How to quantize in ableton
How to quantize in ableton
Ableton Forum
How to quantize just a single track, not globally
How to quantize just a single track, not globally
Post by purpurkatten » Tue Oct 12, 2010 10:01 pm
When I apply quantizing, Live forces quantization for all the tracks and clips globally in the project, not just the single track (or clip) that I want.
I´ve searched around each word «quantize» in the Live manual, and got no answer to this.
Re: How to quantize just a single track, not globally
Post by Tone Deft » Tue Oct 12, 2010 10:07 pm
what kind of quantization? it’s used a lot in Live in many aspects.
check clip view for quantize settings for a single clip.
Re: How to quantize just a single track, not globally
Post by purpurkatten » Wed Oct 13, 2010 10:50 am
Let´s say I want to quantize just the drumtrack, not the pianotrack. How do I do that without the quantization affecting both drums and piano?
Every time I select the drum track and do quantization, I find that also the piano has been quantized. Very frustrating.
Re: How to quantize just a single track, not globally
Post by crumhorn » Wed Oct 13, 2010 11:08 am
If you are thinking about quantizing the notes.
Right click on the note editor view and you will get a menu with options for quantising just the current clip or just the notes that you have selected.
«The banjo is the perfect instrument for the antisocial.»
Quantizing MIDI and using Grooves in Ableton Live
Evening all. Today we’ll look at MIDI quantization in Ableton Live. If you’re unfamiliar, quantization is the method used to remove or reduce the rhythmic errors from your MIDI clips (or any MIDI notes). If you record anything into Ableton using a MIDI keyboard or other controller, there will always be a certain amount of rhythmic imprecision (unless you’re Mr Data, but even he strived for that human touch….anyway). Quantizing the notes you played in will snap them to a predefined grid based on a number of beats or fraction of a beat or meter value. It basically tightens up your playing, winner!
Here’s a before and after screenshots of a badly played in set of notes which are then quantized using a grid size of 1/16 notes. Keyboard Short cut: Ctrl-U
Before
After
As you can see the notes were snapped to the nearest 1/16 beat division. Notice the note highlighted, this note was actually intended to be played a 1/16 note later, but it was played so badly its ended up in this position. Remember that Ableton doesn’t know what you intended to play, quantizing isn’t perfect and it won’t work miracles.
Changing the Grid
To set the grid value to different values, right click and select Quantize settings to get to the menu (Ctrl-shift-U). The setting you want to use is the value of the shortest beat interval between the notes you played. For example, if you have a set of notes and 2 of them are separated by 1/32 beat, the you should quantize the notes to the 1/32 value. If most other notes are 1/16ths, then quantize the 1/32 note individually to the rest.
TIP: Quantize using the note end setting to get your notes to end on your chosen beat division.
Keeping it real
There are circumstances where you may not want such rigid adherence to a grid. You may want to retain some imprecision to keep a human feel, whilst still wanting to tighten it up generally. In that case you can select a % amount to quantize.
Setting the amount to 50% will mean the notes are moved half way between the original place you played them in and the selected grid division.
Using Grooves
All of the above will produce a result that is based around a fairly rigid and inhuman grid. What you may want is something with a little more “groove”. The Groove is the rhythmic feel of a performance like having “swing”, and its something that can be easily lost when you quantize MIDI.
Ableton allows you to apply different Grooves, or rhythmic feels to your own MIDI clips. It’s a simple process but one that isn’t too obvious. Here is the very quick step guide:
Quick Steps:
Ok, so what just happened? You can see what’s going on if you drag a groove file onto a track and look at the detail view.
Here you can see that the Groove is actually just another MIDI file with a set of notes programmed in. It’s these notes that are used to “quantize” your MIDI clip. Instead of a rigid grid, Ableton uses this more natural meter to snap your note to. Notice also that there is velocity information here too, this is also applied to create a more natural groove. This is how you can achieve that “swing” to your tracks in Ableton. Have a look through the grooves folder and play around committing them to your MIDI tracks. You’ll be surprised how much you can get out of this, and how much it can add to the feel of your song.
How To Quantize In Ableton Live
Quantization is a production technique that corrects imperfect timing. Iron out mistakes and instantly make your ideas flawless by utilising the quantize feature found in all popular DAWs. Live allows for the quantization of both MIDI and Audio clips. Correct performance mistakes or timing mishaps and record without hesitation.
Hi, I’m Ben from Live Aspects and in this guide, I’ll show you how to perfect elements of your Live project using quantization.
