Creating an Abundance of New Sounds in Ableton Live

I used to have a rather idealistic reaction to the use of random elements in music, asserting that this was somehow less than artistically pure and that a finished piece that was any less than 100% the result of conscious decision-making was incomplete at best.  As the years wore on, I realized that such a point of view was silly and that some of the most interesting parts of my music and sound design were born at least partly out of chance.  As I began to accept and even love the idea of randomness adding some spice to my creations, I started to devise ways of automating the process.  This was pretty hard to set up in my all-hardware studio at the time, so the idea never really bore itself out until the last couple of years.

Today’s sequencing software, with its ability to play back predetermined automation, is rife with possibilities for generating great sounds in semi-random ways.  The basic idea is that the user feeds a continuous stream of sound into the sequencer while various bits of automation are triggering different chains of effects processing.  The audible results are then recorded and stored for later organization.  One goal here is that you can set up a sound-generating system that takes care of itself, allowing you to step away and take care of other things.  In other words, you’re able to generate a sizable library of  sounds while you’re out of the studio.

So how should one go about this process?  My preferred method involves the following elements:

• Timbrally diverse source audio, generally in the form of field samples
• A way for that audio to play back continuously in your sequencer of choice
• Effects and other processing that will be used to process the source audio
• Automation which will be used to trigger the various effects processors
• A way to record the processed audio so that it can be analyzed and archived later on

My method for doing this in Ableton Live is as follows:

The first task is to determine what the source audio will be.  I prefer to work with field samples when doing sound design because I love the complex timbres that the real world produces with very little effort required on my part:  I merely have to power on my Edirol R09 and let the world do its thing.  If you prefer synthesized sounds, that’s fine, too.  As long as the chosen source is able to be triggered from your sequencer, you’re set.

The next step is to instantiate your favorite sampler or synthesizer plugin in the sequencer and load it up with the sounds that will represent the source audio.  In my case, I dump a whole variety of environmental field recordings into Sampler’s keyzones.  After that, I just create a sequence of different note hits which trigger the samples.  Alternatively, I might just drag the audio files directly into the sequencer and skip the Sampler if I don’t need to take advantage of that device’s features.

Next on the list is to determine what effects you will automate.  Ableton Live features a really helpful rack interface which can be used to host multiple chains of effects all processing the same audio.  Simply load up an effects rack on your source audio track and start building up different chains.  For instance, Chain 1 might be a huge Reverb patch going into a Compressor and then into a Grain Delay.  Chain 2 might consist solely of Delays, creating a wash of differently-timed bits of sound flying all over the stereo spectrum.  Once you have the chains set up, turn on the “Chain” button and restrict each chain to its own value.

Now is the time to set up a loop containing automation which will trigger the effects chains.  In the arrange view, create an automation lane for your rack’s chain selector.  Anywhere along the timeline where you want a specific set of effects triggered, you can click in an automation point with a value that corresponds to the desired chain.  Now you can make some decisions about how quickly you want your effects to be triggered.  For instance, you could trigger the chains at a rapid-fire pace or allow them to process your source audio in a slower way.  No matter what you do here, you should now have your source audio playing back in the arrange view with the effects rack automation playing over it, creating different and interesting variations that continually evolve as the source audio progresses.  The more diverse the source sounds and effects chains are, the more distinct the timbres you’ll get in the resulting audio.  Therefore, it pays to spend some time creating truly spectacular effects racks, field samples, synth patches, etc.

The last and easiest part is capturing the result.  In Live, simply create an audio track and set its input to “Resampling.”  Hit record on the new audio track and everything will start playing back and being recorded.  At this point you should be able to walk away from the studio and let this process do its thing for a while.  When you come back you’ll have a big chunk of audio that you can easily scan through, chop up, and create a vast library from in just a day or two of work.

I hope this post has given you some ideas on creating new and inspiring source sounds.  These new timbres should give you plenty of inspiration to further shape and process them, generating new drums, melodic sounds, and countless other creations!