Ableton Wavetable Synth - Full Guide for Beginners

[Music] Hi, my name is Boris and in this video I'm going to show you all about Ableton's best synthesizer which is wavetable. We will get started with a

wavetable. We will get started with a basic explanation of synthesis so that everyone is on the same page. Then we

will explore wavetable in depth so that after watching this tutorial you'll be able to create unique sounds. Before we

get started, if you like what we are doing on this channel, make sure to subscribe. We've got a lot more content

subscribe. We've got a lot more content about Ableton synths coming up. If you'd

like to learn Ableton 12 with all the foundations of music production, check out our beginner to advanced Live 12 start to finish course. And make sure to also check out the Ableton Live presets

bundle which includes lots of presets for Wavetable. And to see all of that,

for Wavetable. And to see all of that, check out the video description. All

right, so let's get started. We will get started by explaining all the modules and basics of sound synthesis as well.

But before we get into that, let me just give you a very quick sound demo. We

have just three patches all made in wavetable with some effects on top of them. And after the introduction to

them. And after the introduction to wavetable, we will dissect exactly what's going on. So here's a quick sound

demo.

[Music] [Music] [Music]

All right. So, here's a blank instance

All right. So, here's a blank instance of wavetable. When you load it up and

of wavetable. When you load it up and enable the MIDI computer keyboard, you can just press keys from A to L or uh some keys above as well for black keys.

And we just get a very simple sine wave. So

the core of wavetable is of course this display right here. We have two oscillator tabs which you can switch through right here. So we can just drag

this slider for a different shape or you can also click on the shape itself and drag it up and down. So what we have to begin with is a sine wave, a triangle

wave which is a bit thicker.

It's nice for bass sounds. And then what we have are two much richer tones. So we

have a a saw wave. I'm just going to turn the sound down a bit.

So that's a typical saw wave. And then

we have a square wave as well.

And you can of course uh sort of morph between these sounds. So if you want something between let's say a triangle wave and the saw wave, it's really easy to do. You just set this slider right

to do. You just set this slider right here. Maybe let's begin with the

here. Maybe let's begin with the triangle wave. It doesn't have too many

triangle wave. It doesn't have too many harmonics. All right. So, for now, we

harmonics. All right. So, for now, we will skip this section, this filter section, and let's go to the right. What

we have by default is an amp envelope.

And this is a very important concept.

Uh, basically, you have four controls, attack, decay, sustain, and release. And

with these controls, you can shape how loud the sound is over time. To give you a bit more info, let me pull up an infographic. So attack, decay, and

infographic. So attack, decay, and release are times. So you specify how long it takes for the sound at this stage. And sustain is just the level.

stage. And sustain is just the level.

But let's start with the attack.

Basically, if we have the attack very low, that means the sound just starts playing immediately. But when we have

playing immediately. But when we have the attack a bit higher, for example, like this, it takes a while for the sound to appear. Let's quickly go back

to our wave table. And right now the sound starts right away. But if we increase the attack, you can hear it takes now almost 3

seconds for the sound to get to the maximum volume. All right. So let's take

maximum volume. All right. So let's take a look at the decay. So once the attack stage ends, we are at the maximum

amplitude level and we only go downhill sort of from here. And the next point at which the sound can stop is the sustain level. And the decay basically specifies

level. And the decay basically specifies how fast it's going to settle back at the sustain level. So we can sort of have the sound raise in volume. Then it

can fall as long as we set the decay stage and it's going to settle down at the sustain level. So for this to work, we need to set the sustain level at least maybe halfway so we can really

hear it because if it's all the way up Yeah. the amplitude is basically going

Yeah. the amplitude is basically going to stay at the sustain level immediately after the attack. It's represented

really nicely visually here in wavetable. So if we take sustain all the

wavetable. So if we take sustain all the way up, it's just the decay length doesn't really have any impact. But if

we take the sustain for example halfway somehow like this, you'll be able to hear that the sound first sort of rises in volume for almost 2 seconds, then it

falls for almost 2 seconds and then it settles at minus3 dB. So let's hear it.

If we now set the sustain all the way up, of course, it stays at maximum volume.

And if we, for example, take it all the way down, it's going to just fall right down to silence.

And the last parameter is the release, and it's basically how fast it fades out after we stop pressing the note. So

attack, decay, and sustain, all of this happens when we start pressing the note.

