All what is especially good with Ableton Live, Collection

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
3phase
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All what is especially good with Ableton Live, Collection

Post by 3phase » Mon Nov 08, 2010 4:48 pm

For my little puppy and trainee jtdj i make up this thread for the bright sides of live.
So all special good features but also deatils that make your live or music production in general easier should be listed here to show that the glass is at least half full and not just empty...
It´s also is ment to encourage other daw builders to learn from ableton as i encourage ableton to learn from the others.
More concurence is good for all of us :-)


again each relevant entry gets a number.. i do a start

01

the program is very simple to use.. except the warping everything else is pretty minimalistic designed and self explaining.
So once the user is around the warping concept the feel of beeing able to produce music is easily generated by the overwhelming amount of preset content that allows creation of own tracks in no time.
So we also enjoy a very fresh userbase that is praising the program and surounds us with the wonderfull smell of youth..
And anybody that is a bit longer into music production can easily feel as big master, genius, teacher and trainer or just better in this surronding.. a win win win situation..

so.. not positive enough? than do better..
there are many details where the program is doing it better than the competition..otherwise only newbys would use it..
so what are theese points?

and list them cleanly otherwise we only get 12 together..the highscore of 100 relevant points has to be beaten :-)
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3phase
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Re: All what is especially good with Ableton Live, Collection

Post by 3phase » Mon Nov 08, 2010 5:03 pm

02

live has elastic audio..while this is reducing the sound quality it allows easily to mix files with different samplerates or source speeds and quickly allign them to each other. it never was esier to loop different materials and try how they work together
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3phase
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Re: All what is especially good with Ableton Live, Collection

Post by 3phase » Mon Nov 08, 2010 5:09 pm

03

live is a pattern based sequencer!
while this was the old 1980´s standard it disapeared of the market at the times midi sequencer learned audio and tryed to act more like tape machines. so by now allmost evry daw is a protools like track sheet that works around the timeline.. a horizontal composition tool

live with its scene launches has brought back pattern based = vertical composition technics and allows this way to actually try an arrangment rather than only construct it.

for me the main advantage of live and the point where the competition really dont seems to understand how that in essence really creates the market share of ableton by combining workflows we know from sequencing hardware with the tape based arranger daw style.
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Machinesworking
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Re: All what is especially good with Ableton Live, Collection

Post by Machinesworking » Mon Nov 08, 2010 6:09 pm

04

Live allows you to fire clips and scenes even with real input quantize. This allows the user to make other decisions while keeping the beat going, or even play an instrument. I don't know of any other sequencer that does this.

3phase
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Re: All what is especially good with Ableton Live, Collection

Post by 3phase » Mon Nov 08, 2010 6:16 pm

Machinesworking wrote:04

Live allows you to fire clips and scenes even with real input quantize. This allows the user to make other decisions while keeping the beat going, or even play an instrument. I don't know of any other sequencer that does this.

opcode studio vision has introduced this.. but its gone for a long time now... logic can do it with its trigger folders.. but it needs plenty of setup work


05

I/O routings that also allow to selct any internal track as source are very comfortable in live..
faster than on any other daw i know..

could be only topped with the ability to store and recall such setups as we find it in logics enviroment.. but for the quick bounce from another track nothing beats ableton live
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joeyfivecents
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Re: All what is especially good with Ableton Live, Collection

Post by joeyfivecents » Mon Nov 08, 2010 6:30 pm

06
Sound Design

Example: I record my 1 year old son screaming and having your basic toddler meltdown. With clips/warping/Simpler I can make this 1 sample into a complete electronic glitchy drum machine. I can warp them beyond recognition into melodies/percussive hits/pads or something completely terrifying (as if a toddler isn't completely terrifying at times without sound design). It would take me ages to do this in all of the other DAWs I have used(FL Studio-which I still love but I'm using a Mac now, Pro Tools, and Logic).
iMac, MacBook Pro, Live Suite, Reason, Logic Pro, Melodyne, FL Studio, iConnect Audio4+, Little Martin, ukelele, Greco gtrs, pedalboard, amps, mics .
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Short Scope Boy
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Re: All what is especially good with Ableton Live, Collection

Post by Short Scope Boy » Mon Nov 08, 2010 7:24 pm

live is: Intuitive simplicity, in a loop based world; but also has a pro edge just for the audiophiles.
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3phase
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Re: All what is especially good with Ableton Live, Collection

Post by 3phase » Mon Nov 08, 2010 8:05 pm

Short Scope Boy wrote:live is: Intuitive simplicity, in a loop based world; but also has a pro edge just for the audiophiles.
a pro edge for the audiophiles? sure :lol:
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3phase
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Re: All what is especially good with Ableton Live, Collection

Post by 3phase » Mon Nov 08, 2010 8:16 pm

07

the arrange record function that records everything you do in ableton live is a meta automation you dont find in any other daw..

even changing of warpmarkers gets recorded
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n8tron
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Re: All what is especially good with Ableton Live, Collection

Post by n8tron » Mon Nov 08, 2010 8:37 pm

08

Live has a fantastic set of tools and effects that sound good and are extremely quick to use. I feel I can be more creative with my effects and my sound palette with Live because adding them and experimenting is so fun and easy. You don't have to stop playback, you don't have to wait for it to load (and possibly crash your system, I always have bad experiences loading plugins in other DAWs), and the controls are streamlined.

3phase
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Re: All what is especially good with Ableton Live, Collection

Post by 3phase » Mon Nov 08, 2010 9:20 pm

09

while 08 is true its a waste of positive points to dont go a bit in detail here..

there are certain special live fx and functionalitys that are worth to mention as an own point..

i choose the grain delay here.. its a very versatile and capabel special fx that allows from pitch transpose fx to grainshreddering all you need for your private sci fi movie and its unique in the daw world..

2 little bees for that one
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Machinesworking
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Re: All what is especially good with Ableton Live, Collection

Post by Machinesworking » Mon Nov 08, 2010 11:54 pm

n8tron did do the whole fanboy thing with 08 but the point is buried in there:
You don't have to stop playback, you don't have to wait for it to load (and possibly crash your system, I always have bad experiences loading plugins in other DAWs)
Other DAWs pretty much to a one will grind to a halt and even crash, audio will stop completely etc. when you try to add plug ins, especially soft synths. Live gets points for the real time nature of it's audio engine, that some care has been put into keeping the music going without too many glitches.

Machinesworking
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Re: All what is especially good with Ableton Live, Collection

Post by Machinesworking » Mon Nov 08, 2010 11:55 pm

10 Follow Actions in Session View, not anything like them in other DAWs.

Machinesworking
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Re: All what is especially good with Ableton Live, Collection

Post by Machinesworking » Mon Nov 08, 2010 11:59 pm

11 - Selection in Arrangement View, while not perfect is logically thought out, 99% of the time when you click on a clip you want to select just that clip, regardless of the length of the clip. This is a real time saver. This applies to the way selection works with multiple clips as well.
You can get similar results with Logic, but it's a buried set of key commands to loop the selection.
Very similar to DP, but with DP you have to turn on and off the "markers set to selection" function.

Machinesworking
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Re: All what is especially good with Ableton Live, Collection

Post by Machinesworking » Tue Nov 09, 2010 12:01 am

12 Duplicate commands- other DAWs I've used don't add time automatically to the Arrangement when you select a section you want to duplicate. Very useful function.

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