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Do most people use Live as a production tool or a live tool.
If a live tool then is it just DJin with live? (Prerecorded tracks mixed?)
Looped beats and then you "Play" the instruments with a midi controller?
Make loops on the fly with instruments you already have in a set and mix live?
How do YOU use Live?
If a live tool then is it just DJin with live? (Prerecorded tracks mixed?)
Looped beats and then you "Play" the instruments with a midi controller?
Make loops on the fly with instruments you already have in a set and mix live?
How do YOU use Live?
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Re: O.K. so lets here it, how do you use Live?
Tue, February 17, 2009 - 9:05 AM
Our Live sets are comprised of sets of both audio and MIDI loops. We trigger individual loops live. I do a lot of synth tweaking on the MIDI loops with are pumped out to my Waldorf.
So, no pre-sequencing of loops. But all the audio is well mixed going into the set.
examples: www.alloytrex.com/
-troy -
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Re: O.K. so lets here it, how do you use Live?
Tue, February 17, 2009 - 10:27 PMI don't yet.
I've been told it's the best for what I'd like to do. I mostly play the didjeridu and have been doing acoustic stuff for most of my life, just now getting interested in the whole acoustic-electric world fusion stuff. Not sure what Live can even do, seems limitless but life has been chaos recently so I haven't even launched it yet on my computer.
I want to do something cool with didjeridus, gongs, singing bowls, flute - and heck, maybe even my tuba. Any thoughts? Any good resources for tutorials?
Tom -
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Re: O.K. so lets here it, how do you use Live?
Wed, February 18, 2009 - 2:03 AMtom: go to www.youtube.com and type in "ableton tutorials"
how do i use live?
1. time-stretch/correction for audio
2. cubase-lite (i.e., host for vsts)
3. companion to reason
4. quick dj set - builder (mostly for radio shows, but sometimes when i need a dj mix quicker than i have time to physically mix the records.)
5. holding space for when serato & ableton announce some tangible result of their creative alliance. -
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Re: O.K. so lets here it, how do you use Live?
Wed, February 18, 2009 - 10:56 AM**slightly off-topic**
<<5. holding space for when serato & ableton announce some tangible result of their creative alliance. >>
screw serato, Torq from M-Audio already released the rewire functionality with Ableton with full support from them, plus Torq acquired Ableton's algorithms to analyze your tracks for supreme tempo syncing AND you can move around the tempo anchors in Torq like you can in Ableton. Serato is waaaaaay behind the curve and I would be surprised to see them actually come to terms with ableton now that M-Audio's is out. :-)
m-audio beat 'em to it, and it's incredibly stable. I've been dj'ing with ableton as the master rewire, and torq as the slave with the full songs playing in its decks. this way the torq ouputs go into ableton channels for extra processing, plus the tempo's lock so i can add any clip i want in ableton and it will stay in time and IN-PHRASE with the tracks in Torq!! The clips will always drop on the downbeat no matter where torq's time markers are.
ableton rocks though, plain and simple.
and to add to your list, 6. create full songs from scratch as a full-blown production suite :-) -
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Re: O.K. so lets here it, how do you use Live?
Wed, February 18, 2009 - 2:58 PM<screw serato>
i know 2 djs who use torq and they are both thousands of miles away from me. there are so many djs who use serato that i can merely take my hd to some gigs. obviously, we live in different worlds (not a dig, just statement of fact--different things are important to me.)
<and to add to your list, 6. create full songs from scratch as a full-blown production suite :-) >
that would be my #2: cubase-lite. while i love the automation capabilities of ableton, i'm still not as enamored of its midi capabilities. maybe i'm just used to the style of other sequencer/daws... <shrug> however, like you, some songs i make using solely ableton. -
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Re: O.K. so lets here it, how do you use Live?
Thu, February 19, 2009 - 3:30 PMgotcha, wasn't quite clear as to your meaning of cubase-lite.
i'm personally not doing full compositions with it yet, my #1 choice for DAW is Cubase SX 4.5 (until 5 is released, although i just bought my v4 upgrade 2 months ago, grrrr) I've been a steinberg user since Cubase VST 5 and Nuendo 1.5 so I've grown up with all of the SX upgrades. Its like a second language to me now so it would be hard for me to switch with grace to anything else.
Cervantes (he's in this tribe) however is fully utilizing ableton as a sequencer and has been showin me some tricks with it, you gotta check out his myspace page and peep his tracks. There is a lot of potential in this software if you really dive into its hidden functions or use the listed functions in another manner than they were intended. -
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Re: O.K. so lets here it, how do you use Live?
