How To: Looping in Session View

Overview

With a bit of inter-session routing, Live's Session View can offer a really flexible approach to looping audio in real-time.

Note: This may take some trial-and-error, so we highly recommend that you first review Live's Routing and I/O.

The Basics

  1. Create a dedicated Audio track for your first instrument. (Let's call it "Input 1").
  2. Set the Monitor to "In", so you can always hear the Live input from the channel through the Master track.
  3. Create a dedicated track for Looping audio from "Input 1". (Let's call it "Loop 1").
  4. Set the track's Input Type to "Input 1", so that it monitors the signal of your live instrument track.
  5. Set the Monitor to "Off" to avoid doubling the signal from "Input 1" while recording.
  6. Record-enable "Loop 1" at all times.

Advanced Steps

Note: You will need to disable "Exclusive Arm" in Live's Preferences for this to work.

You can then use this method for your remaining tracks, carefully adjusting the I/O for each additional track.

​​​​

 

... Or, you can have multiple tracks using the same source to create loops, allowing you to mix-and-match multiple loops from the same instrument...


... Or any combination thereof!

Ableton offers these in-depth help and learning resources: