Is Ableton Live capable of...?

[pdxindy]

Cubase cannot compare the Live's Drum Rack or Instrument Rack. If I want to layer 2 synths, blend them together over a key range, use the modwheel to blend between them and so on. It takes literally seconds to setup. Live is like an instrument, and Cubase isn't.

and sorry... just cause you have a couple examples does not make your point valid in the general sense.

MUX solved this long time ago ...

ps. if u need clips and patterns in Cubase worth to check Nora

still doesn't compare to the ease and beauty of Live's racks... having to add 2 separate environments to partially duplicate what can so easily be done in Live is a level of complexity that I have no interest in.

also Mux is not available on OS X

[xbitz]

"still doesn't compare to the ease and beauty of Live's racks" except if u put VSTs into the racks, those ones have to be opened/closed always(I'm using FabFilter, Vengeance etc. plugins and not the AL stock ones) Cubase can open all the added plugins(on the selected track, instruments or fxs independently) only with one click(shortkey) practically on the secondary monitor so don't have open/close all the VSTs one by one always (this is missing from Bitwig too which can't even save the positions of the opened VSTs always pack them onto the middle of the screen if u reopen the project )

"also Mux is not available on OS X" yepp

anyway on win platform Cubase+Nora+MUX+(SerumFX if u need rack based fx unit with all kind of modulation) +lot of VST(i) seems very good combo for me, if any of the component is removed then AL/Bitwig/etc. is better as creative DAW

[ghettosynth]

"still doesn't compare to the ease and beauty of Live's racks" except if u put VSTs into the racks, those ones have to be opened/closed always(I'm using FabFilter, Vengeance etc. plugins and not the AL stock ones) Cubase can open all the added plugins(on the selected track, instruments or fxs independently) only with one click(shortkey) practically on the secondary monitor so don't have open/close all the VSTs one by one always (this is missing from Bitwig too which can't even save the positions of the opened VSTs always pack them onto the middle of the screen if u reopen the project )

"also Mux is not available on OS X" yepp

anyway on win platform Cubase+Nora+MUX+(SerumFX if u need rack based fx unit with all kind of modulation) +lot of VST(i) seems very good combo for me, if any of the component is removed then AL/Bitwig/etc. is better as creative DAW

I don't think that you've really used Live's racks in a fluent way. If you did, you wouldn't be arguing that Cubase is more creative in that sense, it just isn't and mux doesn't change that. There is really something important about the immediacy and flow in Live here.

Drum racks in particular are just fantastic in terms of workflow. I can be completely agnostic as to the source of a drum pad, I just drag the preset/sample and start working. The speed matters, the immediacy and dynamism matters. I can drag a kick preset that I like that happens to an operator patch and then in a split second, change my mind and drop a sample instead. When you program your pattern, the piano roll takes the name of the preset or sample. It's so immediate and fast to program rhythms that you don't even think about it. So, tell me how that works in mux with cubase?

Last I checked, as cool as beat designer is, you still have to setup drum maps to get note names. Does mux magically create drum maps for you? That would be a cool feature.

I don't know about other live users, but this is largely why I have no interest in drum machine plugins.

[BDeep]

I don't know about other live users, but this is largely why I have no interest in drum machine plugins.

Drumsynths, yes, drumsamplers, definitely not.
And I have Drumspillage integrated in a rack, so I do use it all the time, even for that.
And I use only the samples of battery, I barely touch the more advanced features anyway.

[xbitz]

Drum racks in particular are just fantastic in terms of workflow. I can be completely agnostic as to the source of a drum pad, I just drag the preset/sample and start working. The speed matters, the immediacy and dynamism matters. I can drag a kick preset that I like that happens to an operator patch and then in a split second, change my mind and drop a sample instead. When you program your pattern, the piano roll takes the name of the preset or sample. It's so immediate and fast to program rhythms that you don't even think about it. So, tell me how that works in mux with cubase?

for drums GA is enough for me, u save your things in MIDI loop format which saves, form the docs

"MIDI loops are handy, as they contain not only MIDI notes and controllers, but also the number of voices, the associated VST instrument and instrument track preset settings."



so can be dropped back to any project easily, GA supports patterns they can be dropped in/out from/to the tracks so they can be programmed quite fast(GA has MIDI out so it can trigger outer VSTis too)

[ghettosynth]

Drum racks in particular are just fantastic in terms of workflow. I can be completely agnostic as to the source of a drum pad, I just drag the preset/sample and start working. The speed matters, the immediacy and dynamism matters. I can drag a kick preset that I like that happens to an operator patch and then in a split second, change my mind and drop a sample instead. When you program your pattern, the piano roll takes the name of the preset or sample. It's so immediate and fast to program rhythms that you don't even think about it. So, tell me how that works in mux with cubase?

for drums GA is enough for me, u save your things in MIDI loop format which saves, form the docs

You have no idea what we're talking about.

