In this segment of the free Ableton Live 12 music production class, J. Anthony Allen gives a live walkthrough of a multi‑track Ableton project, explaining each element and how it was built. He starts by showing a MIDI riff created by clicking notes, then demonstrates the use of the Meld synth with an echo effect. He identifies a drum groove sampled from Splice, clarifying royalty coverage, and walks through additional layers: a chord progression using the Kontakt (Contact) plugin, FM8 synth patches for classic 80s FM tones, another Kontakt piano, a recorded guitar track processed through an amp emulator and delay, and various percussion and arpeggiated synth parts that add texture. After playing the assembled track, he transitions to discussing editing in Ableton Live—how to line up clips perfectly and the range of editing tools available. The segment serves both as a practical example of arranging and sound design in Live and an introduction to the editing workflow that will be expanded later in the class.
Chapters
Okay, so what are the elements here? Here we have a MIDI riff. Okay, this is just a MIDI thing. Now with this one, I didn't play this in. I just clicked through to make this. So, you know, you can add notes just by clicking like that. So that's what I did for this. And then the synth it has on it is the new Meld synth. And we'll talk about how to do that. It also has an echo on it, a little delay. Here we have a drum sample. Let's see what it. What this is. So if I solo this, I hit the S here and then listen. Oh, no. This is that vocal sample I found. I think I got this on Splice. Anything you get on Splice, if you buy it on Splice and then you can use it. Royalty are all covered. This is probably just this little drum groove. Cool. Here's another synth thing. Here's another percussion layer. And then some of the synth I added. And I think I did play this one in. Yeah, this is just a chord progression. And you can see the synth I'm using here. This is actually a plugin called Contact. We'll talk about Contact soon. Here's another sound. This is another. Oh, this is FM8 synth. This is a plugin. If I open it, you can see what it is. This is a kind of FM synthesizer emulator. It sounds like this big warm synth. And moving down, this looks like another FM8. Use FM8. Give that real kind of 80s sound that I'm really into right now. And then here's maybe another fm. No, this is another Contact instrument, just a piano. And then down here, this, I believe, is just a guitar track that I played in. Okay, so that's me. I'm running through this guitar rig amp emulator to give it kind of a nice clean sound. I recorded this the same way I just showed you. I just sat here and played it, actually. I think I stood when I played it, but. And then there's a little delay on it also. Little clap on the next track. What is this? Arpeggiated synth, kind of adding a little robotic sound. And then bongos thicken it up. So all of that put together sounds like this. Oops, Unsolo that. You want to hear. Basically the same thing, but with less context, with less going on. So different layers of things happening. But yeah, so it's just a little peek into a track. We'll look at another track, I think, at the end of this class, and it'll be fun. Okay, now let's move on and let's talk about editing. Like, how do we get things lined up just perfect, perfectly? And what kind of editing can we do in live? It's a lot.
