Ableton Live Tip: Setting Up A Default Template

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Workflow is a huge part of why I use Live, or any other tool that I use. I feel it is one of the most important aspects of any creative tool, if the workflow is cumbersome then I’d rather not use it!

I get questions all the time on various aspects of workflow as it relates to Ableton Live, and I had a friend who is moving to Live from another setup.  He uses a lot of hardware in his setup and wants a quick way to capture his ideas without having to go in and setup routing each time, etc.

Of course, I suggested he setup a default template! I work the same way, capturing audio from hardware, so I told him I would go through and explain how my template is setup.

I suggest setting up a template that contains 90% of what you do each time you open Live. That way you can get to work as quick as possible. Of course you don’t have to do it my way, make it your own, just remember to save it so it’s there each time you start Live!

Do you have a default template already? If not, what are some things you plan to put in it, if you do, what does yours look like?

Let me know!

8 Comments

  1. I’m pretty lazy about that…I tend to never use the Send / Receive (I typically use a 3rd party plugin for echo / delay and reverb) and, for the most part, won’t add in audio tracks until I get the midi set-up and I’ve felt out some ideas…I tend to always have Kontakt assigned to my M-Audio 88 Pro, Omnisphere assigned to the Novation Launchkey 49 and either an Arturia Synth or G-Force Mellotron assigned to the Arturia Factory Workstation…any tips would be helpful to eliminate the manual set-up time…thanks!!

    Reply
    • Nice man. Yeah I do like some third party reverb and delay plugins too. And I’ll switch them out from time to time and just save them in my template also. I tend to work with audio more than MIDI, like 97% audio in most cases. Even if you do MIDI, this can work for you. If you know you always use Kontakt, and Omnisphere, as well as Arturia and G-Force stuff, you can set them up on a track and save it as your default. That way as soon as you open it you’re ready to go. You can assign each plugin to whichever controller you want it to use for input and it will recall that with your default template.

      Reply
      • Ever since I started using Omnisphere 2 and the Sample Logic libraries, I find myself using my hardware synths less and less (except for my Korg MS 2000)…I tend to use audio mostly for that and for .wav clips…that sort of brings up a topic I’d like to see…tips for recording midi direct to an audio track and / or converting midi to audio…thanks!!

        Reply
  2. Great Site! This is a really helpful tip. I am trying to learn Ableton. I never understood it til now. The clip section and how to created music bewildered me. I can setup templates. I was wondering and this may be for another site but do you have any tips on file management and storage?

    Reply
    • Thanks bro! Live is the joint man, been on it for years. Once I understood session view it was a wrap. Live was actually the software that got me off of my 4k lol. As for file management, what are you referring to specifically?

      Reply

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