I have opened Ableton Live, looked at it for five minutes, and closed it again more times than I can count. The breakthrough came when I understood that it has two fundamentally different views.
Session View — a grid of clips, designed for live performance and experimentation. Trigger any clip at any time, in any combination. A sandbox.
Arrangement View — a traditional timeline. Left to right is time. This is where you build a finished track.
Most tutorials pick one and ignore the other. Understanding that they’re both there and serve different purposes was clarifying.
My Learning Structure
Four weeks, one thing at a time:
- Week 1: MIDI and instruments. Draw notes, get a synth making sounds, understand velocity.
- Week 2: Audio and samples. Record something. Learn about warping.
- Week 3: Arrangement. Build a loop, extend it, understand automation.
- Week 4: Mixing basics. EQ, compression, sidechaining, buses.
I’m not making anything I’d share yet. But I’m finishing more things, and the gap between what I imagine and what I produce is narrowing.