Ableton Forum

mholloway wrote:But he's almost got a bachelor's degree, so he must be legit!!

i want to know what school, it sounds like its top notch SUPER AMAZEBALLS.

Heres my thing, seeing that your personal goal is mastering what I will say is that is truly an any DAW preference. Even for small sound masterings like vocal libraries etc.

If I was a mastering engineer, I wouldn't worry about avid racks at all. The only way I would worry about that is if I was doing mixing and tracking. With mastering your only using one track, so your not going to likely max out your CPU by using 5-10 mastering plugins with automation and stuff.
Some mastering engineers don't even use traditional DAWs and use software that is literally made for mastering and only mastering. I am by no means a real engineer but I personally prefer studio one for my masters. They have a ton of great plug-ins for mastering ontop of my trusted mastering chain.

Also, if your mastering, why do you care about a control surface, do you really need a control surface to push 1 fader?

My friend who left PT to mix and master in ableton certainly has a unique flow. Its all preference at the end of day, if you love ableton for music but your struggling to wrap your head around how someone could possibly use it to mix/master it clearly isn't the right choice for you to mix and master with.

If your really focused on building up your studio and having control surfaces and racks and all that pro tools isn't a bad DAW besides the fact that PT 12 is literally stealing from their customers it is a complete RIP OFF and way overpriced. I think in about 5 years time we will start to see someone try to compete with PT very intensely on the high end studio DAW but currently there is no question, it is the leader for people who have a lot of equipment.

ps i love how people are hating on the OP for going to school and asking questions towards getting his ideas for his future in order. if your are someone trolling this OP you have no optimism to see easy purpose behind words not perfectly stated. (kinda like that sentence) Anyone who continues to hate on BA degrees in audio doesn't actually participate in the commercial music industry enough to know how competitive the industry has become. To understand that it is hard to become an intern at a studio in 2015 without a BA in audio engineering. There are famous musicians who graduated from music schools, I personally know 3 internationally touring musicians who are graduates and I can name many EDM people who did go to a form of audio school like makj and the chain smokers.

Nothing wrong with music school, but phrases like

I'm planning to build a studio with tenthousands of Dollars

are hilarious.

infernal.machine wrote:Nothing wrong with music school, but phrases like

I'm planning to build a studio with tenthousands of Dollars

are hilarious.

are they?! note the s at the end of tenthousand
Could mean 90 thousand far all we know.
And it's not even clear he's in the US, he could be working in Bulgaria, or Mexico, or Thailand. I imagine things are a lot cheaper there

Besides he already cleared up in a later post that he is a.) not alone and b.) this is on top of stuff they already have.

I seriously don't get the amount of condecension piled on the OP. Is it something particular to grey beards in the studio business?!
Because I have seen way more stupid posts than his get a better treatment here than him.

infernal.machine wrote:Nothing wrong with music school, but phrases like

I'm planning to build a studio with tenthousands of Dollars

are hilarious.

So can you tell me why it's hilarious ? Because i'm probably younger than you and got years of savings ready to invest properly ?

It's a Ferrari or a studio....

TomViolenz wrote: are they?! note the s at the end of tenthousand
Could mean 90 thousand far all we know.
And it's not even clear he's in the US, he could be working in Bulgaria, or Mexico, or Thailand. I imagine things are a lot cheaper there

Besides he already cleared up in a later post that he is a.) not alone and b.) this is on top of stuff they already have.

I seriously don't get the amount of condecension piled on the OP. Is it something particular to grey beards in the studio business?!
Because I have seen way more stupid posts than his get a better treatment here than him.

Thanks for the support and yes i'm not from the US

pinkpaint wrote:Heres my thing, seeing that your personal goal is mastering what I will say is that is truly an any DAW preference. Even for small sound masterings like vocal libraries etc.

If I was a mastering engineer, I wouldn't worry about avid racks at all. The only way I would worry about that is if I was doing mixing and tracking. With mastering your only using one track, so your not going to likely max out your CPU by using 5-10 mastering plugins with automation and stuff.
Some mastering engineers don't even use traditional DAWs and use software that is literally made for mastering and only mastering. I am by no means a real engineer but I personally prefer studio one for my masters. They have a ton of great plug-ins for mastering ontop of my trusted mastering chain.

Also, if your mastering, why do you care about a control surface, do you really need a control surface to push 1 fader?

My friend who left PT to mix and master in ableton certainly has a unique flow. Its all preference at the end of day, if you love ableton for music but your struggling to wrap your head around how someone could possibly use it to mix/master it clearly isn't the right choice for you to mix and master with.

