ableton live, look no further.

[Jason Brian Merrill]

hehe, live is in the same bin as tracktion for me... the difference being is i have seen some people do some truly amazing stuff with live.

By implication, that's a bit harsh. Tracktion is a great sequencer and I'm sure that creative users can do loads with it. Check out some of pHz's tracks, for example.

eek!!

I didnt meant it that way

im sure people do good music with tracktion too, im just saying that i SAW people to really cool stuff with live... I mean, you can see them doing it LIVE!!! thats all..

sorry

[çççq]

"and it is fast and flexible"
are you sure?
look further!

[woodie]

All I want for Christmas is for Live to act as a proper rewire slave and allow VSTi's. Then I will die a happpy man having Live for composition and Cubase for mixing/pre-mastering.


Dan

if I'm not mistaken....Live 6 will bring the capability to act as a Rewire slave. Not sure what you mean "..and allow VSTi's" - it already accepts VST Instruments and Effects & Live6 will bring VST Racks allowing you to layer VST Instruments/Effects in 1 track and (I think) even save them as some kind of Rack file for easy exchanging with other Live users.

Go here for more info on Live 6: http://www.ableton.com/live6-showcase

[xylyx]

What he means is that Live cannot run VSTi's when it is functioning in rewire slave mode.

[woodie]

oh i see...well, don't know if Live6 will do that as I don't do Rewire, but I'm sure it's probably been addressed at Ableton's forum already: http://www.ableton.com/forum/

[Jason Brian Merrill]

What he means is that Live cannot run VSTi's when it is functioning in rewire slave mode.

ouch! (if you use rewire)

[foxjazz]

Wow, didn't expect so many opinions.

why would you use LIVE as a slave. I mean the Host is where its functionality really stands out.

I use reason as a slave and LIVE rewires to reason like a dream.

What host would you use anyway (protools?)

Live supports Vsti's . But I don't understand is why so many people program vsti's when rewire is available. Its like backwards thinking. Program for rewire, and vst's (other than vst effects) can go.

vst instruments however should be programmed for rewire (its just easier to work with).

That is my opinion. And what can Sonar actually do better than live? Not put tracks together, that is LIVE's specialty. That is what I enjoy doing (mixing tracks, making an arrangement). Doing that with sonar seems to be like going backward to a time when you had to do things just in arrangement mode. The session testing is what makes LIVE a powerful DAW.

I am new, so maybe I just don't know what I am talking about, but have been playing with live for weeks.

As far as track freezing, n-track does this but n-track has bugs. Reaper (daw) doesn't do this.
Sonar/Protools/Cubase may do this well. I think that is what LIVE's competition is at.

Fox

[Jason Brian Merrill]

samplitude also has an excellent track freeze.

[saturdaysaint]

As of version 5, I'd say that Live is spectacular for pattern-based composition but just adequate for more traditional, linear recording - the editing tools in the Arrangement view really aren't up to speed and while there are workarounds, crossfades and comping can be done much better in more traditional hosts. It's fantastic for what it is, but let's remember that there are many genres of music where an arpeggiator or the powerful looping of the Session View or even "never press stop" recording, as cool as they are, are fairly irrelevant. For musicians in genres like jazz or more straightforward pop, the "track lanes" take management of Sonar and Cubase or the power of Beat Detective (and, perhaps, Sonar's Autosnap) might be a lot more indespensable than Live's more sexy features. Live is a great host, but it's not the go-to host for people of all musical genres just yet.

[Lunch Money]

Well the exciting thing about Live is that it has a totally different approach to any of the others. Some people love it, others don't. That's the beauty of having choice in the marketplace.

Particular distinctives are: Jamming and Real-time sequencing in the Session View, auto-timestretch and warpmarkers, gapless audio and specific design for stage/real-time use, clip-based paradigm with detachable clip envelopes for generative composition, etc.

Yes... absolutely. All things that set Live apart and make it interesting. Not listed in the original post.

