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So let's take a second to just talk about what makes Live
different from other digital audio workstations.
Ableton has a non-linear functionality, and this is really one of
the largest key functions which separates it from something like
Pro Tools or Logic or Studio One or any other DAW that you may have access to before.
So a linear DAW or a linear function means that it's happening inside of a timeline.
So when you're in a linear DAW, you're looking at a timeline,
there's a beginning, there's a middle, there's an end,
you're in measure 3, you're at 30 seconds,
you're in a fixed time, and you're either working in the beginning,
middle or end or wherever your cursor is currently selected at any given time.
Live has a non-linear function inside of its software
which allows you to work outside of the timeline.
So before we jump into how this works specifically in Live,
let's just talk conceptually how this works with music.
We don't always interact with music in a linear sense.
When we're composing, it's very non-linear,
you don't write the first node,
then the second node, then the third node,
and then conclude with a final node of your composition or piece.
It comes in fragments and ideas.
Perhaps there is a rhythmic figure and then there's
a chord progression or any idea could come to you
at anytime, and then eventually, you take all of those ideas
and then put them in a linear format to share with everybody.
Ableton allows us to work in that same way that we interact intellectually with music.
So let's take a look at how this works inside of Live.
You can see I have several tracks here.
I've got two audio tracks which have clips inside of them.
These are audio loops.
I've got loop 1, loop 2, and loop 3.
Loop 2 is two bars,
loop 1 is four bars,
and loop 3 is another four bars.
So in this one single track,
I've two different audio clips.
On the left-hand side,
I have a MIDI track,
which has two clips inside of it.
So if I click on the track itself,
I'm looking at the virtual instrument and then if I click on the clip,
I'm seeing the MIDI sequence inside of it.
So this is a one-bar pattern and then I've got a separate one-bar sequence as well.
So two MIDI sequences in this first track,
two audio clips in the second track, and one audio loop in the third track.
Additionally, you can see I have a lot of empty slots here,
and there's different icons on the left-hand side of these clips
or these empty clip slots depending on what's going on.
So if there's something currently in the clip slot,
you can see that there's a play icon on the side.
If there's nothing, I've got a stop icon.
This MIDI track happens to be armed right here,
and so you can see that these have record icons and it's saying,
do you want to record into this clip?
Do you want to play what's currently in this clip slot?
Do you want to press stop?
So as I launch these different clips,
they're all going to happen on the next down beat or any of these actions,
whether I press stop, whether I press play,
whether I press record,
the action is going to happen on the next down beat.
That's what's referred to as a global quantization.
So the action is happening on whatever the global quantization is, and I set that up here.
So by default, it's set to one bar.
This is going to keep everything lined up in a really nice structure and format
to everything so that when I launch loop 3 and then I launch loop 1,
they're all going to be lined up.
So let's take a look at this happening.
I'll start with loop 3.
[MUSIC]
So anytime I pressed play or stop on any of these clips,
it was always happening on the next down beat.
That's what's going to keep everything all lined up and easy to
maneuver and experiment with as I'm in this compositional phase.
So you probably noticed that as I launched a clip that was in a track,
it would turn off any other clips that were in that track as well.
So the rule here really is that you can only play one clip in any single track
and so if I launch this first loop and then I launch the second one,
it's going to stop this first loop.
If I press stop on any of these,
it's going to stop any of the clips playing,
and each of these tracks has a master stop button at the bottom of the track.
If I want to just stop whatever is happening here as well.
So that's a very brief look at how non-linear function works inside of Live.
I never entered a timeline.
There was no beginning, middle, or end of my song at this point,
and I'm just being playful.
I'm experimenting, and I'm putting my ideas together.
So that's an important mental place to get to with the DAW.
This side of the software is where I'm going to compose,
where I'm going to experiment,
where I'm going to find my ideas and sketch them out,
and then on this other side,
this is the linear timeline where I put them in a specific order.
That's really what separates Live from most other DAWs.
[MUSIC]