I will admit that I'm not the smartest guy when it comes to all of this stuff, so I'm hoping someone can shed some light on this one. I'm not trying to start a holy war here. If you don't know, please feel free to ignore this...
Does Ableton Live have anything similar to internal controllers in FL Studio? For example, in FL I can add an LFO (peak controller). The LFO does not do anything by itself except cycle over and over. To use it, you apply the LFO to ANY paramter (FL wheel, fader, selector, vst, etc, etc.). I can also essentially side chain any output from anything to anything. These connections are unlimited. This has led to some seriously amazing sounds.
Here is some more info on the FL Studio version: http://flstudio.image-line.com/help/htm ... ternal.htm
In a nutshell, all you do is add an internal controller to something... like a mixer channel output. Then you find the knob/button you want to control, right click on it, and choose "link to controller" (nearly every "clicky thing" in FL can be linked). Then you find the controller you set up in the internal controller drop down. Now the external controller will automate that clicky thing. For example, I can take the output of a base drum, and have it affect the cutoff in a VST while also modifying the wet/dry knob on a verb at the same time (in different ways using the mapping formula feature). The advantage is that if I change the drum pattern, all the effects fall in line. No need to edit automation parameters. Another internal controller I use all the time is the formula controller. It let's you specify a math formula that results in an envelope you can use to control anything.
There has to be a way to do something similar to this in Live. So far the only thing I've found is setting up automation, but then every time I make a change the automation gets all screwed up. If I can find a way to do this, there will be no reason for me to fire up FL Studio ever again. Which, frankly, wouldn't make me feel all that bad. Ideas?