But you know all that Lunch Money, so I'm really wondering why you bothered to shoot down the KVR newcomer's OP

I didn't "shoot it down," I said that none of the things listed were unique to Live. It was analogous to me saying, "Man, there are some good guitars in the world, but I LOVE Paul Reed Smith. And it's cool to see that many people are using them instead of Gibsons or Fenders! I mean, look-- it has 6 strings, a bridge, pickups, a nut, and is made primarily of wood!"

There wasn't any "shooting down," or depending on your definition, at least it wasn't malicious. It was an opportunity for the OP or anyone else to clarify what it is that makes Live an attractive option.

Greg

[xylyx]

But I don't understand is why so many people program vsti's when rewire is available. Its like backwards thinking. Program for rewire, and vst's (other than vst effects) can go.

vst instruments however should be programmed for rewire (its just easier to work with).

I disagree with this 100%. If anything, rewire is more awkward to work with, as any rewired device has to be closed before closing down the host...you also have to reopen any file information in the slave device when re-opening a project. With VST all of this can be saved within the host program and restored just by re-opening the project. I absolutely loathe rewire and do not use it...the best thing the Propellerheads could do (for me anyway), is make a VST version of Reason, so that it can be used within a VST host, rather than connected via the 'virtual audio/midi cables' that is rewire.

That is my opinion. And what can Sonar actually do better than live? Not put tracks together, that is LIVE's specialty. That is what I enjoy doing (mixing tracks, making an arrangement). Doing that with sonar seems to be like going backward to a time when you had to do things just in arrangement mode. The session testing is what makes LIVE a powerful DAW.

For me it was the Arrange page in Live that stopped me buying it...the Session view is great, but when it comes to arranging a track, I just did not like the arrange view at all. Give me most other hosts arrange views over Live's any day.

[headquest]

why would you use LIVE as a slave. I mean the Host is where its functionality really stands out.

Just a brief history explains it:

Live was originally just an audio loop tool aimed at stage use. It didn't even have an Arrangement View at all at version 1. When they added Rewire functionality it was so that it could be slaved to proper recording and MIDI sequencing programs such as Cubase and Logic. They added Rewire Host functionality because they could see how well Live would also complement Reason, given it lacks audio. But at that point, Live had no MIDI sequencing or VST hosting (even effects was partial - no GUIs, etc). But there was no purpose in them including VST hosting when Live was in rewire slave mode.

Since version 4, Live has become a proper host, including VST/AU support for instruments as well as effects, and including full sequencing. So you are right - the focus Ableton have adopted is to develop Live as a host. Most hosts - such as Cubase, Sonar, Logic, Digital Performer, Pro Tools or Tracktion, etc do not even have Rewire slave ability at all - Live is unusual in this way. These are the programs that Live is now competing with. As such, putting further development time into Live's (from their point of view largely defunct) rewire slave functionality is counterproductive to their basic objective of establishing Live as a host. [yes, it's true that FLS and P5v2 can host VSTs while in rewire slave mode, but these are not the programs that Live is trying to compete with, or probably even takes much notice of].

There is a twist however! Since they launched their Operator instrument as a standlone product, with the new Sampler following the same business model, there is a need to enhance Rewire slave capacity to receive MIDI so that these instruments are accessible in other hosts (via Rewire). The purpose of this is to add to the attractiveness of buying their standalone instrument products.

The fact that they revisited Rewire slaving, but did not also take this opportunity to deal with the VST/Rewire slave issue gives a very strong indication that they are not interested in pushing Live as a "second program" any longer but are focussed entirely on promoting Live as a full-on DAW host.

I hope this explains it better.

[stale bread]

dudes dudes dudes you won't believe what just happened to me, I was just out at a local cafe with a girlfriend of mine when lo and behold right in the middle of our meal I got punked!! by Live...haha wow! it was really something , ashton kutcher.... better watch out man cause you aint got nothin on Live 6

[paradiddle]

Well I made the plunge from live lite to 5.2 just 5 minutes ago. Not bad $249 usd and I get live 6 when It comes out. fun fun fun

[jesus wept]

does live have a sampler? i make mostly sample based beats with fl and reason cause they have dope samplers but i'd like to try live cause i hear good things.