If your really focused on building up your studio and having control surfaces and racks and all that pro tools isn't a bad DAW besides the fact that PT 12 is literally stealing from their customers it is a complete RIP OFF and way overpriced. I think in about 5 years time we will start to see someone try to compete with PT very intensely on the high end studio DAW but currently there is no question, it is the leader for people who have a lot of equipment.

Thanks a lot for really good answers

YES you are probably right with the whole mastering thing! A Faderport would be probably enough for that.
But i personally don't want to give up so fast on the whole other things.

Yes it looks like the best solution would be having a "small" professional music studio on ableton and doing big recordings out of house in a PT studio, if i want to stay on Ableton.

So in particular :

Good for Ableton:
Mastering, making Music, doing small recordings

pinkpaint wrote:ps i love how people are hating on the OP for going to school and asking questions towards getting his ideas for his future in order. if your are someone trolling this OP you have no optimism to see easy purpose behind words not perfectly stated. (kinda like that sentence) Anyone who continues to hate on BA degrees in audio doesn't actually participate in the commercial music industry enough to know how competitive the industry has become. To understand that it is hard to become an intern at a studio in 2015 without a BA in audio engineering. There are famous musicians who graduated from music schools, I personally know 3 internationally touring musicians who are graduates and I can name many EDM people who did go to a form of audio school like makj and the chain smokers.

Yeah. Without a BA you can forget being payed in money, if you wanna work anywhere
And to be honest i never had that much fun learning in my whole life.

Well i will think a little bit more about your answers and will comment more properly soon

regards

I wouldn't personally use Live for mastering, but that's not to say that you can't!

I would suggest looking at this a little differently. I recommend you don't put all your eggs in one basket so to speak. Maybe look to see if you can set up your studio in stages rather than committing all your money into it right from the word go.

It sounds like you have varying interest and that you and your partner/s might like to try different ways of making a living with a commercial music business. I'd recommend starting out as lean as you can - in other words, minimum investment needed to get the doors open and start offering a service.

That doesn't mean not spending money or doing everything cheap. If you want to start out doing mastering then room acoustics and monitoring are the most important areas that need attention (in my opinion) so you will need to spend some money here.

The problem is if you set up a mastering/live recording/sound design (and what every else you're interested in) mega-studio in one facility and then you find you've over-estimated the demand for live recording (or you find that the demand is there but it's not what you want to do after all - and only worked that out after building the dream studio and opening the doors) then there's a lot of wasted time/money/effort in that part of your business.

So ... by not investing all your cash in the beginning it gives you the option to adapt as the market shows you what it wants. Maybe you start with a single 'control room' that you can use for mastering and sound design. If you start getting a lot of interest in your sound design then you can invest more money in additional hardware or software for sound design ... or set up a second room solely for sound design. If you're hearing from bands that you're mastering for that they're frustrated because all the places to record are shit or maybe you just start building relationships with your clients and they start to trust your ears and your taste, and then they are asking whether you'd be interested in recording/producing them - then you might want to invest in your live recording space (room acoustics) and your microphone collection.

If you've spent all your money and the market is not there to support your business you WILL go out of business.

However, if you've opened and you're making connections with people in the industry, and you see opportunities AND you've got the money left to invest, THEN ... you can jump on those opportunities and really build your business.

In business start-ups they call this developing the "minimal viable product". Bringing your idea to the market (the people you're going to sell to - your customers) for testing. If you search "minimal viable product" or MVP you'll find lots of info.

As others have suggested, being successful is about finding your own niche. The smartest way to do that, in my opinion, is have the market tell you what they want. Then give it to them and do it better than anyone else - and charge accordingly. Then when the cash starts rolling in don't spend all your millions on fast cars & fast women - keep some of it in reserve and keep your eyes open for the next great business opportunity.

Sorry for the rant. Hope you find something useful here?

ps. one last point, back on topic - if you're not opening your studio to freelance engineers (it's only you and your partners operating the gear) no-one will care what DAW you're using IF you're doing great work! Use whatever helps you get the job done.

Thanks StewD

That's probalbably the thing to do. And good advice on the view of market!

Azedex wrote:Hello Guys and hopefully hello Ableton People



I'm on my way getting my bachelor degree in audio engeneering.

I did launch my own Record Label and using Ableton and Pro Tools atm.

Now i got a SERIOUS QUESTION.

Is there a way or will there be a way in the NEXT 2 YEARS that Ableton will be usefull in a Recording/Music Studio ?

I'm planning to build a studio with tenthousands of Dollars so we are talking of a serious studio not just a home studio (i got that now).

The problem as you know is that Ableton doesn't support EUCON nor DSP (correct me if im wrong).

I'm planning to get a 24-64 channel digital mixer, DSP systems, worldclock and so on.

Thats all fine using Pro Tools but with Ableton this probably won't work.

Can you please get me your idea of the whole thing?