But when we let go of the key right here, the release stage starts. Let's

demonstrate this visually also with audio. And I'm just going to make a

audio. And I'm just going to make a blank MIDI clip. Extend the C3 note. And

I'm going to stop playing it right here.

Okay. So, let's freeze and flatten this track.

Okay. So, I'm going to draw in an envelope so you can see exactly. We are

first raising the level and this is the attack stage. Then we are falling down

attack stage. Then we are falling down to the sustain level and this is the decay. Then we are at the sustain level

decay. Then we are at the sustain level right here. The gain doesn't change and

right here. The gain doesn't change and then we basically have a fade at the end and that's the release length. Maybe

it's going to be a bit more obvious when I just raise the gain. So we are rising here with the gain, falling down and also staying at the sustain level and

just falling down again with the release. All right, let's go back to

release. All right, let's go back to wave table. Now that we have an amp

wave table. Now that we have an amp envelope, we can also take a look at the filter envelope. But to be able to hear

filter envelope. But to be able to hear that really clearly, I'm just going to have the attack at zero, so sound appears right away. I'm going to have sustain all the way up so we're not

falling down with the decay. And I'm

going to have a bit of release like 2 seconds.

So what the filter does is basically takes out harmonics. And let me demonstrate this really quickly. I'm

going to take a spectrum effect. I'm

going to open it up and you're going to be able to see exactly what we're doing with the filter. All right, let's play this clip.

I'm just disabling the sound so we don't have that annoying sound in the background. But we're just looping this

background. But we're just looping this single note. And what you can see here

single note. And what you can see here is a fundamental frequency. We can also take a look at it like this. We have the fundamental frequency uh which is just a sine wave. If we turn it back to a sine

sine wave. If we turn it back to a sine wave, it's just going to be this. So

sounds like this.

And then if we turn it to another shape, you can see more and more harmonics pop up.

And the higher we go here, the sharper they get. What happens is with the

they get. What happens is with the filter, we can basically shave off these harmonics and the sound is just going to sound much smoother. Let's basically

roll down this frequency knob and see visually what happens. We can see that now we're just left with many less harmonics. And if we open up the sound

harmonics. And if we open up the sound again, you can visually see. And here the higher we go, the more harmonics we have, especially in this area. Take a

look.

So, we're just sort of taming the high frequencies so that the sound isn't so harsh sounding all the time. And we can shave off even more if we click on this 12 button right here.

[Music] Basically, we just have a steeper curve.

And what's cool about the filter section is that we can assign an envelope to that filter section to move it for us every time we press a note. For that, we can take another envelope. We have the

amp envelope. We could use this one,

amp envelope. We could use this one, too, but maybe we can take the second one. And we have some different settings

one. And we have some different settings here, and that's fine. We can map this frequency knob to this envelope. But all

of that is done in this matrix tab.

First of all, let me just pull down the frequency a bit. And I'm going to open up the matrix tab. It looks a bit confusing at first, but it's really simple to use. Basically, you just click

on the thing you want to map. In our

case, it's going to be the frequency knob. You can see it pops up at the

knob. You can see it pops up at the bottom here. So, filter one frequency.

bottom here. So, filter one frequency.

That's our parameter. And we have envelope 2 right here. And if we just take a look at the intersection of this column and this row, you can just add a

bit of modulation. So you can just click on this box or cell like in an Excel sheet and just drag your mouse up. And

the higher you go, the more this is going to be applied. If we go down, it's just going to be applied in reverse.

Let's just go up to like 50 and see what this does. I'm just going to play some

this does. I'm just going to play some notes on the MIDI keyboard now.

[Music] You can see that this jumps up and down if we take the frequency knob down a bit more.

Maybe we can have a bit less of that modulation. And we can also take a look

modulation. And we can also take a look at the envelope itself. So we can see here clearly that we have a fast attack

and 600 milliseconds on both decay and release. We have the sustain at 50%.

release. We have the sustain at 50%.

Maybe we can have the release a bit shorter on the amp. So just the sound is going to play a bit shorter.

And this is a much more pleasant sound rather than just having it all open.

So what we can also do is, for example, if we play a chord, we can have the second envelope just open up gradually.

Maybe let's have a bit more time on both decay and release as well.

There are many different ways in which you can use this envelope and just these four shapes in conjunction with the amp and the envelope. This can already imitate so many instruments. You can

already mix many tracks just with that and just with having the frequency of the filter in the right spot because for example we want to make a baseline. For

example, a saw wave might be good for this. We can just go a few octaves down.

this. We can just go a few octaves down.

