Ableton Live 4 vs FL Studio 5

[trauma_complex]

I'm interested to hear how everyone would compare the two, what features one has over the other, which is more powerful and flexible and why, etc.

[ccollinsmith]

I'm interested to hear how everyone would compare the two, what features one has over the other, which is more powerful and flexible and why, etc.

Live has an audio loop background. It's very fun for dropping in loops and just experimenting with how they sound together... when to trigger them and then trigger other stuff etc. And you can record your experimentations with the loops. The Live 4 version adds VST support and piano roll, but the piano roll is probably the worst I've seen.

It's not a great MIDI sequencing program yet, but if you want to play your VST live and then edit the piano roll in another program, it's a good environment for play. It's built more for recording slider and knob movements than for editing. It definitely has editing capabilities for envelopes and such, but I find them rather fiddly.

FL has a sequencing (and loop creation) background. It offers VST, DXi, and Buzz support, in addition to its own generators. Its piano roll is one of the best I've worked with. It has recently increased its editing capabilities for audio. At this point you can create an automation track for anything and edit from there.

Given its loop background, though, FL has a sort of loop-oriented way of putting together tracks. You build patterns, and then put the patterns together on the playlist, which consists of blocks of space not MIDI note messages. If you're doing something rhythmically complex (off-time meters or what-have-you) the playlist approach can be extremely cumbersome. It can be very difficult to keep the blocks aligned properly in the playlist unless you're just doing straight 4/4.

I guess a lot depends on what approach you use to creating tracks. I find it much easier to build tracks from the ground up with FL5. But when I was sketching out some ideas for a silent movie soundtrack, I went with Live. In spite of the MIDI capabilities of Live 4, I still use the program primarily as a sketchpad.

[audiobot202]

I agree with most of what 'ccollinsmith' said earlier.
I've used Live since version 2 and 3 and really enjoyed those versions. However, since they introduced MIDI I have had nothing but problems in V4 mainly due to massive CPU overloads, stopping and starting and stuttering. I'm not the only one with these issues as you will find if you visit the official Ableton forums and read through the bugs section.
It seems that the introduction of VSTi support and MIDI capabilities has pushed Live to be much more inefficient that it ever was in terms of processing power.
However, for audio looping it is still a great program and it is so easy to use in terms of recording parameter changes. I really miss it actually, since the upgrade.

FL Studio I have used since about version 1.6. They have improved it drastically over that time. It is not easy to compose in however due to it's style of dropping in blocks of loops to a playlist. Howvere, it renders great loops and it does have support for plenty of plugins.

[davidlinn]

I've used FL and Live since very early incarnations of both. Since FL 5 came out, though, I haven't really touched Live 4. For creation of music in a conventional sense (keyboard, midi guitar, or mouse input, vst implementation, piano roll features, and now audio recording) FL is better, and more logical in terms of workflow, IMHO. Live is an great piece of software, very intuitive in terms of dropping and stretching samples, but not very friendly midi implementation. I applaude their efforts at giving us those features we craved, but it hasn't made for a very elegant workflow. I still plan on using it as a part of my creative process- it's just taken a lower rung on the ladder for me.

David

www.davidlinn.com

[Jaeson Merrill]

well, for starters, FLS5 works.

and works well

[TVD]

I'm interested to hear how everyone would compare the two, what features one has over the other, which is more powerful and flexible and why, etc.

FLS & Live is the way to go!!!

Even now, I still built my tracks from the ground up in FLS 5. But I'll use Live 4 for the live remix.

In order to use Live 4 (even with MIDI to use your vsti's) you need loop samples. And keep in mind that Live is an audio sequencer first and foremost. Music Improvisation is main point when using Live. The process of dropping & draging audio samples "on the fly" is excellent (IMHO, better than Acid Pro & Sonar)

Keep in mind that you need a soft studio like FLS, Orion, or Reason to create new & original loops. And believe me, you want to have both Live & FLS.

