Ableton Live ?

[Julio Di Benedetto]

I have been working with live 9 trial for close to a month off and on and the trial will end soon.....after much thought and viewing Logic X video demos I feel that there is no future for me with Logic and the way it is heading. It is worth another topic for what Apple is doing to its software so I will not go into it here, anyway my current daw is Logic Pro 9.

Much that Ive discovered using Live 9 is exciting and is a very different way of working, primarily because it seems directed towards clips and samples etc.....certainly the arrange view is similar to the more tradition daws such Logic, Pro tools & Cubase to name a few but the session view seems very stiff where clips, samples and audio need to conform its work flow which is not how I create.  I havent given session view a huge amount of time to to be able to uncover its possibilities so that stiffness my just be me.

Max for Live is amazing...Ive downloaded devices and well thats a sonic playground to jump into and get dirty.

I have been an hardware sort of fellow all my musical life, samples really never figured into my creative process other than some sample based technologies such as wavetable synthesis and the occasional rompler.

I guess my question is for those who made the transition from the tradition linear time line daw to Live....how was the journey?

[El culto]

Hi Julio,

first of all I do agree with you that Logic X has no future. The "1 window-view" either you like or hate…I hate it! Working with Midi is a real pain in the ass and 64 Bit plugins only (without internal bridge) is a joke. If you have Logic 8 you want miss anything.

You donīt have to use the session view at all if itīs annoying - to some degree it can be handy to make spontaneous drafts because anything you tweak will be recorded as Midi…the arrange view does work very well if you are using just the "timeline" for composing but it is limited in many other ways too (especially for recording Midi). Also the connection to external Midi Devices won't work as smooth like in Cubase. So, if you have some externall Hardware connected Live wonīt work very well.

You just have to decide if you are open to try something completely new…of course, with the arrange view Live acts like a normal daw, but with many restrictions concerning midi. If that is not a problem you may find something interesting in Live IF you are open to leave the usual workflow of other DAWīs behind.

Greetings,
Tomas 

[Julio Di Benedetto]

Hi Tomas.....having worked with Logic since the late 1990's when it was Emagic's Logic Platinum before Apple bought it Ive been stuck in the linear frame for a long time......and as you said if Im ready to try something completely new.  I think its time and Live seems to be the one daw system that works in a way that turns ones computer into an instrument whereas the Logic, Pro Tools & Cubase scenario is a virtual recreation of the traditional mixing console to 24 track tape machine. 

Auditioning Live 9 has opened the potential for working in a new ways.....I need to get over the "sample thing".

Thanks for your input!

[Scott M2]

Looks like you've already made your financial commitment to Live but I thought I'd throw in that many of my friends have moved from various DAWs to Reaper for their Audio/MIDI work.

I used to use Logic on PCs until Apple bought it and abandoned PCs. I'll probably be moving to Reaper too as Sony has stopped updating ACID (no 64bit for instance) and Vegas has become more and more inhospitable for VSTs (though there's workarounds). (I'd still continue to use Vegas for my audiovisual work as it's very strong there.)

[Julio Di Benedetto]

Hi Scott.....no financial commitment yet, still working with the trial version so I will take a look at Reaper.  Its funny I just had an old 2006 dell laptop resurrected to become my living room music server and the computer tech put Soundforge and Acid on it.  I will have to open it up.

Thanks for your suggestion!

[El culto]

Another easy to use DAW worth to explore:

http://www.presonus.com/products/studio-one/

Greetings,
Tomas

[Julio Di Benedetto]

Installed Ableton Live 9 Suite today and have been downloading various packs.....mostly Max for live and a few experimental sample sounds

Im really impressed with how Ableton has integrated their soft synth...I thought I would just get the standard version and add Max but working with the Suite version as a trial the soft synths are an integral part of live I sensed I would regret not having them at hand.

Thanks so much for you thoughts & suggestions Tomas & Scott.

[LNerell]

Hi Julio,

first of all I do agree with you that Logic X has no future. The "1 window-view" either you like or hate…I hate it! Working with Midi is a real pain in the ass and 64 Bit plugins only (without internal bridge) is a joke. If you have Logic 8 you want miss anything.

I don't understand the issue here, I can use two windows in Logic X:



It works the same as Logic 9. Working with midi is easy, no big deal. Yeah I don't like the 64 bit only part, and I have yet to use the drum thingy they added. I only use X once in a while at work, my home studio is still Logic 9. 

Have fun in Ableton Live, I don't use it for anything serious but I know a lot of people who do great things with it. Having said that after playing with it a bit at work I have to say I'm not all that pleased with the quality of the audio, it seems a bit grainy to me, but what do I know.

[Julio Di Benedetto]

Well.....after 15 years with Logic this transition has not been easy.  I should say the transition is still in progress and will be for a while.  Logic is an open canvas albeit a linear one. Live is and is not.  Session view is giving me a workout and the arrange view is misbehaving from a logical prospect.....but the unusual sonic possibilities Im discovering within live and Max for Live are worth the headaches...... I mean record an audio clip into session and where does it go....not into the arrange view, click on the clip and there it is as a sample at the bottom of the screen.  Its not a sample its audio  ......   Ok, sure its a sample, everything is technically once its in the computer.  Ive got markers appearing all over the place that to the best of my knowledge I did not summon that mess up the loop progress....and I dont use loops thanks you.  Thats "original" never heard before 24bit audio that just happens to be looping.....so there is a fair bit of unknown territory to discover.  I think it comes down to treating every audio track I record as a sample or a sample of say a minimoog even if it was a real one...live will treat as such, it does not discriminate.  The creative possibilities are exciting.  The sense that the computer/daw is conforming / constricting my work flow is unsettling.   Such is the learning curve

[Julio Di Benedetto]

Hi Loren.....Just posted after you and did not see your post. 