By the way, I'm doing that with Z.

Now we have sort of a flat tone. But if

we now have the attack low, the decay short, sustain all the way down on the frequency envelope, this can also work. If we go a few

octaves higher, we have nice pluck. So,

this can imitate a guitar or something like that. What else? Uh, we might have

like that. What else? Uh, we might have a pad. So, let's open up the sustain.

a pad. So, let's open up the sustain.

have a longer attack, add a bit of release and a bit of attack to the amp envelope as well. And maybe let's open up the frequency a bit more.

Okay, so I also said there are two tabs.

So you can open up oscillator 2, do the same thing. It all responds just the

same thing. It all responds just the same way. We have some parameters

same way. We have some parameters towards the bottom here. You can pitch these up and down.

So uh for instance 12 semmitones um puts this second oscillator an octave above.

So if we now play both we have two octaves playing. There are

many different ways in which we can use this. Now before we get into uh just a

this. Now before we get into uh just a few more slightly advanced parameters here in wavetable let's take a look at other important features. All right. So,

we have if we wanted to add more bass frequencies, uh we can activate the sub oscillator,

which you can see adds some subfrequencies below our saw. So, this

is our fundamental here. And if we enable sub, you can see this fat guy right here. We can also take this one

right here. We can also take this one two octaves down, but this is going to be very low at 30 Hz. But if you can hear for example this note very clearly,

you can add more tone. So this just adds harmonics to this sub.

So as you can hear, if you're on headphones at least or good speakers, this sounds pretty fat. In conjunction

with our saw, it sounds much heavier.

So we just have these three oscillators sub and two main oscillators. So what

makes wavetable sense unique is the fact that we can choose between many different interesting sounding oscillator types. So for instance we

oscillator types. So for instance we have not only basic shapes here but some FM stuff and this can serve as the basis for our

sound design later on. We have some more harmonic rich content.

What else? We have

there are many different waveforms here.

And this collection of waveforms in this display is called a wavetable. Now we

can also add our own. So if we just drag something in here in the user section, uh you can make your own wavetables.

Let's just go back to the saw wave. If

we have the amp and two envelopes, uh, we also need to take a look at the LFO.

So, basically, an LFO, a low frequency oscillator is just a shape that can move your knob, but it's got a low frequency, meaning it's not going to be too fast.

You can set it to really slow speeds.

So, for instance, if we want to move this cutoff knob with this LFO, we just need to map it to frequency. So

frequency we go to LFO 1.

And if we want to increase the speed, we just increase the rate.

And the same way. If we want it slower, we can adjust the amount here.

Can change the shape or maybe choose a triangle wave. This

would be a very quick introduction to what you can do with LFOs. For instance,

we could also just go down with the amount and map it to pitch, which is going to make the sound go up and down in pitch.

And let's just choose a minimal amount.

You can see these harmonics here doing a little dance, but this can make the sound sound much more analog sort of.

Maybe we need less of this mapping. You

can go by increments if we just click and press the up and down arrow.

So now the tuning isn't perfect with every note. Let's proceed onto something

every note. Let's proceed onto something else. So if we have two oscillators, we

else. So if we have two oscillators, we can have different ways of using the filter. First of all, we have two

filter. First of all, we have two filters. So we can just for example add

filters. So we can just for example add a highp pass filter as well and also cut the low frequencies.

So we're now just left with all of this.

We have resonance, of course, which basically adds a boost of frequencies at the point where we're cutting it.

This is going to be more obvious if we add an envelope to the frequency.

And this can make a sound a bit more powerful than than something like this.

We have cool filter drives. So we can add drive in some of these modes here under clean.

And this can make your sound very fat even without reaching for a saturator.

We also have different routing modes for these filters. So we are in serial mode

these filters. So we are in serial mode of filtering which basically means uh our filters go after each other. So

we're cutting the highs and then from this signal we're cutting the lows.

We can have parallel which basically means we are splitting the sound into two signals. We have one we have one

two signals. We have one we have one which cuts the highs and we have another which cuts the lows.

[Music] So we can sort of carve a gap in between these. We also have a split mode which

these. We also have a split mode which basically means uh oscillator one is going to go into filter one and oscillator 2 is going to go into filter two. So oscillator one just gets this

two. So oscillator one just gets this treatment and oscillator 2 just gets this.

