DAW and Live Performance/Looping, Who Does It Best (POLL)

[Spencer Maddox]

I'n Honor of Yet Another High Profile addition to the Increasingly Growing amount of DAWS with Built in "Ableton Style" Performance Features, I wanted to do (a second) flash Poll!
NOTE: This is about Performance mode solely!
This is Not (intended as at least) a Prototypical "Best Daw" Poll that rears up once every year/Month/10-Minutes, but rather, what the best program Specifically for live performance, Live Loop, and Non-Linear Based Production.
Try to keep "arrangement mode" features out of your selection, however, How the Performance mode integrates with arrangement mode is allowed (Such as Bitwig and Logic having the ability to split the performance and arrangement panels in 2 on the same screen). Hardware Integration and how it integrates to the program is also Allowed to be included (Live Push 2, Launchpad, The IOS Logic App ETC)

Feel Free to Discuss Too!

[Yorrrrrr]

Ableton Live is still the best for this. And if you include Push 2 in the equation, it's even better.

[antic604]

This is really pointless. Live will still be the best, because of controller support & plethora of 3rd party extensions focused on that kind of activity.

[Spencer Maddox]

This is really pointless. Live will still be the best, because of controller support & plethora of 3rd party extensions focused on that kind of activity.

I was specifically Referring To The Different Live/Loop-mash features and who Integrated it the Best, And Bitwig and Logic already have Controller Support, So Does FL Studio with Launchpad, But you're right, It's Pointless to be curious about the Forums Opinion

[antic604]

This is really pointless. Live will still be the best, because of controller support & plethora of 3rd party extensions focused on that kind of activity.

I was specifically Referring To The Different Live/Loop-mash features and who Integrated it the Best, And Bitwig and Logic already have Controller Support, So Does FL Studio with Launchpad, But you're right, It's Pointless to be curious about the Forums Opinion

I meant "pointless" in a sense that the result - that reflects the truth, not a subjective reading of reality - is pretty much given, considering Live has been there for almost 20 years by now. You can obviously make any poll

[apoclypse]

I think a comparison sheet would have been more helpful than a poll imo.

Logic: It works fairly well and it has all the Logic-ism to boot. So for example in-terms of selection workflow it beats Live hands down. You have pretty much all of Logic's extensive selection modes. You can record takes to cells, merge and replace as well. You can bounce cells in place, join regions etc. There are cool things like being able to change the playback speed of the cells, reverse the cells playback. Resizable UI for those of us with poor vision, you can zoom in however you want.

What's not there:
Follow Actions. There aren't any at the moment as far as I can tell. Live has a Consolidate to Scene option that's really nice when you want to move things to the Session. One can argue that's not as necessary in Logic because you can just drag and drop your clips/regions directly into the Live Loop area and vice versa.

Bitwig: Very comparable with Ableton's Session view. It has follow actions (called Next Actions in Bitwig) like Ableton. One very cool thing about Bitiwig's Clip Launcher is that if you group several tracks together you can filter or drill down to just those tracks, that's one thing that Live doesn't do. Bitwig's follow actions are really extensive and detailed.

What's not there:
I'm still on 3.0.3 so things may have changed. Next Action doesn't have probability like Ableton does. No Consolidate to Scene, though it's not as necessary for the same reason as Logic.

Live: Ableton's Follow Actions simpler but have probability. Ableton has note velocity when launching clips which I don't think anyone else does. That's it as far as I know.

What's not there:
In-terms of launching loops it comparable to the other applications. Due to the way Live is designed certain things are less detailed. Like I said selecting clips in Logic is second to none right now. you can select based on color, select every other cell, select following cells, all via shortcuts. That may not matter to some. Live can't do things like play clips in reverse etc.

All-in-all they are pretty comparable. Logic has no follow actions, but has all the benefits of being Logic. Bitwig has a more detailed approach to clips, with group filtering and more detailed follow actions. Live keeps it simple and straighforward but still has some nice functionality.

[clipnotic]

it seems, here's the "Ableton Fanboy Meeting?

