Ableton suite.. Is it worth the $?

maxplanck · Post by **maxplanck** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 4:05 pm

Is you had Live 7, would you spend the extra $400 to get Ableton suite, or would you take that $400 and spend it on 3rd party plug-ins?

laird · Post by **laird** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 4:29 pm

you could buy a lot of cheap home-grown plugins for that $$$.
but you could only get one or two typical retailer-type plugins.

And they wouldn't take advantage of Live's native plug stability and CPU-saving benefits.

Its a very good deal if you need lots of synths.
if you need lots of FX, its not such a good deal.
If you need a good Mic and soundcard, its even less of a good deal.

Tarekith · Post by **Tarekith** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 4:35 pm

Tough call. IF you want to stay entirely in Live, it's a no brainer purchase to me, worth it. If you already use a lot of 3rd party plug ins however, there's better deals out there (Zebra2).

Abletonlivedj.com

has my reviews of the Suite instruments

paradiddle · Post by **paradiddle** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 7:07 pm

I'm only on 6.0.10 but when I get the chance, I'm picking up the ableton download suite. Everything is well integrated into live and I know that when I load back the old projects, everything will be there without me having to look for some obscure vst.

Winston · Post by **Winston** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 7:16 pm

I own the suite, but to be honest, if I had nothing else, I'd probably spend my 400 bucks elsewhere.

First thing I'd do would be to look for used plug-ins at the KVR marketplace forum. I'ts quite common to see things like absynth and fm8 go for not much more than 100 dollars. And you can probably find reaktor 5 for 200 bucks. That's where I'd spend my money.Also, I'd download a wack of freebies like automat and crystal if you're on a mac. PC's have tons more too.

OvertoneZero · Post by **OvertoneZero** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 7:28 pm

One thing to keep in mind, which is particularly important if you're going with a laptop or OS X setup - is that the internal stuff is more efficient than running plug-ins. With Live that is a huge factor.

Winston · Post by **Winston** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 8:02 pm

OvertoneZero wrote:One thing to keep in mind, which is particularly important if you're going with a laptop or OS X setup - is that the internal stuff is more efficient than running plug-ins. With Live that is a huge factor.

I believe this is a huge myth. Unless you're strictly talking about cpu use when not being used. Yes, Live's devices will not use power when unused, but most plug-ins seem to take only about 1% when idle anyways.

It really depends what plug-ins you're talking about too. Tension and analog can be much bigger cpu pigs than almost all of my plug-ins. Electric is about average to most of my synths, which is a fair bit for just an electric piano. Operator and sampler can very light if used with simple patches and not high polyphony, but even on those the cpu can be huge with higher polyphony and more complex patches.

If I made the highest cpu possible in operator or analog or tension and then I tried to match that with other plug-ins like absynth, fm8, zebra or automat for example (some of my other favs), I could never get close to the same high cpu usage. They are much more effeicient.

acroberts · Post by **acroberts** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 8:31 pm

I upgraded to Suite and have been very happy. My efforts, novice that I am, are 95% in Live anymore, with an occasional jaunt to Reason 4.

Maybe being a novice plays into being happy with what I've got, but I love staying within Live.

OvertoneZero · Post by **OvertoneZero** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 8:59 pm

Winston wrote:
OvertoneZero wrote:One thing to keep in mind, which is particularly important if you're going with a laptop or OS X setup - is that the internal stuff is more efficient than running plug-ins. With Live that is a huge factor.
I believe this is a huge myth. Unless you're strictly talking about cpu use when not being used. Yes, Live's devices will not use power when unused, but most plug-ins seem to take only about 1% when idle anyways.

It really depends what plug-ins you're talking about too. Tension and analog can be much bigger cpu pigs than almost all of my plug-ins. Electric is about average to most of my synths, which is a fair bit for just an electric piano. Operator and sampler can very light if used with simple patches and not high polyphony, but even on those the cpu can be huge with higher polyphony and more complex patches.

If I made the highest cpu possible in operator or analog or tension and then I tried to match that with other plug-ins like absynth, fm8, zebra or automat for example (some of my other favs), I could never get close to the same high cpu usage. They are much more effeicient.

