ABLETON LIVE 4.1 upgrade , Not happy...

[headquest]

Hi Tony

As for Live 4, it's stupid easy for me to use as an audio sequencer. The MIDI side of things need more work (it's not a good host until this only problem is fix). My main workaround would be to have all the instrumental parts done in FLS first and then drop all audio files in Live to finish it off...

Just like you, I also have Audition for the final mix (if necessary).

I don't really get why you would do that... What I mean is, if you've done your composing/creating/MIDI recording in FLS, why take it into Live at all - as opposed to going straight into AA?

We're not there yet. And yes, I had high hope that Live would be that kind of host. And I know that it will be that host but not until Ableton do something about the problems of MIDI & CPU power-taking peak limits.

Those issues are quite a big deal though... and on the Ableton forum, two or three of the developers have come on to answer questions/concerns about this, and basically are denying/ignoring the problem. I don't think that this really bodes well for Live 5... but I hope they prove me wrong!

At present I don't think you can realistically use Live 4 as your host unless you have at least 1Gb RAM, which standard laptops like mine don't have.

Don't laugh, but there is still hope for Acid Pro to be that kind of host if Sony can do something about their disappointing MIDI recording issues.

I'm not laughing at that - I agree with you that it would be premature to write off Acid at this stage. Having done the v.5 update they appear by all accounts to have fixed the buggy problems that switched people off to v.4, made a few good enhancements such as folder tracks, formed some kind of alliance with NI... and most of all demonstrated that they are committed to continued development of Acid, which is the point I think a lot of previous users were doubting. It will be interesting to see where Acid 6 goes... (full-on Audio recording is surely a must now!)

It will also be very interesting if Tracktion can become that special kind of host. It's user-friendly style features are a great advantage in itself.

I really believe that Tracktion is the one to go with at present. It has genuine user-friendliness combined with some very powerful features. The improved MIDI editing and other new features coming in v.2 set it up to really fly in my view.

But until then, one host is never enough for some of us.

LOL. I know what you mean buddy!

[braj]

There is essentially no difference between freezing
and bouncing--Ableton is far more flexible than
Logic (freezes entire track) --you just don't have a "freeze button".

There's a huge difference, one way takes clicking a button and a couple of seconds, the other takes creating a new track, routing the track, recording the track in real time, disabling the old track, and making sure the new track was recorded properly, editing if necessary.

Saying they are the same is frankly ignorant of what freeze does. I love Live, but I would never defend it's weakness as it's strength.

[braj]

I'm scratching my head trying to figure out how Live is more flexible than Logic because it doesn't have track 'freeze'

[TVD]

Hi Tony

As for Live 4, it's stupid easy for me to use as an audio sequencer. The MIDI side of things need more work (it's not a good host until this only problem is fix). My main workaround would be to have all the instrumental parts done in FLS first and then drop all audio files in Live to finish it off...

Just like you, I also have Audition for the final mix (if necessary).

I don't really get why you would do that... What I mean is, if you've done your composing/creating/MIDI recording in FLS, why take it into Live at all - as opposed to going straight into AA?

One word: Remix!

Normally, I can actually complete a new track from the ground up in FLS and just do the final mix in Audition (whenever necessary).

Do you know anything about FLS's Playlist features?:

http://www.e-officedirect.com/FLStudio/ ... rames.html

Usually, I would use FLS's Playlist to bring all the MIDI/audio/step sequencing parts together & complete the song arrangements from there.

But with Live, I have another option to do the arrangements (read: remix! ) here instead.

And unlike FLS's Playlist (or even Acid Pro's audio window) where I may have 3 different drum tracks on 3 different mixer channels/patterns, With Live, I'll have 3 different drum tracks on the same mixer channel:

http://www.ableton.com/index.php?main=l ... omposition

And the best part is the fact that I can improvise all of my tracks while the music is playing live (pun intended). If I want to switch things up on a dime, I just click the mouse to switch things right here & there. Because audio sequencing is the name of the game, Live is great for the remix on stage or in the bedroom studio (like what I'm doing).

And to me, using Live is very funky!

[headquest]

Hi Tony

Yeah I do get that - thanks!

I do know about FLs playlist, which is what prompted the question, as I would have thought that would be a good place to arrange your loops/patterns into the composition without the need for Live. In fact I think that FL5 and Live 4 have a lot of overlap as programs, and don't quite see the need for anyone to have both...

Anyway, I did something similar for a large scale (22 munite) ambient/relaxation track recently. I wrote MIDI files using Sibelius which I realised inside Reason 2.5. Then I bounced the Reason loops into AA 1.5 and arranged the piece in the multitrack view. I was reasonably happy with the outcome, but wanted to tempo ramp a rit over the last couple of minutes, which neither Reason nor Audition would let me do.

So I went backwards a step and bounced the loops this time into Live 4, which allowed for the tempo ramp.

What was interesting in Live 4 was that by - as you put it "audio sequencing" with the loops my intuition in real time and instincts as a performing musician led me to a quite different overall arrangement of the material. The structure was in fact a different piece.

However, I was not happy with the audio quality of the track in Live 4 - it seemed tinny compared to the natural sound of the loops inside Reason itself, or in AA. This worried me a lot and I was unable to trace the cause of the tonal degradation within Live.

So finally I went back a stage again and returned to Tracktion, which had been my previous host and was languishing on my harddrive. Tracktion again allowed for the bouncing of Reason via rewire, and for the tempo ramping. I revisited the arrangment that I had done in Live 4, which was better than the first shot I had had. In Tracktion I lined up the material where I wanted it on the arrange page, added the tempo ramp, and was pleased to hear that everything worked well and sounded excellent.

In Tracktion I then added its own 4-band parametric EQ to every track, and realised that this was a more intuitive way to work with EQ than in Reason (where EQ is basic as of v.2.5, but vastly improved in v.3.0). Live doesn't have EQ built into the mixing stage unless you add EQ, but is less intuitive than Tracktion in this respect I think.

The finished track put together in Tracktion sounded much better than my attempt in Live 4. However, the finished piece was helped a lot by the time I spent in Live 4 playing about with the component parts in real time and falling back on my performer's instinct, rather than my composering inclinations.

So Live 4 served me well as an arrangement scratchpad on that track, but not as a production tool. And that is where I think the software fits in my set-up at present.

Like you I had hopes that Live 4 would fulfil a more complete production role (i.e. replace Tracktion altogether), and hence my present disappointment with Live as a program.

Having said that, this experience also reminded me just how powerful Tracktion is as a program, so good came out of the whole experience.