Learn the science behind Ableton Live’s Frequency Shifter
Live’s sound-wrangling effect can achieve some unorthodox sounds. We show you how to tame the wild device.
by Sam Willings
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If you’ve ever loaded up a frequency shifter or ring modulator into your effects rack, you’ll know how easy it is to immediately transform your audio into a metallic mess. The good news is there’s scope to harness this effect and create new, other-worldy textures and tones. Ableton Live 10‘s Frequency Shifter combines a frequency shifter and ring modulator in one, with a pleasing amount of parameters to powerfully mutate your sounds.
In this Ableton Live Tutorial, MusicTech Expert Liam O’Mullane breaks down the science of frequency shifting, demonstrates the different parameters of Live’s Frequency Shifter and provides real examples of how it can be applied to create impacting musical material in your tracks.
Other lessons in our Ableton Live Tutorials series so far include:
- Understanding Warp Modes
- Gating and sidechaining
- Auxiliary effects understood
- Creative Sidechaining
- Saving CPU
- Converting audio to MIDI
- Using Drum Rack
- Finding the root key of audio
- Understanding Reverb and Convolution Reverb
- Arpeggiator MIDI effect
- Clip envelopes
- Hooking up MIDI controllers
- Using Cue Mode
Those of you who already know Live inside and out, but are looking to explore other DAWs may want to check out our Logic Tips Series, following a similar pattern to this course.
