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-- Discussion: Production in Ableton... Why does it sound so bad???
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Ableton 8 will come with the �lastique Pro Algorithm: http://www.zplane.de/index.php?page...ption-elastique
We will see how this affects the sound quality esp. with the complex warp mode.
Elastique pro is apparently very CPU intensive, and not that much better. I really just wish Ableton would buy melodyne and integrate the two programs. That would be a DREAM...
How goes it Kenneth? Saw you at Rain late last year and really enjoyed your set. Currently been diggin some Joey Modus tracks too. Anyways...as someone who recently decided to produce music(and on Ableton)I have heard the difference between a newbie track in Ableton and a slightly more experienced newbie track. The difference is huge. So I would like to chalk it up to user caused, but I find myself wondering if any of the tracks Kenneth received came from an experienced/well known producer. If that is the case then I better start trying to learn Cubase.
All you really have to do to verify though is run/render the same loop through the different programs and listen to them. Simple as that I guess. I think I'll try that.
| quote: |
| Originally posted by kitphillips Elastique pro is apparently very CPU intensive, and not that much better. I really just wish Ableton would buy melodyne and integrate the two programs. That would be a DREAM... |
i've only been using Ableton for around 7 months so I still have a lot to learn, but I've spent most of my time trying to study the engineer aspect of things and not the composition part. I'm now focusing more on composition and creating tracks now. I *THINK* I'm fairly good on the engineering side and I've found a lot of nice tips and tricks through experimentation, youtube videos, friends, etc.
Before I even go on my rant, remember the golden rule...
Garbage in = Garbage out (DUH)....so make sure you're source is rock solid
With regards to the question at hand, Ableton certainly does have a certain feel to it. As another poster mentioned, it gets weak around the 5k area which is what I think makes it feel dead instead of warm. A couple of things that I have found successful to take that "Ableton effect" away was to put a saturator over the master, select digital and open up the color. move the frequency to a little over 5,000 (experiment) and fatten it as needed. On the master channel, you're going to be running this extremely dry (3-5% is usual for me). You can apply this same method to other tracks to help bring about that warm feel and remove the "ableton" effect, though I've found doing it through the master to be most successful. As the original poster said, it's with every instrument, every sound, etc so you really need it on the master channel.
Here are some other things I've found helpful to bring a warmer, fuller sound in ableton.
The Dynamic Tube is obviously something that helps to warm a track, but it takes a lot more than that with Ableton in my opinion (read below....)
ISOLATE YOUR F'IN FREQUENCIES!!!!! - Stop layering so much shit and learn to EQ and cut your tracks properly. Ableton for some reason has a weird and distinctive way of processing artifact. Other DAWs, even fruity loops, do a much better job of producing true silence. The best way to get rid of conflicting artifact (and even shit you can hear but are not paying attention too) is to cut away frequencies you are not using and to saturate the ones you are using. (Follow me here?)....We're cutting away frequencies the track doesn't need because if you don't, that artifact you don't hear is going manifest itself later in the mix when it mixes with other artifact, or true sound, and that can ultimately alter the true sound you're trying to achieve. I personally believe this is one of the big reasons why Ableton made tracks are fairly easy to identify. I'm still trying to learn how to bring that professional sound, but I've found what I posted above to be a huge step forward.
Drums with Ableton: I've always had and still have a problem with drums in Ableton. They just don't sound real enough to me. Maybe it's the source but I've yet to be pleased. The only thing I've found that helps here is to run a parallel compression on the drum track. One at 100% dry, the other 100% compressed. This adds a noticable amount of "realness" to the drums which helps to take away that "Ableton effect" but I've yet to find much else that dramatically helps with drums. Again, don't forget to isolate what you want and cut away what you don't want. Don't be lazy. If you can't create a good source of cleanly cut tracks then you're just going to be saturating and manifesting more garbage on the mix down. Clean your tracks up!!!