[xbitz]

drum rack even better in Bitwig because u can reach the inner fx units(u can create parallel inner fx routes inside a cell for example using the unlimited nesting which will be reachable from the mixer too, so can open the compressors from the mixer directly) in its mixer, because it supports groups in groups, I'm just not using in it in Cubase (GA more than enough for me) u can create it in MUX has drum rack which can trigger samples/vst just I'm lazy to create it or check the patches, but it can be done



ps. yes u can do it with MUX/MuDrum



yepp same way as in AL simple drag and drop sources can be samples/VSTi (or both) drum map has to be created manually (with note names)

[pdxindy]

drum rack even better in Bitwig because u can reach the inner fx units

The thing that is missing with the Bitwig drum rack is that you cannot set the pitch... you also cannot put one VST in and have it play across a range.

And of course the Bitwig Instrument Rack is primitive compared to Live's Instrument Rack.

Ableton has done plenty of not fully realized features, but the Racks they did something great

[ghettosynth]

drum rack even better in Bitwig

I'm not talking about Bitwig. It might be better, it might not. I'm comparing Ableton to Cubase.

(GA more than enough for me) u can create it in MUX has drum rack which can trigger samples/vst just I'm lazy to create it or check the patches, but it can be done



yepp same way as in AL simple drag and drop sources can be samples/VSTi (or both) drum map has to be created manually (with note names)

We're not talking about whether something can be done, you can do any sort of music you want in any host. We're talking about workflow and the details matter. Drum Maps are exactly one of the things that I was talking about when I was complaining earlier about the speed of cubase. The fact that it's such a pain in the ass impacts your choices as you are making music.

Your image of mux shows clearly that it's not as clean as a solution. The details of the drum rack are important. You don't have to wire up ever new cell to get this behavior.

[Stan Navi]

So...about Ableton...Is it capable of writing and mixing different genres of music (cinema, pop-rock, electronic) with good quality? Or it's mainly use as a scetchpad?

[BDeep]

Dude, millions of songs are published that are produced front to back in Live.

What you hear people talking about are preferences, an edge of one DAW over another. But you can basically do everything with any DAW if you put your mind into it.

You seem to be interested in Live. Good, that's an excellent DAW. Just get it, learn how to work with it and then you'll figure out yourself in due time what you'd like to do different (or not). But there's nothing you can't do.

[ghettosynth]

I don't know about other live users, but this is largely why I have no interest in drum machine plugins.

Drumsynths, yes, drumsamplers, definitely not.
And I have Drumspillage integrated in a rack, so I do use it all the time, even for that.
And I use only the samples of battery, I barely touch the more advanced features anyway.

Yes, I probably should have been more clear. I too am interested in drum synths. I just don't care about drum pattern interfaces very much. That said, I really don't buy drum synths, I just code what I want in Reaktor, build presets in an instrument rack and then drop that onto a drum rack.

[Jax Pok]

Live 9.6 has some Cytomic's The Drop filters and The Glue.
Enough said.

[pdxindy]

Live 9.6 has some Cytomic's The Drop filters and The Glue.
Enough said.

The new filters are impressive!

[xbitz]

... I'm comparing Ableton to Cubase.

back to the drum rack routing, after some thinking IMO the per note routing is the fastest way in Cubase currently if u need to trigger an outer VST(or something) from a drum pad, it needs only one aux MIDI note routing track and a custom drum map which overwrites the original track routing with a per note based one, the other way is routing the different Agents(each GA can handle four agents with common/different pattern triggering) to different instruments and filtering out the non necessary VST triggering notes but that was too slow(needs many clicks)

so



this method keeps the auto generated GA drum mapping, and the router drum map can be changed only couple of clicks (and can be reused) ... ok still not only a drag and drop as in the drum rack of AL but getting closer

(MIDI out was added to the (currently the latest) 4.2 GA > http://www.steinberg.net/en/products/vs ... s_new.html )

ps. forgot to switch off the "follow transport" this why the drums can be heard after the triggering clip in the video