Live's Browser gives us easy access to our sounds, presets and much more.
So let's take a look.
The Browser's divided into three sections: Collections, Categories, and Places.
Categories organizes all the assets in our library by type.
Sounds has our instrument racks and presets organized by the kind of sound they make rather than the specific device being used.
Next up we got Drums, which is all our individual drum-hits up top, organized by category,
as well as full on drum kits in the form of Drum Racks at the bottom.
Instruments has all our instrument presets, devices and instrument racks organized by the kind of device used.
If we click on this arrow, we can see this device's presets, as well as any custom presets
or instrument racks that use this device saved in our user library.
Audio Effects has all our Audio Effect devices, racks and presets further sub-categorized by the kind of effect being used.
MIDI Effects has all our MIDI effect racks, devices, and presets.
Max for Live has all our Max for Live devices organized by MIDI effects, instruments, and audio effects.
Keep in mind that Max for Live devices will also appear in these MIDI Effects, Audio Effects, and Instrument categories.
Plugins has all our plugins divided by Audio Units, VST and VST3.
Clips has all of Live's clips here.
Samples has all our raw audio samples.
Grooves contains all our Groove files which can add swing and human character to our clips.
Finally, we have Templates which contains template Live sets from Factory Packs, the User Library, and other project files.
You can save your current project as a Template Set by hitting File & 'Save Live set as Template.'
If you right click on any one of these templates, you can save it as your default set so that when you open up a new project,
this template will already be loaded.
In the Places section, we first have Packs which allow you to access any packs that come pre-installed with Live,
as well as download and install any additional packs from your Ableton.com user account.
Packs can contain anything from instruments, sounds, samples, and much more.
Next up we have the User Library.
This is the default place for saving all items yourself, including Clips, Defaults, Grooves, and more.
Current Project houses all items in the open set, and you could also access backup versions of the Live Set here.
Add Folder allows us to add folders from our internal or external hard drive to our browser.
So I'll click on Add Folder here and add my Drum folder.
Up at the top, we have Collections. Collections allows us to tag items in our library for easy access in our browser.
So say I wanted to add one of the kicks from my folder into my collections.
All I have to do is right-click on the kick and hit Favorites.
You can see the appropriate color of my tag is added to the right.
And if I go over to Favorites, there it is.
I can also add multiple tags to the same file.
So if I right-click again, I can select orange or yellow and you can see it appears under both tags here.
Each tag has a number associated with it, which you could use as a shortcut.
Each item can have up to three tags.
I can also rename the collections here by hitting command R on Mac or Ctrl R on PC.
If I wish, I can choose to show or hide collections by hitting the Edit button and selecting.
At the bottom I have the Preview tab. The preview tab allows us to hear clips, presets and more,
before adding them to our live set.
Let's say I wanted to hear this 'glitch perc' loop and see how it fits.
To do this, I'll hit the blue Headphone icon here to trigger playback.
I can control the volume of the Preview playback by using the Cue dial on the far right.
If I hit Raw, the sample will play at its original tempo instead of being synced to my Live Set.
Okay, say I wanted to add it in, all I have to do is just click and drag it to where it says 'Drop Files and Devices Here'
and let go and the new track will automatically be created for me.