Another thing that I've found that helps is to run your (already cleaned) tracks through an out board of some sort. It needs to be quality but can be a number of different things. I personally use my Rane EMPATH Rotary. This helps in an ever so slightly way to take away that pure digital sounds. (I don't do this with all my tracks - Sometimes I don't like what it spits back at me, sometimes I do. Just personal preference). The main reason to do this is to try and remove that flat and formulaic sound that all the digital releases seem to have these days. There are some people who will run their stems, and sometimes do their final mixdowns, on shitty equipment just to make it sound more "real" and less digital.
More....Jack up the high frequencies on your bass and subs except when there is a large degree of silence (you'll have to experiment). Just automate the track to silent at the points of silence or breaks. You'll notice by jacking up the hi's on a low freq instrument you get your other instruments sounding better. It's hard to explain, but they just sound cleaner and more real. (This is not always the case and is no golden rule).
Hope this helps. I know I veered off course a little here. I really have no explanation as to why Ableton is so easily identified but I've found the methods I listed above to be effective in providing that warm, real feeling and true silence (in certain frequencies).
Again, I'm still learning so don't take my suggestions as the gospel. Try them out for yourself and see if you like them.
its ableton
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Stephen Wiley i've only been using Ableton for around 7 months so I still have a lot to learn, but I've spent most of my time trying to study the engineer aspect of things and not the composition part. I'm now focusing more on composition and creating tracks now. I *THINK* I'm fairly good on the engineering side and I've found a lot of nice tips and tricks through experimentation, youtube videos, friends, etc. Before I even go on my rant, remember the golden rule... Garbage in = Garbage out (DUH)....so make sure you're source is rock solid With regards to the question at hand, Ableton certainly does have a certain feel to it. As another poster mentioned, it gets weak around the 5k area which is what I think makes it feel dead instead of warm. A couple of things that I have found successful to take that "Ableton effect" away was to put a saturator over the master, select digital and open up the color. move the frequency to a little over 5,000 (experiment) and fatten it as needed. On the master channel, you're going to be running this extremely dry (3-5% is usual for me). You can apply this same method to other tracks to help bring about that warm feel and remove the "ableton" effect, though I've found doing it through the master to be most successful. As the original poster said, it's with every instrument, every sound, etc so you really need it on the master channel. Here are some other things I've found helpful to bring a warmer, fuller sound in ableton. The Dynamic Tube is obviously something that helps to warm a track, but it takes a lot more than that with Ableton in my opinion (read below....) ISOLATE YOUR F'IN FREQUENCIES!!!!! - Stop layering so much shit and learn to EQ and cut your tracks properly. Ableton for some reason has a weird and distinctive way of processing artifact. Other DAWs, even fruity loops, do a much better job of producing true silence. The best way to get rid of conflicting artifact (and even shit you can hear but are not paying attention too) is to cut away frequencies you are not using and to saturate the ones you are using. (Follow me here?)....We're cutting away frequencies the track doesn't need because if you don't, that artifact you don't hear is going manifest itself later in the mix when it mixes with other artifact, or true sound, and that can ultimately alter the true sound you're trying to achieve. I personally believe this is one of the big reasons why Ableton made tracks are fairly easy to identify. I'm still trying to learn how to bring that professional sound, but I've found what I posted above to be a huge step forward. Drums with Ableton: I've always had and still have a problem with drums in Ableton. They just don't sound real enough to me. Maybe it's the source but I've yet to be pleased. The only thing I've found that helps here is to run a parallel compression on the drum track. One at 100% dry, the other 100% compressed. This adds a noticable amount of "realness" to the drums which helps to take away that "Ableton effect" but I've yet to find much else that dramatically helps with drums. Again, don't forget to isolate what you want and cut away what you don't want. Don't be lazy. If you can't create a good source of cleanly cut tracks then you're just going to be saturating and manifesting more garbage on the mix down. Clean your tracks up!!! Another thing that I've found that helps is to run your (already cleaned) tracks through an out board of some sort. It needs to be quality but can be a number of different things. I personally use my Rane EMPATH Rotary. This helps in an ever so slightly way to take away that pure digital sounds. (I don't do this with all my tracks - Sometimes I don't like what it spits back at me, sometimes I do. Just personal preference). The main reason to do this is to try and remove that flat and formulaic sound that all the digital releases seem to have these days. There are some people who will run their stems, and sometimes do their final mixdowns, on shitty equipment just to make it sound more "real" and less digital. More....Jack up the high frequencies on your bass and subs except when there is a large degree of silence (you'll have to experiment). Just automate the track to silent at the points of silence or breaks. You'll notice by jacking up the hi's on a low freq instrument you get your other instruments sounding better. It's hard to explain, but they just sound cleaner and more real. (This is not always the case and is no golden rule). Hope this helps. I know I veered off course a little here. I really have no explanation as to why Ableton is so easily identified but I've found the methods I listed above to be effective in providing that warm, real feeling and true silence (in certain frequencies). Again, I'm still learning so don't take my suggestions as the gospel. Try them out for yourself and see if you like them. |
the tracks sent to Kenneth are likely not all unique to Ableton, but instead, just poorly mixed & mastered. 
