What's so special about Ableton Live 5?

[kovacs]

1. No
2. No, but you can create templates
3. No, the routing is pretty basic
4. I think it is only capable of side-chaining via VST - which works fine
5. Not to my knowledge
6. Yes. You right-click on a track and choose "Freeze". This renders a wav file. The track can be unfrozen in an instant. However you cannot do anything with a frozen track, hopefully they will allow some automation etc in a future version
7. IMHO Live 5 is a vast improvement over 4, CPU-wise.

[diverdee]

folder tracks would indeed be a welcome addition to live.
re: routing left & right channels independently & rack filters style functions I believe a fair number of users utilise xt for this purpose, haven't tried it myself (mainly use reason for all my sounds) but I may download the demo to try it myself.
Of course for the left right split one could send a 'pre' signal to two sends with the utility plug in on both cancelling the left/right respectively & then process those & route them back into another track I suppose, seems a bit fiddly though maybe?

[headquest]

1. Does Live have folder-tracks? (means, you can create a track, which contains other tracks -> i.e. Drums-foldertrack)

No. But it is easy to do submixes, which personally I find more useful.

2. Does Live offer screensets? (with push of a button you can recall user-made screen layouts - i.e. showing plugin analyzer)

Not sure what you mean. Every area of the Live screen is so easy to open/close that presets aren't necessary though.

3. I know that Live allows routing tracks into other tracks, but does it have 'rack-filters' like Tracktion?

Routing in Live is VERY flexible, but if you want to do a modular set up you will need to use an accessory such as eXT or Bidule within Live.

4. Is it capable of sidechaining? If yes, how do you set it up

Yes it is... but as I've not done it personally somebody else should do a walk-through for you

5. Is it possible to use different plugins on L and R channel? If yes, how do you achieve that?

I think that you need a dedicated sample editor to do that inthe strictest sense. You could though run a clip through two channels, pan them hard left/right, and do different effects on each, which seems the simplest approach.

6. Does it offer freeze-functionality? If yes, how does it work?

Right click over a track and all the clips will be frozen.

When clips are frozen there is still a lot of stuff that you can do with them, and this is a major difference between Ableton's freeze and the one you are used to in Tracktion

When a track is frozen in Live you can still:

* launch clips in real time, including recording a new arrangment into the arrangment view (although you will then need to refreeze the arrangement itself)
* adjust volume/level
* adjust panning
* change aux send effects settings and amount
* change the track output destination
* solo and mute the track/clips
* manually change the PDC latency settings
* use the DJ-style crossfader, and reassign the output of the track within that context also.

Quite powerful stuff!

7. I tried Live4 once and it was a CPU-hog compared to Logic5.5 and Tracktion1. How did the CPU-efficiency develop with Live5?

I also had MAJOR problems with CPU in early versions of Live 4. This is now much, much better in Live 5.

I hope this helps! Now go and try out the demo and let us know how you get on

[kovacs]

6. Yes. You right-click on a track and choose "Freeze". This renders a wav file. The track can be unfrozen in an instant. However you cannot do anything with a frozen track, hopefully they will allow some automation etc in a future version

Right click over a track and all the clips will be frozen.

When clips are frozen there is still a lot of stuff that you can do with them, and this is a major difference between Ableton's freeze and the one you are used to in Tracktion

When a track is frozen in Live you can still:

* launch clips in real time, including recording a new arrangment into the arrangment view (although you will then need to refreeze the arrangement itself)
* adjust volume/level
* adjust panning
* change aux send effects settings and amount
* change the track output destination
* solo and mute the track/clips
* manually change the PDC latency settings
* use the DJ-style crossfader, and reassign the output of the track within that context also.

Quite powerful stuff!

...I stand corrected.

[headquest]

...I stand corrected.

I see what you mean. I think we were both typing away at the same time and I missed your post

[Barbarossa]

Thanks all for your answers, esp. headquest.