Committing Audio in Live
Ableton Live offers several methods to commit material to a new audio file, to be used within the Set, including Crop Clip, Consolidate, Freeze, Bounce Track in Place, and Bounce to New Track. MIDI clips can also be cropped, joined, or committed to audio. This guide explains which properties of the source clip are destructively applied, and which are carried over as editable properties of the new clip.
For detailed information about Live's audio engine, visit the Audio Fact Sheet. For answers to common questions about Live's Bounce features, visit the Bounce Tracks to Audio FAQ.
Crop Clip
Consolidate
Freeze Track
Bounce Track in Place
Bounce Group in Place
Bounce to New Track
Paste Bounced Audio
Resample
Crop Clip
Crop Clip [SHIFT + CMD/CTRL + J] removes audio or MIDI content outside the currently selected boundaries of the clip.
- For Audio clips, a copy of the audio file containing only the selected region is generated and saved in the project's Processed folder (Current Project → Samples → Processed → Crop), without altering the original audio file. No warping, resampling, or bit-depth conversion is committed.
- For MIDI clips, MIDI data outside of the loop brace is deleted.
- Within the MIDI Note Editor view, [SHIFT + CMD/CTRL + J] deletes MIDI data outside the selection via the command Crop to Time Selection.
Note that unlike cropping audio clips, cropping a MIDI clip does not create a new file on disk.
Consolidate
In Arrangement View, Consolidate [CMD/CTRL + J] creates a new clip (Audio or MIDI) from the selected section of the Arrangement. Any notes or content outside the time selection is not included. Learn more about consolidating clips in the Ableton Reference Manual.
Audio Clips
Consolidating audio clips generates a new audio file saved to Current Project → Samples → Processed → Consolidate. It functions as a pre-effects bounce, similar to Freezing with regard to Clip View settings, but without committing the effects of the track's device chain.
Consolidate is a non-neutral operation, with the following properties from the source clip permanently committed to the new audio:
| Destructively committed | Not committed |
|---|---|
|
|
Consolidate also normalizes audio clips, causing a gain change, which is a non-neutral operation. This can make the resulting audio file louder or quieter, depending on its peak content before consolidation. To match playback level to the original, clip Gain is automatically adjusted to account for the normalization. (Learn more about normalization in this external article: Why Is “Normalize” a Dirty Word?) For example:
| Original clip | Consolidated clip | Consolidated clip with Gain reset to 0dB |
|---|---|---|
The resulting file is then warped with the current default warp mode (Settings → Record Warp & Launch → Default Warp Mode).
MIDI Clips
Consolidating MIDI clips does not generate an audio file, but joins selected MIDI clips into a single clip.
- Only notes within the selection or Clip boundaries are included.
- Repetitions of a looped clip are committed to a single, unlooped clip.
- Notes outside the selection are not included, which can alter playback if Chase MIDI Notes is active. Learn more about MIDI playback options.
- MIDI notes within deactivated clips are lost.
- Within the MIDI Note Editor, [CMD/CTRL + ] can be used to join selected adjacent repetitions of the same MIDI note, via the command Join Notes.
Freeze Track
Freeze Track creates one Freeze audio file for each Session clip in the track, plus one for the Arrangement, with the track’s effects processing applied. To free CPU demand, clips in the track play back their Freeze files rather than processing device and clip settings in real time, and these settings cannot be adjusted while frozen. To freeze or unfreeze selected tracks, right-click a track header and select Freeze Track, or use the shortcut [CMD/CTRL + Alt/Option + Shift + F].
- Clips in frozen tracks play Freeze audio files, stored in (Current Project → Samples → Processed → Freeze).
- Frozen clips are always played back with Warp on and in Beats mode.
- Freeze files are are 32 bit, to ensure they will not be lower quality than the original.
- In some cases, Freeze has non-neutral behavior. For details, visit the Audio Fact Sheet section Freeze, Flatten.
Learn more in the Ableton Reference Manual section Track Freeze.
Bounce
The Bounce commands generate new audio files that reproduce the sound of the source track, with processing applied. The table below shows how Bounced audio reflects your settings:
| Destructively committed | Not committed |
|---|---|
|
|
The resulting audio files (Current Project → Samples → Processed → Bounce), have the following properties:
- Loop is Off by default for bounced clips.
- The new clip is warped with the current default warp mode (Settings → Record Warp & Launch → Default Warp Mode).
Bounce Track in Place
As of Live 12.2, Bounce Track in Place commits the entire contents of an Audio or MIDI track as audio, overwriting the existing content. In Live 12.1 and earlier, the command Freeze and Flatten accomplished the same result. With one or more tracks selected, right-click a track header and select Bounce Track(s) in Place from the context menu.
- The Freeze and Flatten Track command, and the Flatten command for frozen tracks, have been renamed to Bounce Track in Place.
- The original clip placements are preserved, but only a single new audio file is created containing the audio for the whole track.
Learn more about Bounce Track in Place in the Bounce Tracks in Live 12 FAQ.
Bounce Group in Place
Bounce Group in Place captures audio from all participating tracks in the group whose audio is routed to the group itself. Tracks routed outside the group are not included in the bounce.
The result is a single audio track containing audio from the group and participating return tracks.
The resulting audio reflects audio output from the Group as it currently reaches the Main track, before any Main track effects (pre-FX).
Audio from Return tracks in the Group track's signal path is included in the bounce.
Bounce to New Track
As of Live 12.2, Bounce to New Track [CMD/CTRL + B] renders a selection of Session clips, or a time selection in Arrangement, to a new track.
- An audio file is created for each Session clip.
- In the Arrangement, the original clip placements are preserved, but a single audio file is created for the whole selection.
- Track settings are duplicated to the new Track. The original track and its clips are preserved, but deactivated after bouncing so that playback is not duplicated.
Note: When an External Audio Effect or External Instrument is used, Freeze and Bounce are processed in real-time, not “offline.”
Learn more about Bounce Track in Place in the Bounce Tracks in Live 12 FAQ.
Paste Bounced Audio
The command Paste Bounced Audio [Cmd + Alt/Option + V] is accessible when a region that outputs audio (either an audio or MIDI clip) has been selected and copied into the clipboard. The command then bounces the selection, with processing applied, and pastes the rendered audio directly into an audio track. Pasted audio reflects the current state of the copied material as described above for other Bounce commands.
Resample
It’s also possible to record audio from Live Set tracks to other tracks, either via internal audio routing, or resampling.
- The attributes of recorded audio are determined by Live's current audio recording settings (Settings → Record Warp & Launch.)
For how to use these methods, visit the Ableton Reference Manual sections Routing and I/O and Resampling.