Stylz: To answer your question, yes, some of these tracks with this particular "sound" have been from established names as well, whom i confirmed are working in Ableton. At the beginning of my suspicion that these tracks with this common thread were coming from Ableton, i started find out what system these tracks were produced in. In my little experiment, I was never wrong once when I was sent a track with this "sound" and i went back to inquire.
SgtFoo: Im not referring that ALL the bad tracks I get sent are from Ableton, im referring to the % that have a very certain subtle, yet noticeable bitty or grainy sound to them that I have found is common to Ableton producers. And yes, ALL of these tracks in question are unique to Ableton. Its at the point now, where i have been going back to the producers of these specific tracks to confirm, yes, they are produced in Ableton. This is something I have been noticing for over a year now and its just popping up more and more as more people are working in Ableton.
Maybe in general, these producers are just used to this sound or don't have a developed ear to pick up these subtle harsh elements.
Thanks everyone for opening up this discussion a bit. Seems ive hit a nerve here and a lot of people have had some great ideas and different perspectives to share.
A little tip: that many don't realise in live is that when you add a new audio track - the 'audio from' tab is set to ext. in by default - which is a mic/line input on your audio interface and when you start racking up your audio track count the noise floor will be raised! introducing unwanted noise into your mix.
unless you are recording in direct or after recording > change ext. in to no input.
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Floyd_V A little tip: that many don't realise in live is that when you add a new audio track - the 'audio from' tab is set to ext. in by default - which is a mic/line input on your audio interface and when you start racking up your audio track count the noise floor will be raised! introducing unwanted noise into your mix. unless you are recording in direct or after recording > change ext. in to no input. |
Kenneth,
I'm wondering if maybe you're picking out the audio artifact that is a result of the internal warping engine within Ableton, because, similarly to the music you receive, I've been quite able to pick out DJ sets that are done in Ableton. The algorithm isn't exactly as excellently engineered as others available, but it definitely makes a difference in the tonality and smoothness of the audio. For the most part, all audio samples in ableton get warped to some extent.. so I wouldn't be surprised if it were the case.
P.S. your mix from the Vital Radio show guest-slot episode 036 was delicious 
I am guessing if there is a quality issue it has to do with the resolution of the code but I can't comment since I have never used it.
IMO honestly Abletons sound has nothing to do with its warping engine, (unless you are of course stretching stuff, but Abletons time stretching blows all other DAWs out of the water.) Ableton just has a simpler, more efficient, thus inferior mixdown algorithm (the way it SUMS audio in the master channel) when compared to other DAWs. The reason it has this is because it is meant for LIVE performance, which requires extreme efficiency and CPU budgeting (things like streaming audio files directly from your hard drive instead of commiting them to CPU and the dumbed-down GUI are all purposely done to keep Ableton running at optimal performance in a LIVE setting.)
The work around for this is to mixdown tracks written in Ableton in another program. I rewire Ableton into Logic and I am able to get that liquidy Logic sound while still reaping the benefits of the fast workflow of Ableton for my audio stuff. MIDI and effects processing is all done in Logic.
Someone mentioned that NIN YearZero was written entirely in Ableton, while this is true, I'm almost certain it was mixed down in Protools or mixing desk.
