10 Reasons Why you Should get Ableton Templates

Want to start your next project, but have absolutely no inspiration? Do you want to know more about Remakes and Templates?

Today with Top Music Arts we bring you our list of the 10 reasons why you should use Templates and Remakes or at least consider giving it a try. It can have a positive impact on your music production skills!

With our Team we make sure we do our best in each one, having them Deconstructed, Remade, Organized, Mixed, and Mastered, made especially for Ableton Live, and with samples, sounds and presets you can use with other DAW (Fl Studio). We also consider the effect chains and sound designs, to be Replicating the sounds, and buildups like all of the actual Professional Music Producers do.

Let´s talk more about this…

1. They can help you get the inspiration you need.

In my case, there are sometimes I just sit and come up with tons of ideas, but there are some other times, where I just can´t even start a new song. With a well-made Template, as you listen to each one of the elements, and the groups (with the Solo button), many ideas for sounds, melodies, types of chords, chord progressions, effect chains, arrangements or even general composition, come easy as a form of inspiration. The same happens if it´s a Remake of a song you like, to see how the Artists we look up to do their thing is a huge source of inspiration as well.

When you are producing music, if you have in mind the sound you want to go for, it´s easy to replicate. But if you have a vague concept of it but you it doesn´t come out as you wish, with the help of a template, most of the time you are just a few clicks away from finding the sound you like. Also if you are not that much experienced, and you´ve never done a project from scratch, a template or remake for sure will put you in the direction you need to go. Avoiding the frustration of getting stuck in your first steps!

2. You can learn other Producer´s techniques.

You know how they say “a magician never reveals his tricks”, and it´s true they shouldn´t because then the trick can lose its “magic”. Usually, not everyone lets you see what´s behind the curtain, and the whole Music Production process is based on Creativity, so for you to train and learn how to do some techniques properly, we recommend you all to really dive into each Template and Remake, for you to really stimulate your creativity.

As we deconstruct and remake the projects, we think of the easiest to understand and effective way to recreate each technique and sound, so you can train and learn every single one of them the best way.

The more you do something, the better you´ll understand it. So if you are new to music production, don´t aim just to rip off stems, tracks, or melodies, and be done with it, you´ll end up sounding like someone else. If you really want to get better at Music Production, inside each style there´re plenty of elements, like for instance, wich drum samples to use, and techniques such as how to mix those drum samples, that are there to be learned, practiced and for you to get used to, so then you can come up with your own new ideas!

3. You can learn how to Compose

To be a successful and active music producer you need to be up to date with the music the audience is listening today, so when you take a look into a Template or Remake of a full song, if you pay attention to the way it was composed you could take a look “under the hood” of how hit song is made, and with which elements. You can do this by just clicking the MIDI clips and checking them out.

To learn more about the composition of a song we recommend you to have in mind:

• What are the Chords that are being played, noticing what type they are (most of the time are Major or Minor)
• The Bassline, if it plays the Root note of each chord, or inversions, or simply which scale the phrase belongs to.
• The Melody, how the notes fit with each other and how they work together with the chords, and also which scale it belongs to as well.

Once you´ve practiced this with many projects (don´t stop with the Templates, you can check your friend's work as well) you´ll end up noticing the patterns, chords progressions, and notes that are being played with each chord.

To practice this, we recommend you to take a Midi clip with a chord progression you like, and rearrange it, changing their order, key or editing it how you like it. So then you can play around with them and create your own songs.

Coming up with chords progressions can prove to be hard sometimes, especially if you are a beginner in all this, and without having too much knowledge of the theory behind it. But there’s nothing wrong with that, a Template can get you started in no time!

If you´d like to know more about chords you can check our previous article about The List of Chord Identifier Tools, with everything you need to know about chords and types for you to play in any instrument, by clicking this link.

4. You can learn ways to arrange your song´s Structure.

As well as the Composing of chords, melodies and basslines, arranging the Structure can be troubling sometimes. You need to make Transitions, in order to make sure your song doesn´t bore your audience to death!

Maybe it´s doesn’t seem so hard to make a 4 or 8 bar loop work, but to make the whole song, it can be. So to help you with that we recommend you to notice how the Structure of the templates and remakes are built, where are the different parts of it, the Intros, Build-ups, Breakdowns, Bridges, and more. Any part that makes the song be what it is.

In every genre there are always certain elements that change, for example, in every transition you can find out what Automation is going on, or what elements are being Muted or brought down, to build tension and then releasing it.

There´s no formula to this, you need to be creative. A well-structured song draws your attention from the beginning to the end, so have that in mind when you are checking new Templates!

5. You can learn more about Sound Design

We all have seen a lot of YouTube tutorials on Serum, Wavetable, or Massive, trying to achieve that one Sound we like, but the most effective way to learn Sound Design is to have hands-on practice with your synth.

With the help or a Template or Remake, you can have a closer look at how the sounds you like are made and how they work together with other elements. Sometimes a single melody is played by different instrument layers just to get a bigger sound, so try to get used to these synths and what they can do. Ableton Live 10´s Wavetable is a great tool to consider, and you don´t even have to install anything!

There is a lot to know about modulations, filters, and oscillators, so we recommend you to start with any synth you like of your template and explore it, play around with it, and save tons of hours watching sound design tutorials. And when you find something that you like, don´t forget to save it as a new preset.

