Live has some powerful keyboard shortcuts, which can help you stay in the flow when you're creating music.
Just like learning chords and scales, owning your skill on a new instrument,
we need to practice this on the computer.
In this video I'll walk you through the basic keyboard shortcuts of Ableton Live.
The first shortcut is the one that starts everything. Spacebar.
If I want to start from the point where I stopped I just hold Shift and press Space.
This also holds for Arrangement View.
Changing between Session View and Arrangement View is done by pressing the Tab key.
If I want to change between Clip View and Track View I hold Shift and press Tab.
This happens at the bottom in the Detail View.
To change the Layout of Live, I can hold Cmd + Option and press L to hide/show the Detail View on a Mac,
or hold Ctrl + Alt + L on a PC.
Holding down Cmd + Option and pressing the following letters will change the layout of Live on a Mac
and on a PC you hold Ctrl + Alt. Press S to hide/show the Sends.
R to hide/show the Return tracks.
M to hide/show the mixer or I to hide/show the inputs and outputs
and various routing options of Live.
To show or hide the browser on a Mac hold Cmd + Option and press B.
On a PC it's Ctrl + Alt and B. The same key hides away the browser.
To search in the browser, press Cmd + F on a Mac or Ctrl + F on a PC and write whatever you're looking for.
Press Enter to go to the results and use the arrow keys to highlight
and preview the sounds on top of your composition.
I can drag this clip onto an empty space in Live and it'll create a new audio track with a corresponding file.
I can add more audio tracks by pressing CMD + T on a Mac or Ctrl + T on a PC.
I can add a MIDI track by pressing Cmd + Shift + T on a Mac or Ctrl + Shift + T on a PC.
And I can add Return tracks by pressing Cmd + Option + T on a Mac
and Ctrl + Alt + T on a PC.
To undo on a Mac, hold Cmd and press the letter Z. On a PC it's Ctrl + Z.
To navigate in Session View, click any empty clip slot and use the arrow keys Left/Right, Up/Down.
To stop a clip, navigate to the desired track, highlight the Stop button and press Enter.
Or highlight the clip and press Enter to start.
Alright, let's hide away the browser and get a bit organized. I need to group some tracks.
So I have two rows of tracks here. I want to group these two.
And I click the leftmost track, hold Shift and click the rightmost track.
And the shortcut to grouping here is Cmd + G on a Mac or Ctrl + G on a PC.
Excellent. Let me just adjust the volume here a bit. Yeah, this is better.
If for any reason I want to reset a parameter to its default value, I can double click it
or I can press Backspace or Delete. There we go.
So this group needs a proper name. And I can rename by pressing Cmd + R on a Mac
or Ctrl + R on a PC. Then Right Arrow key to go to the end of the name, and Backspace to delete.
Type in the desired name, and you're done.
If I want to rename more tracks, I can press the Tab key to cycle through the tracks.
And now I can call this one Bassline, and this one Flute.
If I hold Shift and press Tab I cycle backwards. When I'm done I can press Enter.
The same goes for Clips. So I can rename this Beat, and we can call this Bleeps and so forth.
You get the idea. OK, back to the groups.
To fold or unfold groups we can use the letter U. But be aware that the computer MIDI keyboard is disabled.
The keyboard shortcut to activating it is M.
With the computer MIDI keyboard disabled I can also solo tracks if I highlight the track and press S.
Press S on any highlighted solo track to disengage solo.
If you have any questions, just hold Shift and press ? to open up the Info View down in the left corner.
Here you can get help to almost anything in Live. You just need to hover your mouse on top of the parameter
and it'll tell you what's going on.