Ableton Live

Woebot

Well-known member
Whats the dissensus on this? (chortle)

Two musicians I really admire use it, and playing with the demo, it seems quite intuitive in the way that Pro Tools or Cubbase (different creatures I know) really confuse. I looked at Reason a while back too, and that seems really cheesy in the way Ableton doesnt.

Is it quite powerful enough? Do users feel they're impelled to move on to "deeper" software quite quickly?
 

michael

Bring out the vacuum
WOEBOT said:
Is it quite powerful enough? Do users feel they're impelled to move on to "deeper" software quite quickly?
I think a fair number of producers are releasing whole albums put together in Live nowadays. It's really powerful, although its obvious strengths are in structuring and restructuring building blocks constructed elsewhere.

I think you could make any kind of dance music using it, if you put your time into learning it inside and out.

Re: Reason, the reason (arrgahr :mad: ) it's so naff is because it's made to emulate a hardware studio. It appeals to "musicians". The Monolake boys are just straight up techno nerds, and Ableton Live reflects that. Although it's got a strong, consistent look it's not flashy and I can't think of a way in which it obviously attempts to emulate hardware.

All this said, I haven't used Live much. I reckon Audiomulch is much more fun, but it's probably harder to do quick mix-y stuff with. It's just if you're keeping above board wrt paying for shit I can't see how you can justify hundreds of dollars more for Live...
 

borderpolice

Well-known member
WOEBOT said:
Is it quite powerful enough? Do users feel they're impelled to move on to "deeper" software quite quickly?

it depends on what you want to do with it. I really like ableton, because its user interface is geared towards a style
of jamming/composition that is natural to me. but i'm also using logic audio a lot. in fact i'm considering writing my
own text-based composition language, because i find that certain kinds of composition techniques are just really hard
in all GUI-based environments. one of the good points about ableton is that it's quite easy to get into.
 

bassnation

the abyss
michael said:
I think a fair number of producers are releasing whole albums put together in Live nowadays. It's really powerful, although its obvious strengths are in structuring and restructuring building blocks constructed elsewhere.

I think you could make any kind of dance music using it, if you put your time into learning it inside and out..

i use it to sequence tracks - and some producer friends of mine have recently switched from cubase to live, especially now that it supports midi and vst instruments.

its a bit of a different way of working, but as you say, once you've got your head around it, its very powerful indeed. i particularly like being able to overdub live with fx and other bits as many times as you need. funnily enough paul autonomic and myself are collaborating on some tracks using ableton live, will post them up here when they are done.
 

borderpolice

Well-known member
QuEsTiOn

who of you thinks they can tell just from the style of composition what program(s) the producers used?
and if you think you can, have you actually ever checked if you were right?
 

hint

party record with a siren
borderpolice said:
who of you thinks they can tell just from the style of composition what program(s) the producers used?
and if you think you can, have you actually ever checked if you were right?

it's the plug-ins and bundled sample libraries that are recognisable rather than the sequencer most of the time.

so, yeah - I can spot certain native instrument synths, bundled logic plugins, certain pluggo stuff etc... but more often than not it's the stuff that is designed to have a distinctive sonic quality anyway. If you use them enough yourself, sooner or later you become familiar with the fingerprints and can spot them in the context of other peoples' work.

same with models of guitar, synth or amps. even particular models of microphones. these things become popular and widely used because they have something that sets them apart from the rest of the pack.

reason is perhaps the only app which I could spot purely on the basis of the sound quality of the summed 2-track signal coming out at the end. but even then I wouldn't get it 100% of the time... and it's a pretty dull road to go down.
 

polystyle

Well-known member
multi

It's not like you have to choose to use one program .
In Studio I /we use Reason , Live, ProTools 24 bit HD , analog sim plug ins , old reverb units, Japanese sound toys - whatever's called for by the project and helps get it done on time and on budget.
 

Kuma

The Konspirator
I found it to be hugely intuitive after a while and have been using it pretty much strictly in a live setting for the last few months. And even at this point I'm just scratching the surface..
 

nomos

Administrator
I've been using it since v.1 and I wouldn' trade it for anything, especially now that it supports VSTis and Audio Units. It's great live, especially with a Midi mixer like the UC-33. But it's surprisingly good as a compositional tool as well. The whipped-up-in-Flash interface is deceptively simple looking but the software's capacity is HUGE. I've been making loop-based stuff (from lo-fi soundscapes to hip hop) with it for ages but recently I did a 'DJ' mix and I'm starting to do more with virtual instruments as well. No hiccups.
 
O

Omaar

Guest
With VSTi support and MIDI, its awesome, my fave bit of software. Only complaint is that there doesn't seem to be any thing as good as fruity loops for doing cut ups of samples. I may be missing something ... I guess you can use a plugin, but I've never found anything as good as fruity loops for this sort of thing.
 

hint

party record with a siren
worth looking into for chopping:

phatmatik pro
intakt

worth examining as a cheaper alternative to battery:

idrum


I do it "old skool" style - either manually chop out sections or use logic's strip silence function to detect hit points and then load them up individually in a soft sampler.
 

secretagentgel

Well-known member
one more "yeah, me too." i used it for ages just to play live, then with v4 i moved to for composition too (with lots of free and a few paid for vst/i's). really good, simple, and straight forward.

corey
 

Tweak Head

Well-known member
Quick Live Question ...

Just started playing with the demo of Live 4, and it looks like I will be moving towards a purchase. I've been using Reason, which I like, but I find the sequencer a barrier to creativity in compositions.

A quick and very specific question on Live 4: if I have a midi clip made in Live that I like, but want to change the settings a bit (e.g. have a slightly different drum pattern on the inbuilt drum programmer or tweak the reverb), is it possible to copy the original clip and tweak the settings and save it as something else? I'm sure it must be but when I try to do it it changes all instances of the original clip, which obviously I don't want.

It may be that this is simply a limitation on the demo version but there isn't a message to tell you that that's the case when you try to do it.

Cheers.
 
Top