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How is Ableton Live 8 for Audio?

Any of you guys using Ableton Live 8 - how do you find it for audio? My understanding from the little experience I've had with it is that it's great for MIDI and so-so for audio - would you agree? Do you rewire it to another host and do your audio editing there?

Also, what does Live 8 offer in terms of dual monitor support? Can you stretch the main view ala Cubase and/or open different views on different monitors ala Sonar?

I'll check the demo out this weekend, but any input on these questions will give me a head start.

I use Live 8 and it's great for both audio and midi. As far as dual monitor support goes they haven't added it yet. The program is meant to be run from one window although you could probably stretch it across two.

Audio editing is great I have never felt limited or anything.

Re: How is Ableton Live 8 for Audio?

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Originally posted by cryophonik Also, what does Live 8 offer in terms of dual monitor support? Can you stretch the main view ala Cubase and/or open different views on different monitors ala Sonar?

Its not official dual screen support but, as Coroknight suggested, yes you can stretch it across multiple screens. You cannot however, put different parts of Live on one screen or the other, its either Session View or Arrangement View across both screens.

For me, I usually keep it on my left screen, then put vst's on the right side. I am ok with it the way it is, but, there is always room for improvement I guess.

I wouldn't want to be doing much recording and editing in Ableton. It is great for loop based music, but not typical recording etc. Cubase and Sonar are far better, in this regard.

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Originally posted by echosystm I wouldn't want to be doing much recording and editing in Ableton. It is great for loop based music, but not typical recording etc. Cubase and Sonar are far better, in this regard.

I love recording and editing in Live, and think Cubase and others slow me down.

I mean, what can u do in others that I cant do in Live? The only thing that I really wish Live had, is automation curves but, I can deal until they include it, I just do it by hand with my Novation Remote

Re: How is Ableton Live 8 for Audio?

quote:

Originally posted by cryophonik Any of you guys using Ableton Live 8 - how do you find it for audio? My understanding from the little experience I've had with it is that it's great for MIDI and so-so for audio - would you agree? Do you rewire it to another host and do your audio editing there? Also, what does Live 8 offer in terms of dual monitor support? Can you stretch the main view ala Cubase and/or open different views on different monitors ala Sonar? I'll check the demo out this weekend, but any input on these questions will give me a head start.

welcome! i think i told you but i was a sonar user from sonar 1.5 all the way up until 4 when i made the switch to ableton. there are a lot of nice features from sonar that are not in ableton but i will say you'll get ideas out faster and spend a lot less time in submenus.

midi in ableton 8 was been drastically redone and so has hte audio(warping specifally) engine. Thats why this release was so expensive, ableton paid a 3rd party to handle their warping algorithms. so far 8 has been a real pleasure to deal with, i have had the occasional daily crash but its 8.01 so i'm not expecting a totally solid system for a few months

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Originally posted by echosystm I wouldn't want to be doing much recording and editing in Ableton. It is great for loop based music, but not typical recording etc. Cubase and Sonar are far better, in this regard.

And you see me strongly disagree with you, but I understand your point of view. It's true that some eiditing functions could have been better with this latest version.

Thanks for the responses. I spent a few hours with the demo and decided to pick it up - the only reason I even considered it was because I just realized today that I could save $170 off the download version just by having an old version of Live Lite that came free with something. And I just sold some hardware and accessories. I'll keep using Sonar as my main DAW, particularly for audio work, but Live looks like it will be a nice alternative, particularly for the MIDI side (haven't spent any time with Live's audio side yet). Rewire for the rest.

Looks like it's tutorial time.

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Originally posted by echosystm I wouldn't want to be doing much recording and editing in Ableton. It is great for loop based music, but not typical recording etc. Cubase and Sonar are far better, in this regard.

You say this with no proof of anything.

As far as i know there really is no difference. If anything, whatever you record in Cubase or Sonar you'd be able to do at least 10x faster in Ableton with equivalent results.

If you disagree please explain why and how because if you record a file in the same bitrate and same samplerate across these programs and A>B them i can bet you there would be no audible difference, if not any difference at all.

quote:

Originally posted by echosystm I wouldn't want to be doing much recording and editing in Ableton. It is great for loop based music, but not typical recording etc. Cubase and Sonar are far better, in this regard.

Don't know why you'd say that... I think now they have crossfades it'll be the equal of anything. There are a few more thhing that'd help, but its pretty good.

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Originally posted by Nightshift You say this with no proof of anything. As far as i know there really is no difference. If anything, whatever you record in Cubase or Sonar you'd be able to do at least 10x faster in Ableton with equivalent results.

Could you please provide an explanation of why recording in Live is "at least 10x faster"? I use Cubase for recording my hardware synths, and it records them in realtime. Does Live run the MIDI sequences and audio recording at ten times the speed and end up with the same result?

I made the switch from Reason as my primary production tool to Live 5.0, intending to use Live as my primary production tool for a few years. I picked up a demo version of Cubase shortly afterwards, and to my ears it sounded better when recording my hardware synths - same recording interface, samplerate, bitrate. It could well be my mind playing tricks, but every synth seemed to sound much clearer and richer coming into Cubase. I didn't really want to pay for another DAW so soon after buying Live, but at that point Cubase sounded better. I still use Live rewired into Cubase, it's a very handy tool for certain aspects of production. And it may well sound a lot better these days (I'm still using version 5).

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Originally posted by derail Could you please provide an explanation of why recording in Live is "at least 10x faster"? I use Cubase for recording my hardware synths, and it records them in realtime. Does Live run the MIDI sequences and audio recording at ten times the speed and end up with the same result? I made the switch from Reason as my primary production tool to Live 5.0, intending to use Live as my primary production tool for a few years. I picked up a demo version of Cubase shortly afterwards, and to my ears it sounded better when recording my hardware synths - same recording interface, samplerate, bitrate. It could well be my mind playing tricks, but every synth seemed to sound much clearer and richer coming into Cubase. I didn't really want to pay for another DAW so soon after buying Live, but at that point Cubase sounded better. I still use Live rewired into Cubase, it's a very handy tool for certain aspects of production. And it may well sound a lot better these days (I'm still using version 5).

I think they've made a couple of tweaks to the engine... But mainly I'd suggest that you buggered up the warping settings on the audio clips, leading to glitchy artifacts...

Live has very good performance, mainly because the software was designed for production and live performances.

I bought the boxed version of live and I gotta say, the boxed version is the way to go. The essential instruments DVD has gigabytes of samples just for a piano. They also have woodwinds, brass and a few others.

As for audio manipulation, I've read articles for both John Digweed and Armin Van Buuren saying that they use live for their radio shows. Not to mention that Sasha has been using it for a long time.

Ableton is a very nice piece of software so what this really comes down to is whether the workflow works for you. (I know you said you bought the software but other people might have similar questions)

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Originally posted by derail Could you please provide an explanation of why recording in Live is "at least 10x faster"?

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Originally posted by Zombie0729 there are a lot of nice features from sonar/cubase that are not in ableton but i will say you'll get ideas out faster and spend a lot less time in submenus in ableton.

fixed.

theres a reason when you rewire with cubase that ableton is the slave muahaha.

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Originally posted by mysticalninja theres a reason when you rewire with cubase that ableton is the slave muahaha.

If you could use VSTs when it was in slave mode, I would die from joy. Cubase and Ableton rewired with VTS in both would be insane!

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