Ableton Forum

the orange dot and the little blue hand - they're the awesomest !!

This forum.

It rocks!

What?
Ableton makes software???? WTF?

cuz if you squint a little "ableton" kinda looks like "analbeads"

Ableton does the same linear (left to right) recording like all other major Daws. One of live's most intuitive differences is its Scene view. No other program has provided this type of productivity while still retaining the ability to put scenes in arrangement view in both realtime and drag/drop.

Intrument racks and effect racks are another unique feature as new presets can be created out of multiple plugins from different manufactures. For example one of my patches is a VIR2 Basis preset in Kontakt with an Ampeg plugin from IK, and an EQ from Ableton. Putting them all in an instrument rack makes it possible load them all as one. Other programs require you to load each plugin and setting again.

Just try the demo... and follow AT LEAST the first 4 lessons included if you have a knowledge of music.

Session View, instant looping of parts of a song, something most people do in the creative process. With it you can quickly check the sequence of events or even use it for the entire song.

To go along with this, whole parts of songs can be fired off via MIDI. I have a couple songs that have no arrangement per say, I change to the break after the vocalist says a certain part of the lyrics, and she's able to vary that at will as if we were a full band with no laptop etc.

The routing, any most any track can be routed to another track, setting up one global stem for drums etc. is dead easy.

Almost anything on the screen can be controlled via MIDI or turned on/off etc. so you can mess around with delays etc.

Live has probably the best system for cannibalizing other songs in that any Live set can be opened up in the browser and tracks or just midi/audio can be pulled out and dragged to the song you're working on now.

Session View, is what makes it different and so awsome, not better!

Ableton Live to me is all about the session view and the quick command + k/m mapping.

Also the routing ability is sexy in Live.

Yes, session view and workflow!

Untight15 wrote:I am really considering getting ableton to dj with and possibly get into production. I currently use traktor and i like it alot but am interested in finding out what advantages are there to be had using either ableton alone or combining it with my traktor setup and this seemed like the place to find out.

Basically, you'll gain lots of flexibility and scope to be very creative. You'll lose the advantages of an application designed specifically for DJing - simple, but important things like being able to view 2 or more track waveforms at the same time, and accidentally brushing the space-bar doesn't stop the music...

What makes ableton better than other software?

Answer: the User


I could answer this for every software

your mama

McQ714 wrote:

beats me wrote:

McQ714 wrote: and rearranging and looping are 2nd to none.

I beg to differ on the looping aspect. In Traktor you can punch in a loop point wherever you want to on the fly as well as change it's length quickly down to something like 1/32 note and also set loop points to jump to on the fly. With Live that's all a bunch of prep work and multiple clips.

but if you miss that punch in by 1/16th, then it's all f'ed up, no??? with DJ software, it's all about your timing. with Live it doesn't have to be. or does traktor have a global quantise feature??? i already said there would be prep work but i think Live makes that easier than dj software does.

Traktor does have a quantise feature. It's instant looping functionality is superior to Live. Live is also great for dj-ing but it takes more preparation then Traktor. Traktor is more instant and "in your face" dj-ing with quite some features to mess up tracks on the fly. Very nice fx too.

I would only recommend Live for dj-ing over Traktor if:
- you really want to do uber advanced stuff in your dj set, becoming more of a performer than a dj
- if you want to blend in your own studio tracks, check out this Tom Cosm tutorial for that: http://www.cosm.co.nz/index.php?option= ... &Itemid=94

Most people will find that Traktor Pro more then enough fits their dj performance needs. Atm it's just way superior to Live for most dj-ing as it was designed for just that where Live is designed for performing and producing. We will have to wait what will come out of the partnership with Serato before this will change anytime soon.

Session View & routing is what makes it a 'must have' for me.