Any Sound Will Do

Capturing & Warping Samples in Ableton Live

Learn how to set up your mics, capture sounds, and manipulate them in Ableton Live to make more interesting music.

30 Minutes
3 Sections

Ableton Live is a staple of modern music production for many reasons. One major one is its ability to help you quickly record and manipulate sound from a variety of sources in an infinite number of ways before you even touch a plug-in.

This free course will teach you how to set up a microphone to best capture your sounds, how to record them in Ableton Live, and some basic tricks for warping them to make them more musical. Follow along as Brian Jackson, Ableton Certified Instructor and author of The Music Producer's Survival Guide, demonstrates how to capture, mangle, and create interesting beats from any sound you can find.

Curious about how to add real-world sounds into your productions? There’s something here for everyone, whether you're using found sounds to inspire a whole composition or just to add a little detail to existing songs. Get started now!


Brian Jackson

Ableton Certified Trainer

Brian is a music producer, electronic musician, audio engineer, educator, consultant, philosopher, and author of "The Music Producer's Survival Guide: Chaos, Creativity, and Career in Independent and Electronic Music." He's one of the very first five Ableton Certified Trainers on the planet with more than 20 years of teaching experience. He was co-owner and Director of Education at Devotion Gallery for its 5 year run in Williamsburg, Brooklyn - which also served as his Ableton Certified Training Center. Since moving to NYC in 2002 he has taught music production and audio engineering privately and at numerous schools in Manhattan – SAE, IAR, The New School, and DMX Touro. In addition to teaching, he was also Electronic Music Program coordinator at SAE, and Curriculum Director at Dubspot.

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found sounds
microphones
recording
sampling
inspiration and creativity
sound design
production
any sound will do: capturing & warping sounds in ableton live
brian jackson

Course Outline

  1. Section 1

    Getting Started

  2. Section 2

    Recording

  3. Section 3

    What's Next

MORE INFORMATION

Who is this course for?

This is a 101-level course for people just getting started using Ableton Live who want to figure out how to use live samples in their music. There’s something here for everyone, as these sounds can be used for everything from inspiring a whole composition to adding a little detail to existing songs.

What are the requirements?

All you need to take this course is a copy of Ableton Live and a microphone. You can download a free trial of Ableton here. We talk about some of the different types of mics you might want to check out in the first section of the course.

How long does it take?

You can be set up and ready to capture and manipulate sounds in half an hour!

What will I get out of it?

We'll walk you through how to set up your microphones, how to connect your interface with Ableton Live, how to capture the sound, and some very basic approaches for warping the sound to make it usable in your music. By the end you should be set up and ready to go to start capturing every day sounds and turning them into music, which will be a perfect time to head over to section two of this series.