Ableton Live 8.......omg

[avaris]

Watch the video that says "Extend."

http://www.ableton.com/home?movie=4

This is way beyond Macros and Synthmaker in FL. While conceptually it combines ideas of both, the possibilities are crazy. Creating effects, synths, midi devices, and features with a program that is already ridiculously popular.......mmmm the possibilities. Two thumbs waaaay up Ableton!

[The Vagrance]

I've been loving Ableton for some time, and I can't wait for this version, huge improvement overall. They took all of my favorite features from Pro Tools and added them in, and I'm especially glad to see that they finally rounded out all of the included effects, now there's very little I need an external VST for (especially considering the built-in effects and amazing high-quality).

Collision looks super tight, especially as easy it was to get some wicked sounds out of Tension and Electric. The new Operator looks mighty useful as well.

But probably my favorite thing is how easy it is to share files with others now! Took someone long enough! I'm going to college next year and a lot of my friends (including my bandmates) are being convinced (by watching me using it) to get Ableton and this is the perfect way to keep in touch with them.

MaxforLive looks tight as hell, like a less CPU-intensive, more well-integrated and thought-out Reaktor. Granted, it won't be able to do synthesis but its a nice touch, especially in combo with the new community aspect they're pushing.

That new controller is also pretty ballin'. I've been holding off on getting a pad controller but this one may have just sold me.

Overall I'm psyched, I can't wait for this new version. Its like they took the best parts of different sequencers (Reaper, Pro Tools) and integrated them into the already handy Ableton set-up.

My only complaint is that you still can't color the tracks in any way, which is a minor complaint but something I'm surprised they haven't addressed.
EDIT: NEVER MIND I LIED GROUPS CAN BE COLOURED OH HELL YES

[Zephyr]

Looks pretty much like a slightly different synthmaker, which I never really got around to using. It's nice to see more community driven stuff out there now though, as the community can do lot more than the developers ever can with their limited time and staff. Crazy that they have their own midi controller though, that's sweet, probably stupid expensive, but it's really sweet. Going with lighted values on the knobs is a great way to eliminate jumpy parameters.
Granted, it won't be able to do synthesis but its a nice touch, They mention that it can make synths, and if you mean that it won't do it well, you might be surprised. Some fans go crazy and code some awesome stuff.

Share is really cool, seems like a similar idea to IL's collab, except collab kinda sucked and this looks really slick.

Loope r= Wow, reads tempo for you and keeps it all under control.
Someone should make all of the DAW companies team up and combine all of the best parts of each, it would never happen and it would ruin competitive marketing, but it would be awesome.
This is making me want to go back and try out my Live Light again (even if it is severely handicapped)

[zircon]

I've tried to use Live a few times but unfortunately the piano roll and workflow is just so crappy to me that I can't bring myself to use it. :( If only people could just replicate the FL piano roll and step sequencer... that being said, the Max integration is cool as hell.

[The Vagrance]

I've tried to use Live a few times but unfortunately the piano roll and workflow is just so crappy to me that I can't bring myself to use it. :( If only people could just replicate the FL piano roll and step sequencer...

Horses for courses, though I will say that FLStudio has the best piano roll out there (trailed closely by Sonar). I've found programming drums in Ableton a joy now though when using the impulse, just because of how much power is in the device; though the drum rack is that much more godly.

Also, the folks at Cakewalk completely ripped off the step sequencer of FLStudio in Sonar 7 (or maybe its 8, iono).

[zircon]

Here's basically what "makes" FL for me. You have a browser on the lefthand side with ALL of your wav samples/loops in a simple file structure. Left click to preview instantly. Drag and drop to create a sampler channel and its appropriate mixer track and step sequence lane. All that in ONE motion! Not to mention you can switch samples in and out with equal ease, even while a pattern is playing. Then, it takes me less than 5 seconds to actually make an awesome beat, and even less time to copy that whole beat and do a variation on it in the next pattern. See what I mean? There are always all these BS steps that other programs add that get in the way of that kind of workflow.

[Harmony]

Also, the folks at Cakewalk completely ripped off the step sequencer of FLStudio in Sonar 7 . "Ripped off" is such a dirty term. Let's just say Cakewalk "borrowed" the piano roll from FLStudio...no, wait...Cakewalk was "inspired by" the piano roll in FLStudio. Yeah, that sounds a lot better.

