Hi there,
I'm a Protools user for jears and I'm intrested in LIVE. The concept seems to be very outstanding. Can anybody explain to me the advantage of LIVE against other Systems like Protools, Logic ...
jopo
What's the big Advantage of LIVE
-
Pierre
What's the big Advantage of LIVE
Hello,
I don't really know ProTools but well Logic Audio because it's my main software.
Live = Ableton Live
live = live act
Here is my process work to prepare a live act and use Live.
In Logic Audio, i bounce some loops of the seperate tracks of finished songs i want to play live. So i re-create the mix in Live. Not all the mix but just put the loops in the right time position...
Than, with the help of a Midi keyboard and Midi controller, i assign all kinds of shortcuts (trigger, loop...) and i can record virtual live (Live record all your movements and midi events).
I can also launch any of the loops when i want... like this i can mix step by step differents songs with their respective tracks.
So, i make some real mix between songs.
Imagine, during playing a song you realize the percussion loop of another track can be place in the mix... ok, just add it in realtime !!!!
I don't think Protools and Logic can do that as fast and easy than Live.
REALTIME is the best description of Live. You can also automate the tempo.
You can also add plugin (Ableton or VST) in each Live track, so you can modify your song on the fly with midi controller. Imagine the midi envirronement you must build to control all your plugins !!!
Live allows you to directly map the controller knobs and fader, a kind of "midi learn" functionnality.
In the beginning, i try to use Logic with a specific type of environement object that allows to launch (gate, trigger toggle) tracks, but it was not clear and easy... i don't remember the name of this object...
In Live, you can add an infinite number of loops in the same project so you will still have one big live project for all your live act.
It's impossible in logic to open several songs and jump from one to another without press the stop button, until you make a big new project and import, recreate envirronement etc... difficult and long to manage...
For Midi, you can use Rewire to Logic, Reason or other Rewire Midi player softwares... Personaly i use Alesis MMT8 hardware sequencer sync to Live and plays midi loops to control Rythmbox or expanders...
There is still a lot of things to say, but the best is that you test the demo version by yourself...
There is still features to comes but the actual version is already amazing
Bye.
Pierre (Belgium, so sorry for bad english)
I don't really know ProTools but well Logic Audio because it's my main software.
Live = Ableton Live
live = live act
Here is my process work to prepare a live act and use Live.
In Logic Audio, i bounce some loops of the seperate tracks of finished songs i want to play live. So i re-create the mix in Live. Not all the mix but just put the loops in the right time position...
Than, with the help of a Midi keyboard and Midi controller, i assign all kinds of shortcuts (trigger, loop...) and i can record virtual live (Live record all your movements and midi events).
I can also launch any of the loops when i want... like this i can mix step by step differents songs with their respective tracks.
So, i make some real mix between songs.
Imagine, during playing a song you realize the percussion loop of another track can be place in the mix... ok, just add it in realtime !!!!
I don't think Protools and Logic can do that as fast and easy than Live.
REALTIME is the best description of Live. You can also automate the tempo.
You can also add plugin (Ableton or VST) in each Live track, so you can modify your song on the fly with midi controller. Imagine the midi envirronement you must build to control all your plugins !!!
Live allows you to directly map the controller knobs and fader, a kind of "midi learn" functionnality.
In the beginning, i try to use Logic with a specific type of environement object that allows to launch (gate, trigger toggle) tracks, but it was not clear and easy... i don't remember the name of this object...
In Live, you can add an infinite number of loops in the same project so you will still have one big live project for all your live act.
It's impossible in logic to open several songs and jump from one to another without press the stop button, until you make a big new project and import, recreate envirronement etc... difficult and long to manage...
For Midi, you can use Rewire to Logic, Reason or other Rewire Midi player softwares... Personaly i use Alesis MMT8 hardware sequencer sync to Live and plays midi loops to control Rythmbox or expanders...
There is still a lot of things to say, but the best is that you test the demo version by yourself...
There is still features to comes but the actual version is already amazing
Bye.
Pierre (Belgium, so sorry for bad english)
here some quotes from the billy bush and charlie clouser interview from our website...both are extensive live and proo tools users:
What is Ableton Live's role in your production process?
It's replaced about 50% of what I used a sampling device for, which is chopping up loops to create my own rhythm performances of the mangled chopped up, spliced up bits and pieces of loops whose tone I like.
