If you recall from our first session recording guitar with Ableton Live, we imported a drum loop and did a little recording. Now, you’re going to need a bass line, but with Ableton Live, you don’t need a bass! Listen to the drum part and experiment with some possible bass lines on the guitar. When you find one you like, just click on a clip slot in the armed track and play it. Keep playing bass lines until you get one that feels locked in, then click on any square-shaped stop button in the same track to stop the clip’s playback for editing the drum part will continue to play. Double-click on the clip you just recorded to open Live’s Clip View at the bottom of the screen. Trim the loop in real-time to play just the best version of what will soon be the bass line.

Now let’s say that you’ve decided that it would be cool to have the guitar double the bass line. Just copy the clip and paste it into another audio track. (You can create a new audio track from the Insert menu.) Next, go into the Clip View for clip that will become your bass line and turn the Transpose knob down to 12 semitones to transpose the guitar clip down an octave. Voila! Instant bass line.

Next time, we’ll record some rhythm tracks and enhance the drum groove.