Nobody plays it perfectly. The professional answer is to play it several times and assemble the good bits, and Live does this with take lanes.
Record the takes
- Arm the track and set an arrangement loop over the section.
- Turn on Loop in the transport and record. Every pass through the loop lands on its own take lane instead of overwriting the last one.
- Play it five, eight, ten times. Do not stop to fix things — the point is variety.
When the track has more than one take, a Show/Hide Take Lanes button appears in the track header. Open it and every pass is there, stacked underneath.
Build the comp
- Click a region of any take lane to promote it to the main track. That section now plays from that take.
- Drag the edges to change where the switch happens. Live crossfades the joins for you.
- Use the arrow keys to move the selection between takes without touching the mouse — this is the one that makes comping fast.
- Scrub across the lanes while the transport runs to compare the same bar across every take.
Keep it tidy
Right-click a track or take lane header for Delete All Take Lanes and Delete Unused Take Lanes. Run the second one when the comp is finished — it clears out everything not audible on the main track and leaves the takes you actually used.
Do not delete them until you are sure. Take lanes cost you nothing but disk space, and the take you rejected on Tuesday is often the one you want on Friday.
It works for MIDI too
Everything above applies to MIDI takes as well as audio. Loop-record a synth line eight times and comp the best phrases together — much faster than editing one take into shape.
Do this now
Record a vocal or a lead line eight times through a two-bar loop without stopping. Then build one pass out of them, using only the arrow keys and the return key. Time yourself. Once it clicks it is faster than fixing a single take, and the result is better.