Quite literally Ableton is the holy grail of software. I've been waiting for 15 years since for a method to preview my loops, one at a time, in sync to my song. One mouse click, one button. I even had a cash bounty on the problem. Several of us were going to chip in $5000 to get someone to write it! Then Ableton came out - I drove 60 miles to go pick up the first copy the day it hit the streets in America. Just the ability to choose loops and hear what they will sound like in context to my song has revolutionized the way I work.
I used to spend hours making an instrument for SampleCell that would load 60 of my sample loops and pitch them. To load these 32 megabyte instruments would take three or four minutes that I would then pitch bend up and down to hear them in sync to a song. Now I'm just pointing at them in Ableton and flying through. It's no good having 10,000 samples if it takes all day to hear 500 of them.
My old process had at least seven steps: select a loop; pitch into the song; chop them out; improvise a performance; quantize that performance (a very important part); edit that performance; then record that performance as audio. With Ableton the steps are: Select loops - unbelievably easy; Chopping out the loops -just drag out the various cells in Ableton and slide them up to their start points, that just takes a few seconds. Now the part where Ableton has removed the next 5 steps: I used to have to perform, then quantize, and then record the audio. Because of the way Ableton works, I now get a quantized performance. I jam my way through the song and hack out the bits I don't like and loop up the bits that I do - I'm talking about insane Fat Boy Slim/ring modulator/sample monkey/loop chopology with solos of jungle drum and bass. It's ridiculous - I'm creating these hail storms that I never could have achieved in any other manner. Now I can just perform these amazing things that improvisational in nature, but don't require an army of technicians to manicure them into a useable data.
What is Live's role in your production process?
Live has been a godsend and has completely changed the way the band writes. The band has historically written using loops and programmed drums, and in the past that has hindered the creative process by not allowing us to change keys or tempos quickly. Every tempo change required recutting a loop and a key change required pitch-shifting tracks of audio. Now we can loop musical sections, throw them into Live and not worry about being constricted by the technology. It is now an integral part of our pre-production and writing process. Live’s flexibility allows us to make decisions at any time regarding the tempo and key of the song without having to go back and re-cut the track. It also allows Butch to audition many different loops and drums in real-time before deciding which fits the track best.
What would Live need so that it becomes a major production tool for you?
It already is! The last thing we are waiting for is seamless integration with PT 6.1!
In what kind of work process do you work with Live and when do you prefer other applications like Pro Tools?
To me, the work process for Live is much more musical and graceful than any other piece of software I've used. It doesn't have a steep learning curve and is much easier to jump into than many other programs we've tried. Live is an extension of what we love about Pro Tools in that it allows you much more creative ways of manipulating audio than analog or digital tape. The work process for Pro Tools is more regimented, as we use it for the capturing of our samples. Whereas, Live is much more loose and is treated like an instrument. Currently we run Live on our PowerBooks and have them chase our Pro Tools machine. I use it often with Reason via Rewire, mostly during the writing and jamming process.
What is a special feature or tool in Live that changed your way of working?
The time-stretching of loops on the fly has made writing and preproduction so much more efficient, which in turn allows us to experiment more than time would normally have allowed. Live's ease of use is beyond that of any other piece of software I can think of. We literally loaded it into our laptops and started making beats with it in minutes without even looking at the manual. It's ability to use VST and it's own internal plug-ins to shape and effect the loops allows us a creative way to build and stack loops quickly that we didn't have in the past. I use Live because of the fantastic sound quality, ease of use, the effects, stability and OS X support.
Could you please describe this process a little bit?
Previously, we would either have our samples in a Kurzweil sampler or in Pro Tools, looped for 20 minutes. The band would then jam over those loops until a song began to appear. Once that happened, we would then figure out if the tempo was right and if the key would need to change. Inevitably a change would be required and I would have to either cut the loops to a new tempo in Pro Tools or pitchshift them in the Kurzweil to the new tempo. Every change would require the timeconsuming task that Live does without even a thought. If the samples themselves didn't inspire anything, or if the song needed to have a scene-change, I would then have to load in new ones, figure out the tempo they were at, make them fit into the current tempo and key and start the process over again. Now, Butch can have a ton of samples and loops in his laptop and trigger them quickly and easily and in whatever tempo and key is needed. It has kind of gone back to a more "organic" way of song writing. The rhythm tracks are no longer basically click tracks to play over and instead are instruments that are able to speed up, slow down, change and can be captured as a performance, like any other instrument.
What is Ableton Live's role in your production process?
It's replaced about 50% of what I used a sampling device for, which is chopping up loops to create my own rhythm performances of the mangled chopped up, spliced up bits and pieces of loops whose tone I like.