Without further ado, let’s get started!
| How Does Quantizing Work?
Quantizing works by detecting the transients in a piece of audio then moving them in line with the ‘grid’ or more simply, in perfect time. For MIDI, Ableton simply identifies the beginning and end of each MIDI note.
Whenever a piece of audio is imported into Ableton (and warp mode is selected), it’s transients are immediately detected. Notice each of the small grey arrows above each drum hit in the audio sample below. Live has placed markers at each transient in preparation for quantization.
Once quantization has been activated, Live instantly snaps the transients to the chosen grid. Quantized transient markers become yellow as seen below:
Transient markers can be custom input or deleted if Live has incorrectly identified them. Simply double-click the dark grey region above the waveform to create a marker or to delete a marker, right‑click it and choose ‘Delete Transient(s)’. You can also drag out a selection across the waveform and press ‘Backspace/Delete’ to remove multiple markers at once.
| How To Quantize MIDI
Step 1: Select MIDI Clip
Double-click on the top half of the MIDI Clip you want to quantize. This will open up the piano roll and you will be able to see the notes of that MIDI clip.
Step 2: Select MIDI Notes
Next, select the MIDI notes that you wish to quantize. Press [COMMAND + A] on Mac or [CNTRL + A] on Windows to select all notes within a MIDI clip.
Step 3: Quantize
Access the Quantize settings by pressing [SHIFT + COMMAND + U] on Mac or [SHIFT + CNTRL + U] on Windows or right-clicking on the piano roll and selecting ‘Quantize Settings’. You can also instantly quantize using the previously used settings by pressing [COMMAND + U] on Mac or [CNTRL + U] on Windows.
Finally, ensure ‘Start’ is selected. Choose ‘End’ if you would like to quantize the end of each selected note. Select the grid you wish to quantize to as well as the amount of quantization then hit ‘OK.’
Below is an example of a MIDI clip that has been quantized using the settings displayed above:
| How To Quantize Audio
Step 1: Select Audio Clip
Double-click on the top half of the audio clip you would like to quantize. This will reveal the waveform of the audio clip.
Step 2: Select Region
Next, select the region of the audio sample that you want to quantize by clicking and dragging on the top half of the waveform. Press [COMMAND + A] on Mac or [CNTRL + A] on Windows to select the entire audio clip. Ensure the ‘Warp’ function is turned on.
Step 3: Quantize
Access the Quantize settings by pressing [SHIFT + COMMAND + U] on Mac or [SHIFT + CNTRL + U] on Windows or right-clicking on the piano roll and selecting ‘Quantize Settings’. You can also instantly quantize using the previously used settings by pressing [COMMAND + U] on Mac or [CNTRL + U] on Windows.
Finally, ensure ‘Start’ is selected. Choose ‘End’ if you would like to quantize the end of each selected note. Select the grid you wish to quantize to as well as the amount of quantization then hit ‘OK.’
Below is an example of an audio clip that has been quantized using the settings displayed above:
| How To Quantize Velocity
Step 1: Select MIDI Clip
Double-click on the top half of the MIDI Clip you want to adjust velocity for. This will reveal the piano roll and you will be able to see the notes of that MIDI clip.
Step 2: Select MIDI Notes
Next, select the MIDI notes for which you want to quantize velocity. Press [COMMAND + A] on Mac or [CNTRL + A] on Windows to select all notes within a MIDI clip.
Step 3: Adjust Velocity
The velocity of each note is located at the bottom of the piano roll with each value represented vertically. Click on the velocity of any selected note then drag it all the way up or down. All velocity values have now been reset and will adjust concurrently. Increase or decrease the velocity to the desired amount.
| Realistic-Feel Quantization
Reducing the ‘Amount’ parameter on the quantize menu improves the timing of notes while maintaining the human-like characteristics of a live recording. The ‘Amount’ percentage determines how much notes are dragged to the desired grid.
When set to 100%, notes will be moved exactly to the grid, achieving perfect quantization. Quantizing at an amount below 100% helps tighten the timing of notes while also keeping the natural imperfections of a human performance. An amount of 50% will move the notes half-way between their starting position and the grid.
| Swing Quantization
If you’d like to know how to apply Swing Quantization in Ableton, visit our previous guide titled ‘How To Use Swing In Ableton‘.
Want To Know More?
