The 20-Minute Producer: Music Production in Ableton Live 12

Live 12 is installed on the free trial, playing through your headphones without crackle, you know the five places in the window, and you have a saved Set that plays a drum kit.

1. 1.1Why 20 Minutes a Night
2. 1.2Install Live and Start the Trial
3. 1.3Headphones and Buffer Size
4. 1.4The Live Window in 5 Minutes
5. 1.5Your First Sound and Default Set
6. 1.6Save Your First Set

You've opened a real Live project, heard it play, swapped one of its sounds for a kitchen sound you chose, and saved your own copy.

1. 2.1A Beat That's Already Yours
2. 2.2Download and Unzip the Starter
3. 2.3Open the Project and Press Play
4. 2.4Add the Kitchen Sound Pack
5. 2.5Swap One Sound
6. 2.6Save Your Own Copy

The Apron2Amp add-on is installed in your User Library, you can find it in Live's browser, and you've put A2A Night Room on your beat and judged it fairly, at the same volume.

1. 3.1What's in the Free Add-on
2. 3.2Download the Add-on
3. 3.3Install to Your User Library
4. 3.4Find It in the Browser
5. 3.5Night Room at Equal Volume
6. 3.6Save with the Rack On

You can open a Drum Rack, put one of your kitchen sounds on a pad, draw a one-bar beat in a MIDI clip, shape it with velocity, and grow it into an eight-bar loop with a fill.

1. 4.1Tonight's Beat
2. 4.2Inside the Drum Rack
3. 4.3Draw One Bar
4. 4.4Groove with Velocity
5. 4.5Eight Bars and a Fill
6. 4.6Save Your Beat

Your beat has a bass line and four chords under it, in A minor, written with Scale Mode on so no note is out of the key, and the chords made by Live's Chord device from single notes.

1. 5.1Bass and Chords Preview
2. 5.2Bass Sound and Scale Mode
3. 5.3Root Notes on the Kick
4. 5.4Chords from Single Notes
5. 5.5Play It In with Capture MIDI
6. 5.6Save Bass and Chords

You've written an eight-bar melody that follows your chords by starting each chord on one of its own notes, and you've let Live suggest ideas: the Arpeggiator in any edition, and the Seed generator in Standard, Suite or the trial.

1. 6.1A Melody That Follows
2. 6.2Lead Sound and Chord Notes
3. 6.3Write Eight Bars by Hand
4. 6.4The Arpeggiator
5. 6.5Seed Generator (Standard and Suite)
6. 6.6Save Your Melody

Your loops become a song of about a minute, with an intro, a groove, a full section and an ending: laid out as scenes, recorded into Arrangement View, exported as a sound file, and played to someone. That's Milestone 1.

1. 7.1The Shape of a Song
2. 7.2Scenes as Sections
3. 7.3Record into Arrangement View
4. 7.4Tidy the Timeline
5. 7.5Export Your Song
6. 7.6Milestone 1: Play It to Someone

You can record clean kitchen sounds on your phone during the day, get them onto your computer in a format Live opens, and record one quiet sound straight into Live at night without waking anyone.

1. 8.1Why Your Own Sounds
2. 8.2Recording on Your Phone
3. 8.3Phone to Computer
4. 8.4Recording Quietly in Live
5. 8.5Levels and Latency
6. 8.6The Kitchen Hunt

You can trim your own recordings to the good part, smooth their edges with fades, pick the right warp mode, and lock a recorded rhythm to your song's 90 BPM with warp markers.

1. 9.1Cut, Smooth, Lock
2. 9.2Trim to the Best Take
3. 9.3Fades and Clip Gain
4. 9.4The Six Warp Modes
5. 9.5Lock a Rhythm to the Grid
6. 9.6Save Your Warped Set

You've built a drum kit from your own kitchen recordings, with the kettle as the snare, tuned and trimmed each hit, saved the kit as your own Drum Rack preset, and heard your one-minute song play through it.

1. 10.1The Kettle Snare
2. 10.2Choose Your Sounds
3. 10.3Build the Kit Pad by Pad
4. 10.4Trim, Tune, Balance
5. 10.5Save Your Kitchen Kit
6. 10.6Your Song, Your Kit

You can use EQ, compression, reverb and delay on your song, and you judge every one of them honestly: switched on and off at the same volume, matched with Utility's Gain, so louder never fools you.

