CERTIFIABLY ABLETON
PLAYING VIDEOS IN ABLETON LIVE | Matt McCoy
A friend called me recently in last-minute actually matched our track arrangements. actual Ableton Live session that would play
desperation. “Matt! My band is playing a The goal is that when you line up the tracks them. To play video in Ableton Live, you have
worship conference next week and we want and the video together from the beginning, to use Arrangement View (unless you purchase
to use tracks and lyric videos together. Is this they should be in perfect sync with each other a third-party plugin that allows you to run video
possible?” The awesome thing about Ableton as they play. This can be the hardest part, in Session View). At the very top of my session,
Live is that your creativity is the limit of what especially if you didn’t originally create the I added a track and labeled it “Video”. I used
it can do. There are many different ways to videos with your tracks in mind. One of our this track to import all of our video files onto the
accomplish the same task in Ableton Live - it videos was created using an entirely different timeline. When you import a video into Ableton
just depends on your work flow and what you arrangement of the song. Since we didn’t have Live, the audio from the video will be visible in
need to happen. There is no “wrong” way to time to create a new lyric video, we edited the the track and a secondary window will open to
do something in Ableton Live, and if anyone tracks in Arrangement View to match the video show you the video as it plays. I then imported
says there is - don’t listen. I’m going to give and exported new stems. Video editing can be all of the tracks below the video, and made
you an inside look at how we decided to run more time consuming, so I recommend first sure that they lined up with the video. I did this
lyric videos and tracks together for my friends’ arranging your track, and then creating a lyric for each song in the setlist down the timeline
situation. There are a few important steps we
took to make this happen.
DECIDE: VIDEO IN ABLETON OR PROPRESENTER?
The biggest question to figure out was
whether or not we should play the video file in
Ableton Live or on another computer running
ProPresenter. Either way would work, but there
would be a significant difference in how we
would configure it. If we were going to play the
video in ProPresenter, we would need to send
MIDI commands over a network connection
between the two computers. When the track
starts in Ableton Live, it would simultaneously
send a MIDI command to ProPresenter to
start playing the video. This method works
really well in a weekend church service where
you have the same setup every weekend
from left to right, while also creating crossfades
between the tracks. When we pressed play, the
There is no
entire set would play from start to finish.
“wrong” way to TAKE IT TO THE STAGE
do something goal was to keep it very simple. For the track
in Ableton Live,
and if anyone
says there is -
We didn’t have much time to set up, so our
audio, we used the headphone jack to run the
tracks to the sound system (Click panned Left,
Tracks panned Right). For video, we asked
the tech team ahead of time to provide a
video connection by our stage computer. We
connected an HDMI cable and moved Ableton
Live’s video window to the secondary monitor.
If you double-click on the video window, it will
display full screen.
don’t listen.
This was an easy way for us to create an all-
and have time during the week to configure a
in-one Ableton Session that played lyric videos
steady connection. As a guest worship leader, video that goes along with your track. Click and and tracks simultaneously. If you want to learn
we didn’t have time to set up, or have access Cues always help to make sure you’re lining more about other creative ways to use Ableton
to the secondary ProPresenter computer to up the lyrics when creating the video. Once Live in worship, watch my FREE 1-hour course
configure it. We decided to use Ableton Live on we had all the tracks and lyric videos ready, I at AbletonInWorship.com
a single computer to run the tracks and play the organized them into folders labeled after each videos. This would make setup quick and keep song in the setlist.
everything on one device.
CREATE YOUR ABLETON LIVE SESSION
PREPARE THE VIDEOS & TRACKS After we had all of the tracks and videos
Next, we had to determine if the lyric videos prepared, it was time to start creating the
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February 2019
Matt McCoy
Matt is a worship leader and songwriter from
Chicago. He is the founder of LoopCommunity.com
and an Ableton Certified Trainer.
LoopCommunity.com
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