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Posted by armanivespucci on Dec-30-2005 07:56:

Question about Ableton Live

Having extensive experience with Cubase, FL studio, and a bit with Reason, I was just curious about Ableton Live. I hear about it all the time, but what is it good at? I saw a picture of Tiesto using it while DJing. This makes little sense to me, as I typically don't associate sequencers with performance. What major producers use it, for what purposes, and what are its pros/cons?

Posted by echosystm on Dec-30-2005 13:24:

live is good for... live work

can you believe it? :P

On the production side of things its not TOO flash (you could do worse). But it really shines when it comes to djing + live mashups etc.

Posted by BOOsTER on Dec-30-2005 13:38:

you're not that right, ableton is cool for producing too... I think I heard somewhere that Airbase and some others use it. Not sure though. I used it too, rewired with Reason and I can say that for someone with "reason" approach to his sequencer it might be even better than Cubase :P also, it has quite a cool sound. Just try to notice the dif. between same VST with same patch in FL Studio and Ableton.

Also it's very good to work with live recorded audio material, doesn't necesarilly have to be DJing work, but can be synchronizing vocals, or guitars or anything what comes to your mind what you want to record into your new smashing hit

Ableton is 100% as good as any other major production system! :-)

Posted by No Left Turn on Dec-30-2005 18:02:

ableton is a great sequencer. it definitely doesn't work in the same way as the traditional daw, though. it's more geared towards loop-based recording/production, IMO. you can use it like any other sequencer, but that's how to really push this program beyond the limits of your traditional DAW. the flexibility of it is awesome, being able to be used as a full-on sequencer as well as a full-on dj rig.

Posted by wood0292 on Dec-30-2005 19:18:

Download the demo and try it for yourself. Alot of people use it for live sets, but many use it for production as well.

There are several professional producers that use it for production that I know of, but you can say that about any tool really.

I found it interesting to see what Armin had to say about it on the ableton site:

http://www.ableton.com/index.php?ma...rmin-van-buuren

Edit : You can also see who else uses it here as well:

http://www.ableton.com/index.php?main=artists&sub=list

Posted by DigiNut on Dec-30-2005 19:36:

It's a quality program with a ton of killer effects for live mixes. It really is geared specifically toward live acts (surprise surprise) and has some major shortcomings when it comes to from-scratch studio production: routing can be kludgey, CPU efficiency isn't great, VST compatibility isn't perfect, and I've been told it doesn't work so wonderfully with multiple monitors (don't know that firsthand though). And it's still got some bugs.

In any event, it's really an academic debate just like the Fruityloops debate. If you want to, you can use it to make original productions from scratch, and they'll sound just as good as if you made it in any other program. I'd say that if you're already proficient with Cubase, though, you're not going to be blown away by Ableton unless you plan on using it for live re-edits and such.

Posted by allcentury18 on Dec-31-2005 10:01:

quote:
Originally posted by DigiNut
It's a quality program with a ton of killer effects for live mixes. It really is geared specifically toward live acts (surprise surprise) and has some major shortcomings when it comes to from-scratch studio production: routing can be kludgey, CPU efficiency isn't great, VST compatibility isn't perfect, and I've been told it doesn't work so wonderfully with multiple monitors (don't know that firsthand though). And it's still got some bugs.

i use it on 2 monitors w/ no problems. i'm not a fan of the editing windows, since they resize very minimally. i was using sonar 5 and switched. my CPU usage is much lower and i have way more going on than ever before

Posted by wood0292 on Dec-31-2005 22:20:

quote:
Originally posted by allcentury18
i use it on 2 monitors w/ no problems.

I don't think he meant there are problems. I use it with dual monitors as well, and it gets annoying with the gap in the middle sometimes(mainly for the bottom working with MIDI and audio clips). Once you are used to it it is not that bad, but other programs like Cubase and FL you are nice with dual monitors since you can move all of those windows to be on one monitor. Ableton you can only move VSTs around. I think this is a feature alot of Live users would appreciate if it were implemented.