1. 11.1Four Effects, One Rule
2. 11.2EQ: Making Room
3. 11.3Compressor on the Kit
4. 11.4Reverb and Delay Sends
5. 11.5The Quiet-Night Check
6. 11.6Save Your Quiet Mix

You know what a plugin is and which format to pick, you've switched on Live's plug-in folders and rescanned, installed TDR Nova and Valhalla Supermassive and heard them on your chords, and you know how to fix a missing plug-in.

1. 12.1Your First Five Plugins
2. 12.2VST3, AU or CLAP?
3. 12.3Plug-In Settings and Rescan
4. 12.4Install TDR Nova and Supermassive
5. 12.5Hear Them, Fix Missing Plugins
6. 12.6Install the Other Three

You know the four parts of every synth, you've shaped a pad and a pluck in Vital and loaded real strings from BBC SO Discover, and you've layered all three in an Instrument Rack called Night pad with four macros you named yourself.

1. 13.1Four Parts of Every Synth
2. 13.2A Pad in Vital
3. 13.3A Pluck and Real Strings
4. 13.4Four Macros of Your Own
5. 13.5Night Pad in Your Song
6. 13.6Save Your Night Pad

You've built one Audio Effect Rack, Cinema, from TDR Nova, Live's Saturator, Valhalla Supermassive and Utility, with one macro that adds space and warmth while keeping the level steady, saved it to your User Library, and used it on one track only.

1. 14.1One Rack, One Knob
2. 14.2Build the Effect Chain
3. 14.3One Knob, Three Moves
4. 14.4Use It with Restraint
5. 14.5Save and Back Up Your Tools
6. 14.6One Track, Saved

You can check a mix the way producers do on headphones at night: at a steady, comfortable level, in mono, at matched volume, against a song you own, and on three different speakers, with an Ear Check rack you built and saved.

1. 15.1Your Listening Level
2. 15.2The Mono Check
3. 15.3Matched and Reference Checks
4. 15.4The Three-Speaker Check
5. 15.5Build the Ear Check Rack
6. 15.6Save Your Checks

Your one-minute song is now a little over two minutes, with a Break that builds tension and a return that releases it, a riser, a hit and a beat of silence as transitions, and automation moving three settings by itself.

1. 16.1From One Minute to Two
2. 16.2Grow the Song, Add a Break
3. 16.3Riser, Hit and Silence
4. 16.4Automation Basics
5. 16.5Listen Like a Stranger
6. 16.6Save Your Full Song

You've mixed your full song on headphones at a gentle level, in order: balance, EQ for room, gentle compression and panning, then checked it with lesson 15's Ear Check rack, your reference and the three-speaker check.

1. 17.1Mixing Is Deciding
2. 17.2Balance First
3. 17.3EQ for Room
4. 17.4Gentle Compression
5. 17.5Panning and the Checks
6. 17.6Three Speakers, Then Save

Your song has a simple chain on the Main track, a gentle Channel EQ and then a Limiter, and you've exported it as a WAV, an MP3 and a set of stems, knowing what each export setting does.

1. 18.1Mastering in One Night
2. 18.2Gentle EQ and the Limiter
3. 18.3Export Settings Explained
4. 18.4Export Your Stems
5. 18.5Listen to the Files
6. 18.6Your Master, Saved

You've turned your finished song's setup into your own template and made it the Set Live opens by default, you have a short list of shortcuts that matter, one controller knob mapped if you own a controller, and a backup routine you've already done once.

1. 19.1What to Keep from Track One
2. 19.2Build Your Night Template
3. 19.3Shortcuts That Matter
4. 19.4Map One Controller Knob
5. 19.5Backups That Don't Fail
6. 19.6Test Your Template

You have a seven-night plan for your second track, one job a night, each night ending with a save, and you've done night one: a new Set from your Night Template with its tempo and key chosen and saved.

1. 20.1Track Two Starts Tonight
2. 20.2Seven Nights, One Job Each
3. 20.3Night One, Now
4. 20.4Sharing Your Music
5. 20.5When a Night Goes Wrong
6. 20.6Save Night One