Anyone else leave Cubase for Ableton?

[Trancit]

Enjoy your life with Live.

I don´t even use Live... but I know how it works and I know how Cubase works... Live´s way of handling this is thousand times more flexible than the good old dinosaur...

If it makes you angry then well... It's your problem not mine. EOT

It only makes me angry that I wasted my time and knowledge to somebody who just wanted to rant against Ableton and isn´t interested at all in any solutions offering a perhaps better way...

[clipnotic]

...but if I had only to choose between Cubase and Ableton, I would easily pick Cubase, because it has a much better workflow, compatibility and "overall tightness". Ableton is a typical "marketing" product ...

Said an FL user

Yes of course, Cubase could also learn many things from FL Studio!

The most important reason I would prefer Cubase over Ableton is, that Cubase is really "tight" like FL Studio meanwhile! But Cubase still is too "conservative" especially for creative electronic music. In FL Studio for example you can automate almost everything very fast and easy and the piano roll is amazing and so on ...

[tooneba]

The reason for dragging the track header to the project folder is a very neat way to save entire tracks or groups (folders) in their complete state...
This way you can simply drag this saved .als file back into the project after having flattened the track or having deleted the track...

Ableton has no way of truely disabling tracks to save system resources apart from flattening a freezed track but this means the original track as it was before is deleted... if you have saved it the before mentioned way you can easily drag it back if you need to edit it again...

That sounds nice workflow to keep project light. I may adopt it in some way.

[Trancit]

That sounds nice workflow to keep project light. I may adopt it in some way.

I find this way really great compared to what others got as beside the possibility to keep your project clean, it i.e. makes it very easy to build a library of

- completely editable great stuff
- with all processing layering, grouping, arranging and automations
- ready to be dragged in any other project and
- not be limited to a single clip or like Bitwig has a single group clip...

Drag the flattened or recorded audio file from what you frozen as an audio clip beside it and you´ve got a "Preview" of what you saved too...

Best of both worlds in one go!!

Compared to this I find the old freezing methods of i.e. Cubase more than stone age... it´s sooo nineties...

[antic604]

Compared to this I find the old freezing methods of i.e. Cubase more than stone age... it´s sooo nineties...

Just like Ableton's is so noughties, right?

A modern DAW will just let you bounce stuff out, disable & hide away the original tracks without having to remove them from the project (although that can be done, too)

[ReleaseCandidate]

A modern DAW will just let you bounce stuff out, disable & hide away the original tracks without having to remove them from the project (although that can be done, too)

Yeah, that's actually cool - never needed that feature though. But the Bitwig way of exporting clips as MIDI...

[antic604]

Yeah, that's actually cool - never needed that feature though.

Intially, I didn't either. But once I realised this is possible & so easy I started to be more bold with using heavy plugins, which I'd shy away from previously, like Diva, Repro-1/5, etc. And obviously having stuff in audio opens new avenues of editing & experimentation, although for this I need to cross another mental hurdle. Hopefully soon...

But the Bitwig way of exporting clips as MIDI...

Yes, it's far from ideal in Bitwig. But this is something I never needed

Two alternative solutions: (1) drag the clip(s) you want exported to MIDI from current project to new project tab & export from there, (2) select any clip, Ctrl+A to select all clips, Alt+A to mute all, Alt+A again on the one(s) you want to export to MIDI to unmute them, export.

[Trancit]

A modern DAW will just let you bounce stuff out, disable & hide away the original tracks without having to remove them from the project (although that can be done, too)

It´s a bit more simple...yes...
but
1. the Ableton method isn´t that different... where is the difference in the amount of user action if you
- bounce a track/group to audio
- then deactivate and hide it... (btw means in Bitwig deactivating a group track deactivates everything inside the group???)

or if you
- drag a track/group to the browser
- and freeze/flatten it...

To undo in Bitwig:
- Show hidden tracks
- activate track/group

To undo in Ableton
- drag the .als file back to the arrangement

This is no difference imho how much you have to "work"

2. The Ableton method as I already said gives you in one go a library of ready made tracks for use in other projects i.e. as a template...
In Bitwig this just works with single clips but not with whole tracks... and by the way not as flawless if automation etc... is involved...
In Bitwig you would have to load the complete project and copy/paste or drag it into a new project...

