How to Get Rid of Static in Ableton Live 8

Ableton Live's Gate effect works as a noise gate for removing static and other artifacts from your recordings. You can add a noise gate to an audio track containing the undesirable noise, then configure it to filter it out from the mix. This effect is especially useful for removing unwanted static from audio tracks with pauses in between the musical content. Add Ableton Live's Gate effect plugin to your project to remove static in less than two minutes.

Double-click the Ableton Live desktop icon to open it. The user interface will load after a few seconds.

Open the project containing the audio file from which you want to remove static. Click "File," "Open," then select the project from the list that appears on the pop-up screen. It may take anywhere from a few seconds to a couple of minutes to load the project.

Click the first button underneath the down arrow icon on the left side of Ableton Live's user interface. This will expand the instruments and effects section.

Click-and-drag "Gate" from the list of plugins onto the audio track with the audio containing static. The Gate plugin will be added before the mixer in the the track's routing chain.

Set the Gate's "Attack" setting to zero, or all the way to the left. This tells the Gate to begin processing as soon as possible.

Set the Gate's "Hold" knob to zero, then slowly increase its level until the sound is no longer choppy. The "Hold" setting tells the Gate how long to hold the audio before sending it through the noise gate.

Click your mouse into the "Attenuation" box, then drag it up to its maximum setting. This will tell the Gate to cut the signal completely when signals reach below this level. The higher the setting, the more often the Gate will be applied.

Turn the "Release" knob in either direction until you reach a setting that sounds natural. The "Release" setting tells the gate how quickly to let go of its effect on the signal being passed through. There should now be periods of silence in between the musical content and the empty spaces that once contained static.