Maybe we can also have a low cut or maybe a band pass.

And yeah, we can separate these in this way.

What else? Uh, we have of course different types of curves. So, we have low pass, most default mode, highp pass if you just want the very highs, band pass, which is basically a combination of both. And we also have a notch

of both. And we also have a notch filter, which basically can cut some resonant frequencies. For instance, if

resonant frequencies. For instance, if we want to cut the fundamental or something else or just create a phasing sort of sound, [Music]

this can be done with the notch. And

then we also have a morph filter which if we disable the first one basically allows us to morph between different kinds of filters.

[Music] And you probably know this from the auto filter effect. Okay. So, let's just go

filter effect. Okay. So, let's just go back to just one curve.

Another important feature here is unison. If we just disable the LFO, we

unison. If we just disable the LFO, we can take a look at that. We can stack more oscillator voices. So, we can sort of duplicate our synth and we can d-tune

each of these duplicates uh which is going to have uh sort of a choir effect or just a much bigger sound. And that's

really easily done. You just enable, for example, classic unison mode. We

increase the voices amount to, for example, three. Let's just test this

example, three. Let's just test this sound. I'm just going to also reset the

sound. I'm just going to also reset the filter envelope. So that's without it.

filter envelope. So that's without it.

The sound is mono. Now

it gets stereo in unison mode. And the

higher we go with the amount of D-tune, the more chorusy, the more powerful the sound is going to get. At some point, it's just going to sound d-tuned.

[Applause] So anywhere after 40 50% it just gets very d-tuned. So that's unison. We also

very d-tuned. So that's unison. We also

have shimmer mode which just sounds very lush.

And some cool tricks I wanted to show you. For example, let's take another

you. For example, let's take another wave table. For instance, we have this

wave table. For instance, we have this amber wavetable which sounds quite curious.

And we can map an LFO to this position of this wave table. So we can just click on wavetable position and map the first LFO to this one. Let's just increase

oscillator one position with LFO one.

And we're just mapping it to this control right here to move it.

So now if we for example take a bit of unison and we also throw in an envelope onto the filter, it's going to give us a nice pad sound.

And the core of the sound, the oscillator just evolves a bit more and just makes the sound uh a bit more interesting. We don't have a noise

interesting. We don't have a noise oscillator here in wavetable. In my

opinion, that's one of the cons here.

But there's a cool trick we can use. We

have a noise section here. So for

instance, we have this highp pass noise wave table. And if we disable this LFO,

wave table. And if we disable this LFO, you can hear it has a tone to itself. So

it's not ideal. And it's also very static. So we just need to move this

static. So we just need to move this wavetable with this LFO.

And what we could do, for instance, is just hype or maybe bandpass this sound.

So, we're not getting the ideal lush sounding white noise, but we can sort of add a bit of noisiness to our patches easily using this trick. What else? This

is one of the first devices in Ableton which uses MP. And this is sort of a new addition to MIDI, which is the way we sequence things and the way we write our

patterns. And basically, MPE stands for

patterns. And basically, MPE stands for MIDI polyonic expression. It allows you to control many different parameters in the synth based on the way you press notes on your MP enabled MIDI

controller. And for instance, on push

controller. And for instance, on push three, you can slide between notes uh just by sliding your finger over the pads and you're not just locked to a

single MIDI note at a time. And you can also do many different things. It's a

bit like after touch on a classic MIDI keyboard. It's just got many more

keyboard. It's just got many more modulation possibilities. All right, so

modulation possibilities. All right, so now that we have the very basics of wavetable covered, let's just take a look at our three patches for today. And

the first one is uh a bit of an arp sequence. We don't actually have an

sequence. We don't actually have an arpeggiator here, but we are using this LFO to add that. So, let's play it.

So, maybe let's just disable this LFO for now. Just going to go down to zero

for now. Just going to go down to zero with the amount.

The basis of this sound is just a nice lush saw wave pad. We have two oscillators.

That's the first one.

The second one is pitched by seven semmitones, which is a fifth. That's a

really nice interval and it works well.

Just add some interesting harmonics here.

And the sub adds some bass to it.

What else? Uh we have of course a low pass filter. We are letting through some

pass filter. We are letting through some more higher frequencies by just choosing the 12dB filter. Clean mode. And the

bulk of this sound shaping is uh just made with this LFO. Let's enable it again.

