Liveslice vs. Intakt, Battery 2 or Phatmatik Pro

[vandons]

I am new to making music on the computer with Ableton Live 5 and I want to get software that I can use to process rhythmic loops and create complex rhythms to use in live.

I think I understand that Liveslice, Intakt, and Phatmatik Pro all do something very similar which is to analyze a loop and slice up the beats within it so that you can then change them around or create a midi file that you can place other hits into. If this is incorrect please tell me how I am understanding this incorrectly.

If I am understanding Battery properly it is a sequncer for arranging single hits to create drum tracks.

I am probably more interested in what these first programs can do and Liveslice looks like a very useful program and at the price of $59 it is fairly priced.

I can also get a copy of Intakt with an academic discount for $99.

Phatmatik at $150 is a bit more than I would like to spend.

Are there things that these more expensive programs can do or do more efficiently than Liveslice?

What do you feel would be the main advantage of what Battery can do?

What do you most often use in your music making?

Thank you,

B23

[original flipper]

HI

Another program that slices things up and lets you drop a midi file of the slices into your sequencer is MicroDicer by concrete FX.

I have all the programs you mentioned and think that Intakt is the one I would not get - you can not drag the midi template from Intakt to your sequencer - you have to save the file and then import it: this makes it a bit of a drag imo.

Liveslice is slightly different from the others in that you can not get the midi template but can trigger 'mixes' of a loop you create in it.

Flipper.

[ohm]

Midi export is planned, but not in the next two updates. You can, however, very easily do what you need within liveslice. Simply slice a loop and then replace the audio.
From the next version you can even record audio directly into liveslice so you can slice a drum loop and immediately replace the individual drum hits with the sound of your voice or a synth or whatever.

You mention complexity - LiveSlice is designed to offer the best of both worlds: simple and fast to load, record, slice and dice while at the same time offering fine tuned control of individual slices, attack, pitch, quantization etc. etc.

+ LiveSlice is constantly evolving.

[stale bread]

does liveslice export audio?

[R.A.W.]

does liveslice export audio?

no, but i think it's planned.. though i don't think that it's very important, as every host can record/freeze/bounce and so you already got this feature.
what could be interesting is a feature to "resample" the arranger-track to the loop list (which is on the list afair, i'm not sure though).

What do you feel would be the main advantage of what Battery can do?

though battery is dedicated for doing drums, it can't be compared to the other plugs you mentioned. battery is a drum sampler and it should be used when you want to use drumsound-multisamples, e.g. different sounds for different velocities.

slicer tools are used to process loops (primary [but not only] drumloops) and liveslice is imo the best option if you want an easy and fast way of manipulating loops. the main difference is that you can rearrange the loops in LS itself and don't have to trigger single hits by midi, but a whole new loop you created with one note (like a sampler).
also the midi-implementation and gui-elements make it my first choice slicer when we are talking about live-usage (what a coincidence it's called LiveSlice ).

if you want some more details, you can read my review here at kvr. http://www.kvraudio.com/get/1952.html

[JamminFool]

also: fwiw, battery is a sample player which specializes in drum samples, not a sequencer.

[liars&ashes]

----Devine Machine is something to look into also, it has at least 2 versions, for cost conscious buyers.
----I use it to slice up and re-arrange drum/percussion loops a lot, it's got it's limitations, but if you also want to do live stuff, you should really take a look at it.

Jeff

[stale bread]

in connection with every host freeze function you can't really beat fxpansions guru, the thing has so many applications but for quickley building kits its inteligent slicing feature is great

[stale bread]

funny thing though, soon as i posted that i thought, you can never have too many slicers...i just love sample editing apps they all have their own little special features.

[vandons]

I am close to buying Liveslice to use with Ableton 5. I am wondering if there are things that Phatmatik can do that Liveslice cannot. Also our there things that Phatmatik does better than Liveslice in your opinion?

I have the same question with Guru. I have heard its beat slicing capabilities are not as good as Phatmatiks.

Do you know of any issues with these programs with Live or on a Windows XP machine?

[stale bread]

from what i've seen the beatslicing in guru works fine and it works fine in live 5 which is my host of choice too, phatmatik works great too and you can drag midifiles and audio files from phatmatik to Live

[R.A.W.]

in live5 it's very cool to use the new input-record function (new version v1.3).
just route the output of any channel you want to the midi-track where you have liveslice, go to liveslice's rec function, activate "sync" and hit start: you get a perfect cut loop in LS which you can slice up and rearrange.. this is something you can't do with every slicer