Don’t Trust Me…I’m an Ableton Live Certified Trainer
I've spent years and years coming up with a process and working on a path that
will allow you to perform on stage with track successfully. But don't trust me.
I'm an enable to live certified trainer, and ultimately,
do not take my word for it.
Okay?
So that definitely wins the award for the oddest weirdest intro to a podcast
ever. But I promise I'm going somewhere with it. So today, again,
I want to implore you and ask you do not trust me, and I,
I'm an Ableton live certified trainer. Ultimately, do not take my word for it.
First off, before we get into today's content,
I wanna say welcome back to the show. Uh, if you're brand new here,
the name of the podcast is Behind the Space Barn.
It's for folks that perform on stage, uh, with tracks,
particularly with Ableton Live,
whether you're currently doing that or wanting to do that. And again, if, uh,
if this is not your first time and you're coming back, then welcome back.
Today's gonna be a really, really short show, and it's one of those shows that,
uh,
I know will not get a lot of views because it's not something cool with Ableton
Live. It's kind of falls more into that philosophy bucket,
which drives a lot of you crazy,
particularly people are just kind of on the sidelines watching and listening.
Um, but it's the, the one I continually type of content,
I continually hear from a lot of you that really enjoy this. Uh,
this is something that, uh,
over the past couple weeks is I've not been creating content that I've been kind
of just stewing on and thinking through and going,
how can I perfectly articulate this? And so, I'm not gonna go long.
I've just made some quick notes here to try to walk through this.
But let me explain the scenario that has brought me to this point to,
to try to encourage you to not trust me, and don't take my word for it.
I'm unable to live certified trainer. So, um, I create a lot of content, right?
Um, um, you know, two pieces of content every week, almost every single week.
And with that content, I get a lot of comments from people. Um,
a lot of times it's, it's really, really great stuff. Like,
I love when people reach out and I try to reshare these people,
reach out often and say, Hey, I, I listened to you.
I tried and applied what you were talking about, and it worked, and I,
I'm so glad I did. Sometimes people will reach out with clarification, Hey,
I tried that and, and it wasn't working. Do you have any ideas?
And I do my best, particularly on YouTube to try to reply to everyone. Um,
but that's about all I can promises. I'm gonna get you one reply.
Sometimes people will reply back and go, but it didn't work. How do I do this?
That's why I offer coaching from cdh.com/coaching, if you wanna check that out.
Lots of different options there. This is not meant to be a pitch for coaching,
uh, but I do my best to try to answer comments. And again,
I get a lot of really, really good ones. But from time to time,
I get comments that I can basically just sum up as yeah, comma, but dot,
dot, dot, uh, and I think that's kind of, uh,
the funniest YouTube comments to me often. Yeah. But, uh, because often it,
it comes from a heart of immediately dismissing something you don't understand
and you haven't tried. What I mean by that is, um, uh, you know,
I'll do a video going, Hey, check out this brand new product,
check out this brand new plugin. And someone will say, yeah, that's great,
but it won't work for me. Yeah, that's great, but this person did it better.
Yeah, that's great, but it doesn't work with, with my version of Ableton Live.
And, and that, uh, response is not coming from, um, I have tried it.
I've tried to implement it into my setup and it's not working. Uh,
I've tried to implement it, and here's the reasons why it's not working.
It simply just comes from a arms crossed, unwilling to try anything new,
unwilling to adapt and change, um, kind of response, right?
So often I'll hear this doesn't work. Here's why. Uh,
people are very resistant to change.
Often I think some of us feel attacked when someone says, Hey,
don't do it this way. When I create a video that says, Hey, uh,
95 to 99% of the time when you're running tracks,
you should run tracks in arrangement view and not session view. And here's why.
And I walk you through. We immediately want to justify, no, no, no.
This is why I use Session view. This is why session view is better. Um, to me,
it all comes down to this, this posture, this, this phrase I've shared many,
many times before on the podcast. My wife actually sent me, uh,
a real on Instagram that Gary v did, where he used this almost exact phrasing,
but humbly confident, humbly curious.
It's this mindset of being both confident in your abilities and what you're
doing, but always being curious. Is there a better way to do it? Right?
So that to me is something I've just kind of implemented in my life.
And almost everything, uh, the way I run my business, my,
my method of productivity, my faith, my uh, relationship with my wife,
the way we raise our kids decisions about where to live, to sell our house,
I'm humbly confident, but I'm also humbly, humbly curious. So here's what I ask.
Again, I told you this is gonna be a short episode. Uh, you know,
I always say that it ends up going long, but I'm like almost done, uh,
at this point. So here's what I asked. Don't trust me.
I'm an Ableton Live certified trainer. Here's what I ask you to do.
Try it for yourself. Okay? So, uh,
I actually replied a couple weeks ago to someone on YouTube, and it was, um,
I can't remember what it was, but the heart of the video was essentially a, um,
don't use session view for tracks. Do this instead, you know,
here's how to use tracks in arrangement view. Um, and I believe it was the,
the video where I actually did a shootout and probably about the first five
comments on that video are very, yeah, but yeah, but you do this.
Yeah, but blah, blah, blah, blah. And again, I appreciate those comments.
I appreciate those feedback. There's been major,
major shifts I've made to how I teach content. I create based on,
um, I wouldn't say negative,
but based on critical feedback that people have provided. Um,
and so I'm super thankful for those types of comments. I don't dismiss them,
but, um, uh, one of the big comments was someone basically saying, yeah,
that's not gonna work because of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And it was clear based on their comment that they had not even tried what I was
saying. They were very entrenched that, you know,
they mentioned how many years they've been using Ableton Live. Uh, you know,
I'm, I clearly look younger than they do, so I obviously don't know that much.