So we have a 1 / 12 rate which basically means with each bar we get 12 cycles of the LFO and we also have this attack

stage of this LFO. So without it it's opening up right away. Uh maybe

it's not as obvious because we also have some amp attack.

So now it's should be pretty obvious.

But now if we enable this attack on the LFO, you can hear that it only starts moving the filter more and more when we hold the note a bit longer. We just have it

mapped to both filter one frequency and uh subosscillator gain. So just this knob right here. On top we have some very simple effects. the echo and the

reverb would sound like this without these.

The echo and reverb just add a bit more spaciousness here.

And this patch, just like the others for today, are available in our Ableton Live presets bundle. All right, so uh next up

presets bundle. All right, so uh next up we have this bass.

[Music] Right. So, we have also all of the

Right. So, we have also all of the oscillators enabled. Let's get started

oscillators enabled. Let's get started with the first one is a square wave.

As you can probably hear, we have unison enabled. Would sound like this without

enabled. Would sound like this without it. We're in the classic mode with three

it. We're in the classic mode with three voices.

Maybe I'm going to disable the effects here so we can hear dry. And then on top we have another oscillator

which is an octave above. So this

oscillator is minus 24 steps. So two

octaves down. This oscillator is 12 steps down. So one octave down. And we

steps down. So one octave down. And we

also have a sub which sounds like this.

So it doesn't give us much of a sub.

It's the same octave as this one. Uh and

that's also how it can be used. So, not

always does it have to sit underneath everything. If we just take some

everything. If we just take some oscillator down even further, this can just boost our harmonics on top of it.

So, what else is going on? Of course, we have an envelope applied to the frequency knob on the filter. So, we

have a few more parameters here. This is

the filter. And we what else? We have

oscillator 2 position being uh modulated by envelope 3. So if we take a look, this is envelope 3 and this is our sub3.

Also getting a bit less harmonics. What

else? Uh we have the LFO mapped to bunch of parameters. Oscillator one gain sub

of parameters. Oscillator one gain sub gain and filter one frequency. So LFO

one is right here. We have a sine wave and this just adds a bit of movement to the gain and also to the filter. Just

makes this sound slightly more interesting. On top of this, we have

interesting. On top of this, we have saturation, just for some additional drive here.

And then also echo and reverb standard stuff for a bit of space. Very subtle

here.

The echo is a bit more present. So that

would be our second patch. And the third one sounds like this. Let's play it.

That's the MIDI. It's also fairly simple. We're using the saw wave. Let's

simple. We're using the saw wave. Let's

take a look at oscillator one without unison first.

And I'm going to disable the effects.

Then we also have oscillator 2, which is our white noise trick.

And that would be only audible if we just went up higher with the cutff.

So it's just adding that subtle white noise in the background. If we h made it louder here, it would be more obvious, but let's just leave it subtle. We also have a sub

underneath, [Music] and we have the tone at 100%.

meaning we get many more harmonics. All

of this together sounds like this. We also have a highp pass here.

Just cutting a bit of that bass that is created with the sub. As for the mappings, we have LFO also mapped to oscillator to position. And that's just

for our white noise trick. So you can see it moving.

On top of the entire synth, we have saturation.

And finally, we have unison classic mode.

Just gives us this classic stereo width and a bit more chorusy feel. Now we have saturator on top for a bit more drive and grit. And we

have chorus, very subtle on top in the ensemble mode. So, uh, this is going to be quite powerful if we just

take it all the way up.

Yeah. But we can reduce it on top. Just

echo and reverb. Just adding that sense of space. And an EQ as well, which is

of space. And an EQ as well, which is just lowering the very lows here.

And many other of our Ableton presets also are racked like this. So you can easily control the most important parameters like cutff, chorus, and just

echo, reverb. All right, I hope this

echo, reverb. All right, I hope this overview of Wavetable was useful for you guys, make sure to check out our music production academy with start to finish courses on making tracks in various genres. And if you'd like to learn

genres. And if you'd like to learn Ableton 12 with all the foundations of music production, check out the beginner to advanced Live 12 start to finish course. Make sure to also check out the

course. Make sure to also check out the Ableton Live presets bundle, which includes lots of presets like this for a wave table. And to see all of that,

wave table. And to see all of that, check out the video description. Make

sure to subscribe to our channel. If you

enjoyed this video, leave it a like, write us a comment, and I will see you in the next ones.