Quite literally Ableton is the holy grail of software. I've been waiting for 15 years since for a method to preview my loops, one at a time, in sync to my song. One mouse click, one button. I even had a cash bounty on the problem. Several of us were going to chip in $5000 to get someone to write it! Then Ableton came out - I drove 60 miles to go pick up the first copy the day it hit the streets in America. Just the ability to choose loops and hear what they will sound like in context to my song has revolutionized the way I work.
I used to spend hours making an instrument for SampleCell that would load 60 of my sample loops and pitch them. To load these 32 megabyte instruments would take three or four minutes that I would then pitch bend up and down to hear them in sync to a song. Now I'm just pointing at them in Ableton and flying through. It's no good having 10,000 samples if it takes all day to hear 500 of them.
My old process had at least seven steps: select a loop; pitch into the song; chop them out; improvise a performance; quantize that performance (a very important part); edit that performance; then record that performance as audio. With Ableton the steps are: Select loops - unbelievably easy; Chopping out the loops -just drag out the various cells in Ableton and slide them up to their start points, that just takes a few seconds. Now the part where Ableton has removed the next 5 steps: I used to have to perform, then quantize, and then record the audio. Because of the way Ableton works, I now get a quantized performance. I jam my way through the song and hack out the bits I don't like and loop up the bits that I do - I'm talking about insane Fat Boy Slim/ring modulator/sample monkey/loop chopology with solos of jungle drum and bass. It's ridiculous - I'm creating these hail storms that I never could have achieved in any other manner. Now I can just perform these amazing things that improvisational in nature, but don't require an army of technicians to manicure them into a useable data.
What is Live's role in your production process?
Live has been a godsend and has completely changed the way the band writes. The band has historically written using loops and programmed drums, and in the past that has hindered the creative process by not allowing us to change keys or tempos quickly. Every tempo change required recutting a loop and a key change required pitch-shifting tracks of audio. Now we can loop musical sections, throw them into Live and not worry about being constricted by the technology. It is now an integral part of our pre-production and writing process. Live’s flexibility allows us to make decisions at any time regarding the tempo and key of the song without having to go back and re-cut the track. It also allows Butch to audition many different loops and drums in real-time before deciding which fits the track best.
What would Live need so that it becomes a major production tool for you?
It already is! The last thing we are waiting for is seamless integration with PT 6.1!
In what kind of work process do you work with Live and when do you prefer other applications like Pro Tools?
To me, the work process for Live is much more musical and graceful than any other piece of software I've used. It doesn't have a steep learning curve and is much easier to jump into than many other programs we've tried. Live is an extension of what we love about Pro Tools in that it allows you much more creative ways of manipulating audio than analog or digital tape. The work process for Pro Tools is more regimented, as we use it for the capturing of our samples. Whereas, Live is much more loose and is treated like an instrument. Currently we run Live on our PowerBooks and have them chase our Pro Tools machine. I use it often with Reason via Rewire, mostly during the writing and jamming process.
What is a special feature or tool in Live that changed your way of working?
The time-stretching of loops on the fly has made writing and preproduction so much more efficient, which in turn allows us to experiment more than time would normally have allowed. Live's ease of use is beyond that of any other piece of software I can think of. We literally loaded it into our laptops and started making beats with it in minutes without even looking at the manual. It's ability to use VST and it's own internal plug-ins to shape and effect the loops allows us a creative way to build and stack loops quickly that we didn't have in the past. I use Live because of the fantastic sound quality, ease of use, the effects, stability and OS X support.
Could you please describe this process a little bit?
Previously, we would either have our samples in a Kurzweil sampler or in Pro Tools, looped for 20 minutes. The band would then jam over those loops until a song began to appear. Once that happened, we would then figure out if the tempo was right and if the key would need to change. Inevitably a change would be required and I would have to either cut the loops to a new tempo in Pro Tools or pitchshift them in the Kurzweil to the new tempo. Every change would require the timeconsuming task that Live does without even a thought. If the samples themselves didn't inspire anything, or if the song needed to have a scene-change, I would then have to load in new ones, figure out the tempo they were at, make them fit into the current tempo and key and start the process over again. Now, Butch can have a ton of samples and loops in his laptop and trigger them quickly and easily and in whatever tempo and key is needed. It has kind of gone back to a more "organic" way of song writing. The rhythm tracks are no longer basically click tracks to play over and instead are instruments that are able to speed up, slow down, change and can be captured as a performance, like any other instrument.
michael
ableton
ableton
For me, the main thing about Live is being able to record audio and mess with it on the fly.
