As a MIDI sequencer.

[auto-lock]

For those who have experience with other DAWs, how does ableton live compare to other packages in terms of midi sequencing capability/features ?
( eg. as a baby i used to use frooty loops and it had like a slicing with patterns feature )

[oddstep]

Its really underwhelming in terms of editing and recording of controller data but on the other hand its really easy to create outlandish routings of midi signal flow and the midi devices are good at making an instrument out of midi data. The big downer is the inability to record 'automation' into the session clips- which is doubly bad because jamming on sequencer patterns is just incredibly great.

[3dot...]

For those who have experience with other DAWs, how does ableton live compare to other packages in terms of midi sequencing capability/features ?
( eg. as a baby i used to use frooty loops and it had like a slicing with patterns feature )

it's waaay nicer than fl... try it !

[luddy]

I used Logic for years as a MIDI sequencer, and an MPC4000 before that, and I hesitated a long time about switching to Live precisely because of its MIDI sequencing capabilities.

I have to say I've been pleasantly surprised. It took a long time for me to get templates I like set up, and even build some M4L devices to help with small things, but since then I've gotten so comfortable in the piano roll that now when I go back to Logic I'm frustrated about how cumbersome it is to do some operations in the piano roll there. There are quite a few keyboard shortcuts in Live's piano roll, and it's worth learning them. The CMD- and OPT-arrow keys for example do some interesting stuff.

The fact that there is no raw event view where you can see the MIDI data numerically like you can on an MPC or in Logic's event window seemed like a big deal to me at first, but somehow I haven't been hampered by it much in reality. I wish that Live handled polyphonic aftertouch and let you modulate stuff in some of the instruments with it. There's a lot that can be done with that that's hard to do any other way.

The way that Live handles notes that hang over the beginning and end of clips in the arrangement can be a pain sometimes (it doesn't play notes that start before the Start marker for the clip, and it cuts notes short that hang over the End marker). I end up with bigger MIDI clips than I'd like sometimes because of it. For the same reason, cutting MIDI clips up into pieces doesn't work nearly so simply and easily as it does in Logic. But the way Live does it is consistent with the way it treats audio clips...

As someone else said, the MIDI routing in Live is fantastic, much much better than what Logic offers. And the MIDI effects and M4L open up a lot of possibilities. Those things aren't really sequencing per se though ...

-Luddy

[mr.ergonomics]

The way that Live handles notes that hang over the beginning and end of clips in the arrangement can be a pain sometimes (it doesn't play notes that start before the Start marker for the clip, and it cuts notes short that hang over the End marker)

but you can record midi loops because of that! I agree that there could be an improvement, but I really like it this way without an automatic midi off at loop end.

[luddy]

but you can record midi loops because of that! I agree that there could be an improvement, but I really like it this way without an automatic midi off at loop end.

yes, the idea is kind of nice, but it looks to me like there are bugs in the way they handle those end-of-clip / beginning-of-clip boundaries. In particular, clips in the arrangement that have notes hanging over the beginning and end behave strangely, and are affected by the position of the loop markers even though the clip's loop brace has no function in the arrangement. Similarly with splitting clips and consolidating them; you would kind of expect that splitting a clip in half and then consolidating it again would give the same playback result, but it doesn't. It makes my head hurt so I stick to the rule of keeping all MIDI notes inside the boundaries of the clip. YMMV.

-Luddy

[auto-lock]

Thanks for your replies guys. i forgot to mention that i own live. what i am interested in is other packages, am i missing something ?

[oddstep]

I'd say cubase and logic have got more extensive midi editing. So if you find yourself spending ages tweaking velocity, note and cc data you could probably benefit from using a different daw for midi... plenty of people use logic and rewire live's audio into it. It really depends on how you are using live. It's made for performing innit... whereas logic et al are more for slaving over microdetail.

[auto-lock]

slaving over microdetail.

thanks buds u got me thinking in a different direction.

im curios, what is Ableton lives role for you?

[3phase]

live dont even has midi thru without latency.. for the simplest tasks you have to insert plugs.. there are no units in the editor for fine reolutions.. you cant really handle multi mode midi data in one track or split them to individual tracks without major work around.. it got however better in l8 ..so its maybe still in development..however..without midi thru handling live dont really qualifies as midi daw.. see the midi as an extra .. not as a real midi sequencer

[3phase]

As someone else said, the MIDI routing in Live is fantastic, much much better than what Logic offers.
-Luddy

you must be joking or one off the guys that havent discovered logics enviroment yet...

logiy is no1 in midi question because its routing options.. it´s so much quicker to use and has so much more possebilitys.. you can have a single note of a sequence sending to another instrument within seconds..


for the simplest functions like splitting a chord you need in ableton a track for each voice... and there is no identification for a higher voice in live.. you only have static splitpoints...

its really a bad joke to say live is superior to logic because of routing options..

the only advantage of live is that you have abletons clips in the session view...
and that actually pays off for some of the drawbacks..

however.. midi thru to external instruments with latency is actually bad.
and that thru is handled with the monitoring and acts track selection independend is actually also questionable..

you defenetly need external midi routing devices or software like midipipe or a master keyboard with splits, when working with external midi hardware and live. but also for the internal midi with plug ins you need at least a keyboard that can switch midichannels to be able to quickly play different channels in one go.

