Organ Swells

Ableton Version Manual

Installation

There are two ways to install Organ Swells for Ableton: the project file or the .ADG file.

The Project File is used for quick access to the library and doesn't need much for installation. Once the download file is unzipped, open the project file using Ableton and you should have access.

The .ADG file is used to add Organ Swells to an existing project. There are two ways of adding this to a project. The easiest way is to drag and drop the .ADG file into your open Ableton project. It will add a new MIDI channel with Organ Swells loaded in. The second way is to move/copy the .ADG file into the path below (using Command + Shift + G then putting a slash on a Mac is an easy way to navigate to this path)

Music / Ableton / User Library / Presets / Instruments / Instrument Racks

Once the .ADG file is put in that folder, it will now be easier to find within Ableton. When you open the Browser (Control + Option + B), you have easy access to everything within the User Library folder in Places. Simply navigate to the file and drag and drop it into your project.

Session View Interface

This part is only applicable when loading the project file.

In Session View, you should see the clips divided into two sections: Notes and Chords. Activating the "Organ Swells" clip will let you have access to individual notes. As you select different keys, you'll have access to the chords relative to those keys. We'll get into that later in the Using Chords section below. There's also a Custom Chords option to manually trigger whichever chords you'd like.

Device Interface

The device interface has a number of envelope and EQ options at your fingertips. Attack is recommended to stay at zero as there’s already a slow attack already. By default, Release is at 5.31 seconds but depending how fast moving a chord progression is, may need to be shifted accordingly. Tone (LPF) is by default wide open, but if you want to kick the swells back in the mix a bit and mellow them out, this is a great place to start!

Using Chords

Unlike most other sample libraries, the chords side is key-specific. It has every chord (major, minor, inversions) sampled with a two-octave span and, as the desired key is loaded, it allows the appropriate chords to be triggered within that key. For instance, if you select the key of C, this is what would play when you hit the following notes:

Layering Chords

One of the advantages of the versions with key-specific chords is the ability to layer them with other instruments in a live context. You can either open the Organ Swells project file and add other instruments (like piano, pad, strings, etc) on new MIDI tracks OR you can drop in the .ADG file into an existing Ableton project.

It’s important when layering to restrict the key range under the “Key” details to a desired range. It’s highly recommended to limit the range to just below an octave (for instance, C1 to B1). This prevents multiple chords from being triggered when playing in octaves.

Using Custom Chords

Normal key selection works for the majority of songs in normal major and Mixolydian modes. When playing songs outside of those modes or where there are chords outside the traditional chords of those modes, Custom Chords is great to have around! With this setting, the keyboard is divided into three octaves of chords. C1 through B1 are all the major chords, C2 through B2 are all the minor chords and C3 through B3 are all the inversions (1/3, 5/7). This lets you trigger whichever chord you want at any time.

NOTE: It’s not possible to layer using the custom chords setting. This is more for tracking in studio than using live.

Tech Specs

  • Sample Rate: 44.1 kHz 24 bit

  • Download Size: 687 MB

  • Library Size: 755.6 MB

Requirements

  • Ableton Live v12.0.10 or higher with Sampler installed

  • 8 GB RAM

Questions?

For any additional questions you have on Organ Swells or any other library, please contact us.