Ableton Live vs. FL Studio

[xbitz]

a nice Live+Reason video has been posted by V0RT3X (http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... e#p5838217, this is the best what u can get for your money currently IMO, if u want to buy a non post-production based DAW)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY87xQtIKsk
+ as I mentioned above from Reason 8 u can drop samples directly from Live to Reason, it's missing from the video (and the Live Reason connector devices too http://www.maxforlive.com/library/devic ... m4l-reason which enables to automate Reason devices easily from Live directly )

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ok my one is funnier, but I've used FL (multi clip editing, ghost tracking is missing from AL) too

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3VCtu80v2A

and BWS can do this alone - cables + random bugs quite often

[Mivo]

I just saw that the Push had a price cut. €399 now (€419 as a bundle with a cover at Thomann), about €80 off, which is a great price for a controller of this build quality. Live and upgrades are also discounted for the holidays. Hmm. The temptation never ends.

[2ZrgE]

external plugins, you end up with multiple windows again

generally u build patch/track depend devices(instrument rack) from the VSTs so it's not always true

al_control.png

this kind of macroing/layering is completely missing from FL, but hopefully Patcher gonna work this way in FL12 final

This may work for some VSTs (e.g. with ABL2 you have all parameters directly available within the device rack), but for deeper tweaking you would still use the VSTs GUI. You could of course map all synth parameters, but that would become quite messy (only 8 marcro knobs, and sadly you cannot rename the mapped parameters).

[kenobi77]

I'm a Live 9 user, I do have a copy of Fl Studio Fruity Edition which I bought a while back to get an idea of what FL's all about while I was using Live 8. I'm into Dance/Electronic music production, using midi instruments and samples.

Things I like about FL over Live (or any DAW for that matter)
- How the step sequencer is integrated I think is great for workflow, love the immediacy of it.
- The Analyser on EQ2, my favourite of any EQ, is really intuitive with the way it uses colour instead of a graph.

The overall feel of the two DAW's are IMO poles apart. Live with it's integrated and uniform display and FL with it's multiple floating windows. It's a personal preference which you prefer, or which is the lesser of two evils. A consequence of Live's interface is that you can't view the arrangement view (the regular linear view) and the mixer, while in FL you can arrange things pretty as you like. FL is unique with how it approaches instruments, the mixer and patterns, in that in all other DAW's more or less there is a one to one relationship between all these things (one instrument will have its own mixer channel and it's own midi clip) while in FL this can be done but they are all quite independent.

Live's "killer" feature IMO is the way it handles audio loops. You can drag and drop a loop of any tempo into a project and it will seamlessly fit to the tempo, changing pitch is quick and easy and so is muting individual parts of the loop. People use Live in Rewire mode just for this feature. Another decent workflow feature when using Live's own instruments and FX is that the GUI's are visible and tweakable without having to open another windows. Third party instruments and FX can be configured to show some or all their parameters as sliders in the same way, and two can be assigned to the X/Y pad.

At the end of the day I think if I had started on FL instead of Live I would probably still be using it as my main DAW today.

Hope the above is of some help to you.

[Mivo]

One of my issues with Live is the font size. The UI is scaleable, but it's either all or nothing, and if I go over 120%, the graphical parts of the UI don't fit properly anymore -- but that's when the font starts to become comfortably readable for me on a 17" laptop display in 1920x1080. This is probably not an issue for people with better eyes.

FL12 (beta) handles scaling substantially better, though it currently feels a little crowded (toolbar might be a bit too large). Overall, though, FL12 is super easy on my eyes, even in the unfinished early beta state. My ideal UI would be somewhere between FL and Live.

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

As you can see from my signature, I use a number of DAWs. Advantages depend on what you are doing and how you are using it.

If you like the workflow of FL Studio, then stick with it. Cubase is my central go to. But mostly because I am familiar and comfortable with the work flow. When the demands change, I might change DAWs, but that is because it is my job... I would always rather stick to what I know and can use.

If someone took away my principle DAW, I would still make the music I make. But it might take me much longer.

For the record, and it is a cliche, but...

The grass is not always greener...

if time wasn't an issue, and you chose based on feature sets and innovative workflow possibilities, , which would you go for ??

[JonSolo]

if time wasn't an issue, and you chose based on feature sets and innovative workflow possibilities, , which would you go for ??

If I didn't do so much linear style recording of vocals and real world instruments, I would take the time to learn Ableton thoroughly. It does so much so well. There are things you can do there that you cannot with other DAWs.

To be fair though, you can say that about just any DAW. And in Ableton, it takes me longer to do some things I can do in Cubase (I mean can Ableton give me a REAL mixer...that would be a game changer for me).

