Worship Teams

Ableton Live in Worship w/ Will Doggett

If you run tracks in worship, there are many different softwares you can use to run them. One of the most popular is Ableton Live. Matt McCoy from Loop Community and Will Doggett with From Studio to Stage, both Ableton Live Certified Trainers, sat down to talk about how churches have changed how they use tracks, what types of churches should use Ableton Live, and more!

How has technology in church changed?

Ableton Live was originally created for DJs, but worship leaders over the years have learned how to make it work great for running tracks in churches. We asked Will how he’s seen it change over the years.

Will: “With technology becoming more inexpensive and more resources, more people are learning how to do it. There are worship leaders that walk into a school auditorium that have the same level of technology as artists that are out on the road to run their tracks. It used to be “protected knowledge” but now it’s super fun to see more access for people. Smaller bands and worship leaders have access to the same tools as the big guys.”

Should you use Ableton Live?

Whether you’ve never used tracks at church, or you have been for years, you may be thinking about if you should check out Ableton Live.

Will: “Be humbly confident, and humbly curious. There’s people that use apps to run their tracks and think there’s no way they would ever switch, and other people that use Ableton or MainStage and think they would never switch. Be humbly confident and know what you’re using. But be humbly curious too and find out how other people are using tracks and see if it can help what you do.”

Should a church use an app like the Prime MultiTrack App to run tracks in worship or Ableton Live?

Will: “If you’re a worship leader, and you’re getting started with tracks, an app like Playback or Prime is the way. Do not start on Ableton. I think the shift to using Ableton is for people that want to dive deeper into the content and be more intentional. There are certain things that multitrack apps won’t do and that’s a good thing. Their point is simplicity. When it comes to Ableton, being very intentional with transitions and putting everything exactly where you want it, such as muting a certain instrument in a specific part of the song, those are things that only Ableton can do. So if that’s what you want to do, then you should make the switch to Ableton.”

If you want to hear more of this awesome conversation and dive deeper into Ableton Live, watch the full interview below.

Resources

If you’re looking for training in Ableton Live, check out Loop Community’s free Beginner Class and more on YouTube, and check out From Studio to Stage.