[Zombie]

I agree with zircon. Though using abelton for djing is awesome.

[The Vagrance]

Here's basically what "makes" FL for me. You have a browser on the lefthand side with ALL of your wav samples/loops in a simple file structure. Left click to preview instantly. Drag and drop to create a sampler channel and its appropriate mixer track and step sequence lane. All that in ONE motion! Not to mention you can switch samples in and out with equal ease, even while a pattern is playing. Then, it takes me less than 5 seconds to actually make an awesome beat, and even less time to copy that whole beat and do a variation on it in the next pattern. See what I mean? There are always all these BS steps that other programs add that get in the way of that kind of workflow.

Its actually about that easy in ableton, although done slightly differently. Browser on the left-hand side, previewed instantly, create an impulse track (or I have a default set open with 3 already set up - one for kicks, snares, and hats), drag in samples, create a MIDI track, drag out the MIDI track as long as desired and split the MIDI track where you want to add a variation, that way everything is still nice and lined up.

Ableton's workflow is remarkably quick once you wrap your head around it, because it is set up similar to a typical DAW yet there are a lot of tweaks to it to expediate the songwriting process. FL's is very very quick as well, but it doesn't feel as stable as Live and the way Ableton handles everything in one window (a godsend when producing on a laptop) is very nice as well, not to mention the way the plug-ins are set up are more intuitive to me than FLStudio.

But blahblahblah, it doesn't really matter though because you obviously use FLStudio to great effect and I attempt to use Live in the same manner; and Live 8 gets me giddy like a little kid

[Zephyr]

Being called live it definitely does excel at quick on the fly stuff, especially with looper and APC in 8. I like my FL Studio though, FL lacks some great stock instruments though, it just has a few samples and some crappier synths.

[The Pezman]

I heard that something like this would be coming down the pike for some time.

This will hopefully allow more "indie" artists to get into mainstream live performance, and vice versa.

[zircon]

Its actually about that easy in ableton, although done slightly differently. Browser on the left-hand side, previewed instantly, create an impulse track (or I have a default set open with 3 already set up - one for kicks, snares, and hats), drag in samples, create a MIDI track, drag out the MIDI track as long as desired and split the MIDI track where you want to add a variation, that way everything is still nice and lined up.

How is that as easy as FL, when FL is literally just one motion to drag the sample, create the VST instrument and create the MIDI track? Objectively speaking, there's no comparison. :/ I know people use Live to great effect, but it's just frustrating to me that no one is taking more pages out of FL's book. Also, it's nice that you never have to drag or separate patterns in FL - they just size as you need them, simple as that. One click on the playlist duplicates EXACTLY that pattern and then you can simply edit the duplicate.

[The Vagrance]

How is that as easy as FL, when FL is literally just one motion to drag the sample, create the VST instrument and create the MIDI track? Objectively speaking, there's no comparison. :/ I know people use Live to great effect, but it's just frustrating to me that no one is taking more pages out of FL's book. Also, it's nice that you never have to drag or separate patterns in FL - they just size as you need them, simple as that. One click on the playlist duplicates EXACTLY that pattern and then you can simply edit the duplicate.

Live is aimed more at people who use a lot of audio as well as MIDI, whereas FLStudio is mainly aimed at MIDI. The step sequencer and all of that takes up a lot of screen space that Live instead uses for the arrangement.

Call me a liar or weird but I find it much easier to do drum tracks in Ableton than in FL. Its all personal preference, and a lot of the reason people don't like FLStudio as much is because they don't work with MIDI nearly as much as someone such as you. Its a wonderful program if everything is being done in the box, but Live's audio manipulation is some of the best out there, probably second only to Pro Tools, and probably a better choice than FL in that regard (unless said person just loves FL's style of doing things).

[big giant circles]

I've tried to use Live a few times but unfortunately the piano roll and workflow is just so crappy to me that I can't bring myself to use it. :( If only people could just replicate the FL piano roll and step sequencer... that being said, the Max integration is cool as hell.

That's pretty much how I feel.

