Ableton Live Tutorial: Setting up a Clicktrack

This tutorial will show you how you can set up multiple audio channels so that one will play a click-track.

In my band, we have our drummer play along with Ableton's built-in click-track, so that our whole set will always be properly aligned. It's not difficult to do. Ideally, you'll want a soundcard with multiple stereo outputs, but I am going to show you how you can set up your computers stereo out so that only the left channel will play a clicktrack.

1. In Clip View, take a look at your Master channel strip. If you can't find it, press the black circle with the gray M in it in the bottom-right corner.

 2. As you can see, both the Master Out and Cue Out are assigned to 1/2. What this means is that both the Master Out, which is the output that all audio tracks in Ableton send their output to, and the Cue Out, which is a separate, customisable channel that is used by the metronome, both use output 1/2. If you have no special sound card set up, this means that they both use the stereo output on your computer. This step is simple. Click the drop-down menu, select output 1 (Left stereo channel) for Cue, and select output 2 for the Master Out.

3. If you activate the metronome and press play, you'll notice that the output will only come through the output set up as cue.