ableton live users?

kensuguro · Post by **kensuguro** » Fri Mar 30, 2007 9:33 pm

Hey, just wanted to know who of us were Live supporters. I'm putting together a minimal native setup for my powerbook, and Live seemed to be a well balanced platform. It's light, and does the job.

Post by **hubird** » Fri Mar 30, 2007 9:36 pm

know only of complaints about Midi timing, but with only a laptop it'll be alright then

kensuguro · Post by **kensuguro** » Fri Mar 30, 2007 9:39 pm

what? midi timing? that's a complete bummer!

I remembered my band mate having problems prior to performance, where the clocks would jitter once in a litle while.. and then, once the song was played through a few times, it would stop jittering.. as if Live was caching as it was playing, or something similar. Wasn't sure if this was a Live dependant issue or not. Anyhow, what's the story on the messed up MIDI timing?

Post by **hubird** » Fri Mar 30, 2007 9:49 pm

some people on the Elektron forum are complaining about it, with other midi issues involved.
On Planetz there were also some reports of Midi problems, if I'm right.
Yet it's about live, that's most important.
It seems to be quite complete these days

Also, I saw a lot of elektronica musicions playing 'Live' during a party, so I wouldn't hestate to try it out

I bet it's great once you find your way in it.

bgarlow · Post by **bgarlow** » Sat Mar 31, 2007 6:35 am

Hi,

I'm a huge Ableton Live supporter. I've been with them since version 3, when they didn't even have MIDI support. Personally, I find it to be the most creativity-inducing environment I've ever worked in. I haven't touched Cubase or Sonar in 2 years.

I haven't noticed any major timing issues, and I use Live with creamware synths (in Scope and XTC mode) and a lot of external gear with questionable MIDI implementations. One thing to consider is that each release of Live seems to have incrementally better support for features they released in the last version, in addition to the new features. MIDI support has gotten a lot better since version 4 (I think that's when it came out). Plus, they just announced a partnership with Cycling '74, which could be interesting

.

Ok, enough blabbering. Live is great. Give me a MacBook, Live and a shiny new hardware Solaris and I'm good to go!

Brent

valis · Post by **valis** » Sat Mar 31, 2007 3:59 pm

I can see people with the MachineDrum or MonoMachine complaining about midi timing though. They complained a lot about most major interfaces and got a special one made for themselves.

Ableton doesn't seem to be as good as something like Logic at knowing what midi data to prioritize, but as long as you're not trying to do extensive external control (16 channels of midi with lots of CC's on top of your notes) you shouldn't see any issues imo. I use ableton on my laptop quite a bit.

I did play with performing with Ableton for a while, but as nice as it was I really found that I need something more than this 1.6Ghz laptop, although I have reconsidered doing some sort of downtempo act with it where it should be fine. I must say that since v4 the performance of Ableton has been pretty steady and free from bloat, I get the same performance I always have from the audio engine & main app. It's only the newer devices & Vsti's that I load into it that are getting heavier on cpu.

Mostly I use Ableton in the studio in the ways that I used to use Acid before it became bloated. for doing nice edits and tossing quick ideas into the fray. It also makes an excellent sampler if you set each clip to trigger freely rather than quantized, so that the incoming notes from your main sequencer trigger clips immediately. All of the other usual tricks for doing follow actions, other channels for 'control clips' (using a blank audio part) and such still work fine too, and it can do some things that a regular sampler doesn't do.

King of Snake · Post by **King of Snake** » Sun Apr 01, 2007 1:10 am

I've been using ableton since a couple of weeks and I love it. A very nice and creative way of working, even though in some areas it might not be as advanced as Cubase/Logic. For me personally, I don't usually do ridiculous amount of channels or extremely complex editing, so it fits my workflow pretty well.
I just wish it had folder tracks and wacom support though. Looking forward to hopefully seeing these in Live 7.
And I want a Faderfox!

valis · Post by **valis** » Sun Apr 01, 2007 1:38 am

I don't like the 'arrange' editing in Live btw. For basic work it's fine but when I start to get complex I find that automation handling is slow and the window's look starts to get in the way, or I have to be at high vertical zoom levels. The 'scroom' ability is nice though for horizontal movement.

dawman · Post by **dawman** » Sun Apr 01, 2007 3:59 am

The only successful VST guy in town that does gigs uses it with Kyma. I worked w/ him @ the private club 4 six months. He's just a DJ but does some very intense stuff. Like whenever he wants to blend weird styles together to match pitch and tempos, this thing spits 'em out fast. Using his Akai MPC that triggers this weird worldly tuned percussion stuff, he can raise or lower the pitch to the groove he's doing on the fly.