FL clearly has the most intuitive piano roll on the market. I don't understand why more DAWs have not tried to "copy" it.

[zircon]

Yeah, I guess that audio is Live's strength, but then why do they keep releasing synth plugins? Sample libraries? Drum sequencing tools? Clearly, they want it to be an all-in-one workstation, so I have reason to complain that the MIDI isn't up to snuff. If we were talking Pro Tools, I wouldn't since clearly that has ALWAYS been a multitrack audio editor with MIDI as the icing on the cake.

It's also amazing how many features in FL people don't know about... you can, for example, put it into "Live mode" and trigger patterns, quantized to the beat, on and off exactly like Live can. I mean, I've been using it for years and I'm still finding out new things about it. Image-Line is great at not only developing new features but also adding ones borrowed from other tools, where appropriate. Why can't more companies do this? WHY? Argh.

[The Pezman]

I think one attraction to Live, especially with this announcement, is its modularity. Everyone's workflow and aim is going to be different, and Live is really really good about allowing users to set up the program the way they want it, as well as using external hardware which may or may not have been specifically designed for it. Just like (wouldn't you know it?) Max/MSP.

I don't know FL Studio well (especially now that I'm a Machead), but I would conjecture that FL Studio's lack of a Mac version is also a roadblock for its perception as a program to use live. This is owing to Mac's Core Audio drivers, and Windows' lack thereof (and I could never get Asio4All to work satisfactorily). Obviously, in a live environment lack of latency is key, and in the laptop world you just can't count on a PC for that.

[big giant circles]

in a live environment lack of latency is key, and in the laptop world you just can't count on a PC for that.

I've never had any latency issues with ASIO drivers.

[Yoozer]

How is that as easy as FL, when FL is literally just one motion to drag the sample, create the VST instrument and create the MIDI track? Objectively speaking, there's no comparison.

That's exactly what you do in Live, only dragging a sample in an audio track just puts it there instead of making a 16-step sequencer for it. Live is not pattern-based, that's all the difference.

One click on the playlist duplicates EXACTLY that pattern and then you can simply edit the duplicate.

Yes, but you'll lose track quickly if none of your patterns look alike. Correct?

[Zephyr]

I <3 this thread.

I just never really understood the whole scenes workflow in Live, it's like FL's patterns except for some differences I just couldn't get used to. Also correct me if I'm wrong, but when you're putting things onto the playlist doesn't it record the audio from the scene and place pure audio on the playlist? I think that would be a major downside opposed to FL's midi patterns which generate the music on the fly from the midi. Sure it takes more cpu, but you can easily change the synth or tweak the midi without having to re-record the audio.

I've used FL Studio Live mode and for live playing it works great.


Yes, but you'll lose track quickly if none of your patterns look alike. Correct?
I don't understand what you're trying to say... You can name each individual pattern however you like and can color-code them on the playlist, they also each have their own pattern number.

[The Vagrance]

Also correct me if I'm wrong, but when you're putting things onto the playlist doesn't it record the audio from the scene and place pure audio on the playlist? I think that would be a major downside opposed to FL's midi patterns which generate the music on the fly from the midi. Sure it takes more cpu, but you can easily change the synth or tweak the midi without having to re-record the audio.

Definitely not true, although one feature in Live that is REALLY nice is that you can "freeze" tracks where it takes most of the CPU load off of the track. Its also way easy to just record the track and use audio instead, all lifesavers in a Live setup.

I don't know why this discussion is still going on. You guys like FL so that's your deal, some of us like Live so that's ours. FL is extremely specialized, so while it may do some things better than Live, Live is suitable to a much wider range of people, or people who want to do a wide range of things. Apples and oranges.

[tweek]

I would conjecture that FL Studio's lack of a Mac version is also a roadblock for its perception as a program to use live.

QFE, and not just on the live level. There's a good chance I'll never use it at all because Image Line has no interest in releasing a Mac version. Even with an intel Mac, I could use parallel with Windows XP to get it, but it's not worth it. If IL decided to make a Mac version, I'd pick it up immediately!

Live was designed to be a live sequencer/DAW and Ableton has perfected the process. I've used it countless times for DJ'ing and theatre productions. It's also brilliant for SFX work on video. The automation controls are easy, simple, and quickly navigated, which is of the utmost importance when dealing with sound design!

