Today we are talking about Ableton’s hidden menus. It’s a special part of Ableton. Once you find them all, you will come to love and adore how they are set up.
As you all well know, screen space is limited. I actually went through a phase of time where I was using Ableton on a big screen TV so I could see everything I was doing. Those days have since passed and I’ve upgraded to a cleaner and more reasonable monitor.
But what we came here to talk about is the 6 hidden menus on your master channel.
Ableton often hides things away a little bit by keeping different layers of controls in separate menus. At first, this can be frustrating as you are trying to find things, but ultimately, this is Ableton’s way of putting you in control of what you see. As I mention from time to time, Ableton is completely modular. It is made up of a ton of little pieces that we as the users can assemble to create something awesome.
Ableton doesn’t tell us what we should want to see, it lets us pick and choose. Most of the time, It does this via menus.
So let’s get you in the driver seat and show you these 6 hidden menus and what they do.
6 Show/Hide Menu Options
I/O
This option reveals or hides your inputs and outputs. When I am performing live, I always hide these. Reason being, my tracks are all labeled and color-coded, so it doesn’t provide me with any helpful additional information. It just takes up space, and on my laptop, screen space is valuable real-estate.
When I am working on creating music, Or I am building a live set, I always have these set to be shown. You never know when you may need to change the audio or midi routing, or resample, or check signal flow. The list goes on.
As a rule of thumb, off for live performance, on for creating.
Sends
When I perform live I also hide my sends. This is namely because my primary controller for live performance is a novation LaunchControl XL. For those of you who are familiar with this controller, all of the knobs are fixed position. This means I don’t need the visual feedback of the sends on my screen because I am able to tell where the sends sit by looking at my controller.
When I am creating in live, I leave this viewable. I go back and forth from controlling sends with my mouse to using my controller, so its handy to have them visible.
Returns
I always leave these showing. I want to be able to see how much volume is coming out of my send effects. Sometimes if I get stuck with a stuffy in-ear mix, this is the only way to gauge how much delay is being sent to the house.
Meters
I always leave the meters showing as well. Although in live performance my primary way to check how much volume I am sending out is to look at my controller, having some visual feedback on the screen helps me to navigate where I am better in off chance that I need to quickly access something during a performance.
Delay
I always hide my track delay. This is one of the features that I rarely use. On the off chance that I do end up using it, I will toggle it on, get the delay setting I need, and then hide it again.
Crossfader
This is another feature I rarely use, and so for me, it makes the most sense to keep this hidden. If you are using Ableton Live to DJ, the crossfader is something that you will definitely want to keep viewable so you are able to switch easily between A and B
Make good use of these menus! If there is something you aren’t using, go ahead and hide it. It will take up less of your screen space, and less of your brain space.