Wish I had bought Live Suite earlier and fewer third party stuff: Advice for beginners.

[SHall1000]

I have just downloaded the "Creative Extensions" Max 4 Live add on for Ableton Live Suite. I have only just come to appreciate just how much interesting stuff for sound creation/design and manipulation is included in the DAW itself.

I think if I was starting out again (with hindsight) I would get the full fat version of my DAW of choice and really get to know it before buying any third party VSTs. Sure there are a lot of pretty GUIs, smoother work flows and variations in actual sound to be had but I am not sure about better quality. It would have saved money in the long run.

[Zexila]

Yeah, this goes especially for Logic guys, explore that DAW really well.

[thecontrolcentre]

Good advice

[musicartist]

Good advice.

Although I must say, sometimes workflow matters.

[RichieWitch]

well... maybe. Let me play devil's advocate.

I bought Live Standard to start, almost five years ago, and then went on a manic downloading spree of every free and magware plugin I could find. Took a bunch of classes. Read several books. Spent some time every day using Live.

After a year or so, I started to hear where those free plugins were coming up short, so I carefully selected commercial plugins to upgrade just the free ones that I used the most, and then started buying used hardware to take the place of the freebie instruments I liked the most.

After years of careful budgeting and purchases, I have a studio I love to be in. Still use Live Standard and don't feel I'm missing a thing.

[a_Scientist]

These are mistakes, learning from them, cannot avoid completely. Don't spend too much. Beginner may not consider some thing. So many choices there are, unlike the past. Has anyone been in the past. I'm sure, someone. Let beginner succeed!

[spendthrift2]

What is Max for? I'm currently doing the 30 day trial of Ableton Live 10 Suite and I'm not sure what to make of the "tour" of Max. It has some elements of video incorporated? That's the furthest thing from my mind when I'm making music. I think it tried to access my camera.

I bought Omnisphere (a synth program/plugin) and didn't find it very useful for EDM circa 2009? yeah I think. I threw out my copy of the software awhile ago, and though it was perfectly useless I regretted it for a short instant earlier... anyway, my point was going to be about Ableton Live 10 Suite so far. I'm by no means an expert, but the sounds don't seem to immediately lend themselves to house music necessarily. I haven't looked at all of them, and I think it's versatile in that there are many knobs/features/effects, but I haven't been that impressed with the sounds so far.

Now I could be totally off! It could be that you have access to only a small percentage or something with the trial. Anyhow... not sure I want to go in for the $400+ with my education license discount if it's not that cool.

EDIT: Spent about 20 minutes on Ableton Live 10 Suite and liked it a lot better than when I initially tried it out. Having a Novation Launchkey 49 and a two tiered stand has made a different experience for me!

[anttimaatteri]

yes theres a reason why developers giving presets for certain things. and a handbook.

but stangely enough theres a trendy trend under trendmongering musicians to hack and sack all thsoe who even dare to touch presets of all sorts as "n00bs", while the real dealer is doing all himself alone (doesnt miraculously include the manufacturing of his own daws, plugins, controllers, modular systems asf...).

so surf the whole content ableton gives you piece by piece and take your time even if its weeks, and one hot tip: if u really really LIKE (e.g. it reminds u of that cool stuff you heard once) what u hear SET IT AS FAVORITE immediately!
nothing worse than a foggy brain not knowing were that cool sound or effects rack or else was you would like to implement now, or just play around with and you have to surf all over the content again to find it.

[spendthrift2]

yes theres a reason why developers giving presets for certain things. and a handbook.

but stangely enough theres a trendy trend under trendmongering musicians to hack and sack all thsoe who even dare to touch presets of all sorts as "n00bs", while the real dealer is doing all himself alone (doesnt miraculously include the manufacturing of his own daws, plugins, controllers, modular systems asf...).

so surf the whole content ableton gives you piece by piece and take your time even if its weeks, and one hot tip: if u really really LIKE (e.g. it reminds u of that cool stuff you heard once) what u hear SET IT AS FAVORITE immediately!
nothing worse than a foggy brain not knowing were that cool sound or effects rack or else was you would like to implement now, or just play around with and you have to surf all over the content again to find it.

I've had a change of heart. I'm sold on it now, but it's having a glitch. I've started a thread about it though, and have a request in at Ableton for tech support.

[zenophilix]

Agree. After I moved to Suite, I didn't use any plugins for atleast 2 weeks. Granted, at this point I'm pretty happy with the solid combo of a few top tier plugins with tightly integrated devices in Live, but learning to work with what comes with your DAW is going to lead to smoother workflows.

[AdvancedFollower]

I think it's the downloading/purchasing spree is a phase that's healthy to go through, even if you regret it or feel like you wasted time and money.

I started with Reason many years ago, which obviously didn't support plug-ins at the time. Using only the relatively rudimentary effects and instruments included, combined with the flexible routing, I'd say I became quite proficient in using the software to its maximum potential.
One day I decided to try Reaper, and downloaded a bunch of free and shareware plugins. Then it dawned on me how much I had been missing, especially in terms of workflow. Turned out some things I would spend hours wiring up in Reason could be done in 5 minutes using a more flexible and capable plug-in on its own.

