Advice for an old Steinberg 'Remix' user

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
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Lovegrove
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Jun 23, 2011 12:32 pm

Advice for an old Steinberg 'Remix' user

Post by Lovegrove » Thu Jun 23, 2011 2:14 pm

Hello everyone!

Let me begin by saying that I am by no means a serious music producer at all.

About 8 years ago my wife bought me a copy of Steinberg's 'Remix' software because I had casually said I'd like to have a go at remixing / mash-ups / mix CD's.

I had great fun playing with the software, and it felt pretty easy to use considering I had no previous music software knowledge. I am by trade a graphic designer and work on a Mac and the environment seemed pretty pleasing to the eye.

There were a couple of things that I felt let the software down. Firstly the lack of ability to work with mp3 files (so I had to convert any to aif in order to use them) and also not being able to save / render as mp3 also.

But the other, bigger, gripe I had with the software was the fact that you couldn't 'stretch' files to fit a certain time-frame. Or sometimes what you'd get is a horrible clicking-pulse effect to a track that you'd attempted to change length on (hope that makes sense).

ANYWAY, recently I've been feeling the urge to have a go at making some tracks. I'm a big fan of Golden Era hip hop so it's going to be in that style... chopping loops and drum breaks etc.

I love the way the Maschine works, but at £600 is way too much for a part-timer like me.

I was watching a vid yesterday of a friend using an Akai LPD8 which I thought was quite nifty, so after looking into it saw people using it with Ableton Live. Once I looked into Ableton Live it became very clear through the screenshots that this software is what became of Steinberg's 'Remix' as the interface is the same design! great news for me as even today I still use 'Remix' to do the odd mix CD / song edit.

And then I saw the Launchpad which again looks great fun, but I'm wondering is it too much for me?

So I'm wondering what would be the best entry-level system for me to play with? I want to keep costs down as low as possible in case I never use the damn things, but I want to be able to do a few standard things if possible, and I'm not sure if I can do what I want with just 'Live Intro' (I don't want to get the full 'Live' software.

So it's a case of either getting 'Intro' and using an Akai LPD8

or

Just getting Launchpad (but do I need 'intro' as well as an extra purchase?)

Things I like when looking a Maschine vids is how easy it is to record samples onto it from any source (vinyl / ipod / mac etc), can you do this with 'Lite' / 'Launchpad'?

Can you stretch samples?

Can you work with / save as mp3?

Sorry for so many questions and if this is all over the place... thanks in advance for any help / suggestions.

perplex
Posts: 357
Joined: Wed Feb 02, 2011 4:47 pm

Re: Advice for an old Steinberg 'Remix' user

Post by perplex » Thu Jun 23, 2011 2:20 pm

tread carefully as you are about to open pandora's box.

Give the Live trial a whirl my friend. Im sure that will give you a better idea of what you would like to pursue.

matthews
Posts: 388
Joined: Mon Jan 10, 2011 11:18 pm

Re: Advice for an old Steinberg 'Remix' user

Post by matthews » Thu Jun 23, 2011 2:31 pm

^^^
Launchpad comes with Ableton lite launchpad edition. Should be good enough for just playing around making some basic tunes. I'd recommend starting there, you can pick up a launchpad for quite cheap nowadays, so no need to "break the bank".

arafel
Posts: 506
Joined: Mon Mar 06, 2006 2:19 am
Location: Calgary, Canada

Re: Advice for an old Steinberg 'Remix' user

Post by arafel » Thu Jun 23, 2011 2:43 pm

Try before you Buy!!

http://www.ableton.com/download-suite-trial

Follow the 'help' tutorials all the way thru.. and the rest will fall into place.

Live cannot save/export as mp3. You can use itunes or a free app to do that.
2.8ghz Quad Mac, Live 9.77, Remote25, Maschine 1, Fa-66 optical link, Samson 65a. Dog hair.. lots.

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