Thu, February 19, 2009 - 7:42 PM<i'm personally not doing full compositions with it yet, my #1 choice for DAW is Cubase SX 4.5>
i poo-pooed live until i discovered that i was having problems running cubase on my laptop the way i was used to on my tower (downsized for a major move.)
<(until 5 is released, although i just bought my v4 upgrade 2 months ago, grrrr)>
my experience with steinberg has been that they tend to be reasonable about these sorts of things -- you registered your software, right? -- often if they come out with an upgrade right after you bought the old version they will hook you up.
<I've been a steinberg user since Cubase VST 5 and Nuendo 1.5 so I've grown up with all of the SX upgrades. Its like a second language to me now so it would be hard for me to switch with grace to anything else.>
i took advantage of a "competitive upgrade" many years ago and went from cakewalk audio (long before sonar) to vst 3. i've been using cubase as my main "axe" until a few years ago when i finally made sense of reason. reason became a really good starting point for midi tracks (and the drums sounded better than what i was getting on my own.) i'd been hearing about ableton live, but i didn't really dig into it until my laptop was out-of-breath running sx3. would i go back to cubase if my machine could handle it? sure, but there's still a lot of things i'd do in ableton. the timestretching sounds good and is really easy to use for bending audio to your will. in summation, let's say this: it's amazing what you learn to do when you have no other options...
<or use the listed functions in another manner than they were intended. >
it always excites me when people do this on a regular basis. that is the essence of true hip-hop (the culture/mentality, not jay-z's music.)
being that i'm in spain, "cervantes" is a moniker that interests me as well... -
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Re: O.K. so lets here it, how do you use Live?
Fri, February 20, 2009 - 9:02 AM<<my experience with steinberg has been that they tend to be reasonable about these sorts of things -- you registered your software, right? -- often if they come out with an upgrade right after you bought the old version they will hook you up. >>
I'm a fully registered user. each time i upgrade its usually only $100-200. Its been my "murphy's-law" so to speak. I upgraded to SX3, and 4 came out 3 months later. Then i wait a year, upgrade to 4, and low-and-behold they announce 5 is coming. haha, oh well. i prefer it this way though because it gives them at least a year to smash out the bugs.
steinberg is very forgiving when it comes time to upgrade so i'll just wait it out for version 5.
now if i can save up my pennies, i'll be picking up a copy of Live 7, but i may wait because I heard that Live 8 is just around the corner with some killer new features.
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Re: O.K. so lets here it, how do you use Live?
Fri, February 20, 2009 - 4:41 AMBeing a newb to live, (or just plain newb, however you want to play it out), the beauty I find in live are the random things I discover that it does do.
Of course its time stretching is insane.
But its whole workflow process for production is on another chain.
I demoed Reason, had fruity a while back (Is fruity some weird stepping stone that everyone must go through?) and then settled on Live mainly being if I wanted to move over to Mac I could, but still had something to fit my current set up.
I also liked the drum racks where I could set up each individual sample with its own device chain to use as a sampler.
On top of that I was impressed with the sampler that does come with live.
When I started using it (Figuring it out) live seems to be naturally adaptive to electronic music in its creation workflow. From creating a loop to going over into the sequencer to lay it out.
Like I said, being a newb, I really asked that question to hear if people are using this as a live tool over just a production tool and how they accomplish that. ( my way of trying to sound like I know what the hell Im talking about without giving many indicators of what Im really asking)
IM very curious about how a live set up would work with Live, and how much would I trade in portability. Would a mac book pro give enough power to run effects, vst's and everything else I tend to browse through on a daily basis or would I have to lug around a desktop?
Im just trying to figure out whats the practicality of using it as a full on live tool.
Cubase, Logic, Pro Tools, Reason, and so forth all have production capabilities, using them as live tools though, just doesnt seem practical.
Another reason why I went towards Live.
So now that I know it can do so, Im looking at how to set that up, what direction to shoot for in gear, do most people use mostly hardware synths to take the load off the laptop of pc (or because they have yet to find a vst that can produce that wonderful sound).
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Re: O.K. so lets here it, how do you use Live?
Sat, February 21, 2009 - 8:03 AM<(Is fruity some weird stepping stone that everyone must go through?)>
yes. i have a friend who does some really good stuff with it though www.myspace.com/yosaku i think he is slowly moving over to ableton though. i know that he runs his stuff thru the saturator to warm things up a bit. i initially embraced fruity loops (now known as FL production studio) as an alternative to rebirth and because of its easily-accessible sample-mangling capabilities (in the old version.)
