Advanced Ableton Live Meet Up: Full Video of Great Presentations

January 29, 2013 Brian Funk

Pro Tips and Techniques from The Ableton Advanced User Meet Up

Last month I had the honor of being asked to present at Shocklee's Advanced Ableton Live User Meetup in New York City's Tekserve. I have attended a few of these gatherings in the past, and was extremely excited to be a presenter. These meet ups are not just a means to gain new insight and knowledge about music production. They are a place to meet new people. It's a room full of like minded people with similar interests. Every person comes from a different background, with different areas of expertise. It's a wonderful chance to make new contacts and network.

For my contribution, I discussed how I set up live instruments and vocals for my live performances. The talk covers signal routing, making the most of your midi controllers, live looping, and some philosophical ideas to approaching live performance. After the talk I give a brief demonstration of my performance, while narrating the steps I am taking to create that performance. Here is the slide show I used for the presentation Live Instruments for Live Performance. Below is the full video of the evening, my talk is first, but stayed tuned for the other inspiring discussions.

Links to the Other Presenters

Ethan Hein - Ethan talked about how he uses Ableton Live to teach guitar. He used some great techniques that I'm sure his students benefit tremendously from.

Ben Casey- Ben gave us a sneak peak into some of the new features of Ableton Live 9. Central to his discussion were Live's new Audio to Midi, Drums to Midi, and Harmony to Midi. I've been using the 9 Beta version for the last few weeks and I can tell you it is very exciting!

Thomas Piper- Thomas discussed his use of video within his live performances. He uses Ableton to send midi to Resolume. This is an extremely powerful combination and Mr. Piper has some great tips for you.

Here's an early test of my visuals using also using Resolume.

All in all it was an exciting event with exciting people. DJ Juice E provided music between presentations. Hank Shocklee was our gracious host. I got to meet loads of interesting people. I'd really like to take a moment to thank everyone involved in putting this event together. It's really amazing to have a such a strong community of like-minded people. Getting together to share our passions with each other is a true joy!