[antic604]

What's not there:
In-terms of launching loops it comparable to the other applications. Due to the way Live is designed certain things are less detailed. Like I said selecting clips in Logic is second to none right now. you can select based on color, select every other cell, select following cells, all via shortcuts. That may not matter to some. Live can't do things like play clips in reverse etc.

The main differences you've not mentioned with regards to clip launching between Live and Bitwig (and I presume Logic as well) are that for the former:
1) clips are visible side-by-side the arrangement and are rotated 90° which I find much more logical, not to mention very convenient
2) you can edit audio right inside of the clips, without having to drag it to arranger and back

[apoclypse]

What's not there:
In-terms of launching loops it comparable to the other applications. Due to the way Live is designed certain things are less detailed. Like I said selecting clips in Logic is second to none right now. you can select based on color, select every other cell, select following cells, all via shortcuts. That may not matter to some. Live can't do things like play clips in reverse etc.

The main differences you've not mentioned with regards to clip launching between Live and Bitwig (and I presume Logic as well) are that for the former:
1) clips are visible side-by-side the arrangement and are rotated 90° which I find much more logical, not to mention very convenient
2) you can edit audio right inside of the clips, without having to drag it to arranger and back

1. I actually didn't mention the orientation but did mention that Consolidate to Scene workflow that Ableton has and how that may not be relevant to Logic and Bitwig because you can easily select everything within cycle locators and just drag it into the clip view and vice versa.

2. This is one of Bitwig and Logic's strengths for sure (You can do the same thing in Logic).

[pdxindy]

it depends on what sort of live performance someone does...

Bitwig's Instrument Selector device is very powerful for live performance and there isn't a Live alternative for it. Live is weak for recording midi as it records all incoming midi into midi channel 1. It does not record multi-channel midi. Live also does not record PolyAT or MPE.

[machinesworking]

it depends on what sort of live performance someone does...

Bitwig's Instrument Selector device is very powerful for live performance and there isn't a Live alternative for it. Live is weak for recording midi as it records all incoming midi into midi channel 1. It does not record multi-channel midi. Live also does not record PolyAT or MPE.

I think people have to ask what they mean by live performance.

I played live with Live for years, and Kore helped out a lot, I could get muted, powered down various synths etc. to actually play notes on, fire clips etc. Sounds like Bitwig has that covered now, but can you count out Live when it can run Jitter at the same time? a video projector and you have a full multimedia performance. Bitwig's big downfall is the rest have movie hosting abilities, so could do multimedia. But it has better CPU management than the rest if you're using multiple VSTi's as instruments.


Logic I think is still too new to tell, hard for me to judge as I don't have a compatible iPad or Novation Launchpad, and haven't used it much.

DP has Clips, they only have global quantization though. What DP does have over the rest is Chunks though, Chunks are whole new sequences essentially that can be chained together to play with any amount of pause you want between them, they can call up new instruments etc. so if you're talking playing live with a keyboard and maybe guitar through Amplitube etc. then DP is the way to go.

I see a lot of different strengths depending on need.

[pigfront]

Try giada looper https://www.giadamusic.com/, because it's free

[phil.harmoniq]

Bitwig's Instrument Selector device is very powerful for live performance and there isn't a Live alternative for it.

Actually, while not quite as intuitive as Bitwig's selector, Ableton does have chain selectors to achieve similar results: https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/artic ... n-selector

[pdxindy]

Bitwig's Instrument Selector device is very powerful for live performance and there isn't a Live alternative for it.

Actually, while not quite as intuitive as Bitwig's selector, Ableton does have chain selectors to achieve similar results: https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/artic ... n-selector

Doesn't work nearly as well...

The chain selector method uses too much cpu. The currently not used chains in Bitwig don't use cpu.

It also doesn't have the switching modes. In Bitwig for example, you can define a note range on your keyboard to switch layers. Very sure and precise, unlike the chain selector. There are also modes for Round Robin, Program Change messages, etc.

It's been a while since I used Live's Chain Selector... does it cutoff notes when you switch? My memory is that it does... but now I'm not sure. In Bitwig's Instrument Selector, you can hit a note with a long release and switch layers and the note from the previous layer will finish to its end. You can also hold notes, switch layers and play the new sound while still holding the notes from the previous sound.