KVR Audio

Stan Navi · Post by **Stan Navi** » Wed Mar 09, 2016 11:43 am

Good day!
I like ableton Live for it's creativity and experimental stuff. So can it be the main DAW in a studio? I know, mostly it is for electronic music. But is it possible to produce cinematic music or to record a band? Or maybe it better to find another DAW for "allround" producing?

Thank you!

Robmobius · Post by **Robmobius** » Wed Mar 09, 2016 11:54 am

Stan Navi wrote:Good day!
I like ableton Live for it's creativity and experimental stuff. So can it be the main DAW in a studio? I know, mostly it is for electronic music. But is it possible to produce cinematic music or to record a band? Or maybe it better to find another DAW for "allround" producing?

Thank you!

Ableton is capable of doing all those things. I use Studio one for my band stuff but Ableton could easily do it.

And I produce electronic music in Abe, but Studio one can do it as well. It's really about personal preference.

woodsdenis · Post by **woodsdenis** » Wed Mar 09, 2016 12:57 pm

Stan Navi wrote:Good day!
I like ableton Live for it's creativity and experimental stuff. So can it be the main DAW in a studio? I know, mostly it is for electronic music. But is it possible to produce cinematic music or to record a band? Or maybe it better to find another DAW for "allround" producing?

Thank you!

Check out Daniel James YT channel , he uses Live for cinematic trailer and game scores. I would say the linear side of Live isn't as good as others but that difference is entirely up to the individual. Live is very stable and Ableton crank out updates very quickly.

tooneba · Post by **tooneba** » Wed Mar 09, 2016 1:37 pm

Does ableton support SMPTE?

Synthbuilder · Post by **Synthbuilder** » Wed Mar 09, 2016 1:56 pm

I use Live as my main DAW. I don't play live and all the music I record is through Live. I do mostly electronic music but I don't usually work with loops and I often record audio. I use the session view solely as a mixer - stretching the fader area as far as it will go and ignoring the clip section entirely.

I have tried out other DAWs, Reason, Reaper, Studio One and Tracktion, but they didn't work for me as well as Live. It all comes down to what you feel comfortable with. For me it's Live - I like the way it looks, the way I can drag and drop, the routing and most of the inbuilt devices - particularly Sampler.

There are plenty of times where I wish it did some things better, but there are always workarounds, which after a while just become second nature to deal with. But then I've been using it for over twelve years now.

The two mains things that bug me about Live for studio use are.

1. The lack of overlapping audio and midi clips. You can have two (or more) tracks feeding one track, but you can't overlay individual samples or midi information over each other in the same track.

2. Midi data is messed about with as it travels through Live - the timing is affected and CCs are often replaced incorrectly including pitch bend. This is hopeless if you use an external sequencer to control, via Live, an external midi synth or drum machine. And it's not that good if you play well on your master keyboard.

Tony

dsan@mail.com · Post by **dsan@mail.com** » Wed Mar 09, 2016 2:27 pm

IMHO, the purpose of all DAW's is to compose music with. Doesn't matter the genre.

You need to learn the ins and outs (no pun intended) and find the one that suits you best.

Every DAW maker that I can think of offers a trial. You should demo any and all that you have interest in.

I have and use Live 9.6, Cubase 6, Sonar X2, Studio One 2, Bitwig and FL Studio. Personally, I keep coming back to Live because it just does what I need it to. I mainly do cinematic/ambient and touch the edge of EDM. I'm all ITB though, no recording and just some audio clips; mostly MIDI.

So yes, it will do cinematic. They all will.

I agree with woodsdenis - check out Daniel James. He's brilliant, although a little long winded

, but quite enjoyable to learn from.

Do yourself a huge favor - demo. 'Nuf said.

Cheers!

Stan Navi · Post by **Stan Navi** » Wed Mar 09, 2016 5:56 pm

Thanks for your answers. I'll check this guy youtube.
And what about recording instruments. In many forums people says that it's best to record in LPX or Cubase than in Live. Why?

thecontrolcentre · Post by **thecontrolcentre** » Wed Mar 09, 2016 6:04 pm

I record and mix in Live. I've recorded bands as well as electronic music. I don't have (or need) another DAW.

tooneba · Post by **tooneba** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 2:57 am

Stan Navi wrote:And what about recording instruments. In many forums people says that it's best to record in LPX or Cubase than in Live. Why?

