Watch as Ski Oakenfull (above) shows you how to chop loops on the fly with Ableton Live’s Looper.

This post was originally published in DJ Magazine’s free online edition DJ Weekly issue 83

The Looper tool was a much requested feature of Ableton Live, only recently introduced in version 8. Before its arrival, it was still possible to loop pre-warped audio ‘on the fly’ in a DJ situation by assigning controllers to set start & end points in the clip inspector, but the Looper adds much more flexibility and provides some exciting possibilities.

Firstly it exists as an Ableton Live audio effect, so can be used as an insert or return. For a DJ set up, the return scenario is perfect as it allows you to send any of your DJ channels to the Looper, and then treat that return channel separately.

Secondly, you can assign your Midi controller to any of the functions of the Looper such as Record, Play, Stop, Overdub etc. This means you can really ‘perform’ your Looping.

Thirdly it offers the ability to drag the audio it has ‘captured’ in its audio buffer to a new clip… So if you happened to grab a killer half bar loop during your top billing DJ set at Fabric(!), you can keep it for later and make a tune when you get back to the studio.

So in the tutorial video above, Ski has gone about explaining how he uses the Looper in a live performance situation, using a set developed with his collaborator Palm Skin Productions. It combines DJ style playing of tracks, with beats and live playing.  He also uses the Beat Repeat and Auto Filter effects, and has nearly every function mapped to a custom made template on a Novation Remote SL, as well as triggering clips and loops from a Novation Launchpad.

The video demonstration features the following tracks: ‘Powder House’ (Palm Skin Production Remix) – Duotone [ECC Records] and ‘Just Don’t Break My Heart’ – Ski Oakenfull [Primaudial Records]

Watch more free tutorials on Point Blank’s sample course page.

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Free Samples from Sample Magic

To kick off 2012 with a bang our friends at Sample Magic have provided us with a great bundle of free high quality, royalty free samples for you to use in your productions. There are around 200mb of samples in total. That’s over 130 loops and hits from their Funky House, Sunset Sessions and Around the World in 80 Raves packs. Ableton Live users, why not try setting up the Looper and throwing some of these in there to see what comes out the other end? Click here to grab the samples and enjoy!

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