Ableton Live Arrangement Templates: Copy & Paste Inspiration
Published on Tuesday 22 October 2024
It sounds like the most anti-creative thing you could do: copying and pasting and analysing, rather than playing in a sandpit of sounds and seeing what happens. But the truth is that a more measured and ‘anti-creative’ approach can actually help you get unstuck. You know all too well that around three-quarters of those amazing sparks of inspiration you have end up in that little folder marked ‘Ideas’. Here, Guestblogger Hens Zimmerman reveals how using arrangement templates can really help free those locked up ideas and bring them kicking and screaming into the world.
In this article, I’ll be working with Ableton Live, but the same tips can be applied to any DAW. Live just makes it easy to demonstrate the idea because it automatically warps any track that you drag into the Arrangement View.
Too Simple?
The rationale behind all of this is really simple: copy the structure of an existing production. This might sound almost too simple, but the benefits are massive:
- Building a graphic image in your timeline gives you a practical framework that can help get the ball rolling so you can complete an entirely new production.
- A lot of genres follow a very clear structure. Taking a really popular track from the specific genre you’re working on and using it inspire your structure will only help your work to speak to people who are into that genre that much quicker.
- It’s a legal technique that doesn’t step on any rights laws!
- The structure of any arrangement is completely tempo-independent.
- You can even create a whole library of templates that suit your tastes and learn how to recognise and apply differences and similarities.
- And finally, you can learn a whole load of new techniques and tricks by studying the work of experienced writers and producers.
Get Rid of the Markers
I used to always use markers in my own productions, until I stepped over to Brian Funk’s method (see Image 1). Here, I’ve used empty MIDI clips. The advantage of this is that you can import one MIDI track into a project and move smoothly from Session View or an 8-bar loop, rolling it out to build a complete production in Arrangement View.
Image 1: The arrangement templates of Brian Funk.
Let’s Get Started
By saving all of your arrangement templates in a User Library folder in Ableton Live, you can simply drag them and drop them into a new track in your project to start work. In this article, we’ll start by building a template based on an existing track. From there, we’ll look at how we can take a snippet of an idea – like a dreaded 8-bar loop – and turn it into a complete production, all based on an arrangement template.
Step 1 – Pick a Track
It makes sense to pick a song or track that represents the kind of music you make or want to make. This applies to how the track is built as well as the length. To show you what I mean, I grabbed the up-tempo 140 BPM track Speed and Efficiency from the album We Made Our Own Disaster by Si Begg and put it in a new Ableton Live project. As soon as Live has finished analysing the track and generating the ASD file (Image 2), the first thing we need to do is make sure that the track starts precisely on beat 1 of the Arrangement View.
Image 2: The start of our arrangement template.
This whole track runs for around 7 minutes. From the waveform alone, you can see clearly that Speed and Efficiency includes an intro, a break and an outro. Now we can make Live follow the tempo of this track by making a Warp Lead. To do that, double click on the clip and select Warp Lead (see Image 3).
Image 3: Our template track is now the Warp Lead and sets the tempo.
Before we start building the actual template, it’s important to check that our example track fits neatly inside the Arrangement View of Live. Not every song, production or track has a logical build so things can sometimes go wrong with Live’s warping and there might be some less-logical edits in the tracks that can throw a spanner in the works. In general, most tracks will be built from blocks of 8 bars (32 beats). But, naturally, there are plenty of exceptions. Two handy things to bear in mind here are:
- The track that we’re using to build our arrangement template is just a guideline. We don’t need to create a template that 100% matches the example track. If, for example, a drop has been extended by two bars, we can trim those two extra bars off in our template so that we’re only left with 8-bar blocks.
- Again. The track that we’re using to build our arrangement template is just a guideline! So you can always decide to make any blocks longer or shorter.
In the case of Speed and Efficiency, our guide track is perfectly warped from beginning to end and all of the blocks can easily be divided into 8-bars. It can also help to zoom in on the track to check that Live has warped everything correctly.
In Image 4 you can see that at bar 73 the track really erupts. If you’re a bit confused because ‘72’ isn’t a multiple of 8 in our 8-bar block scheme, then remember that we actually started at beat 1 in our Live Arrangement View, so need to subtract 1 from every bar number.
Image 4: The track goes nuts from bar 73.
