Electronic Music Production with Ableton Live [2025]

Welcome to Module 2 of this course. By now you should be comfortable with building beats and using Impulse and Drum Rack devices. You should be playing around with adding audio effects to your sounds and experimenting with how that changes the vibe, particularly with Reverb & Delay.

This module deals with sound design in all its glory. First of all you’ll learn a detailed approach to sound design with synthesisers, recreating classic acid TB-303 sounds, house pads, trance bass and lead sounds and much more.

Then we’ll look at warping, audio mangling and manipulation, how to work with drum loops and how to sample music to make edits to give you a well-rounded skillset for sound design inside Ableton Live.

Learn some key terminology relating to music theory to get you up and running with creating musical elements.

It's time to get a bass groove on the go.

Explore how to use your computer keyboard.

Learn how to play notes in using a MIDI controller and why this adds a lot to the whole process.

Unlock the joy of getting your elbows out and tweaking some knobs to control your sounds!

Drift is an incredibly powerful synthesiser that is available in all versions of Ableton Live. Learn how to set it up so that we can do some sound design using it.

Learn the fundamentals of sound design using synthesisers. In this video we'll look at oscillators and filters and how to use them to craft unique sounds.

Learn how to use envelopes to control synthesisers and change your sounds.

learn how to modulate a synthesiser using an LFO.

Let's look at some of the master settings that you can use on Drift to change the behaviour of the synth and create interesting sounds.

Let's create one of the most iconic synth sounds in dance music: the sound of ACID.

Now let's look at how to create a classic trance lead sound!

Let's now look at how MIDI effects can help you to generate useful and inspiring chords.

Arpeggiators are used to take chords (multiple notes playing together) and to turn them into patterns (sometimes called sequences). Let's see how we can use this in your music.

If you've followed this course closely, then you have been learning to music music by building everything from scratch. There is an easier way: by using audio loops. Let's look at how to use them in your tracks.

Once you master this skill, you can bring audio from anywhere and make it fit with your project.

Love a wee vocal in your track? This is the video for you! Learn how to warp an acapella to fit with your music.

Mastering this skill will allow you to sample music from anywhere, DJ with Ableton Live or use it for live performance. Get stuck in...

Simpler is an outrageously powerful device in a simple package. Learn how to use it to manipulate samples in your track.

Welcome to Module 3, focussing on the all-important arrangement of your track. We’ll also be looking at creating a good workflow that suits your style of music prouduction, so there’s lots to learn in this section.

In this video we’ll take a look at:

• Overview of Arrangement View

• Handy shortcuts

• Interface

In order to arrange your track, you need to understand a little about track structure. In this video we take a listen to some tracks and establish a structure that they use which is simple to follow.

Now that we understand a little about track structure, we can begin to arrange our track! There are various ways to get started with an arrangement, but first we need to understand how clips behave.

‘Additive Arrangement’ is the process of building an arrangement piece by piece. You start at the beginning of the track, and build it in sections, choosing how in-depth you want to go.

We’re going to take a look at a nice method for doing this in this video.

Subtractive Arrangement is the process of starting with a full length track of 6-7 minutes with everything playing the whole time and then trimming it back to make the arrangement.

This is a clever technique that works for some producers – just choose what suits you best!

Automation is the process of making parameters in your project move and change over time. In this video we’ll look at how to use the automation lanes in arrangement view.

To get a more human feel to your music it can be a good idea to record some automation by hand. You can do this with the mouse, keyboard or knobs on a MIDI controller.

Of course a MIDI controller is generally best but the mouse can work nicely too!

There are loads of tips and tricks when it comes to automation. In this video we explore some of them and how to use them in your workflow.

In this video we’ll take a look at recording your full arrangement, complete with automation, as a live performance! In recent years this has become my favourite way of producing music quickly, as if you do the recording well your arrangement is almost finished by the time you start editing it..

Save your project as something new and try a live arrangement instead of additive / subtrctive arrangement – it’s fun and a great workflow when you get the hang of it.

Adding FX in multiple audio tracks can give your track tension during the builds and impact during the drops. It’s a very simple way to make your track sound more pro.

Sends & Returns are how effects such as reverb and delay were used in studios in days gone by, when they were hardware units rather than software and you only owned one or two that needed shared between multiple elements in your project.

In this video we look at how powerful they can be for your productions and ways of using them.

Buildups & Breakdowns are vital parts of electronic music, particularly dancefloor-focussed tracks. They provide tension and release tension to evoke an emotional reaction from the crowd.

In this video we look at how to implement them easily in your music.

Time to add all the 'ear candy' to your track. Let's sprinkle it on top using some techniques we've learned.

Welcome to the dark art of the Mixdown. You should now have an idea for a track fleshed out into an arrangement and be getting a good idea of what your track is going to sound like when it’s done.

Don’t worry if it’s not sounding quite like your favourite producer – there are many reasons for this, amongst which:

• producers you love have probably been doing this for years, if not decades. It takes time to refine your skills and develop a sound, just enjoy the process of learning and improving all the time

• they might have some high-end equipment which helps them hear better (i.e. very good studio monitors – this makes a difference) or to improve the sound (fancy plugins or hardware)

• most importantly though – their music will be expertly mixed and mastered

This is the process of tweaking the levels, EQ, effects, panning and more on your tracks to get the most out of ever element, and it is what this module is dedicated to.

Let's group together similar elements in preparation for mixing them down.

A great way to get a visual overview of your track is to use a spectrum analyzer. Let's see how they work.

In this video we take a look at how to create a ‘Self Reference’ – a render of your track that you can use as a comparison to make sure that you’re going in the right direction with your mixdown.

Let's learn how to use the Channel EQ audio effect to manipulate frequencies in the track.

Let's learn how to use Ableton Live's EQ Eight device.

This video focuses on setting the levels of each element in your track and panning them to make good use of the stereo field.

Compressors – the most misused, abused and misunderstood devices in music production! Well, not any more…

Learn how to use this all important control on a compressor.

A sidechain compressor is a vital effect and tool in music production – learn how to use them.

Learn some tips and tricks for using reference tracks to help you get a more accurate mixdown while you’re still learning.

In this video learn how to render out a premaster ready for you to send to a mastering engineer or perform a quick master on yourself.

Here we take a look at creating a new project to perform a quick master of your track so you can send it to friends, labels or DJs to play.

Congratulations – you’ve made it to the end of the course! By this point you should have created a track, arranged it and mixed it down into something which you are happy with. Remember, music production is a long journey and your first track isn’t going to be your best one ever, so don’t be dis-heartened if you’re not thinking of getting this track signed.

You have to enjoy the process of learning, and you’ve made a giant step forward by getting to this point.

Now is a good time for some feedback from an industry professional, to give you an indication of what’s working in your track, but more importantly what could be changed and how you could improve it.

When you’ve got something nice, bundle it up and send it over to us – you’ll be amazed at how much you can learn by getting feedback from an industry professional.

Once we receive your project file we will be in touch to arrange a time for a 45-minute Zoom call, where you can ask questions, get feedback on your work and suggestions for how you can improve it.

You’ll also receive an update project back with the tweaks done in the call, and a recording of the call to watch again when you like.

Thank you so much for choosing to learn with us, I hope you enjoyed the course. Keep in touch and I look forward to hearing what you come up with in the near future…

Thanks,

Simon Stokes

subSine | Academy of Electronic Music