Setwun’s Song Starters is an Ableton Live project packed with drum breaks, percussion loops, melodic sketches and creative tools to help you move quickly from a blank project to a musical idea worth developing. Built by Sydney producer, multi-instrumentalist and Liveschool trainer Josh Molony, aka Setwun, the pack captures the human feel of real performances and turns them into flexible starting points for your own tracks.
Josh’s productions blend jazz-informed harmony, dusty drums, live instrumentation and electronic production into a sound that feels loose, soulful and deeply musical. Having shared stages with artists including Flying Lotus and built a catalogue of distinctive releases, he brings a performer’s sense of movement and feel into this creative Ableton project.
Contents
- About Setwun
- What’s in the project
- The Drum Tool
- Slice it, flip it, make it yours
- More from Setwun
- What’s included
- Take your production further
About Setwun
Setwun is the project of Sydney producer, multi-instrumentalist and Liveschool trainer Josh Molony. His music sits between live musicianship and electronic production, drawing on jazz, broken beat, house, soul and sample-based workflows.
That same approach sits at the heart of Setwun’s Song Starters: capture the feeling first, then shape it into something new.
What’s in the project
Open the project in Ableton Live and you will find a Session View set full of material ready to combine, chop, stretch and reshape:
- 45 home-recorded drum breaks – recorded with a minimal mic setup and full of natural character.
- 19 percussion tops – shakers, hats, rides and movement to layer over the breaks.
- 19 melodic ideas – piano, Rhodes and synth sketches to help build harmony, mood and direction.
- Custom Drum Tool rack – a hands-on effects rack for shaping the included sounds.
- Drum and harmony slicers – pre-configured Simplers for chopping and rebuilding ideas.
Some of the drum breaks start with little fills, pickups or loose moments before they land on the one. That is deliberate. You can trim them into tight loops, or leave the extra movement in and use it as a natural intro into the groove.
The Drum Tool
The included Drum Tool brings transient shaping, low-end weight, tone control, saturation, drive and echo into one simple rack. Use it to tighten a break, add punch to a kick, brighten a percussion loop or push the whole thing into a more raw and distorted space.
Rather than setting up a chain of devices from scratch, the rack gives you fast, musical controls for reshaping the material as you work. The goal is speed: find a sound, twist it into shape, keep writing.
Slice it, flip it, make it yours
Alongside the loops, the project includes dedicated drum and harmony slicers. Drop in a break or melodic phrase, trigger new patterns, rearrange the rhythm and turn the source material into something completely different.
This is where the project really opens up. A Rhodes idea can become a chopped chord stab. A loose drum break can become a tight club pattern. A simple percussion top can become the start of a new groove. The sounds are designed to work together quickly, but they are also built to be pulled apart.
What’s included
- Complete Ableton Live project
- 45 home-recorded drum breaks
- 19 percussion tops
- 19 melodic ideas
- Custom Drum Tool audio effects rack
- Drum and harmony slicers
System requirements
Ableton Live 12 or higher.
More from Setwun
Hear more from Setwun in this Happy Mag session:
Take your production further
Building tracks from grooves, performances and musical ideas is exactly the kind of creative process we teach at Liveschool. If Setwun’s Song Starters has inspired you to start creating your own music, our Produce Music course takes you through the complete journey – from your first beat and musical sketch through to arrangement, mixing and release-ready tracks.
Want to dive deeper into specific skills? Our specialised modules cover areas including recording live instruments and vocals in Studio Production, sound design, mixing, songwriting and more.
Just getting started? Foundations builds the core Ableton Live and music production skills you need to get moving confidently.
Liveschool runs in-studio in Surry Hills, Sydney, and live online.