Step 2 – Use a MIDI Track as the Base for Our Arrangement Template
Ultimately, we’ll end up with just one MIDI track. But I don’t mean MIDI information, but empty MIDI blocks that indicate the beginning and end of specific sections. So, first, we make a MIDI track by hitting Command > Shift > T and then making a MIDI clip that’s the same length as the entire example song. You can do this easily by selecting the example track then using the arrow key to navigate down to our empty MIDI track before pressing Command > Shift > M. In Image 5 you can see what things should look like at this stage.
Image 5: An empty MIDI-clip forming the start of our arrangement template.
Now comes the more fun work: cutting up your MIDI clip. You can do this as accurately as you want. Maybe you just want a rough outline of the track, so you know how long the intro should go on for and where the drops happen. That’s fine. But you can also analyse your example track more closely and cut up your MIDI clip more finely and, as you go, you can make any adjustments you want, of course. I always start with a rough cut of my MIDI clip, just to mark where one section ends and another starts by placing the cursor where I need to cut and typing in Command > E. This will split the MIDI clip. It’s also handy to name each clip section by selecting the section and hitting Command > R to rename it. This way, you know which section it represents, so Intro, Verse 1, Chorus 1 etc. You can also colour code them to make things clearer. Practically all music features a section that’s more high-energy than the rest to keep things interesting. So you could even use lighter colours, like a light yellow, to code the more restful sections and more brash colours like orange and red for the more energised sections. Naturally, this all depends on what you prefer working with. In Image 6 you can see what my cut up and colour-coded MIDI clip looks like following the first rough cut.
Image 6: The first stage of the arrangement template.
Step 3 – Deeper Analysis
We could easily stop here and we already have a pretty good blueprint for our own up-tempo electro production, but it definitely pays off to analyse the example track more closely to find out exactly what’s going on. When I listen back to Speed and Efficiency with a more critical ear, I immediately notice that there’s more happening in the intro. Every now and then, a sample hits just before the start of the next bar, so I make a fresh cut in my MIDI clip, colour code it green and name it ‘Sample’. Si Begg has also pulled things right back again at around bar 57, just before the track really kicks off. In Image 7 you can see how you can create a clear image of how the opening of this track is built. Whether or not our own original track is going to look anything like this is not actually something we need to worry about right now.
Image 7: A finer ‘cut’ of the intro.
It might be that you need to make a few extra notes for each block. Ableton Live features an Info Text function, which you can add your notes to and then make it visible or invisible by hitting the question mark on your keyboard. In the lower left corner of the Live screen, you can see a square user interface filled with short context-based information. Ableton Live uses this extensively, but you can also use it to make notes (Info Text) for every block in your arrangement template. You can see what I mean in Image 8, where I added notes for the first MIDI block. Any ‘Info Text’ you add will then remain part of your arrangement template, so even if you go back to it six months later, you can use all of the little hints that you left for yourself.
Image 8: Custom Info Text per block on our MIDI track.
After fully analysing my example track, I’ve got myself a colour-coded and clearly labelled (according to me) row of blocks. In Image 9 you can see what that looks like. At one point, the original track was so rammed with energy that I coded it in pink, and the narrow green blocks give me an immediate indication of how many times that sample is repeated, heralding the next phase in the track. I have absolutely no idea if I would ever actually use an element in exactly the same way, but I tip my imaginary hat to Si Begg for adding it and wanted to look closely at how it was done.
Image 9: The fully analysed example track.
Step 4 – Saving Your Arrangement Template
We can now save our finished arrangement template in our User Library in Live. You can do this by simply grabbing the MIDI track on the right and dragging and dropping it straight into your User Library. Then give your template a handy name so that you immediately know what it is. I’ve actually made a whole folder and filled it with my arrangement templates so I can easily find them.
Image 10: Stick your MIDI track in your User Library.
In principle, you can just throw out the project you made your template in, because Live has already saved your track as an ALS file in a new location. If you’re working on a Mac (with the default settings) then you’ll find the ALS file under ~/Music/Ableton/User Library. In Image 11, you can see how Live saves all of my arrangement templates.
Image 11: Live saves the arrangement template in a new location as an ALS file.
Step 5 – Using Your Arrangement Template
In Image 12, you can literally see an 8 bar loop, which was the result of a night spent trying out some little things and, apparently, I thought it was worth keeping. Anyway, my little loop is only 17 seconds long and has no head or tail to it so, in its current form, I can’t even use it as a bumper.
Image 12: My sad and lonely 8 bar loop.
Even though the tempo (102 BPM) of my project is much lower than Si Begg’s track (which is at 140 BPM), I’ve used the arrangement template I made of it as inspiration so I can use the structure and sections as an outline to build my own track.