Comping. You can't do it in ableton.

ghettosynth · Post by **ghettosynth** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 6:03 am

tooneba wrote:
Stan Navi wrote:And what about recording instruments. In many forums people says that it's best to record in LPX or Cubase than in Live. Why?
Comping. You can't do it in ableton.

Yes, I think that this example gets to the heart of it. Of course you can make any kind of music you want in Live. The better question is it a good choice. I think that it's not Live's strength to do linear recording and if that's what you need there are much better choices.

For any feature that you can name, these discussions can get deep quickly so don't let a few "sure it's great for that" posts which don't even come close to addressing the issues sway you.

The details matter and it's those details that make one DAW better at something than another. I like Reaper a lot, but, I agree with a lot of the assessment in this thread in that comping is better in other hosts.

http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=83909

incubus · Post by **incubus** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 7:07 am

Live can absolutely be the alpha male.

I used it for nearly 3 years (8.4 to x) and it was great.

Now, for the downfall: It's terrible for audio editing. The external editors don't play nice, and as a bass/guitar player that got old. I moved on to reason which believe it or not has far superior audio editing (though it could use some love) and many of the same aspects (though different hoops) than live.

Also, I jumped on the original "push" would needed love too, they never really gave it, and then now you have to have the next gen of that.

But overall, it's a very very good host, good company and other than M4L (which has been updated, though not sure if...because the previous version was super crashy) it's a great way to make music.

ghettosynth · Post by **ghettosynth** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 8:15 am

incubus wrote: I moved on to reason which believe it or not has far superior audio editing (though it could use some love) and many of the same aspects (though different hoops) than live.

I like reason for recording as well. It's little things, like a tuner in the track. I've stopped trying to use just one DAW because some DAWs are just so much better than others at specific ways of working.

The problem with Reason, and Live, and most other DAWs when thinking of them as a second DAW, is that they are so damn expensive. I think that for almost every situation like this, having Reaper around is an advantage. It's not the best at everything, but it's competent and better than Live or Reason for many things. It's like the swiss army knife of DAWs.

I downloaded Reaper initially for NinJam and since then have just started using it more and more. You don't have to pay for it until you're ready to use it. I used it off and on for a couple of years before I purchased a license. I was happy with my version 4 license which was purchased on sale at the end of version 3, but, I'll probably upgrade to v5 now just because of this.

thecontrolcentre · Post by **thecontrolcentre** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 3:11 pm

ghettosynth wrote: I like reason for recording as well. It's little things, like a tuner in the track. I've stopped trying to use just one DAW because some DAWs are just so much better than others at specific ways of working.

Since v9.5 Live has it's own tuner ...

noiseresearch · Post by **noiseresearch** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 3:44 pm

/* static noise */

ghettosynth · Post by **ghettosynth** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 9:10 pm

thecontrolcentre wrote:
ghettosynth wrote: I like reason for recording as well. It's little things, like a tuner in the track. I've stopped trying to use just one DAW because some DAWs are just so much better than others at specific ways of working.
Since v9.5 Live has it's own tuner ...

Indeed, so has every DAW.

http://www.gvst.co.uk/gtune.htm

Reason has it right in the track window. It's definitely a little thing. I'm not a Reason fanboi, but I do like it for recording and it's these little things that make the difference. The bass player and the guitar player can tune at the same time and it's just two clicks.

Don't get me wrong, I love Live 9.5+, the new syncing feature is just fantastic and the filters have really improved the built in instruments. I just don't think that it's the best tool for recording. Comping is nonexistent, editing is weak, the mixer isn't anything to write home about.

I'm not even a fan of the giant monolithic mixer in Reason, but, it is just faster for recording because it's all there. Again, it's little things, like clicking the EQ icon on the rack channel brings up the EQ in a popup. I can do this quickly for several tracks. In Live you navigate to the track then find your way to the EQ.

I'm not recommending Reason though, like the previous poster, I recommend Reaper. I think that Reaper is the second DAW that everyone should have. I use it for all of my mastering, I use it for NinJam, I use it for certain kinds of recording projects, I use it for some kinds of work with loops.

Is Ableton Live capable of...?