Step 1 in this class is figuring out the difference between Plugins and Instruments. We tackle that in this lesson.

If you've taken the other Ultimate Ableton Live classes of mine, you are totally up to speed with how MIDI works, but just for fun, lets run through a few key important concepts to refresh our memory.

You should already be pretty familiar with MIDI clips, but in this segment we will do another quick review to make sure we are all on the same page.

A quick overview of this section, and introduction to the "Key Synthesis Elements."

There are many different kinds of synthesis. We will mostly be working with FM, Physical Modeling, and a touch of a few others. I'll explain the differences in this video.

The "4 Key Elements" to synthesis are the main building blocks that will get you understanding all synthesizers quickly. Learn these concepts and you will always be able to make sound on any synthesizer.

A few notes about how we will be approaching the Analog Instrument.

First, we will walk through the basic outline and signal flow of Analog, paying special attention to our "4 Key Elements."

Now its time to get down and dirty: In this lesson we will program our own sounds, and explore some of the parameters in Analog.

A few extra features available to us in Analog, that we will also find in most of Ableton's Instruments.

Here is the session from this section. Download it, play with it, riff on it, enjoy!

Lets talk about Instruments - all of them!

First up: Live's Collision Instrument. A powerful physical modeling synth.

In this video we will program a sound with Collision. I'll give you the patch that I made in this video in the next segment.

The Electric Instrument is a model of an electric piano (like a Rhodes organ). In this segment we will explore its basic outline.

Walking through the key elements of Electric, looking for familiar parameters and anything new.

For this instrument we will deconstruct one of the presets that comes with Ableton Live - so you already have these files on your computer.

Next up: The Impulse. Great for drums and many other things. First we will look at its interface features and learn a little about it.

In this section we will make some music with Impulse and see what we can do with it.

Lets poke around and look at some of the Tension presets, and explore the different parameters using them.

Last but not least (for now) is the Operator. This is a mammoth synthesizer capable of amazing sounds and amazing diversity.

Like before, in this section we will look at a few of the Operator presets, using files you already have on your computer to learn more of the ins-and-outs of Operator.

What is the difference between a synthesizer and a sampler? Not much, actually.

First we will look at the Simpler - a simplified sampling instrument. Most of the controls here will be familiar to you.

Next, we move on to Sampler. This is a grown-up version of Sampler, but has a deceptively simple (looking) interface. The key to its power is hidden in the "zones" tab, which we will look at next.

In most sampling instruments, you will be working with more than one sample. This is how you set up a sampler to hold multiple samples, and make really expressive instruments with it.

In this section I'm going to open up a orchestra library sample pack that I have, using a Sampler. Its got about 300 different samples in it, so lets walk through how they are triggered.

What is this thing called Racks that I've been raving about? I promised you it would be something amazing, so here it is. First an explanation of what it is.

The Chain is a key element to Racks, as is the Chain Selector. How to create chains, and use the Chain Selector in this video.

Macros are like the dashboard of the Rack. Super powerful if you take advantage of them. Here is how.

In this video I'll dissect some Instrument Rack presets, so we can see what is inside them, and what makes them work.

We've seen Drum Racks before in some of the previous Ultimate Ableton Live classes that I've made. Now that you know what Instruments Racks are, Drums Racks should make a lot more sense. So lets have another look at them.

Drum Racks have a few special features that we can do that are specific to drum sounds. The Choke setting is a great one for building dynamic (and realistic) sounds.

The External Instrument is our gateway to talking to any physical synthesizers that you might have access to. Live can control those synthesizers and get audio from them. There are a few setup hurdles to jump through, but I'll walk you through it in this video.

Thanks for watching! Leave me some good comments if you enjoyed the class, and check out some of my other classes!

The next class in the series: Ultimate Ableton Live Part 5!

You can spice up what you are doing in your synths by using some MIDI effects. We will talk a lot about this in the next class (Ultimate Ableton Live 5), but here is a little bit on MIDI effects just to get you started with it.

There is so much more to learn!