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Learning Live 8 this weekend...questions for the gurus
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| cryophonik |
I got a killer deal on Live 8 a few months ago and I'm finally getting around to actually using it. My plan is to force myself to spend the entire weekend with it and complete a new track. FWIW I'm primarily a Sonar, Cubase, and Project5 user, but I'm hoping to become proficient enough with it to use Live primarily for my ITB tracks and Sonar for the majority of my projects, which usually have vocals and external instruments (HW synths, bass, guitars).
Most of it seems pretty straightforward and I've already created custom template and figured out the basics of MIDI editing. BTW, I'm working exclusively in Arrangement view since I prefer working in a linear fashion. Anyway, I'm hoping some of you Live gurus can help me get up to speed and answer questions as they arise. Yes, I have the manual and the Live 7 Power! book, but I have already found that a few of my questions aren't answered by either book as far as I can tell.
The first snag I've run into is that it appears that there are no audio busses in Live 8? Is that correct? For example, I want to route my kick and bass to the same buss and compress them together then route them out to the master buss. It looks like I can use group tracks, but my kick and basses are already in groups (i.e., drums group and bass group). Any workarounds?
edit: I think I figured it out - it looks like you just use normal audio tracks (rather than dedicated busses) and set the mixer to 'input'. |
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| asdfg |
| quote: | Originally posted by cryophonik
The first snag I've run into is that it appears that there are no audio busses in Live 8? Is that correct? For example, I want to route my kick and bass to the same buss and compress them together then route them out to the master buss. It looks like I can use group tracks, but my kick and basses are already in groups (i.e., drums group and bass group). Any workarounds?
edit: I think I figured it out - it looks like you just use normal audio tracks (rather than dedicated busses) and set the mixer to 'input'. |
I'd probably just use returns, you can however just create a new audio track, make sure the I-O button is enabled (bottom right of both views), then set the "audio out" on your kick/bass tracks to the desired audio track, you'll also need to make sure "monitor" set to "in" on the new audio track. |
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| DjStephenWiley |
| I prefer sends in your situation, but that's just a personal preference I suppose. It's easy in Ableton. Just open an audio track, apply your compressor and the desired settings and then send it to wherever. Kick, bass, whatever. This can also help save some CPU. |
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| Lolo |
cryo, if you need help just hit me on aim. Do you have the suite? or just Live 8 without any instrument?
L. |
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| G-Con |
Its all personal preference but I wouldn't completely dismiss the use of session view if I was you. Its what makes live stand apart from the other DAWS.
By all means spend most of your writing and production time in arrangement view, but Session view is excellent for sketching out ideas fast, trying out different combinations of loops and will in general open up many creative possibilities that arrangement view wont give you.
So even if you spend most of your time in arrangement view (as do I once I've got the ideas going in session view), you may come to find session view an integral part of the creative process. I know if I switched to another daw, I'd feel completely lost without session view to get the ideas rolling...
Food for thought? |
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| Nightshift |
Daaaaave hit me up lol.
:tongue2 |
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| cryophonik |
Thanks for the input guys, but the problem with using sends/returns is that it sends each signal parallel to both the master out and the return track (unless I'm missing something) - that's fine for doing things like NY compression, but that's not what I'm looking for. I want to simply route several instruments directly to one buss so I can process them together. But as I mentioned, I figured out how to do it using audio tracks and it works perfectly actually. Group tracks also seem to work fine in some cases.
BTW, now that I've had my head buried in Live for a few hours, I've realized that my biggest hurdle has been overthinking everything. This thing is so easy, especially programming drums using the drum racks and automation/envelopes.
| quote: | Originally posted by Lolo
cryo, if you need help just hit me on aim. Do you have the suite? or just Live 8 without any instrument?
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Thanks Lolo! I've checked out a bunch of your videos already - very helpful! I don't have the suite, but the d/l version came with a few synths (Analog, Tension, etc.). I probably won't be using those for now, since I've got dozens of third-party VSTs and hardware synths that I usually rely on. |
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| cryophonik |
| quote: | Originally posted by G-Con
Its all personal preference but I wouldn't completely dismiss the use of session view if I was you...Session view is excellent for sketching out ideas fast, trying out different combinations of loops and will in general open up many creative possibilities that arrangement view wont give you.
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Yeah, definitely good advice and I can see the value of working it into my workflow, although I generally tend to get the majority of my songs/arrangements together at the piano before I even open my DAWs. I spent a little time playing with the Session view earlier and it's pretty cool and very well thought out. Project5 has a similar function called the Groove Matrix, but I don't think it's anywhere near as complete as Live's is.
| quote: | Originally posted by Nightshift
Daaaaave hit me up lol.
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Will do! :) |
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| asdfg |
| quote: | Originally posted by cryophonik
the problem with using sends/returns is that it sends each signal parallel to both the master out and the return track (unless I'm missing something) |
You can select "Sends Only" mode in the "Audio to" list on each track. |
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| kitphillips |
| Or pull the volume off the track completely (or use the mute button) and set your sends to pre mixer mode. |
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| cryophonik |
Here's a new question for ya'll:
What's the best way of bouncing a MIDI track/VST part to an audio track? So, say I've got a synth part that I want to bounce to an audio track so I can chop it up. I've been freezing the MIDI track and drag/copying the frozen clip to audio tracks, and slicing/dicing there. Are there better ways to accomplish this? |
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| Nightshift |
Duplicate the midi track then freeze--->flatten one of them.
Does this help?:) |
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