the sound of live.

dudaman · Post by **dudaman** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 2:42 pm

Good morning/good afternoon/good evening to everybody! My name is Antonio aka dudaman and i am seriously looking into purchasing this program in the very near future!! I have been producing(trying to anyways) music for about 6 or 7 years. I do mainly hip-hop, r&B, and "linkin park- inspired" rock. I started out with a Roland XP-60 keyboard workstation and now my setup also includes the following: Roland VS-1680 digital recorder, MPC 2000(awaiting repair), Pentium 4 based computer, m-audio omni i/o box with delta 66 card, Acid Pro 4.0, Fruity Loops 4, Sonar 2.?, SoundForge Studio, AKG mic, and a host of headphones!!! Most of my music production is done in Acid using samples from sample discs and bringing in audio that i perform via my keyboard. I normally program my drums in FL and export them to Acid. Anyways, my question is in regards to the "sound" of live. I've read and heard that the "sound" of live is very recognizable and not all that great. My question is couldn't one just use better sounding samples to make the "sound" of live sound better? Do I make sense? I mean, if I had a bangin drum hit from the MPC saved to disk and loaded that drum hit in Live, would Live "degrade" the sound of the drum hit in anyway?? My thinking is that if I had nice sounding samples loaded, then they would sound just the same in live when i triggered them therefore enhancing this "sound" of live that i hear everyone so negatively talk about. Can anyone address this issue? Thanks in advance for any help on this.

Dudaman

ghoti · Post by **ghoti** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 2:53 pm

It's all in the way you warp it. I would guess that the "recognizability" of Live comes from extreme stretching or transposing using the "Beats" warp mode, especially with drum loops. You can certainly achieve pristine artifact-less drum sounds by triggering using the Impulse plugin for example. If you need to size loops to fit the tempo and you are not concerned with preserving the loop's pitch, then use the "Re-Pitch" warp mode -- no artifacts there.

dudaman · Post by **dudaman** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 3:08 pm

thanks for the response ghoti. no extreme stretching or transposing!

nosuch · Post by **nosuch** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 3:10 pm

not that again!

sorry dudaman, I do not want to flame you.

IMO the myth of "sound of live" comes from warping which may change the sound and the live plugins, which have their own sound like every other treat you give a soundfile.
and maybe it's the average live user which has a taste for extreme processing so it may occur it's live which does "that" sound". I like that too, but as I am doing commercials and sounds for games etc. my projects have very different "sounds", from acoustic and clean to electric and dirty. from rough to slimy

and I always do my shit in live...

the audio angine is as good as anything else, no vodoo under the hood.
if you go to osxaudio.com you find a long threat about that.

basic line: if you use high quality samples and high quality plugins live will sound as good as anything else you stuff the same things in.

AND your knowledge as a sound engineer is what helps a lot to achieve a good sound.

Musicians often think they are good engineers but the truth is: most of them are not (not that I consider myself to be a good engineer, but I have a sound designer who masters my tracks

)
anyway: I upgraded to live 5 today and had jsut a little time to droll around.
It is so much more organized now! it's amazing...

lightshy · Post by **lightshy** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 3:11 pm

i'm rather fond of the live sound it's kindof recognizable yes, not as bad, but as being warm and crispy. and i've got this from loads of people. take into consideration that my mastering skills are close to zero

Sales Dude McBoob · Post by **Sales Dude McBoob** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 3:21 pm

Live has a sound for sure, but that "sound" is only there if you want it... meaning that you can record with Live in a more straight ahead manor and it is as transparent a DAW as you can find.

If you push Live hard, and tweak and tweeze and tweak and tweeze (as I love to do!) then it has a sound that no other audio equipment on this planet can produce.

I think of it in terms of electric guitars. Fenders have a sound, and Gibsons have a sound. In recordings you can play with both in a neutral manor and not be able to tell which is which. But when push comes to shove and you start banging it, you can hear the difference between a Stratocaster and a Les Paul.

So Live is my Fender and Native Instruments is my Gibson.

You will be able to bring in your samples from your machines and your other software and they'll sound clear as a bell in Live.

dudaman · Post by **dudaman** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 4:14 pm

Thanks nosuch, lightshy, & Sales Dude Mcboob!!! Your responses completely answer my question fully!!! Thanks for the replies! I will be getting this software after x-mas or maybe before after I fiddle with the demo a little more!! The tutorials are killa!!!!!!!!! Thanks again. Hope to be getting some more feedback from you in the future!!!! Peace.

Dudaman

PS you didn't flame me at all nosuch!!! it's all good baby!!!

headquest · Post by **headquest** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 5:05 pm

To add my 2cents:

I own/use Live 5 and Sonar 5 PE.

For most stuff I prefer Live 5 anyday - it is certainly my "main host". For some stuff I prefer Sonar though (e.g. authoring GM files for teaching with).

Regarding "The Sound of Live", if I place an audio clip in Live and the same clip in Sonar, I can't personally hear any difference.

When mixing multiple audio files I still can't particularly discern any real difference between the two, even though Sonar is mixing at 64-bit precision.

The only thing that I have found to make a difference is the effects you use. Sonar's Sonitus FX Suite is higher quality imho than Live's bread-and-butter audio effects (although they are certainly good, too) while Live 5 has far more interesting and inspiring creative effects (which Sonar pretty much lacks).

dudaman · Post by **dudaman** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 5:57 pm

thanks headquest. really do appreciate your input! I WILL be a live owner SOON!!! peace

Dudaman

headquest · Post by **headquest** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 6:06 pm

That's cool

I must say that coming from a background of Acid + FL I think you will really enjoy Live 5.

Having worked with both Acid and FL a bit it seems to me that Live combines the best of both - great MIDI pattern sequencing together with fantastic audio looping and timestretch.

In addition to that though, Live is great for linear work in the arrangement view, such as multitrack audio recording.

Have fun!

dudaman · Post by **dudaman** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 6:32 pm

for sure mane!! the more and more i hear(especially from live users) and read about it, the more and more I believe that it is exactly what i'm looking for!!! not to get off topic here, but could i use live also for sampling records from a turntable or cd? I see that someone else tried to ask this, but didn't get a response back. In simple logic, I would think that it could rather straight-forward or with me having to save a section of it as a usable file type and go back and chop it up in the loop/clip window! I will use the search feature to try to find some more info on this. I just thought i would ask since everyone's been so nice in responding!!!! I don't mean to piss anyone off if its been asked already!! I know how to use the search feature!!

Thanks again. peace

Dudaman

Sales Dude McBoob · Post by **Sales Dude McBoob** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 7:37 pm

You can import from CD with other software:

http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31326

You can connect a turntable to an audio interface and record into Live. You may need a phono preamp to get the turntables signal level up to line level. But yes, you can record any audio signal into Live that you wish to.

the sound of live.

the sound of live.

/sample ?