How To Load Samples Into Ableton Mac

Sep 10, 2017 Learn Ableton Live How to Install Packs Ableton Live Tutorial This may be a bit simple to some, but a few people have asked so here. Ableton Live - just as other DAWs - only references those audio files. If you add samples from a USB stick or elsewhere on your hard drive, Live will only save. Load the Live Set and click on the message shown at the bottom of Live. I'll most likely upgrade to live 9 after seeing some of the advanced features they offer.

The Ableton Live digital audio workstation also functions as a WAV audio editor. Most audio samples in, for example, drum sample packs, use the WAV format. Load the samples into Ableton to start using them in your own productions. Once you've loaded a WAV file into the program, you can crop it, split it, reverse it, transpose it and even slice it into a MIDI track.

Double-click the Ableton Live desktop icon to open the digital audio workstation.

Click on one of the folder icons on the far-left side of the program window to open the Ableton browser panel. Navigate to the directory in which the WAV file you want to load is saved.

Click, drag and drop the WAV file from the browser panel onto the mixer track labeled '1 Audio' to load it into Ableton.

Mac

Repeat the process for any other WAV sounds you want to use. If you want to put each WAV on its own track, press 'Ctrl' and 'T' together to add a new audio track, then drop the second WAV onto this new track. If you want to put all the WAVs on the same track, drop the second WAV into the slot directly beneath the first WAV.

Tips

Click the 'RAM' button in the WAV's 'Sample' section to load it into RAM. You can also drag and drop WAVs from Windows Explorer directly into Ableton audio tracks.

Warnings

Only use royalty-free or appropriately-licensed samples in your productions.

  • Hemera Technologies/AbleStock.com/Getty Images

More Articles

Delicious Audio Software and Plug-ins

Products
  • Internet Radio Broadcasting

    Rocket Broadcaster

    Internet radio broadcast encoder.

    Rocket Streaming Audio Server

    Deliver streaming audio over the web.

    Radio Mast

    Streaming audio cloud platform.

  • Music Production

    BeatCleaver

    Audio editor and sample slicer.

    JamDeck

    Organic music sketchpad.

  • VST Plug-ins

    SodaSynth

    Classic mellow synthesizer.

    Analog Extracts

    Raw analog synth samples.

ShopDownloadsSupportBlogContact

Our SodaSynth and Analog Extracts plugins are both available as VST plugins on Windows, and compatible with Ableton Live. Here's some instructions to show youhow to use VST plugins in Ableton Live:

Ableton Live

  1. Setup your VST Plug-ins Directory

    Mac OS X users can skip this step!

    In the Ableton Live preferences, go to the 'File Folder' tab.Ensure 'Use VST Plug-In Custom Folder' is ON, and click 'Browse' to choose the folder where all your VST plugins are.After that, click 'Rescan' to make sure Ableton Live has refreshed the list of installed plugins.

    On Windows, Oscillicious VST plugins install to 'C:VST Plugins' by default, or 'C:VST Plugins (64-bit)' for 64-bit plugins.

    On Mac OS X, Oscillicious plugins install to the system-wide standard VST plugins folder, so no configuration is required (/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST).

  2. Open the Plug-in Devices Tab

    Back in the main window, click the icon to open the Plug-In Devices tab. This tab displays a listof all the plugins Ableton Live has detected on your computer, by looking in both system-standard paths and your custom VST folder that we set up in the previous step.

  3. Add a Plug-In Instrument to a Track

    Double-click on one of the plug-in instruments in the list to add it to a track, or drag and drop it to the specific track you'd like to add it to.For example, you'll if you double-click on SodaSynth, you should SodaSynth added to a track in the Sesion or Arrangement view, and appear in the bottom panel.

  4. Select a VST Preset

    VST presets (synth patches or programs) appear in the bottom panel, and have been circled in red in the next screenshot. Clicking on that combobox allows you toquickly select any of the presets bundled with the VST plugin.

  5. Open the Custom VST Editor

    Most VST plugins come with a built-in custom editor screen, with knobs and extra help. Clicking the iconbeside the SodaSynth label in Ableton Live will open up the SodaSynth editor, which gives you access to our extra help screens.

  6. Adjusting Parameters inside Ableton Live

    Clicking the icon beside the SodaSynth label will open up the parameter area, allowing you to adjust the VST plugin'sparameters directly from inside Ableton Live. Right-clicking on a parameter allows you to set up automation curves and MIDI mappings for that parameter.

  7. Compose!

    Create a MIDI part and in the track that you added the SodaSynth VST instrument to, and either record from your MIDI keyboard or start writing a melody in the MIDI editor. If youwant to fatten up SodaSynth's sounds a bit, try adding a little bit of chorus or delay using the built-in Ableton Live effects.

That's it! This tutorial covered how to setup your VST plugins folder in Ableton Live, how to find plug-in devices and add them to a track, and how to change VST presets and paramters using both the Ableton Live and a plugin's custom VST editor. From here, you can use VST plugins as instruments in tracks, and create MIDI parts that trigger them.

We hope this tutorial was helpful, but if you need extra help or have suggestions on how we can improve this tutorial, please let us know!

Oscillicious VST Plugins for Windows

How To Import Samples Into Ableton

Analog Extracts is a sample pack containing 227 samples produced from a legendary analog modular synthesizer, capturing a range of 100% original synth sounds.

These raw analog sounds can be triggered by the included bonus VST plug-in that instantly transforms each sample into an instrument mapped to the entire keyboard, to save you the hassle of mapping them into a sampler. The plug-in works with any VST host, and doesn't require an existing sampler!

How To Add Samples To Ableton Live 10

SodaSynth is a pristine, clean sounding synth that's easy to layer and mix.

Starting with an ensemble of oscillators, SodaSynth smoothly adds or subtracts harmonics whilemodulating the frequencies of these new components in novel ways.The results are clean harmonies that sound familiar, yet can morph in new ways.