Is Ableton really for Electronic Musicians?

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
mendeldrive
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Re: Is Ableton really for Electronic Musicians?

Post by mendeldrive » Fri Nov 16, 2012 2:52 am

falgorian wrote:If i'm not making an electronic song, how do these "music clips" benefit me? I'm trying to write something right now and I copy a 4 measure clip to the arrangement view but notice it gets out of sync. Why is that? I record for 4 measures and stop, then copy/paste past those four measures, is that why? Cause the clip only originally consists of four measures?
If it's out of sync, then your timing is off bro, that's not Ableton's fault.

SpeedKing
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Re: Is Ableton really for Electronic Musicians?

Post by SpeedKing » Fri Nov 16, 2012 4:21 am

mendeldrive wrote:
And as for orchestral stuff, personally I don't like DAWs for this. I really prefer to write in programs with capable musical staff notation and writing, which no DAW really caters to (that I know of). Even still though, I love the flexibility Session View gives when trying out different ideas.
Sibelius does that. And Logic Pro.
Yeah, I know about Sibelius and similar programs, which is what I use. And whoa, I just watched a video with Logic Pro's musical staff/score (whatever you call it) view. I didn't know any full, good DAW had that. That's awesome though. That's my HUUUGE #1 thing that I wish could be added to Ableton. I would pay big money to have that as an add-on. I still can't understand for the life of me how this feature doesn't exist.

Even still though, Session View = greater than all in terms of idea and creativity flow, for me at least.

SpeedKing
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Re: Is Ableton really for Electronic Musicians?

Post by SpeedKing » Fri Nov 16, 2012 4:26 am

falgorian wrote:If i'm not making an electronic song, how do these "music clips" benefit me? I'm trying to write something right now and I copy a 4 measure clip to the arrangement view but notice it gets out of sync. Why is that? I record for 4 measures and stop, then copy/paste past those four measures, is that why? Cause the clip only originally consists of four measures?
Hmm, I'm not sure what you mean. If you have a 4 measure clip (and you make sure that the start/end markers are set correctly) then it will not be out of sync. Unless I'm misunderstanding your question.

kevwestbeats
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Re: Is Ableton really for Electronic Musicians?

Post by kevwestbeats » Fri Nov 16, 2012 4:34 am

falgorian wrote:I know it has just about everything an electronic musician looks for in a DAW but I have this tendency to write what I feel on a whim from electronic type sounds to rock to orchestral and I was wondering if this is the DAW that's ideal to write on a whim? I've been using Ableton Live 8 Lite and I simply love its ease and ability for me to be productive although I've never tried any other DAW Intro software. Any thoughts? Thanks
I think Live is great for all genres but it really does tend to favor things in the electronic world. When you start adding more real world instruments I could see Live falling short compared to options like Sonar which really favor those things but kind of sucks for electronic stuff.
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kevwestbeats
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Re: Is Ableton really for Electronic Musicians?

Post by kevwestbeats » Fri Nov 16, 2012 4:35 am

falgorian wrote:If i'm not making an electronic song, how do these "music clips" benefit me? I'm trying to write something right now and I copy a 4 measure clip to the arrangement view but notice it gets out of sync. Why is that? I record for 4 measures and stop, then copy/paste past those four measures, is that why? Cause the clip only originally consists of four measures?
In that case I would leave the session view. The session view is what makes Live unique but it also does not favor anyone who does not make loop based music.
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Nemou
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Re: Is Ableton really for Electronic Musicians?

Post by Nemou » Fri Nov 16, 2012 5:15 am

mendeldrive wrote: Please don't send me PM's with links to other people's work. It's sad.
I don't want to add fuel to the fire but I actually often can't be bothered going through presets to find a sound I'm looking for, it's quicker to create a new one. This is of course depending on a few things, but in my case this happens often.

Whether Live is good for sound design or not - Most that do design their sounds *probably* don't use the DAW's own synths but plugins..

hacktheplanet
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Re: Is Ableton really for Electronic Musicians?

Post by hacktheplanet » Fri Nov 16, 2012 5:45 am

My band's last release was tracked, mixed, and mastered completely in Live using all native effects (except for Magnetic on the master):
http://samantha.bandcamp.com/album/pussyfight-ep

Live is great for all types of music!
Image

beatmunga
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Re: Is Ableton really for Electronic Musicians?

Post by beatmunga » Fri Nov 16, 2012 8:35 am

mendeldrive wrote:
beatmunga wrote:
beats me wrote:Electronic musician is a misnomer.
Image
--------------------------------

I sent Trent a copy of your post that mocks electronic musicians. He and Atticus replied with the following pic:

Image
But you said Trent does make his own synth sounds before, right...? Waste of time...?

Incidentally he uses, and publicly endorses, Logic/Mainstage.

As regards mocking..Eh? Kraftwerk are an example of skilled, classically trained electronic musicians, without whom the music styles you like would probably not exist. And they sculpted their own sounds. Trent is a fan. So am I.

I think I see where this is coming from. Suite envy...

It ain't that good, mentaldrive, don't worry... keep on with what works for you.

