CloudyJim wrote:I got a couple of hours to try out Live today. I went through the tutorials in Lite 4, but it won't let me move clips in the arrange view. So, I downloaded the Live 5 demo and went at it again.
It's impressive. However, there were a couple of concerns, that will probably amount to nothing once I can commit more time to the documentation.
1) the demo's tour took me through recording audio in the arrange view, but it didn't explain how to use the recorded material in the Session view, which I thought I had a solid grasp of. The tracks don't show up as clips.....which is what I expected. I really hope I won't have to "save as clips" in arrange before being able to use them in session view.
2) After recording a strumming pattern, I changed the tempo. This made the pattern sound very muddy and convoluted even if I only increased the tempo by as little as 2. I expected that to work better as I have read so much about this in Live reviews.
Regarding Issue #1, when you record in Arrange, it doesn't automatically turn them to clips. You have a few choices:
1. Take the sample you just recorded and drag it to the Session icon (upper right side of Live); it will automatically switch to the Session view, and you can drop the selected sample into a clip slot. This is helpful if you have a guitar part recorded, and then you make a bunch of edits, and then you consolidate the part into a new sample (CTRL+J) and then you want to go back to the clip view.
2. You can drag what you recorded from Live's browser into the Session view.
3. You can record directly into the Session view, which is the easiest way for you to start with Live's paradigm.
Regarding Issue #2, you have several Warping methods that are each suited to different kinds of material, and these are foind in the Sample properties. With percussive material like drums, Beat mode is best. With vocals or monophonic material, use Tones. With multiphonic and ambient stuff, try Textures or Complex. Textures is what I would try with acoustic guitars or chord progressions. With solos, I'd use Tones mode. Don't forget to mess with the Grain size to get the best sound. Also, I find that when I warp stuff and there seem to be artifacts, a touch of reverb usually thickens it to the point where I barely hear any artifacts at all. Generally with acoustic material, I can increase the BPM by quite a bit, say 15-20bpm easily, but slowing down is where I get more issues that require some fiddling.
Hope that helps. Let me know how these tips work for you.