<IM very curious about how a live set up would work with Live, and how much would I trade in portability. Would a mac book pro give enough power to run effects, vst's and everything else I tend to browse through on a daily basis or would I have to lug around a desktop?>
just a standard macbook would be enough. i run ableton on my ancient pc laptop and it only sputters when i've got a lot going on (multiple instrument/fx plugins, several audio channels & re-wired to reason at the same time.) a newer machine wouldn't even break a sweat. it's really geared for live perfomance -- and they are always working to make it even better.
<Cubase, Logic, Pro Tools, Reason, and so forth all have production capabilities, using them as live tools though, just doesnt seem practical.>
reason is pretty light on systems -- people use them for live gigs, i've read about it and even seen it. you can run multiple instances and even on my machine (ancient) it works well.
<do most people use mostly hardware synths to take the load off the laptop of pc (or because they have yet to find a vst that can produce that wonderful sound).>
i'm guessing that most people are using soft-synths unless they are hard-core hardware people (or they have a particular piece of hardware they love.) there are so many amazing soft-synths now that it doesn't make sense not to use them unless you have something in hardware that's really floating your boat. what is amazing me is how many FREE plugins (both fx & instruments) are quite good.
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Re: O.K. so lets here it, how do you use Live?
Tue, March 10, 2009 - 1:01 PMI started with FL Studio and I still use it all the time. It's step sequencer with the built in samper has no equal for programming drums, and it's sound engine is as good as any other out there. Anyone who talks down about it doesn't simply know how to use it.
Now a days, I load FL as a VST in Live and record loops into the clip view.
I haven't used Ableton to play live yet and I don't dj. I'm finishing up an album that has been long in the works, but my next project is to make a live set that will be produced from scratch but will play continuously like a dj set. I don't make dance music, so it's a concept I've been playing with since I got Live a few years ago. I've made a few shorter tracks using this concept, so now it's time to try it with a longer set and start playing out. (check out "Live Set In Progress" @ www.stereofame.com/theta_state for a rough draft of the idea.)
As far as controlling Live on stage, I'm going to get the Akai APC40 as soon as I sell some other gear to raise the cash.
www.akaipro.com/apc40 -
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Re: O.K. so lets here it, how do you use Live?
Wed, March 11, 2009 - 5:13 PMwow, I found the drum racks in Live to be far superior to anything Fruity had to offer.
Mainly each individual sample has its own device chain.
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Re: O.K. so lets here it, how do you use Live?
Fri, February 20, 2009 - 4:52 PMI use Live (among other things) primarily for audio production. It plain and simple fits my personal workflow most quickly and accurately than any other program that I've tried to get into. Cubase/Nuendo is the next best thing, imo. However, the fx/instruments are a tad sub-par. Thats where Logic shines. Excellent bundled fx/instruments but absolutely awful timeline and workflow (for me).
Ok. I was using ableton for several years for playing out as well but recently have gotten serato and have been extremely pleased with it. With ableton I was doing basically hybrid-style dj sets with obvious added fx control stuff but I began to get really bored and un-inspired by it.
For now, Im loving serato for its music organisation, excellent sound quality, and djing feel. I've actually played my last two shows out with only my akai controller and no timecode vinyls and its awsome. The way I have it setup, makes it almost easier to mix on than two cdj's (minus the jog dials of course). But, unlike ableton, you still have to beat-match, which I personally really like because it keeps me on my toes and gets me more hyped up during the moment.
Someone else here, mentioned torque and how it will integrate/rewire into live. Never heard of it but it sounds pretty promising. It also sounds a little to good to be true. And I'd never trust running any app as Heavy (and a lot of times, unstable) as ableton alongside some other digital-djing software during a live gig. Serato may not have all of the bells and whistles as Traktor, or Torque but as far as sound quality alone is concerned they have that part nailed. Serato created the original high quality "Pitch n' time" plugin so I DO trust that they REALLY know what their doing as far as quality sound algorithms. I can't exactly vouche for anything from m-audio really because I've had problems with many of their products.
sorry.. Back on topic.
Imo, ableton rocks as long as you have a lot of time and inspiration to put into your sets beforehand. There's a hell of a lot of prep work involved no matter what. Once setup though, the control and possibilities are almost endless. As a straight up, digital djing solution though, i think there are much better options available.
Ok. my novel is done:)