(cue another long barrage of abusive PMs... hey, ho)

Anyway, it seems that electronic musician means different things to different people. But I hope all but one of us agrees that bespoke synth patches have always, and for the foreseeable future will always have, a significant role for many electronic artists, and this is worth taking into account if they are going to expect to use non-Suite Live with no third party plugs.

Controversial, obviously... who'd a thunk it?
mendeldrive wrote:NOBODY designs their own sounds... There is ZERO point in reinventing the wheel.

oblique strategies
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Re: Is Ableton really for Electronic Musicians?

Post by oblique strategies » Fri Nov 16, 2012 9:36 am

kevwestbeats wrote:The session view is what makes Live unique but it also does not favor anyone who does not make loop based music.
I would have to disagree.

The session view is exactly why I chose Live to do improvised, non-loop based, non-sequencer based music & performance.

The session view mimicked my hardware setup:
- Mixer
- Cassette & CD decks
- Signal processors & effects

Live, for the most part, is ideal for my purposes.

:wink:
Last edited by oblique strategies on Fri Nov 16, 2012 9:39 am, edited 3 times in total.

falgorian
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Re: Is Ableton really for Electronic Musicians?

Post by falgorian » Fri Nov 16, 2012 9:37 am

I have a track that's stuck on record, I can't push record on other tracks. It just keeps lighting up the record button on the 1st track. why is that?

Gregory Wells-King
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Re: Is Ableton really for Electronic Musicians?

Post by Gregory Wells-King » Fri Nov 16, 2012 10:07 am

falgorian wrote:I know it has just about everything an electronic musician looks for in a DAW but I have this tendency to write what I feel on a whim from electronic type sounds to rock to orchestral and I was wondering if this is the DAW that's ideal to write on a whim? I've been using Ableton Live 8 Lite and I simply love its ease and ability for me to be productive although I've never tried any other DAW Intro software. Any thoughts? Thanks
Things stand out, simple interface, session view, flexible working, flexible routing of tracks and Max4Live.

Those who like and liked Live when they had Lite and Intro versions, in general signed up to it because it met them on their level and had provision for all levels of musician within it's features. the word was 'Intuitive', :idea: which I'm hoping the update still has. same go's for your sittuation, it should be fairly 'Intuitive' after Hmmm a week or so, but then demo a few others to compare anyway, somewhere between I understand enough through intuition and I need to get deeper with this at a later date, is good sense when working with most programes.

falgorian
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Re: Is Ableton really for Electronic Musicians?

Post by falgorian » Fri Nov 16, 2012 10:09 am

Got it, I had my nanoKontrol hooked up and I haven't properly set it up and for some reason, it was keeping it on record on the 1st track and not letting me record others.

andydes
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Re: Is Ableton really for Electronic Musicians?

Post by andydes » Fri Nov 16, 2012 12:14 pm

mendeldrive wrote:
beatmunga wrote:
mendeldrive wrote:Post your soundcloud link and I'll post mine. Then talk shit about who lacks experience.
PM sent with links. Looking forward to it.
Please don't send me PM's with links to other people's work. It's sad.
:lol:

Tip for the future, if you really think challenging someone to a "who's the biggest produca" pissing contest adds any weight to your argument, at least lose gracefully. Don't accuse people of lying.

Is it really such a surprise to you that beatmonger is one of many successful artists who hang around here?

Sorry to add to this pointless crap, but it needed saying.

doghouse
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Re: Is Ableton really for Electronic Musicians?

Post by doghouse » Fri Nov 16, 2012 2:30 pm

I absolutely love the jack of all trades aspect of Live. I'm not running a pro studio and the feature set of Live works really well for me.

It works fine for bog standard band recording as far as I'm concerned. Session view is useful for "one man rock band" work, I'll jam stupid long solos against rhythm loops, cut the best parts into clips and then mess around in session view creating a "master take". The extensive use of drag and drop makes for a stupid fast workflow. The single window interface is fantastic if you're using a laptop.

I own Cubase and find it so much fussier to use that I never do. Tried Reaper (OK, price is excellent), Studio One (very nice) but just have no compelling reason to waste time and money changing over.

beats me
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Re: Is Ableton really for Electronic Musicians?

Post by beats me » Fri Nov 16, 2012 4:03 pm

mendeldrive wrote:
I do love me some Trent.

Realistically what percentage of electronic music producers do you think are also talented musicians and could keep an audience’s attention without any computer controlled accompaniment for an extended period of time?

And whatever you think that percentage is it’s probably dropping daily with easy access to inexpensive production software.

But I’m not mad about it. I’m just stating a fact. I think by percentage a more accurate question would have been “Is Ableton really for electronic music producers?”.
A talented musician is a talented musician is a talented musician. It doesn't matter the genre, you could easily substitute the "electronic" in your statement with anything else and still pose the same question. If the music is good then you have the audiences attention whether you're using a laptop or a banjo.

You’re missing the point. A talented music producer isn’t also a talented musician by default. There’s plenty of music out there where 90% of the quality of the song is the production and if you were to play an unplugged version of the song on nothing but a piano it would sound primitive and laughable.

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