I was thinking about usinig it to trigger recordings of instruments I could'nt play on my lower keys of the 88's. But have succeeded w/ the bluegrass stuff, and the Pedal Steel since then. 3rd party guys to the rescue.

ChrisWerner · Post by **ChrisWerner** » Sun Apr 01, 2007 8:35 am

From time to time I use it live to fire loop based thingies away.
At home I use it often via ReWire with my host sequencer for a quick rhythm backing, also I like the arpeggiator.

It does the job that Acid has done in the past for me. Ableton is great and I am looking forward to dig deeper into it.

Tau · Post by **Tau** » Sun Apr 01, 2007 10:44 am

I'm also a Live user, since v.4. I started to use it as a loop triggering sampler, but I ended up using it fot most of my composition. It works perfectly with SFP and XTC and it's excellent for live work, since it can integrate audio and MIDI, taking care of Rewire and external HW. It's deceptively simple: clips can be recorded and triggered at any time, in sync or not, and these can be audio, MIDI notes or simply CCs, which means that you can actually "play" your composition live, or record different intruments while rehearsing or jamming. Clips can be stored outside a project, including all VST and FX info, and that's a quick way to build a library of your own music, and use it later in another project, completely editable, not just a wav! Pitchshifting is OK, but it could get better - I believe it has no comparison to Kyma in that aspect!!! But you can use it to feed any sort of sound processor or synthesizer, in fact, many at a time, all under one centralized control!

What really sold this to me was it's simplicity. Everything tends to be effortless and... well, modular, in a way that Cubase simply isn't. First time I hooked it with my Radikal SAC controller (in Mackie mode), it simply came to life: all parameters accesible from the control surface, first time... Assigning CCs to vsts or CW synths is also dead easy and fast, and latest version 6 has some extra goodies as VST layering per track, meaning you can combine synths, or create parallel FX chains in one single track!

Drawbacks are that MIDI editing is still very basic, and it's not particularly suitable to do things like vocal comping - I always go to Cubase for that and for mixing, especially for the C4 plug-ins, but you can always route Live's outs to sfp and mix there. But in Live, only one automation envelope per track is shown at a time, and in arrange view, these tend to be too small to be useful (meaning a lot of Zooming in and out).

As for the Elektron users' MIDI complaints mentioned, I read that Elektron has built a special "turbo MIDI" interface to use with the MachineDrum and the MonoMachine, so it might not be a problem of Ableton's, but maybe of MIDI itself... I never had any significant problems with MIDI that couldn't be solved with a bit of "thinning out" of data.

I think you'll have a lot of fun with Live! I'm thinking of getting one of those Open Labs' machines (the Miko looks small enough, but can it fit two 15 DSPs?), then I can take Ableton and Scope live, in one box. Apparently, though, their Karsyn virtual rack (a version of Brainspawn forte) can't take MIDI input from Live's rewire, or that would be the ultimate setup... One touch on the screen to load synths (XTC and VST), fx, audio and controller routings in an instant, controlled by an as-big-as-you-like matrix of your own sequences and samples, in sync... or not

Cheers!

dawman · Post by **dawman** » Sun Apr 01, 2007 12:07 pm

Brotha' Man Tau,
Brotha' Man Dobermate struggled w/ his, but sats it's working great.

Search For.............Neko Open Labs......author............Dobermate

Problem Solving Thread.

ARCADIOS · Post by **ARCADIOS** » Sun Apr 01, 2007 4:00 pm

the most creative platform i have ever used.

Astral Fridge Magnet · Sun Apr 01, 2007 4:08 pm

Hello,

I have used Live since version 3. Great program and allows a lot of creativity. Logic or Cubase are more sophistaicated in certain areas, particularly with MIDI handling and built in plug-ins, but Ableton is far more interactive and instant time stretching is cool.