The only solution i see when i really wanna use Ableton i will have to rewire it in Pro Tools, but seriously why should i do that i probably just make the music with Cubase (supports EUCON) and do the recording with Pro Tools.

Thank you for your help and input!

Regards

And NO i don't spend a 100k on Mackie Protocol.

I would imagine that Ableton doesn't support EUCON (although a hack probably could be developed using Max4Live).

I'm not even sure what you mean by DSP support. (Digital Signal Processing?)



That said two years is a long time in the DAW world.


If you need EUCON support, I think Nuendo is the only player in town (Pro Tools maybe). I know Pro Tools support many high end control surfaces.

Ableton supports some nice control surfaces but sounds like they might not be up to par on what you are expecting from a control surface.



That said for the money it sounds like you want to spend, you'd probably want something like either Pro Tools or Nuendo.

They are usually considered the professional grade DAWs (not neccesarily the best).


That said Ableton is great for the creation process and even mixing but if you want to spend like over $10000 for a high end control surface and Pro Tools compatibility, I would say Pro Tools (I think Nuendo might be able to create project files Pro Tools can open though).


I understand having a studio for your Record Label but don't necessarily understand the need for a high end Studio like you are wanting for the Record Label (probably for different goals). But yeah a high end studio is almost every engineer/producer's dream.

Azedex wrote: So in particular :

Good for Ableton:
Mastering, making Music, doing small recordings

I wouldn't necessarily say Ableton is good for mastering (but it can get the job done as well as other DAWs). A DAW I particularly enjoy for mastering is Studio One. It has a whole view dedicated to mastering but it is more designed for mixing/mastering in one program but it is nice how you can be in Mastering mode and need to fix something in the mix you can click on file and your project opens up where you can adjust fader levels, click on Update Mastering file and then go back to Mastering mode.

That said I don't think the software is that important for mastering vs. DAWs but you would want to pay attention to DAWs with great sample rate conversion, audio editing features and such.

In mastering the room and speakers are important. Also alot of Mastering chains are still on analog high end compressors and EQs. But some are converting over to digital now as well.


I'd say Ableton would be fine for bigger recordings. Your main bottleneck would be your Audio Interface (Number of inputs/Preamps), Mic Selection, Size/Quality of Recording Room/Preamps etc.

Now for mixing large projects, other more traditional DAWs might be better.

Often alot of people will record easier stuff like vocals, guitars, bass, keyboards, in small project studios and track out harder to record stuff in a big studios (eg Live drums, Orchestras, Brass, choirs).

What's this about dissing music schools?

Someone I know went to music school and went on working on Depeche Mode's last album. Multiple other previous students that I know are working as musicians and in related positions. They are making a living.

Of course, these people that I know have talent. Since when does going to music school mean you don't have talent?

The OP should buy the PT software now while he can get it at a discounted rate (less than 50% retail)

I'm in a similar situation. I've come to the conclusion that Live, PT and Logic are required though my own stuff is Live centric. Each has their own place - I certainly wouldn't record a brass band in Live...

It would be great to have EuCon in Live. Mackie Control may get you some functionality such as moving faders with the Artist series but it really is hit and miss at best and certainly nothing like the fantastic integration you get with PT or Logic. If I want to use the faders, I move out of Live which is a pain but means the controller works to it's full potential.

delete this thread

Azedex wrote: Is there a way or will there be a way in the NEXT 2 YEARS that Ableton will be usefull in a Recording/Music Studio ?

I'm planning to build a studio with tenthousands of Dollars so we are talking of a serious studio not just a home studio (i got that now).

The problem as you know is that Ableton doesn't support EUCON nor DSP (correct me if im wrong).

I'm planning to get a 24-64 channel digital mixer, DSP systems, worldclock and so on.

Thats all fine using Pro Tools but with Ableton this probably won't work.

The answer is no, you aren't going to be able to use Live like Pro Tools.
You aren't going to be able to use Pro Tools like Live either, so I'm not sure what your question is?
I use Digital Performer and Live because each has limitations the other does not, any recording studio worth it's cost is going to have the talent and skills to learn more than one $500 DAW, if you're thinking that you can spend 200k on gear and not learn more than one DAW then you officially join the ranks of had assed studios out there. I'm a General Contractor and I can use at least 5 different DAWs, it's not impossible, and porting between DAWs isn't a nightmare even if they don't support anything.

Both Live and Pro Tools support the MTP protocol, and you can use Soundflower to route audio into Pro Tools. This gets around the issue of composing in Live then losing plug ins in rewire etc. plus of course then Pro Tools can use it's high end digital mixing desks.

Azedex wrote:.... worldclock and so on.
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I made that mistake once. They laughed at me for weeks