I will argue that it's piano roll feels goofy and block-ish to me as well but I don't use Live as a midi sequencer. I leave that to Reason and Logic.

All this is to say, I'm looking forward to 8! Need to check the speccs even closer!

[zircon]

Definitely not true, although one feature in Live that is REALLY nice is that you can "freeze" tracks where it takes most of the CPU load off of the track. Its also way easy to just record the track and use audio instead, all lifesavers in a Live setup.

I don't know why this discussion is still going on. You guys like FL so that's your deal, some of us like Live so that's ours. FL is extremely specialized, so while it may do some things better than Live, Live is suitable to a much wider range of people, or people who want to do a wide range of things. Apples and oranges.

I'm only going on because it frustrates me how many DAW manufacturers concentrate on adding all these great new features (and they are actually pretty cool) but then don't add such basic things as customizing your piano roll mouse commands. Sonar did that starting with version 7 and that was awesome. I just wish MORE companies did it, because then people like me and Jimmy would have more choices, being spoiled by the best piano roll in the business. To be honest, I want to move away from FL Studio. There are some aspects of it, primarily the fact that it won't ever be 64 bit, that frustrate me, but every other program just has such crappy workflow in comparison (to me) that I can't make the switch - and yes, I've spent plenty of times with other DAWs, such as Logic which is required for school.

[Harmony]

I'm only going on because it frustrates me how many DAW manufacturers concentrate on adding all these great new features (and they are actually pretty cool) but then don't add such basic things as customizing your piano roll mouse commands. Meh, "basic things" are all relative. I could happily continue making music without a PRV entirely, but a well-oiled uber-capable PRV is your lifeblood. For that reason, I can't imagine a better sequencer than FL Studio for what you do, but good luck hunting :)

[Hy Bound]

I love Ableton. You really just have to get used to the workflow and its incredibly quick. The only problem I have is the fact that the MIDI clips are based around a 'loop' implementation, which makes creating flowing, organic compositions irritating as hell. Otherwise, the Drum Rack implemented in V. 7 is absolutely orgasmic. You are basically using a sampler with a bunch of FX for each individual sound in the drum machine. All of the on-bord FX are great too, except the phaser.

I can't wait for V. 8. The workflow looks to be a lot better for midi and the MAX wutchamajigger seems to be pretty handy; kind of like Reaktor. The number of amazing synths, FX and macros on there is truly amazing and if theres a native version for ableton I can assume that its just as great.

And FLstudio is incredibly ass-backwards to me... I can't seem to get the workflow down, no matter how much I fiddle with it. I just don't seem to understand why so many people think its the gold standard. Sure, Ableton has its drawbacks, but FL has some wonky workflow choices.

Oh, and why the hell aren't programs switching to 64-bit?!?!?! BLARG!!!!! I have 4.5GB of RAM that I can't use!

[zircon]

Yeah, lack of 64bit is ridiculous across the board. I guess Sonar and REAPER are leading the pack in that area. Anyway, Hy, if you saw me work in FL Studio you'd see what I mean about ridicluously awesome workflow. Maybe I'll make a video today...

[Hy Bound]

Yeah, lack of 64bit is ridiculous across the board. I guess Sonar and REAPER are leading the pack in that area. Anyway, Hy, if you saw me work in FL Studio you'd see what I mean about ridicluously awesome workflow. Maybe I'll make a video today...

Right back atcha with ableton. Once you memorize the hot keys you blaze through the UI like nothing else. I thought Reason was quick but I seriously fly through making 8-track loops... maybe 15 minutes including all of the initial-tweaking. Now if only that would help me with my writer's block.

Seriously though, I think it really depends on what you're used to. I was seriously considering switching to Pro Tools recently and couldn't get over the fact that its based only on pop-up windows. I like Ableton's sexy look and intigrated UI.

[Zephyr]

Yeah, lack of 64bit is ridiculous across the board. I guess Sonar and REAPER are leading the pack in that area. Anyway, Hy, if you saw me work in FL Studio you'd see what I mean about ridicluously awesome workflow. Maybe I'll make a video today...
Do it, seriously!