6. You can learn how effects are used properly

A common mistake we´ve all made when you’re starting with music production is to misplace effects in your Device chain. To put a Saturator or a Compressor before an Eq, won’t have the same results than if you place it after. The same happens with a Reverb or Delay effect, you can put it in your track by just dragging it and getting it into your track´s chain (as an Insert), but it´s not the same result as if you add it as a Return Track.

With the help of a Template or Remake you can learn how effects are applied properly, avoiding any mess up and getting used to using them to achieve the results you want in your own compositions!   

There are plenty of parameters and features in any effect you can mention, so experience them, solo each Track and move every knob you want (you can undo it by just Double-clicking it). This´ll help you understand what these adjustments can do to your sound, and experiment to create your own. You can always Group (with Ctrl or Cmd + G) them into an Audio Effect Rack and save it as a Preset so you can reuse a chain you like.  

7. You can learn the basics of mixing

To learn how to mix your projects you need to experiment, there is a lot of theory behind most mixing techniques, different instruments (elements) are placed in different places of the mix, for example you can make a sound Stereo Spread to keep it off your center (Overheads, Cymbals, and Synths, for example) or you can make a sound Mono and keep it right in front of you (Kick, snare, and Bass).

The Levels of these elements need to be balanced properly to be able to hear each and every one of them. So to learn this faster, we recommend you to take any Template or Remake you like and start analyzing these elements we´ve mention, and listen to them in solo, Grouped and with the whole song, to get used to their levels in a properly mixed track.

All of our templates are Mixed and Mastered for you to learn this kind of concepts more effectively. Take notes of the tracks leveling and processing to be able to keep everything in place in your own projects.

8. You can learn to Organize your tracks

Maybe after we listed out most of these reasons this one seems a little unimportant, but to help you keep your productivity and to save time in your mixing, you need to have an Organized project. We strongly recommend you all to keep your Tracks in order, all the drum elements should be in a Drum group, for example.  Labeling all of them, coloring and Grouping them is an easy way to keep track of your work, and what´s missing or needed in your song. Having an unorganized project can be overwhelming and have a negative impact on your creativity.  

You can copy the way Templates and Remakes are organized, and or modify it to fit your liking. For example, I have my own Live Looping Template, an EDM Template, a Multitrack Recording Template, and plenty more, each one fitting different needs. You can erase all of the clips and keep the tracks, with its names and colors (even the device chains, but have in mind that not every effect helps every time).

9. You can learn the basics of Mastering

There is much to learn about Mastering and a lot of theory as with the Mixing. The Mastering process is one of the most important parts of the Music Production process, with the help or a well-Mixed and Mastered Template, you can get used to hearing how a mastered song should sound, in the genre of your liking, and start finishing your mixes with a Preset device chain by just adapting it to your own song´s needs!

If you want to know more about Mastering with Ableton Plugins you can check out our previous article in this link:

 https://topmusicarts.com/blogs/news/with-ableton-plugins-even-mastering-is-possible

10. You can save a lot of time

The whole learning process takes tons of hours and hard work, there’s no escaping that, but considering all these reasons we´ve just listed today, you can notice that time can be saved by taking a closer look to every Template and Remake you can.

It can help you start a new production, compose, arrange, mix and master it the proper way by just playing around with them. You need to bring your own ideas to the table, of course, it all comes down to stimulate your own creativity, but as we´ve shown you, you can take a structure of a Template, fill it with your own music and have a whole different song!

The only limit here is your Imagination, that´s why our goal here is to show you how any of these elements can be turned into a valuable tool of your toolbox. So the time you´ll save watching YouTube tutorials or attending Production schools that maybe don’t show you what you need to know, you should spend it practicing your craft, listening to new music, going to live performances or also playing your music live, and thus learning the way of Music production.

Always practicing and making tons of new material, for example, to really learn how to eq a Kick, you need to do it several times until you get used to it, and make your own experience about that. The same happens with most of the concepts, so it´s important to keep consistency with your learning and practice.

If you have any doubts you can let us know in the comment section, and we´ll get back to you as soon as we can.

But most important, don´t forget to make Music!

If you want to get better, using Templates(Remakes) or Presets, is one of the best shortcuts you can take to learn new tricks and skills, basically how things are done in today´s music productions. But only, if you take a good look, and try to learn how it was all put together.

One good way to learn about the Elements that make each style of production is to if you have a midi controller of with the Keyboard, and with a Future Bass Template (for example):

1. Make sure you don´t lose any of the original project´s content and push Ctrl(PC) or Cmd (IOS) + S to Save as a practice version of the project.

2. Then take a Section (with many instruments playing) and Loop
3. After that Select a Track and erase it´s content or Deactivate Maybe the one that calls your attention the most!
4. And Play with the sounds, presets, basically ANY feature that makes it how it is. Most of the “Macros” knobs you can find in device´s chains are really helpful to shape your sounds.

Also with any Template or Remake version of any song, to help yourself get inspiration to make your own songs, you can:

1. Save as another project, to preserve the Original.
2. Take any Sound(Track) you really like, you´ve played with and know how to use, or maybe just inspired you, and Delete the Tracks you don´t use and any of the Midi and Audio clips you won´t use.
3. Start building your own project using maybe, a Drum pattern you liked and changed to your preference or a Sound of a Wavetable Synth (for example) you liked and make a New Melody or Bassline.

With all of these tools, the Real limit here is your own creativity. You just have no excuses, Go and make some music!