Of course once the floodgates were opened, I ended up purchasing more and more software and even quite a bit of hardware, believing this would allow me to effortlessly create amazing music. In spite of spending lots of money and time on new plug-ins, my creativity obviously tanked, and I didn't really produce anything for years. Sold most stuff around 2013 and didn't make any music for 3-4 years.

Having gone through both the phase of "using the tools at hand to their maximum potential" and "fall for the marketing hype and buy yet another VST promising to revolutionize your music", I think I'm finally at the point where I know what I actually *need*. I now have a small library of plug-ins plus those included in Studio One, and before I add anything (free or commercial), I ask myself whether I truly need it or if similar results can be achieved using any existing plug-in.

[Zexila]

I think it's the downloading/purchasing spree is a phase that's healthy to go through, even if you regret it or feel like you wasted time and money.

I started with Reason many years ago, which obviously didn't support plug-ins at the time. Using only the relatively rudimentary effects and instruments included, combined with the flexible routing, I'd say I became quite proficient in using the software to its maximum potential.
One day I decided to try Reaper, and downloaded a bunch of free and shareware plugins. Then it dawned on me how much I had been missing, especially in terms of workflow. Turned out some things I would spend hours wiring up in Reason could be done in 5 minutes using a more flexible and capable plug-in on its own.

Of course once the floodgates were opened, I ended up purchasing more and more software and even quite a bit of hardware, believing this would allow me to effortlessly create amazing music. In spite of spending lots of money and time on new plug-ins, my creativity obviously tanked, and I didn't really produce anything for years. Sold most stuff around 2013 and didn't make any music for 3-4 years.

Having gone through both the phase of "using the tools at hand to their maximum potential" and "fall for the marketing hype and buy yet another VST promising to revolutionize your music", I think I'm finally at the point where I know what I actually *need*. I now have a small library of plug-ins plus those included in Studio One, and before I add anything (free or commercial), I ask myself whether I truly need it or if similar results can be achieved using any existing plug-in.

Really disagree, even you proved with your own personal story how unhealthy and unnecessary that all is, best thing to do is to learn your tools properly from the start and than know what to expect from other shinnies, buy only things that add something, not just pile stuff thinking something will spray quality over your music.

[zenophilix]

I think it's the downloading/purchasing spree is a phase that's healthy to go through, even if you regret it or feel like you wasted time and money.

I started with Reason many years ago, which obviously didn't support plug-ins at the time. Using only the relatively rudimentary effects and instruments included, combined with the flexible routing, I'd say I became quite proficient in using the software to its maximum potential.
One day I decided to try Reaper, and downloaded a bunch of free and shareware plugins. Then it dawned on me how much I had been missing, especially in terms of workflow. Turned out some things I would spend hours wiring up in Reason could be done in 5 minutes using a more flexible and capable plug-in on its own.

Of course once the floodgates were opened, I ended up purchasing more and more software and even quite a bit of hardware, believing this would allow me to effortlessly create amazing music. In spite of spending lots of money and time on new plug-ins, my creativity obviously tanked, and I didn't really produce anything for years. Sold most stuff around 2013 and didn't make any music for 3-4 years.

Having gone through both the phase of "using the tools at hand to their maximum potential" and "fall for the marketing hype and buy yet another VST promising to revolutionize your music", I think I'm finally at the point where I know what I actually *need*. I now have a small library of plug-ins plus those included in Studio One, and before I add anything (free or commercial), I ask myself whether I truly need it or if similar results can be achieved using any existing plug-in.

Really disagree, even you proved with your own personal story how unhealthy and unnecessary that all is, best thing to do is to learn your tools properly from the start and than know what to expect from other shinnies, buy only things that add something, not just pile stuff thinking something will spray quality over your music.

What he's saying does make sense though, sometimes you have to go both ways to figure out exactly what you need. I ended up going at it the other way around, but the end result was the same. I bought Synthmaster June of 2016, then over the next year and a half picked up a good few plugins, most of them caught on sale. Things like the Sonivox orchestral strings/percussion, Vintage Warmer, Iris 2, Serum, some Soundspot plugins, ended up getting a keyboard along the way, which was on sale at the time and came with Hybrid 3, Loom, MiniGrand, Velvet, DB-33, which I later upgraded to the AIEP3(also on sale). In tandem with a couple freebies and the stuff from Computer Music Mag, I got pretty proficient using mainly plugins. In February of this year, upgraded to Live 9/10 through the promo that was happening, and like I said, I didn't touch my plugins for 2 weeks. Coming from Live 7, it was shocking how good everything sounded, and how easy it was to work with. Not to mention the CPU load.

[Zexila]

What he's saying does make sense though, sometimes you have to go both ways to figure out exactly what you need.

It's a choice to learn from other people mistakes or get stupidly burned same way at this point with all these stories and experiences.

[zenophilix]

What he's saying does make sense though, sometimes you have to go both ways to figure out exactly what you need.

It's a choice to learn from other people mistakes or get stupidly burned same way at this point with all these stories and experiences.

Relax, sometimes people need to learn things their own way.