REMOTE CAPSULES (3 hours slots)

During our first discussion, we decide together which mode fits your needs.

TOTAL mode gives you the solid/full/total autonomy with Ableton Live.
ACCELERATED MODE provides you everything you need to use Ableton Live without too much time constraint.
REMOTE CAPSULES is the most flexible mode which provides the best way to learn all along weeks and month, slower.

Depending on your needs, we can provide longer Ableton Live training sessions.

FUNDINGS

If you are working for a company in France, for a french institution, you can probably get your Ableton Live training funded.

Contact us for this to get more specific informations.

OVERALL OBJECTIVES

• Discover the history of sound synthesis
• Understand synthesizers operating concepts
• Understand the theory and practice behind 8 types of sound synthesis
• Know how to use and control the different types of audio effects
• Master all possible modulations of an audio signal
• Learn how to create your own sounds and instruments
• Discover creative sound design techniques

PROGRAM

• Analog and digital sound
• Review of MIDI and MPE standards
• Fundamentals of Ableton Live
• Time and frequency approach to sound (partials and harmonics)
• Sound synthesis components (generators, envelopes, filters)
• External modulation of sound parameters (lfo, external envelopes)
• Modulation of parameters through playing (key, velocity, aftertouch and MPE)
• Concept of voice  (monophony, polyphony, paraphony)
• Additive/subtractive synthesis with Analog
• Notions of glide, detune, priority, unison and vibrato
• Case study of external modulation via LFO
• Additive/subtractive synthesis with Drift
• Practical case of parameter modulation through playing
• Introduction to signal processing (e.g. filtering)
• Recording and automation
• FM synthesis with Operator
• An example of AM synthesis
• Sampling & sample playback with Sampler and Simpler
• Creating a customized sound kit with Drum Rack
• Granular synthesis with Granulator III
• Other practical examples of modulation (Modulators)
• Wavetable synthesis with Wavetable
• Concept of modulation matrix in Live
• Creating complex sounds with Instrument Racks (layering, splitting, macros)
• Signal distortion (saturation, waveshaping, overdrive)
• Signal compression and side-chain
• Cross-synthesis with Vocoder
• Synthesis by physical modeling with Collision, Tension and Electric
• Resonators (Corpus, Resonators, Spectral Resonator)
• Macro-oscillators-based synthesis with Meld
• Other temporal effects and signal modulations (Reverb, Delay, Chorus…)