Comping and Track Linking

There are two new functions that arrived with the Live 11 update, track linking and Take Lanes and comping, which we already started to have a look at in Chapter 2, Recording Audio in Ableton Live 11. These features are available in Arrangement View only and can be applied to both audio and MIDI! These techniques will not only offer you quicker editing in Live but can also be applied in creative ways too.

In this chapter, we are going to cover the following topics:

• Track linking
• Take Lanes and comping
• Creative comping

Technical requirements

In order to follow along with this chapter, you will need the following:

• A computer with at least 8 GB of RAM at least and an Intel Core i5 processor
• A pair of headphones
• A copy of Live 11 Suite
• The Chapter 6 Ableton Live project

Track linking in Live 11

For someone who is coming from using Pro Tools, for example, track linking is a golden feature.

No matter whether you have multiple layers of vocals and harmonies, different tracks that are working together within the same tune in the timeline, or you took the time to multi-track record drums with multiple microphones and all of them need to be edited together, this feature will cut a great amount of time spent on editing materials:

Figure 6.1 – Two backing vocal tracks following the lead vocals

In the example here (see Figure 6.1), we can see that we have two backing vocal tracks recorded. They are working together with the lead vocals, so I would apply similar editing to them. Before, this would have been done by either selecting both clips and holding down Shift while editing or editing them separately.

Now, we are going to link the tracks together:

1. Select the tracks that you would like to have linked together...

Comping in Live 11

Another fantastic new feature arrived with the Live 11 update. If you have used a different DAW before, you most probably came across the comping feature in your DAW before.

We have already looked at how to use Take Lanes and record into them in Chapter 2, Recording Audio in Ableton Live 11. Now, we are going to open that project that we recorded and comp those takes.

I have renamed the clips in the Take Lanes and re-colored them, which you can do by Ctrl + click (right-click for Windows) on the clip and choosing these options from the context menu (see Figure 6.8):

Figure 6.8 – Take Lanes are re-colored and renamed

You can give this process a bit more thought when you are recording vocals or instruments, also in terms of how you are naming the Take Lanes themselves.

Tip

You can use color coding to indicate the quality of the Take Lanes, so, for example, the not-so-great ones can be orange and the ones that have quite...

Creative comping in Live 11

For this example, we are going to create a drum break out of multiple drum breaks to come up with something unique and interesting in no time:

1. Create a new audio track.
2. Ctrl + click (right-click on Windows) on the track header and choose Insert New Take Lane in the context menu or use the Shift + Option + T (Shift + Alt + T for Windows) key command.
3. Repeat this until you have inserted four Take Lanes.
4. Now, fill these Take Lanes with drum loops (make sure all of these drum loops are warped correctly).
5. Re-color the different drum loops on the Take Lanes (see Figure 6.12):

Figure 6.12 – Re-colored clips in the Take Lanes

6. Loop the area on these clips on the timeline and begin playback.

Notice that there will be nothing playing back from this track at this point, as we haven’t selected any clips yet to go into the main take.

7. Enable the Pencil Tool and start painting over...

Summary

Track linking and comping are both extremely important features to help speed up your workflow. Furthermore, as we have seen, comping is also a great tool to transform parts into something new and be applied more creatively.

In the next chapter, we will start looking at how we can add some spicy processing to the elements in our tracks by looking at some of Live 11’s exciting audio effects!