Here at Live Aspects, we have dozens of useful lessons and tutorials created to enhance your music production skills and help speed up the learning process. You can access our huge range of music theory lessons and production tips and tricks here.
Benjamin Jones
Hi, my name is Ben. I live in Melbourne, Australia and I’m the founder of Live Aspects. I’m a DJ and producer with a bachelor’s degree in Audio Production. I’ve spent the last eleven or so years addicted to music production and discovering the extraordinary ways producers around the world create their music. My goal is to provide eager producers with the tools and information they need to make amazing music and experience the thrill of music production.
How to Quantize MIDI in Ableton Live
This tutorial will show you how to quantize MIDI in Ableton Live.
Quantizing allows you to snap MIDI data up to a grid, allowing it to be kept on time with your entire session’s tempo and timing. It can also allow you to correct performance issues, and correct improper playing.
For the purpose of this tutorial, the user must have created an Ableton Live Set, created a MIDI track and recorded MIDI information into it. In this case, the track is labeled as “Synth”, and has a very simple 2-bar phrase recorded into it.
The Ableton Live Arrange window looks like this (you can apply MIDI quantize in both Session and Arrange view in Ableton Live):
The first step in quantization is to configure the grid at which Ableton will quantize the MIDI notes previously recorded
The following window will appear:
This is the quantize settings window and it gives the user the following options:
2. Once these options have been selected, the user can close this window by pressing “Cancel”. The configurations will be saved.
Now the user must select the desired notes to be quantized from the “Synth” track.
3. By clicking and dragging on the clip overview, the user can highlight the desired notes, which will turn into light blue color.
Note that for this tutorial, all the notes were selected, but this does not have to be the case. Quantization can be applied to individual notes if needed.
By doing this, the selected notes will be quantized following the settings previously determined.
The MIDI notes are now quantized and it is easy to see how they were dragged to line up with the 1/16 note grid.
Using these simple steps, you can quantize the MIDI data in your Ableton Live session.
If you found this tutorial useful, please consider sharing it!
Ableton Forum
Quantizing in the arrangement
Quantizing in the arrangement
Post by scottymac » Mon May 26, 2014 5:25 pm
I am constructing a loop/drum part which consists of ten different tracks in the arrangement view. Is there an option for highlighting all the parts and applying different quantize settings right there in the arrangement,similarly to what you’d do with a midi clip?
Re: Quantizing in the arrangement
Post by eddiex » Mon May 26, 2014 7:27 pm
Re: Quantizing in the arrangement
Post by NoSonic822 » Tue May 27, 2014 2:33 am
Re: Quantizing in the arrangement
Post by dna598 » Tue May 27, 2014 8:13 am
ctrl + left/right = select transient
ctrl + shift + left/right = select between transients
ctrl + space = play selection
Re: Quantizing in the arrangement
Post by scottymac » Tue May 27, 2014 7:12 pm
Thank you for the advice and tips fellas.
Re: Quantizing in the arrangement
Post by dna598 » Tue May 27, 2014 10:40 pm
scottymac wrote: Thank you for the advice and tips fellas.
ctrl + left/right = select transient
ctrl + shift + left/right = select between transients
ctrl + space = play selection
Re: Quantizing in the arrangement
Post by scottymac » Wed May 28, 2014 8:59 pm
@dna NO NUDGE. Nooooooooo haha
I did start out using Drum racks but. When recording my pattern into the arrangement I would like to have separate tracks for visual representation and editing purposes. That’s why I jumped to throwing audio in but you can’t really get a feel for a grove when your constructing on a straight grid can you. I’m stuck on which direction to take now.
I have a 8 bar lop with ten audio tracks and want to quickly experiment with quantise settings? What’s my options. I know you can quantise each clip, but then this isn’t practical as I have to go through ten tracks just for one listen,very time consuming. Can I quantise entire scenes of audio? I love the idea of working with audio as I find it very creative for me to just dive in the arrange and fiddle about with some editing for creating fills and new scenes.I find this incredibly creative for me.
Thank you for your time bro!
Re: Quantizing in the arrangement
Post by NoSonic822 » Thu May 29, 2014 12:15 am
Re: Quantizing in the arrangement
Post by dna598 » Thu May 29, 2014 10:35 am
ctrl + left/right = select transient
ctrl + shift + left/right = select between transients
ctrl + space = play selection
Re: Quantizing in the arrangement
Post by scottymac » Thu May 29, 2014 2:13 pm
@ Inversounds Can you elaborate please I’m just starting out in Ableton from Logic.