It's comparing apples to oranges, and we've all got the program we're using now anyways, so arguing is pointless but I've actually learned a lot about ableton from the topic. I think I'm gonna reinstall ableton live lite right now and give it another quick twice over. :<

[Hy Bound]

You really should make a video... I actually would find it interesting. I've been searching through FL's site and I like some of their features a lot. I still don't think I'm going to switch, but I'l be interested ;-)

[The Pezman]

I've never had any latency issues with ASIO drivers.
Sorry, I guess I need to clarify. For one, in any live environment involving a computer, you're 99% likely using a laptop. So you can't count on any high-end desktop class soundcards. The supposed solution for PC laptops? ASIO4All (http://www.asio4all.com/), which is meant to give ASIO-class responsiveness to PC laptops. That is what I could never get to work effectively.

Ever since I went Mac, that's all become a thing of the past.

[zircon]

Laptops can have "high class" soundcards in PCMCIA format or USB/firewire, so what you're saying doesn't make any sense... $100 soundcards can have native ASIO drivers, even.

[Sole Signal]

Anyway, Hy, if you saw me work in FL Studio you'd see what I mean about ridiculously awesome workflow.
Not trying to derail this thread away from Live anymore that it already has been, but this is the absolute truth. Clicking quickly through dozens of drum samples, dropping them into sampler channels, dropping loops in, creating an "A" drum pattern, ctrl+shifting+C to create an identical "B" drum pattern, and then shifting kick drum and snare hits on the fly in "B" to develop an evolving breakbeat takes literally seconds. I can't think of anything, short of my own tendency to have too many unhelpfully labeled patterns spread out all over the playlist, that gets in my way in the workflow.

With that said, I really haven't tried Live (v 4.15 demo with EMU 0404!) as much as I would have liked. I just watched that video avaris linked to and it looks awesome!

[Zephyr]

One thing that I just noticed here with the announcement of Live 8 is that even though FL continues to get new versions, they don't really do any huge changes like the other companies do. Maybe they have a new integrated plugin or changed the coding on something or other, but they don't need to do anything awesome because they don't need to convince their audience to upgrade, the upgrade is free. Without the need to look impressive with each new version the updates tend to be minor, uninspiring, and unimpressive at the time. However each update slowly builds up a stronger workstation.

For example Edison was a fairly large update but really it's just a plugin for working with .wav's, they updated the slicer with slicex, which was a moderate upgrade in that area, slowly it's getting better, but without any facebreaking advertisements of groundbreaking new software.

[The Vagrance]

EDIT: Never mind, whatever, can we stop talking about FLStudio now?

[Hy Bound]

Not trying to derail this thread away from Live anymore that it already has been, but this is the absolute truth. Clicking quickly through dozens of drum samples, dropping them into sampler channels, dropping loops in, creating an "A" drum pattern, ctrl+shifting+C to create an identical "B" drum pattern, and then shifting kick drum and snare hits on the fly in "B" to develop an evolving breakbeat takes literally seconds. I can't think of anything, short of my own tendency to have too many unhelpfully labeled patterns spread out all over the playlist, that gets in my way in the workflow.

With that said, I really haven't tried Live (v 4.15 demo with EMU 0404!) as much as I would have liked. I just watched that video avaris linked to and it looks awesome!

I'd hate to try and continue the debate, but that sounds exactly like what you would have to do in Live...

I'd post a video, but I have no idea how to make a screenshot-based video.

[Sole Signal]

Not debating, just commenting. :) I know several people that use ableton to great effect. I watched a few vids about it and would like to learn more.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMg34DXvfB4

[The Pezman]

I'd post a video, but I have no idea how to make a screenshot-based video.
On a Mac, it's right here (http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/snapzprox/). On a PC, I suppose Zircon can tell you.
Laptops can have "high class" soundcards in PCMCIA format or USB/firewire, so what you're saying doesn't make any sense... $100 soundcards can have native ASIO drivers, even.
I guess I can't directly respond since I've never worked with those. However, I have worked with the MBox, which I'm guessing is somewhat similar. And god did I have an annoying time with that. The problem is that I never knew which program was going to output audio where, and I had to always ensure the audio busses on each track were sending correctly. As for the cards themselves, I don't know how consistently such soundcards perform in practice, but at least in theory I'd imagine that the lower transfer rate of USB/Firewire (as opposed to the built-in soundcard on the frontside bus) could pose more risk. But then again, I have a Duet which interfaces through Firewire and I've had no problems so far.