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Blake_Jarrell Abletons time stretching blows all other DAWs out of the water |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by echosystm No, it doesn't. Ableton uses "Elastique Efficient v1.x" by zplane. By comparison, Reaper (a $50 DAW) uses Elastique Pro v2.x, which is a big upgrade. |
See what I wrote above. FL uses Elastique Pro. Cubase 4 uses Elastique soloist V2.x, which is comparable to efficient, except it works better on monophonic sounds, not entire mixes. Efficient is the opposite - good on entire mixes, not as good on single channels.
Either way, quality increased a lot from 1.x to 2.x, from my experience. I would argue that Ableton is actually behind the 8 ball... 
| quote: |
| Originally posted by echosystm See what I wrote above. FL uses Elastique Pro. Cubase 4 uses Elastique soloist V2.x, which is comparable to efficient, except it works better on monophonic sounds, not entire mixes. Efficient is the opposite - good on entire mixes, not as good on single channels. |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Blake_Jarrell are these newer versions of elastique much more CPU intensive? |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Blake_Jarrell IMO honestly Abletons sound has nothing to do with its warping engine, (unless you are of course stretching stuff, but Abletons time stretching blows all other DAWs out of the water.) Ableton just has a simpler, more efficient, thus inferior mixdown algorithm (the way it SUMS audio in the master channel) when compared to other DAWs. The reason it has this is because it is meant for LIVE performance, which requires extreme efficiency and CPU budgeting (things like streaming audio files directly from your hard drive instead of commiting them to CPU and the dumbed-down GUI are all purposely done to keep Ableton running at optimal performance in a LIVE setting.) The work around for this is to mixdown tracks written in Ableton in another program. I rewire Ableton into Logic and I am able to get that liquidy Logic sound while still reaping the benefits of the fast workflow of Ableton for my audio stuff. MIDI and effects processing is all done in Logic. Someone mentioned that NIN YearZero was written entirely in Ableton, while this is true, I'm almost certain it was mixed down in Protools or mixing desk. |
Whole post is patently rididulous. There have been comparisons done between ableton and logic and the result was that they output (for all intents and purposes) identical files.
Actually, I thought of another couple of things that could be giving ableton a distinct (although not neccesarily bad) sound.
Fixed pan laws
Fixed fader curves
Clipping behaviour (maybe clips are handled better by logic?)
Dither (or lack thereof) (included as of version 6)
lack of crossfades in arrangement view (fixed in version 8)
Inferior inbuilt effects
Any one of these things might be handled differently by other DAWs and that might be having an effect. But based on what kenneth was saying, I believe that the harsh sound he's talking about is probably coming from people being incompetant at warping.
| quote: |
| Originally posted by kitphillips Whole post is patently rididulous. There have been comparisons done between ableton and logic and the result was that they output (for all intents and purposes) identical files. |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by kitphillips And WHAT are you talking about commiting files to your CPU? All DAWs (including pro tools and logic) use DFD streaming of audio files, this certainly doesn't affect audio quality. And what does having a "dumbed down" gui have to do with audio quality? |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Blake_Jarrell IMO honestly Abletons sound has nothing to do with its warping engine, (unless you are of course stretching stuff, but Abletons time stretching blows all other DAWs out of the water.) Ableton just has a simpler, more efficient, thus inferior mixdown algorithm (the way it SUMS audio in the master channel) when compared to other DAWs. The reason it has this is because it is meant for LIVE performance, which requires extreme efficiency and CPU budgeting (things like streaming audio files directly from your hard drive instead of commiting them to CPU and the dumbed-down GUI are all purposely done to keep Ableton running at optimal performance in a LIVE setting.) The work around for this is to mixdown tracks written in Ableton in another program. I rewire Ableton into Logic and I am able to get that liquidy Logic sound while still reaping the benefits of the fast workflow of Ableton for my audio stuff. MIDI and effects processing is all done in Logic. Someone mentioned that NIN YearZero was written entirely in Ableton, while this is true, I'm almost certain it was mixed down in Protools or mixing desk. |
Is it also alot to do with the native effects? I find they have a sharp / metallic edge to them that sounds really good, esp on high frequency sounds.
The native plugins definitely have their own character and are of high enough quality for ppl yo not have to consider buying further plugins.
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