As long you do that and dont need precise placement of notes at the time you really have played them, because you quantize everything anyway, ableton live is fine to do midi stuff..

if you are a real keyboarder that want to catch his performance accuratly and use a lot of external midi instruments a program like logic or cubase is much better suited as main daw.. you allways can rewire live for the loop stuff

[broc]

its really a bad joke to say live is superior to logic because of routing options..

No joke. The big flaw of logic is that you can't route midi between tracks.

[3phase]

its really a bad joke to say live is superior to logic because of routing options..

No joke. The big flaw of logic is that you can't route midi between tracks.

why should i do that? besides you can do that with the ghost track functionality... its not a new thing or ableton invention.
supertrack on c 64 was allready able to do that..


come on ... theese other daw´started as pure midi sequencers decades ago... its a bit far fetched to claim abletons superiority in this field... live has a minimal midi implementation that is thanks to the clips stil usefull but defently needs improovements ..
especially regarding precission..

its no realtime able midi sequencer..

if the audiofiles would be randomly missplaced by up to 20 ms you would call it unusable.. with midi you just quantize and claim that this is better than the others? no way

[luddy]

As someone else said, the MIDI routing in Live is fantastic, much much better than what Logic offers.
-Luddy

you must be joking or one off the guys that havent discovered logics enviroment yet...

I've used Logic for years and years, and I've built quite a few environment gizmos. I can't understand at all how anyone could think that Logic's MIDI routing is better than Live's.

Logic's model for controllers sending input to it is to merge them all into one MIDI stream and then to separate them by channel to send them to individual tracks. This shortcoming can't be fixed in the environment, because there is only one Sequencer Input object, and you must merge all MIDI sources into it in order to feed armed MIDI tracks. As far as routing MIDI between tracks goes, in the Logic environment the MIDI inputs for channel objects allow to manipulate the channel objects themselves (i.e., wiggle the faders), but not address the MIDI content of the track. In Live, you can merge 10 MIDI tracks into another track, while listening to 3 of them on yet other tracks. You can pass MIDI through six tracks in real time if you want to. All with the same pull-down stuff you use for routing audio.

As for the rest of what you can in the environment, it's ridiculously primitive compared to M4L, not that you need M4L to get the benefit of the inter-track and input routing.

its really a bad joke to say live is superior to logic because of routing options..

But I didn't say that. I said that Live's MIDI routing is superior to Logic's.

I agree that Logic has great MIDI editing. All I meant to say concerning the editing is that, having now used Live for the past several months to do a bunch of scoring, I've grown pretty comfortable with its MIDI editing and don't miss the advanced features of Logic as much as I would have imagined when I started with Live. I miss Logic's transformations and MIDI functions like force legato, eliminate note overlap, convert sustain to duration, etc.

the only advantage of live is that you have abletons clips in the session view...
and that actually pays off for some of the drawbacks..

I can't agree with this at all. I find Live to walk all over Logic as a sound design environment. It walks all over Logic as a host for live performance, even if you stay in the arrangement view. In terms of audio editing, it's a close call; comping and take management in Logic is great, but chopping up audio in the arrangement I prefer Live. I prefer Live's automation by miles (I know a lot of folks disagree about that).

and that thru is handled with the monitoring and acts track selection independend is actually also questionable..

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. When you're playing keyboards live, you don't want for track selection to control the routing of MIDI data; you want to set up the routing and control it with controllers and maybe automation. I feel the same way in the studio actually. If I set up a controller to feed a certain instrument, then I don't want for that to move as I jump around tracks. If I want a controller to feed whatever track is armed, I select "All ins" with Auto monitoring and it's done. The only advantage of Logic's MIDI Thru thing is that it echoes the MIDI data out immediately. meh, with a low buffer depth this is overrated. I'd rather have the routing flexibility that sending the data through the tracks gives you.

you defenetly need external midi routing devices or software like midipipe or a master keyboard with splits, when working with external midi hardware and live. but also for the internal midi with plug ins you need at least a keyboard that can switch midichannels to be able to quickly play different channels in one go.

what are you talking about? I have a half dozen hardware modules connected to Live. Why would I need a hardware routing device or midipipe to deal with them? You can receive on any port and channel you want, and send on any port and channel you want in Live. You can do keyboard splits and layers using an instrument rack with an External Instrument if you want to build the splits/layers in Live. I shudder to even think about controlling a big keyboard rig for live performance in Logic.

if you are a real keyboarder that want to catch his performance accuratly and use a lot of external midi instruments a program like logic or cubase is much better suited as main daw.. you allways can rewire live for the loop stuff

Catching performances accurately, Live is exactly the same as Logic with the MIDI interfaces I use.

