Playback Coaching is simply one-on-one lessons to help you grow as a playback engineer and learn how to use Ableton to make a great live show.

You can sign up for as many 55-minute lessons as you want, and they are fully personalized to you and your goals. When you sign up, you’ll fill out a brief form describing what you hope to learn during your lesson or lessons.

All lessons take place on Zoom, so you can learn no matter where in the world you’re located.

That depends on your goals! Here’s a breakdown of what I recommend:

• Take ONE lesson if you have a specific question, a specific thing you’d like more information on, or you’d like an introductory overview of a few topics.

• Take TWO or THREE lessons if you want to take a deep dive into more intensive subjects.

• Take FOUR lessons if you want a comprehensive overview of using Ableton for playback. My most dedicated students have booked four lessons.

These lessons are 100% personalized based around you, solving your struggles, and achieving your goals. When you book your lesson, you’ll fill out a form describing what you’d like to discuss and your current skill level in Ableton. I look over each form & make a custom plan for how to best help you in the timeframe we have. During the lesson, you can ask any and every question you want, and if you’d like to talk about something specific, we will!

The short answer is no. The principles of playing back audio, controlling a DAW with MIDI, and using a DAW to sync or control other hardware are universal and can be applied in other DAWs. However, Ableton Live is the industry standard for playback, so I recommend all my students make the switch to Ableton for playback if they haven’t already.

I do not record these lessons. If the student would like to record the lesson, they are more than welcome to do so during the lesson.

You’re almost right– you can “kind of” learn playback on YouTube, but not fully. When I teach students who have learned from YouTube without any one-on-one mentorship, I usually find that they’ve either picked up some bad habits or they’re not taking full advantage of all that Ableton has to offer. That’s because YouTube tutorials are generic– they’re meant to teach you a copy-and-paste method that can apply to everyone. 

While that can work for some people, generic, copy-and-paste approaches to playback don’t take into account you, your band, your clients, and your unique needs. Every student I’ve worked with has unique issues that need specialized solutions.

So while learning on YouTube is a great place to start, one-on-one lessons are the best next step to help you get specialized suggestions about your unique show.

Let’s put this in perspective: music schools can charge over $1,000 per credit hour– and they might not even teach you how to run playback (my music school certainly didn’t teach me how to run playback!) Now the prices don’t sound too bad right?

Playback is a highly specialized, highly-sought-after skill that will make you more valuable to your band, church, or artist. Not many people ACTUALLY understand how to use Ableton for playback, so being the person that DOES understand how it all works will make you indispensable– that was definitely the case for me!

So, this one-time investment is actually a small price to pay to learn such a niche skill. I’m confident you’ll get your money’s worth, and I believe this skill can make you more money in the long run.

There’s two qualities I recommend you look for in a coach or teacher. First, you should look for experience. Ask yourself: “has this person achieved the goals I want to achieve?” Next, you should look for teaching ability. Just because someone is skilled in a certain area, doesn’t mean they’re a great teacher. Teachers have the special ability to make complicated subjects (like playback) seem simple, and they are able to guide students based on their unique strengths, weaknesses, and goals.

I’ve designed, operated, and improved dozens of Ableton sessions for dozens of artists in my career. I’ve toured across the world with artists at all sorts of different places in their careers– from bar bands, emerging artists, household-name artists, and even churches. I’ve been helping my students learn Ableton Live for over a year, and every time I teach a lesson, I start to see light bulbs go off in my student’s brains–because they’re finally understanding how Ableton ACTUALLY works.

If you’d like to know more, you can check out my free course or my Instagram profile to get an idea of what learning from me will be like.

Running playback in Ableton is a niche, specialized, and highly-sought-after skill. This is true no matter what kind of music you make– cover bands, emerging artists, established touring artists, and even churches all need playback to make their performances or services great.

The problem is… not many people know how to build or operate great playback sessions!

That means there’s a gap in the market for you to capitalize on. Learning playback will make you more valuable and indispensable to your band, artist, church, etc. This means you’ll be able to get more gigs, get better gigs, keep those gigs longer, and make more money in the process.

The short answer is no… but I have an FREE online course that shows you how to build your OWN Ableton template! Best of all, I’ll show you how to do it in roughly one hour. Because why would I sell you my template when I can show you how to build your own? You can access the course for free here.

I’m currently in the process of creating online courses that I believe will help you learn playback. But those are still in the works, so these lessons are the best way for me to teach you right now!

If you’re interested in learning to build your own Ableton template from scratch, you can check out my FREE online course titled “How to Build Your Own Ableton Template in One Hour” here.

One of the best things about these lessons is that you’re learning from an actively touring playback engineer. That means everything you’re learning in these lessons is tour-tested. The downside to this, however, is that it’s nearly impossible for me to teach lessons while I’m touring! So I only offer these lessons when I have extended time off of tour.

I only offer these lessons when I have extended periods of time off of tour– and if you’ve ever toured, you know that shows can pop up out of nowhere! That means I can’t make any promises about when I’ll be able to open up lessons again.

If you missed out on lessons, you can check out my free course titled “How to Build Your Own Ableton Template in One Hour” for free here. Or, you can also join the playback coaching waitlist to get notified when more lessons are available.