24 Comments

Cort3x

Nice little guide. I haven’t really made that much use of follow actions, but in this context, it really makes sense.

What do you guys use follow actions for?

February 5, 2008 @ 6:23 pm

dinerdog

That is some funky stuff. That’s the kind of tutorial I’d like to see. A+

February 5, 2008 @ 7:05 pm

Greg

Cool!

I’d love to see more tutorials like this. It looks like Bravetti is making some more, which is great. Does anyone have any recommendations for Live tutorials that cover advanced techniques or styles like this one?

In regards to the “glitchy” sound, I agree that the style is very prevalent (which is good and bad) but I think it’s useful because it’s so flexible, and it’s fashionable to boot. It’s also a way for electronic music to be more subtle (as background music, etc) without waxing ambient.

February 5, 2008 @ 8:10 pm

Peter Kirn

Hey, I never said I didn’t love the glitch. :)

More tutorials like this? You bet.

February 5, 2008 @ 8:36 pm

Bastiaan

Cort3x:
I like to use follow actions for all sorts of things. Setting up a nice 12 bar blues to jam along with, make drum loops do a break every so many bars or add some subtle random variations in patterns. Of course you can do this in other ways, but I like the little tool a lot.

Also, thanks for the tutorial, keep this little “Live tips and tricks” things comming, I love to see people using tools in new ways.

February 5, 2008 @ 8:47 pm

Cynic

Cool. What software are you using to make this video with?

February 5, 2008 @ 10:05 pm

seismo

follow action is nice. i like to take a pile of similar, or not-so-similar live drum loops and set them up (legato) to just jump around randomly. it’s constant variation, but the groove doesn’t get lost.

the process is explained really well in the live manual. go forth.

February 5, 2008 @ 10:09 pm

Ap

So this is IDM in 2008.

Kill me now please.

February 6, 2008 @ 3:44 am

k1Ru

i thought that was certainly helpful..i can certainly appreciate recycling a beat and morphing it into variants anytime! bravetti wins

February 6, 2008 @ 10:47 am

Jason

I like the follow actions… I agree with Peter though – its a waste to view Live as only a glitchy music creator. Don’t get me wrong, I love making glitchy music in Live, but these days I also don’t think that I could go make to recording in a traditional environment (like Cubase, Pro Tools, etc.)

An example to illustrate – I recently recorded a rock band using live, but after recording the guide tracks they realized they had played the song too slowly. Time stretching in most other DAWs is almost more effort than rerecording the guides, but in Live I just changed the warping to complex and played with the tempo DJ-style on the fly, til the song felt right. That combined with never having to put in a cross fade when you connect two pieces of audio, and being able to move audio around and chop it up really easily makes me never want to go back to a normal DAW.

February 6, 2008 @ 11:38 am

adamo

no intentional disrespect to gustavo, but are tips on how to make faceless, bland clicky house not the absolute last thing anyone needs? in my opinion there is enough of that copycat drivel around without encouraging people with tutorials on how to make it more minimal and less unique. gustavo is a very technical guy from what i’ve read so it would be interesting to see what he could do in the way of tutorials that don’t support clicky techno/house whatever.

February 6, 2008 @ 12:09 pm

Peter Kirn

Yeah, but adamo, if you do get those techniques out there, then it’s all the more pressure to try to make it your own — doing the opposite, taking this and doing something completely different, whatever.

Maybe providing info on some of the stuff that’s a bit cliched at this point is *exactly* what we need! ;)

Anyway, having seen what Gustavo is doing live, I think he’s using it successfully. And he’s got a whole tutorial series, so hopefully we see more, including more on how he uses his various controllers (as seen in our interview with him).

February 6, 2008 @ 1:11 pm

hema

IDM? really?

February 6, 2008 @ 3:15 pm

Mr. Tunes

i see that the sharing of ideas makes some people uncomfortable :sigh:

February 7, 2008 @ 1:15 am

rudestar

awesommmmmeee!!!!!!

February 7, 2008 @ 3:22 pm

Richie

Hmm I think that magicians doesn’t should reveal his tricks to every mortal.

February 7, 2008 @ 4:14 pm

k1Ru

lol..wonderful…
@richie…
what it really comes down to is us the users never really fully reading the manuals to our gear…

February 9, 2008 @ 1:12 pm

Richie

seems braveti does

February 9, 2008 @ 1:27 pm

lost

sweet. I wouldn’t say idm though…whatever that means. Definitely a nice microhouse tutorial tho.

February 12, 2008 @ 12:11 am

Create Digital Music » Ableton Live Tutorials: DIY 808, IDM 101 - Gustavo Strikes Again

[...] last joined our friend Gustavo Bravetti, Uruguay’s Ableton maestro, he was showing us how to glitch out with Live. Now he’s on Hong Kong-based DJ site djvox with a comprehensive set of Live [...]

March 26, 2008 @ 4:45 pm

qwissy

intelligent dumb music ?

July 9, 2008 @ 3:18 am

floor

It’s just a tutorial people. He’s just showing some techniques. How you use it, is up to you. If you don’t like IDM, then don’t comment on the genre IDM. You can use this technique with any type of music. I’m sick of comments by people who don’t think before they write. And all the fighting is very exhausting. Please post constructive criticism, or at least come up with an idea of your own.

August 8, 2008 @ 12:10 pm

reverb

This guy has some very useful tutorials on some pretty clever techniques with live.
http://www.cosm.co.nz/

December 4, 2008 @ 3:49 pm

Tronichead » Blog Archive » Gustavo Bravetti Driving Crowds Wild With His WII Hands

[...] FM8 Drum Kit Download Weekend Inspiration: Ableton Live Follow Actions, Dummy Clips, Making Snares Gustavo Bravetti Show Us How To Glitch out Ableton Live Interview: Gustavo Bravetti, Playing Music with Light and Interactive [...]

March 12, 2009 @ 5:50 pm

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