And if you already have an audio editor (Audition, Soundforge, or [a legally free] Audacity) for you final mastering, then you're good to go!!!

[stale bread]

why do you say you need those other apps to create original loops to use in Live instead of using live to create original loops or non-loops itself, there is no other program on the market that allows you to start playing and recording live instrumentation, vocals, electronic instrumentation, or vstis as quickly or simply as ableton Live, and I might add without the need to ever stop the music. you can record and edit in live without ever stoping the flow, you cannot do that in fL5 or any other app for that matter......oh btw, you can drop loops in Live also.

[stale bread]

as i speak I'm working on a track In Live 4 that consist of drums from my own collection of drumhits loaded into lives drum machine, some softsynths, my bass, my guitar, and my turntables, i'll be adding some vocals in a little bit. I haven't stop the music once in about 40 minutes. that's through editing recording, moving tracks around and resampling to make other original audio clips.
I don't use live to play Live I use it mainly for production work and for what i've just described it rules the roost easily!

ps. I love FL5, it's a great beat machine and fire it up regularly too.

[TVD]

why do you say you need those other apps to create original loops to use in Live instead of using live to create original loops or non-loops itself, there is no other program on the market that allows you to start playing and recording live instrumentation, vocals, electronic instrumentation, or vstis as quickly or simply as ableton Live, and I might add without the need to ever stop the music. you can record and edit in live without ever stoping the flow, you cannot do that in fL5 or any other app for that matter......oh btw, you can drop loops in Live also.

Beside using a CD of other people's loops, why not use FLS (like I do) to create your own loops to use with Live? Works for me!

Start with FLS & Finish with Live!!!

[trauma_complex]

I actually already have Live 4, I was just interested in hearing what other people thought. I myself am in love with the program, and for whatever reasons I can't explain am actually making better sounding loops and tracks so far than I did in FLS. I definately won't ditch FLS though, I've already experimented with rewiring the two together..

[trauma_complex]

I actually already have Live 4, I was just interested in hearing what other people thought. I myself am in love with the program, and for whatever reasons I can't explain am actually making better sounding loops and tracks so far than I did in FLS. I definately won't ditch FLS though, I've already experimented with rewiring the two together..

[olafmol]

there is no other program on the market that allows you to start playing and recording live instrumentation, vocals, electronic instrumentation, or vstis as quickly or simply as ableton Live, and I might add without the need to ever stop the music. you can record and edit in live without ever stoping the flow, you cannot do that in fL5 or any other app for that matter......oh btw, you can drop loops in Live also.

i agree 100%, using Live4 is like working in the studio with a decent engineer, it has the shortest path from idea to arranged mix, and i never use sampled loops

Olaf

[soulkraka]

I've already experimented with rewiring the two together..

is that working for you? When I try to rewire FL into Live FL just takes over and I cant even get back to Live at all...weird. (Live master, FL slave)

Also, the FL vsti crashes Live.

[SecondSkin]

I have both FLS5 and Live 3 -- since I use FLS for all of my midi/softysnths, I haven't felt the need to upgrade to Live 4.

Each has its own strenghts -- FLS piano roll, Live's loop preview. Personally, I find arranging in FLS to be much easier, so I use that mostly, then I rewire Live if I want to preview some loops (note too, that Live 3 is very easy on CPU).

One thing Live is certainly better at is loop recording, especially in audio. It's very easy to get a track going in Live then loop record into clips and cut your recording to new clips. No sequencer can touch Live in that regard.

In any event, Live and FLS make a great team.

Oh yeah, Live's chorus fx is simply gorgeous -- it's a big cpu hog, though.

[onyxashanti]

i use both.

i use fl studio as a synth rack since lives midi implimentation sucks ass. but it "spreadsheet for music" vibe is unbeatable. i load fl as a vsti, and play it with my wind synth, and mix tracks with live. it is a seriously powerful system.

onyx