And so they said, well, I've been using, able to live for X amount of years, um,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And my response back to 'em,
I realized when I said it, I said,
this is actually what I want for all of my students, is don't trust me. I'm,
I'm an able to live certified trainer. Don't trust me.
What I want you to do is try it for yourself. All you can do is don't say no.
If I say, Hey, uh, you should run tracks in arrangement,
you instead of session B,
don't immediately cross your arms and explain to me the five reasons why you
can't. All you can do, don't say no. Try it out and apply it.
And here's the thing that I love about that approach is if what I'm teaching you
works, then great. You're, you found a better method.
You found a better process. You were in that humbly curious portion of this,
and you found a better process that works better than what you were doing
before. Ultimately, you win, you've improved your process.
Things are better for you. But here's what's great. If it doesn't work,
just go back to what you're doing before. You haven't lost anything, right?
You haven't committed and transferred your entire file process to a new method.
You tried something out, it either worked or it didn't work, and you went back.
So that's kind of becoming the thing that when I'm talking to students and, uh,
I have a lot of students that are brand new with Ableton Live,
or they're coming from Pro Tools or Logic or some other doll or maybe they're
coming from, uh, a worship perspective.
They're using playback or prime and moving to Ableton,
or maybe they're even running tracks have been used to running tracks in session
view, and they see my content and go, I really like what you're saying.
I really want to try that out. I really want to go that particular direction.
Then my, my messaging to them lately has just been great. Fantastic.
Here's what I just all I can encourage you to do, don't trust me.
I'm an Ableton Live certified trainer. Try it for yourself, right? Um,
don't say no, just try it. Finally, I want to end with, uh, a comment,
uh, kind of a, a mantra to live your life by, if you will, that, uh,
good friend of mine, Doug, um, shared a few years ago.
Doug was a boss of mine in Florida. And, um, now really, really great friend.
That's a good sign that you're a boss when someone used to be your boss and
you're still a good friend with them. Uh, that says a lot about them as a boss,
maybe a little bit about me as an employee,
but more about him as a boss than it does about me. Uh, but he had this,
this phrase he would say all the time, don't be a dinosaur.
And you may hear that immediately and go, well, that's, that's ageist.
That means, you know, don't be someone old that's like sticking around playing.
No,
you can be a dinosaur at any age because a dinosaur is holding onto what you've
done in the past. It's someone who protects it, by all means the status quo,
right? You've figured out how to run tracks, you've got your process.
This young kid comes along that you don't know their history and don't know how
many years they've actually been doing it.
You just happen to stumble on their video and think it's the first time they've
done a video and you go, Hey, man, that that doesn't work.
Let me tell you exactly why it's not gonna work, kid. Um, again,
it has nothing to do with age.
I find myself struggling often with don't be a dinosaur.
Someone will come out with a new plugin,
someone will come out with a new mini controller,
a new software will be released that could potentially replace the software I've
been using for many, many years that I would consider myself an expert on,
or that I know really, really well. And ironically enough,
you know what my first response to that is? When I see that stuff, arms crossed,
that's not gonna work. Yeah, that's, that's not gonna, no, that's, that's,
that's not the way we do it. You know, this is why my, my method is better.
This is why my process is better than that method,
and that's me being a dinosaur. So again,
this idea of don't be a dinosaur has nothing to do with your age,
has everything to do with how you approach new things and the way you look at
new things and new ideas,
and how tightly you hold onto your precious ideas and making them precious.
Your ideas, your process is not precious. Hold onto it lightly.
But what is precious is the continuous,
continual pursuit of knowledge of better ways, which again,
takes us back to humbly confident, humbly curious.
So my hope is in listening and watching this episode,
that you can walk away and hopefully apply that humbly confident,
humbly curious approach to your performance on Sage,
to how you view Ableton Live, how you view my content,
how you view other people's content. So instead of us immediately dismissing it,
saying it's wrong, and here's why, let's step into that.
Let's try out new processes. I always say this,
if you're used to running tracks in arrangement view,
try running tracks in session view.
You're either gonna find something new that you can incorporate.
You'll find a new scenario where you can use it,
or you'll reinforce why you're doing what you're doing and vice versa.
If you're running tracks in session view, try running tracks in arranger view.
If you're running tracks,
try doing a live looping setup instead of running tracks.
If you're doing a live looping setup,
try running tracks instead of a live looping setup. Try something new,
experiment with it. If it works, then apply it. But whatever you do, do not.
Trust me. I'm an Ableton, live certified trader. So, uh,
that's all I've got for you today. Again, today's episode was short and sweet,
but thank you guys so much for listening, for watching.
Thank you for the comments, even when they're critical, even when, if, listen,
if you're a jerk, I'm just gonna delete your comment or I may mess with you.
I have photo you, depending on the mood I'm in, uh, as I did a couple days ago.
But I'm so thankful for your comments, for your encouragement, for the critical,
uh, comments that help push me to create better content. Do me a favor,
leave a comment on this episode. If you're watching on YouTube,
let me know what type of stuff you want to hear next. Again,
this is more of a philosophical thing, but let me know what questions you have,
um, content you specifically wanna see here on behind the Space Bar,
or maybe a tutorial a how to you wanna see about Ableton live. Leave a comment,
let me know. That helps immensely. And while you're there on YouTube, subscribe,
enable the bell icon. And if you're listening,
watching on Apple Podcast or Spotify, go ahead and follow,
subscribe to the show. Leave a rating and review.
Thanks much for listening and watching. We'll see you on the next one.
Take care everybody. Bye.