The first thing I do is import the MIDI track (the arrangement template) into my project. I can do this by just dragging it from my User Library into the Arrangement View and dropping it onto the Ableton Live timeline. Personally, I find it handy to place my arrangement template at the top. In Image 13 you can see what this looks like. Suddenly my little 8 bar loop doesn’t look so lonely and I have a plan laid out in front of me.
Image 13: My arrangement template is now my blueprint for what I’m about to make.
It goes without saying that the contents of my own project are going to sound completely different to the track I based my template on. I’m just using it as a starting point so I can already make a lot of decisions just based on the template. For example, I can use the dub-chords of my 8-bar loop to serve as the arpeggios that featured in the track I based the template on. By dividing up and duplicating (Command > D) the blocks of my 8-bar loop and laying them out to match my template, I already have a near-complete production going on. In Image 14 you can see how I’ve taken those 17 seconds and turned them into 8 minutes.
Image 14: My first go at an arrangement.
Step 6 – Dotting the i’s
If I just wanted to make some background music, then this version would actually work pretty well, but I’m not going to stop here. Now, a clear creative challenge lies before me. In its current form, there’s too little going on in my track and it’s still way too boring. But what’s important is that I’ve broken the cycle of sitting and staring at an 8-bar loop and have set something up that I can actually work with.
It can actually help a lot to just step away at this point and come back later so you can listen to the entire track with fresh ears and take notes as you do. I did exactly that and, when I came back, a few things struck me:
- At 8 minutes, this track is far too long. There are some genres where 8 minutes will work, but this isn’t one of them.
- There isn’t enough movement in the sections. I actually want no two sections to be precisely the same, so I have a nice plan to slowly open or close some filters, add some volume automation, make some small additions and so on.
- The transitions between different sections are too abrupt. It would be nice to announce transitions here and there with some sound effects, swells or samples. Maybe sounds that stop abruptly could trail off in a tail of echoes. Maybe a big, impacting sound would work on the first count of a new section?
- Right now, the beat sounds too repetitive, which makes sense because I just copied and pasted an 8 bar beat across the entire track. This leaves a lot of room to programme some extra rhythms and elements.
- I would like to be more surprised so I can also see some space for extra tracks.
- Maybe here and there things can be doubled or packed out with overdubs. The little melody is just asking for a call/response form.
To lose some of the length, I need to snip off some blocks in the Arrangement View. You can do this by simply vertically selecting a complete block, including the corresponding bit of the arrangement template at the top, and then selecting Cut Time in the Ableton Live menu. This has a similar function to what’s called a ‘ripple edit’ in some video production software. In Image 15, you can see what it should look like.
Image 15: How to remove a complete vertical block from the arrangement using Cut Time.
In the same way, I start trimming out other blocks until I get a more appropriate length. Then I can start the process of creative assembly, mixing and mastering. After a fair few hours spent decision-making, I’ve built a track that I think is actually worth keeping, rather than having yet another 8-bar loop that’s only going to sit gathering dust in a folder somewhere until I’ve had enough of it. In Image 16, you can see what my final arrangement looks like – all thanks to producer Si Begg, who will never know any of this ever happened.
Image 16: The final arrangement.
The End is in Sight
Hopefully, this article has inspired you to start digging through your archives and unearthing all those little snippets you once thought weren’t going anywhere. Also, remember that you’re not alone and that a lot of us have those days when they struggle to move beyond an 8-bar loop. But using an arrangement template, you can turn some potential trash into potential gold and keep your creativity moving. Making arrangement templates won’t just give you a set of blueprints to work with, but in the process, make you analyse other people’s work in a way you maybe never have, and you can already learn a lot by doing just that. Whether you notice it or not, you can pick up a lot of little tricks that you can start applying to your own work. So, get stuck in and enjoy!
See also
» Ableton Live
» MIDI Keyboards
» MIDI Controllers
» DAW Software
» Effect Plugins
» Instrument Plugins
» All Studio & Recording Gear
» How to Use MIDI Polyphonic Expression (MPE) in Ableton Live
» A 7-Step Guide to Live-Editing in Ableton Live
» Faster & More Intuitive Mixing with a Mix Template
» Three tips for Getting That Modern Pop Vocal Sound
» Getting started with iPad music production
» How to Sell a Beat
» How to be a ghost producer to raise capital for your career
» 5 reasons why you are not a full-time producer yet
» Mixing the Low-End: How to Get that Thick & Punchy Layer
» Should You Mix with Headphones?
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