What I really desire is to mashup Cubase, Ableton, and Reason. And I usually do...through Rewire.

But this topic deals with the switch from FL Studio to Ableton. I have both, use both, and the only advantage I see are the ones mentioned (Live does live very well), and nothing will ever beat the workflow you are used to in any DAW.

[TheNickC]

A lot of people wind up switching because of Ableton's clip launcher for live performances, and it has some advantages like better controller support and mapping ability+standard CCs mapped properly by default, and single window workflow. On the other hand, FL is a much more stable program, lighter on resources, and generally seems to be higher precision to me. An example would be trying to scroll the piano roll slowly and instantly teleporting up 3 octaves, that's something that's happened to me in Live. FL has workflow hiccups also but they're conceptual, the execution itself is great. Ableton is cross platform too, as artists become more successful the odds of switching to mac grow also

[flash-trance]

Thank you everyone for all of the replies!

It sounds like, for the most part, the only differences are the way Live does live performance (which I have researched a bit and is very nice, even compared to FL's Performance Mode) and its integrated UI. I think I'm probably going to stick with FL as my main DAW simply because going through the process of learning a new workflow that doesn't really seem like something I'd get more out of doesn't seem worth it.

I actually got Live free with my Focusrite audio interface, however, so I may give it a try at least and I'll let everyone know what I think of it!

[Mivo]

Yeah, in the end it comes down to workflow and what you're used to. Your thread had inspired me to play around some more in Live, but FL just feels so much more natural to me in comparison, and I really like several of IL's plugins (Edison, Sytrus, Maximus, Slicex, to name just four, and I'll pick up Harmor soon, because that is really a beast of a synth) and how well they're integrated into FL Studio.

[cpu.running.hot]

I myself am a FL Studio user and love it!

The one piece of advice I would have for you is this... try to avoid the temptation of becoming a gear-slut. Many people, in many endeavors in life, will tend to get obsessed with the gear, and the perceived ( and actual ) value of the gear. In the end, it's the music that's important. So don't feel the need to change your platform because "it's what the professionals use". If you can make great music beating on a tin can, then so be it.

With that being said, quality is important of course. So unless you are experiencing quality issues ( software crashing, missing features, poor sound quality, etc. ), then switching platforms may satisfy your inner nerd, but do little to change your music output.

cpu

[tooneba]

Mapping is useful when creating effector gui. I'm yet to find useful in production phase. It always end up in the situation lacking knobs, requires searching through same layout pages, losing affordance, inappropriate controller type for source VST gui, and etc. I used automap, live's macro. Much hassle than using original gui made by vst developer.

[Lejurai]

For me FLS is a bit "do everything the hard way" but actually it's just that everything can be done in a million ways in FLS and one of the things I like in Ableton is that it's very simple and fast. Even though FLS opens up in a second and few clicks on the sequencer and voilá.. I have a beat. Ableton takes quite a bit longer.

If I want to mangle and twist and turn my samples, Ableton does better job on that, buuuuut FLS has way better tools for playing with samples (harmor, edison..)

Even though FLS and Ableton are both DAWs and do basically the same things, they're still so different that IMO the best option would be to buy them both and since FLS has one superior feature.. It can be used as vst.. It works like a dream to use Ableton as "main" DAW and FLS as plugin inside Ableton since it nicely adds up some features (and workflow things) missing in Ableton.

[Kalamata Kid]

Even though FLS and Ableton are both DAWs and do basically the same things, they're still so different that IMO the best option would be to buy them both and since FLS has one superior feature.. It can be used as vst.. It works like a dream to use Ableton as "main" DAW and FLS as plugin inside Ableton since it nicely adds up some features (and workflow things) missing in Ableton.

I was thinking the same thing but to use FLS inside Sonar x3/x4. Both Sonar and FL Studio are multi-touch ready. Sonar in addition has ARA. But then again perhaps the Live/FL studio is better combo. I do not have Live and probably will not get it as it is too expensive.

Some one noted that when FL Studio is used as a VSTi it loses the hot key workflow.

Just a few simple comments but do not want to drift away from the OP.

[werp]

I have FL Studio signature and I bought Live 9 suite a while back.
I've now gone a completely different route and changed over to Logic on a Mac. Early days yet, I've just started installing Komplete
I'll keep FL Studio as image-line is working on a mac version but I'll get rid of Ableton as I've never clicked with it. It's ugly and I've no intention of doing stuff live so it might as well go to someone who could use it....along with the Push controller.
Windows 7 to Mac Yosemite has reduced latency from ten to 3 milliseconds also...