I sense that I might not be able to "express myself" without the finesse of Logic or it could be Cubase for that matter as far as audio recording go.  Its early stages for me with Live and the midi manipulation with Max for live is quite something however the actual audio recording process at this point is a bit rudimentary compared to logic.  I feel Ableton created an amazing performance tool and then worked really hard to bring it towards a fully fledge Daw.  Its close but working with audio is much harder in Live. The software seems to want to make you conform to its rules.  Probably just trying to teach an old dog new tricks.

I will say its the best integration of soft synths, samplers and FX ive come across.

Interesting you  say that Live is "grainy in quality", I think your right, it is that way by default not only as a possible signature sound but also because granular synthesis is abound, really it is all over the place. like it or not, if a daw can have such a thing.

Anyway I am excited about the software and will adapt my work flow as need be.

 

[Julio Di Benedetto]

Been working all day with Live 9 and I suspect that much of what I said above maybe more frustration than fact.....I think in digital audio Im the old school tape splicer that does it himself and does not rely on quantization but rather nudges things into place.  Live does some much, or one could say takes away many of those duties.  Recorded 4 scenes today of an electronica flavor to feel Lives tight rhythmic structuring ( I have no idea what that actually means)    It feels good!  Still having conflicts between audio/midi clips and straight audio recorded directly into the arrange view as I would in Logic.  Clips play but audio in arrange view does not.

Any Live users on this Forum?

[El culto]

Any Live users on this Forum?

Yes, even though I use it in Rewire mode only! Whatīs your question?

Greetings ,
Tomas

[Julio Di Benedetto]

Hi Tomas...the list is too long to get into  .....just curious who in our community uses it.  I appreciate you setting yourself up for some novice questions.  Actually Im not even certain what to ask yet.  The answer often depends on how good the question is!  This is just me taking up bandwidth.

Thanks

[Julio Di Benedetto]

Any Live users on this Forum?

Yes, even though I use it in Rewire mode only! Whatīs your question?

Greetings ,
Tomas

Actually Tomas how do you Rewire Live......do you create in Live and send it into Cubase or something like that?

[Julio Di Benedetto]

Just watched a quick tutorial on using Live as a slave and Logic 9 as master....very cool.  Turns Live into a very large and powerful software instrument.  Ive known of Rewire for years but never needed it or thought to use.  Glad you mentioned Tomas. Thanks

[El culto]

Just watched a quick tutorial on using Live as a slave and Logic 9 as master....very cool.  Turns Live into a very large and powerful software instrument.  Ive known of Rewire for years but never needed it or thought to use.  Glad you mentioned Tomas. Thanks

Hi Julio,

yes, thats what iīm doing (but with Cubase) for many years and with that you have the best of both worlds  Havenīt tested it with Logic because with Cubase itīs running extremely smooth!

Donīt like Live for Audio either but their build-in instruments are amazing and I like to have them used in Cubase…so, if you donīt have problems with the Rewire connection thatīs the way to combine it.

Greetings,
Tomas

[LNerell]

Just watched a quick tutorial on using Live as a slave and Logic 9 as master....very cool.  Turns Live into a very large and powerful software instrument.  Ive known of Rewire for years but never needed it or thought to use.  Glad you mentioned Tomas. Thanks

I've used Rewire with Reason, never thought of using it with Live, good idea!  Rewire comes in handy once in a while, just remember when you get your Rewire tracks all set the way you want them to record them in Logic so they can be part of the final session in case at some time in the distant future you need to go back and redo something. I did that with one track with some drum parts in Reason and I lost the original Reason session so that track is lost forever. 

[Julio Di Benedetto]

Live 9 Rewired to Logic Pro (9) works really well....this is going to be sonically a very powerful and creative partnership between these to Daws.  I agree the live soft synths are very good and can create timbres I have not heard before and even though they are little small the design is very easy to use and then of course there is Max and those fx and synths.

I can see It could be  a challenge run 2 daws with possible sessions getting lost or corrupted..I will have to keep a clean and organized computer.

Im very excited about all this......

[petekelly]

Any further thoughts Julio ?

I was given a (legit) copy of Live Intro by a friend who got it when he bought 'Push', I can't yet determine how I may (or may not) use it regarding arrangements.

cheers
Pete

[Julio Di Benedetto]

Hi Pete,

Ive been away from the studio the past few weeks on vacation and have not got back into the learning curve again...shortly though, however I do feel that I will work with Live and Logic together via rewire....this is cool.  I will say having worked with audio in Logic forever its strange in Live because it wants to take over and turn your music into neat packages of perfect timed audio which could be useful but I work very loosely when writing music and live's constraints Im not sure about.  If I was just recording audio from external synths as I do in logic, Live would not be a good option for me, logic is better at audio or I should say I like the way Logic handles audio better. 

The really mysterious part of Live is the Session window....I quiet like not see the audio or midi scrolling by.  It becomes sort of a palette of sounds to be triggered and this I feel will be the exciting part of working in live. 
 
While on vacation I had my iPad with me and from time to time created a Scape in Eno's App and it occurred to me that the way Scape triggers sounds could be a good way to work in Live Sesson via a Push or Launch Pad with you the musician as the random element.  Nothing new Im sure but from an ambient perspective it makes sense and the level of surprise....those sonic accidents that are so sweet.  I think what I described would be a great way to perform "live" with Live.

Also the soft synths and sampler synths in Live 9 suite are quite extraordinary which I realize you wont have in Live intro, well maybe some. 

Load it up Pete....try it on for size.  It could be another way to work or an addition to your work flow in place.

Heres a little video of Christopher Willets talking about Push....something that makes me excited about Live.