-Luddy

[3phase]

Live, you can merge 10 MIDI tracks into another track, while listening to 3 of them on yet other tracks. You can pass MIDI through six tracks in real time if you want to. All with the same pull-down stuff you use for routing audio.

You are wright about the audio routings that are pretty nice in Live and easy to use.. but..how does this help midi situations? why do you want o merge 10 chanels into one with a software that cant really deal with multichannel midi information in the editor? ok..nice that you can do it..but do you want to do such things with live?
With logic i just merge your 10 tracks and play them togethet wih an own editable midi file ..and even can remove any of the 10 layers when i have thought about giving hem individual channels before..

its not a problem to use the concept of midi channles to seperate data even with "just one" sequencer input.

As for the rest of what you can in the environment, it's ridiculously primitive compared to M4L, not that you need M4L to get the benefit of the inter-track and input routing.

live alone is allready more expensiv than logic theese days.. you cant put max for christmas into the equation when comparing midi abilitys..

of cause max is unbeatable regarding complexity..but is it rue that you cant control ableton devices from within m4l ?
so what you do with the midi abilitys of m4l than? anyway.. interestig but even more complikated than logics enviroment...

But I didn't say that. I said that Live's MIDI routing is superior to Logic's.

I agree that Logic has great MIDI editing.

with logic you can have one routing template for each situation you can recall as track icon on any track..

i still dont see what shall be better with abletons routing wher you need to cerate a dozend individzual tracks to achive the same.. just from the overview aspect that is not very good... ok..now with groups you can hide that.. but i dont see much difference in the abilitys.. beside that the enviroment is much more powerfull because it can do conditional routings.. that only get possible with live by engaging m4l...

I miss Logic's transformations and MIDI functions like force legato, eliminate note overlap, convert sustain to duration, etc.

Yes Yes Yes.. easy to miss them..especially when you are used to such possebilitys since the 1980´s

I can't agree with this at all. I find Live to walk all over Logic as a sound design environment. It walks all over Logic as a host for live performance, even if you stay in the arrangement view. In terms of audio editing, it's a close call; comping and take management in Logic is great, but chopping up audio in the arrangement I prefer Live. I prefer Live's automation by miles (I know a lot of folks disagree about that).

you cant agree that live clips are an real advatage? but you bringing up all wrong arguments instead...
its only better host for a live perfomance because of the clips = pattern based sequencing... if logic wouldnt have gave that up they would be no1 now.. for live... they dont crash and it sounds better

IN terms of audio editing? has live an audio editor? oh..you can truncate files now within live !!!! yeah..that was a releave... please the ability to draw away clicks... and i am fine...

Live automation? ther is no real automation in the sense of mixing desk automation.. its not necessary to reinvent the wheel there .. the 4 standard automation modes that evolved in the western culture make sense... no reason to abandon them... beside that its not so long ago that live had to fight with zippery noises...maybe still has..
and that you run in many uncomfortable situations because disabling automation in live usually means errasing it..

see it like it is..lives automation is track related comtroler handling with a minimal feauture set and without the famous bezier curves we liked so much in opcode studio vision ( maybe the best midi sequencer ever )

There is no real mix automation in live!

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. When you're playing keyboards live, you don't want for track selection to control the routing of MIDI data; you want to set up the routing and control it with controllers and maybe automation. I feel the same way in the studio actually. If I set up a controller to feed a certain instrument, then I don't want for that to move as I jump around tracks.

you are wright that this is debateable... opcode studio visoon had its midi thru track related..but remote able !!
that would be a solution for live aswell..that in many regards has taken opcode studio functionaliy with the clip matrix.. however that can be by accident... main problem is that its no fun to play real midi instruments with 12 ms delay... that hurts ..so you need midi pipe to have a propper midi thru... just the idea to have midi thru with audio latency is disgusting stupid.. how you do the latency compensation for midi than? hear with latency and the events will be replayed with latency? so when you transfer from one midi track to the other the data gets shifted in time? yes? no? maybe that is the reason live behves so weard regarding midi event placement... because different parts of the prigram work after different logics here?

Catching performances accurately, Live is exactly the same as Logic with the MIDI interfaces I use.

-Luddy

no its not... see this thread

http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=131548