F9 Audio has released Firebird, a freely downloadable Ableton Live template based on their award winning F9 TRAX template format.
The main difference between F9 TRAX and regular DAW templates is the fact that F9 Audio doesn’t use any external plugins in their template projects. Everything is done inside the DAW (Ableton Live in this case), composed, mixed and mastered using the program’s built-in instruments, effects and sounds. This way, the user can take a look under the hood of a professionally mixed project, customize any of its parts and completely rearrange it without having to use anything but the tools that came with the DAW. It’s a pretty cool concept.
See also: Ableton Live 9 Review!Firebird is one such template, featuring a complete house track (122 BPM) that was created using Ableton Live. It is compatible with Ableton Live 9.5+ Suite and Standard editions (I’ve personally used the free trial version to test the template). The project is neatly organized, with clearly labeled sequences, FX chains and mixer channels. It’s worth noting that F9 Audio has also included a text file that explains some of the mixing and sound design techniques that were used in the project, in particular some of the methods that they used in order to get the most out of Ableton’s built-in EQ and Glue compressor effects. That’s a pretty neat touch and one that will definitely help the users who are downloading the template for educational purposes.
Apart from the Ableton Live project, the pack also contains a set of loops and one shot samples in WAV and AIFF formats (synth stabs, drum machine hits, strings, etc.), so it might be worth the download even if you’re not planning to use the template that comes with it. The template can be downloaded completely free of charge from F9 Audio’s website on the product page linked below. On a related note, there are only a few days left to download F9 Audio’s excellent free Roland TR-909 sample pack, so make sure you grab that one as well while you still can.
Firebird is available for free download via F9 Audio (154 MB download size, ZIP archive, contains 1 template in ALP format for Ableton Live, 66 audio samples and loops in WAV and AIFF formats).