[xbitz]

^^^ Bitwig bounces out(in place case) only the instruments/instrument containers so typically goes everything (instrument/fx) to a group track (in BWS can be put clips onto the group track(s) too) the MIDI sources into the group track(s) and just have to draw an empty clip onto the group and bounce it out then disable the instrument/instrument container(the CPU heavy things), fx units typically/practically remain active

if need the instrument(s) again enough to remove the audio clip from the group track and reenable the instruments, easy-peasy

[antic604]

in Bitwig deactivating a group track deactivates everything inside the group???

Yes, what's wrong with it? Obviously you can go and select one or many tracks inside of the group and (de)activate them individually.

To undo in Bitwig:
- show hidden tracks
- activate track/group
- deactivate the bounces

To undo in Ableton
- find the .als files in browser
- drag the .als file back to the arrangement
- remove the bounces

This would be a fairer comparison

In the end it's perhaps few clicks more on Bitwig's side (although, can you freeze+flatten 3 tracks AT ONCE like I did on my .gif in Ableton?), but on the other I like the workflow of having my project "split" into 2 parts: "MIDI" with everything live and ready for tweaking and "Audio" with just the bounces for mixing & mangling; but all contained in one file. The key is Bitwig can do both and it's a preference how one prefers to work.

Is it perfect? Hell, no! Few things are still missing in that bounce dialog, in particular ability to copy over devices beyond the bounce point & their automation, track-level controls (fader, pan and sends + their automation) or FX Track processing to the newly created track.

Ableton method as I already said gives you in one go a library of ready made tracks for use in other projects i.e. as a template... In Bitwig this just works with single clips but not with whole tracks...

Sure, agree. But then what good is 4m long track if I want to use it with a 8-bar idea I got going? Saving full tracks only makes sense for the freeze+flatten workflow, otherwise saving clips is enough because ...well, it's the clips that contain what's actually interesting in a track And you can obviously just select whole length of the track, Ctrl+J and drag that to Browser, if you really want track-length clip saved.

and by the way not as flawless if automation etc... is involved...

Not sure what you're implying? I never had any issue with automation not being recalled? Are you sure it wasn't a user-error?

[ReleaseCandidate]

But the Bitwig way of exporting clips as MIDI...

Yes, it's far from ideal in Bitwig. But this is something I never needed

Two alternative solutions: (1) drag the clip(s) you want exported to MIDI from current project to new project tab & export from there,

 

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about, I had to do it that way (to get my MIDI out of Bitwig).

But what most baffled me was Studio One's menue that popped up (to choose their format or MIDI) when trying to savé clips to their browser. Until I read that I had to use 'Alt' to be able to select the formát with the mouse.

[Trancit]

in Bitwig deactivating a group track deactivates everything inside the group???

Yes, what's wrong with it? Obviously you can go and select one or many tracks inside of the group and (de)activate them individually.

This was just a question... I couldn´t remember anymore...

To undo in Bitwig:
- show hidden tracks
- activate track/group
- deactivate the bounces

To undo in Ableton
- find the .als files in browser
- drag the .als file back to the arrangement
- remove the bounces

This would be a fairer comparison

No...
If you add in Ableton that you would first have to find the .als than you have to put in with Bitwig that after making all hidden tracks visible you first have to find the deactivated track/group... and because removing the bounces is more or less the same I didn´t pointed them out in both cases...

Ableton method as I already said gives you in one go a library of ready made tracks for use in other projects i.e. as a template... In Bitwig this just works with single clips but not with whole tracks...

Sure, agree. But then what good is 4m long track if I want to use it with a 8-bar idea I got going? Saving full tracks only makes sense for the freeze+flatten workflow, otherwise saving clips is enough because ...well, it's the clips that contain what's actually interesting in a track And you can obviously just select whole length of the track, Ctrl+J and drag that to Browser, if you really want track-length clip saved.

Because this discussion started with the somebody stating he has many groups with a hell lot going on in terms of different SFX sounds etc...
This means for me this 4 minutes long track contains e.g. 20 different cool sounds...
To save them all is one drag operation in Ableton ... 20 drag operations in Bitwig if you have to save the non continous group clips seperately... ... and CTRL+J would be another action you save in Ableton...

I don´t want to state one or the other is better... what I want to state is that each is at least "equal good" with one got some advantages here the other got some advantages there...

... but i.e. Cubase has nearly none of these advantages and therefore I call it dinosaur... and nineties...

and by the way not as flawless if automation etc... is involved...

Not sure what you're implying? I never had any issue with automation not being recalled? Are you sure it wasn't a user-error?

Really...??
I had a lot of issues in the browser preview in Bitwig as soon as the saved group clip was longer than 1 bar and got different automation involved... mostly the preview played just 1 bar and stopped...