So is it possible to get low-latency audio on a PC laptop? I'm certain. But at least the way I see it, I think Macs are better for it for the same reasons many people will say: it's straightforward, it's simple, and it works. Moreso on all counts than the PC laptop I used to own, anyway.

We all know no one is going to convince anyone else to switch to anything. But that's not really what I see this to be about. We're not spinning our wheels here; we're revealing our preferences, workflows, likes and dislikes and the reasons behind them. As Hy Bound said, we'll keep doing things the way we're doing them, but we'll all learn something at the same time. And that's good enough for me.

[avaris]

OK so supposedly there are midi improvements in Live 8 but they haven't released a spec sheet yet. A cool feature when working with a drum kit is the collapse feature feature where the piano roll will only show the note lanes where that you have notes on already. Which makes a for a pseudo drum sequencer type feel.

As a former FL user; the features of dragging and dropping samples is almost exactly the same. In Live 7 and beyond creating the drum rack would suffice as a similar method to FL's built-in step-sequencer.

Supposedly with the new Live, or maybe this is with 7 as well, you can view multiple midi notes from different regions at the same time. Basically a must for working on complicated arrangements.

Have to agree with Zircon on the PRV edting type possibilities. It's just plain stupid more devs do not hop on the idea.

Frankly the new warping mode looks AWESOME.

Hopefully the Max/MSP side accepts side-chaining, this would make for some AWESOME phase vocoder type effects that sound pretty good in MSP.

[big giant circles]

I don't know FL Studio well (especially now that I'm a Machead), but I would conjecture that FL Studio's lack of a Mac version is also a roadblock for its perception as a program to use live.

QFE, and not just on the live level. There's a good chance I'll never use it at all because Image Line has no interest in releasing a Mac version. Even with an intel Mac, I could use parallel with Windows XP to get it, but it's not worth it. If IL decided to make a Mac version, I'd pick it up immediately!

This has been brought up lots on the Image Line forums. It's not that there's no interest in doing a Mac version, it's that the program is writen in Delphi, which apparently is impossible to convert. Delphi is also the current roadblock for there ever being a 64-bit version of FL. So the issue is not the programmers (unless you expect them to rebuild the program from scratch) but the code it's written in. I for one am crossing my fingers that at some point in the near future that Delphi will be cross-platform as well as 64-bit.

At any rate, carry on fellas.

[The Pezman]

(unless you expect them to rebuild the program from scratch)
A tall order? No question. But in software development you have to weigh that versus the gained longevity and versatility of the program. This is precisely what several companies have done when they've realized they've reached programmatic limitations. Apple, Cycling74, Animusic, and many others have all rebuilt their products from the ground up and have, in the end, been far better for it.

Plus, Delphi? It's a derivative of Pascal. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphi_programming_language) Time to move on, people.

[zircon]

They're not going to reprogram FL from the ground up. They'd rather make a new program entirely than remake FL, which makes a lot of sense. They're doing well enough without the Mac market, anyway, probably thanks to people like me and Jimmy that tirelessly use it and buy addons :)

[prophetik]

a program that is already ridiculously popular

you're such a fanboy. too bad i just saw this thread, i can't spam it now...it's too old.

BTW PLAY CATAN WITH ME

[avaris]

I will try to see if can get through on the university network...RIGHT NOW! :)

[The Pezman]

David Zicarelli's history and opinion of Max for Live. (http://www.cycling74.com/story/2009/1/15/112631/799)

Some capabilitis of Max for Live (http://www.cycling74.com/story/2009/1/15/114420/967).

[sgx]

Live 8 does look awesome, yessir. Max for Live looks hot, though it is an extra cost above the regular update, right? I'd be interested, but I've got Reaktor and I'm tired of spending money at the moment :). I've used Max before, with mostly the Jitter video manipulation stuff. Live is going to be THE SHIT for VJ's when this comes out. I'm not a VJ though.

Also, if I ever want to do live shows, I'm getting that Akai. Holy crap that looks awesome.