Yes, you're right, definitely. It totally depends on the plugin. Zebra is efficient. Massive not so much.

roby · Post by **roby** » Thu Mar 20, 2008 10:03 pm

i think all the above opinions are pretty right on the target. but i must say, Analog sounds pretty good to me. Sadly I haven't even used Tension or Electric yet, at all, so i can't comment on those too. the Suite came with Sampler too, right?? i forget, but i like Sampler, and it's integration with Live is pretty good, and in a way, essential...

Atomikat · Post by **Atomikat** » Fri Mar 21, 2008 3:23 am

As I already have some "plugins" and Adds Like String Studio,Reaktor,Guitar Rig,Massive,Reason,Puremagnetik packs,Apple loop packs...+ some other toys (hardware)...I really don't need the Suite.

And my Live 7 runs smoothly.

Friend20 · Post by **Friend20** » Fri Mar 21, 2008 6:01 am

I will buy some cheap plugins and use the money for some other needy expenses.

Machinesworking · Post by **Machinesworking** » Fri Mar 21, 2008 6:15 am

I would rather get Zebra 2 and GURU if I already didn't own them, or Reactor 5. Maybe spend some time on the KVR marketplace and get all three for $400!

.....or spend an extra $50 and get the entire AAS line including Tassman, which is like a more organic Reactor! These are the full featured versions, not cut down to 128 parameters.

That's me though.

Pasha · Post by **Pasha** » Fri Mar 21, 2008 8:59 am

I went the Suite path because I really liked Electric and I already owned operator (which I like) so if I had to buy Live 7 upgrade (99 Euros) plus Electric I would have spent 249 Euros, while the Suite for me was priced at 279 Euros and I would have had Tension, Analog, Sampler and Drum Machine, which I'm using now. Later I decided to exercise my return rights and I upgraded to boxed Suite because I needed some sampled instruments and Drums. So for 100 Euros more I got EIC2 and Session drums.
The economics are in favor of the upgrade. The perceived quality depends on what you need things for. I still think that the best piano is Truepianos but it's 150 Euros and I still think that the best synth is Absynth, another 199 Euros.
So a little math 99 + 150 + 199 makes (449). Now the economics change a little with the introduction of Koreplayer and Kore Packs. With 49 Euros you could have 200+ sounds from Absynth....
For my needs in a range from 0 to 10, based on usage in the last three months:

Electric 8
Operator 7
Analog 6 (this is going to improve because I'm still learning it)
Tension 5
Sampler 7 (Imagine how many soundfonts are waiting to be loaded...)
EIC2 8
Session 8
Drum Machine 6.5

Given that figures I would say that I have all that I need except a successful emulation of a ROMPler. I'm not the kind of guy who always creates his sounds, I like to selected them from a huge sound palette, while occasionally making some racks. Maybe I'll take a look at Koreplayer soundpacks or stick with my hardware synths which have the only downside that steal time form me when recording from MIDI to Audio (needs to be done in real time). For people like me Koreplayer it's a change in the game, but the Live Boxed Suite still remains the core element in my virtual studio.

- Best
- Pasha

leedsquietman · Post by **leedsquietman** » Fri Mar 21, 2008 2:44 pm

I have other cool synths like Zebra and Massive, etc, etc but the Live Suite is amazing, having that kind of integration is really cool, the instruments really offer a lot. Totally recommended, I've just been producing a rock album using Live 7, which many people would go 'You're using Ableton Live - that's just a looping tool for techno DJs' then I show them it in action, with Electric, Tension especially, the new sidechaining compressor and show them the session view way of building up a song in conjunction with arrangement mode and some of Live's FX and the hands on tweakability, racks and everything else and all of them shut up.

Of course, it's a totally great environment for pumping dance music too.

Tension and Analog are not CPU hogging, unless you have a lot of unison voices turned on or (the majority of presets) are set up in a rack with 5 or 6 insert fx or layered, which is obviously going to have an effect. Delete some of these (such as reverbs, delays etc and set up sends instead) and you'll see a big difference.

Operator and Sampler in HIQ mode sound better and it's just great for my workflow. I got the download version too. I'm loving the Live 7 Suite, even if I do still throw in the odd vst synth here and there.