Ableton Live 11

Just curious: do you guys buy the full version? It's so expensive that I've never been able to justify it. I actually have been using the free version that came with a midi controller I bought a few years ago, and even that has been great.

(I'd rather spend the money on hardware synths)

EDM Tips is far less in-depth, but it's also more Ableton focused and he almost strictly used default Ableton plugins and sounds.

If you are at all code-savvy it is very easy to make your own custom rig that does everything everything you need for live performing in Ableton. You can write your own control surface scripts in Python (unofficially, but google is your friend and Ableton said "we know they're out there and we aren't going to try to shut it down") and you can make anything you want be your own customized equivalent of push with Max for Live. You can do anything you want with your clips and loops from either control surface scripts or M4L devices. Ableton itself was originally just a Max patch!

Sure they've made it easier, but it's definitely not true that you can't do this without Push.

What I'm describing is composing music on the fly that is locked to a master tempo and clock (like most electronic music). Jamming with another musician and staying in sync is easy if they're also using drum machines or other hardware that can clock off the same source. What Ableton's new Tempo Follow feature does is allow the DAW to listen to the audio of live musicians (say a Jazz quartet) and then automatically speed up and slow in real time when they choose to. Now, when the band pushes the tempo my sequenced instruments wont lag behind the beat and get out of sync.

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I think what you're trying to do is synchronize the tempos of two songs that both push and pull their tempos a bit. That involves compromise and maybe some automation. Let's use an example of two different kinds of songs which we'll call 1) rigid songs and 2) loose songs.

Rigid songs are like house music or techno. They're clocked exactly to a given tempo that doesn't waver throughout the song unless the composer automates it. This is common in electronic and modern pop music. These are the easiest to synchronize because they don't have any tempo variations and require far less work to tempo match. Loose songs are songs that have subtle or dramatic tempo changes: Jazz, old rock and roll records, or classical music (which usually has a lot of rubato).

What I believe you're asking about is trying to sync two loose songs or a loose song and a rigid song. Well the short answer is that you'll likely have to compromise a bit. Let's say a Led Zeppelin song hovers around 80bpm. At some points the band slows down to 78bpm and other times they push the tempo up to 84bpm before ultimately settling back to a mean tempo of 80bpm. Well if you wanted to synchronize the Zeppelin song with a rigid song you can set the Segment BPM (What you're designating as the average tempo in Clip View) to 80bpm for the Zeppelin song and then use warp markers to snap the song to the 80bpm grid in the parts where the band pushes or pulls against the tempo and deviates from the grid.

At this point you might point out that manually aligning the audio file strictly to the grid compromises the emotional excitement and groove of the Zeppelin song by quantizing the tempo. You'd be absolutely right. It really comes down to what your intention is and how much you're willing to sacrifice that quality for the sake of making two songs synchronize. Preserving that feel then becomes more of an art and involves careful adjustment of the warp markers and using your ear to gauge the results. Often the more musically exciting choice is one that doesn't adhere strictly to a grid.

It also comes down the content of the songs. Without audio examples it's hard to be too specific about what choices should be made.

Does that answer your question?