Our live setup is me (with laptop/Live), guitarist (with pedals) and vocalist.
Guitarist is mixed straight through to the PA, but I can also sample what he's doing into Live and/or send him through effect plugs in Live.
Vocalist is permanently routed through Live for processing and/or sampling.
Plus I can play pre-prepared loops & stuff from Live too.
Our live setup is me (with laptop/Live), guitarist (with pedals) and vocalist.
Guitarist is mixed straight through to the PA, but I can also sample what he's doing into Live and/or send him through effect plugs in Live.
Vocalist is permanently routed through Live for processing and/or sampling.
Plus I can play pre-prepared loops & stuff from Live too.
-
Guest
I am a FIRM believer that live music should be live, the places i perform have bands, not djs, so thats where i'm coming from. Live is the ultimate software for making one or two people sound like a full band, and NOT use any backing tracks of pre-recorded material. I lug out a lot of instruments--basses, guitar, keyboards, midi drum controller (drumkat), and midi foot controller (fcb1010) along with the laptop with Live and REason on it, and I start songs with one part--a bassline or guitar or keyboard part, and get a loop going of that. Then I add another layer, and another, then I start adding drum parts--to account for my lack of drum skills, I can record just the kick or just kick and snare and make that one loop, then record another loop thats hihats, then a loop of congas, etc. Then once the groove is flowing strong, i can start droppin in delays and filters and tweaking the sounds. There are hardware loopers out there, but most overdub on one track, or have very limited number of tracks, Live's only limitation is you hardware, and you can have as many loops in as many different lengths as you desire. SO for me, Live is an awesome performance tool, allowing just me to get a full band sound going, and it has definitely been gettin' me more gigs. Even if performance live isn't part of your program, Live is still the ultimate songwriting tool, especially for mulit-instrumentalists. YOu can so quickly start layering parts, therefore making it the ultimate songwriting tool--its just so quick and intuitive, the software truly just gets out of the way and lets the creativity flow. This is all my 2 cents, and though i have a predilection for live music and don't belive in a bunch of prerecorded stuff, I can totally see how Live is the bomb for djs and other sample based music. SO bassically, Live kicks ass all around, you gots to get it.
Ryan
Ryan
-
jer_mcclain
- Posts: 287
- Joined: Tue May 07, 2002 8:33 pm
- Contact:
well you got a mouth full allready but...
Everything is easy in Live. You get going at once.
The interface is wonderfull, no competition out there
Quality
Everything can be messed up fast and efficient
Its an instrument
timestretching and effects on the fly
Live Performance software
Love it. Shouldnt be compared with others cause its not an Acid, but can do Acid, its not a Pt but can do some
Download the demo!
C
Everything is easy in Live. You get going at once.
The interface is wonderfull, no competition out there
Quality
Everything can be messed up fast and efficient
Its an instrument
timestretching and effects on the fly
Live Performance software
Love it. Shouldnt be compared with others cause its not an Acid, but can do Acid, its not a Pt but can do some
Download the demo!
C
-
Pako
-
DJ Methuselah
What tickles me about this thread...
...is that even though I don't play live and don't intend to, Live still
is fantastic to use just as a studio tool. Usually when a program tries
to do too many different things it tends to not do them all very well,
but that doesn't hold true with Live...
The only wishes I have at current are for trivial things like the
ability to regenerate an .asd file within the interface, ability to
see long paths to clips, and following in the clip window if it's
zoomed (I *think* it can't currently do that; I may be wrong), etc
but overall if Ableton stopped development on Live tomorrow I
would still be deliriously happy.
DJM
is fantastic to use just as a studio tool. Usually when a program tries
to do too many different things it tends to not do them all very well,
but that doesn't hold true with Live...
The only wishes I have at current are for trivial things like the
ability to regenerate an .asd file within the interface, ability to
see long paths to clips, and following in the clip window if it's
zoomed (I *think* it can't currently do that; I may be wrong), etc
but overall if Ableton stopped development on Live tomorrow I
would still be deliriously happy.
DJM
-
ryansupak
-
Guest
that sums it up for me really - live has turned around the way i do things.stew wrote:With tools like Logic or ProTools, you are constructing music. With Live, you're playing music.
the thing about things like cubase sx, logic etc is as they get fancier and more complicated, their technicality in its self is what ends up distracting. The thing with live is you just turn on the pc and start making music, which is how it should be - you become a musician again, as opposed to n engineer, which is what you turn into with other software. i think it's something that need s to be kept in mind - that the whole point of all of these toys is to make music, and not to be clever at using software. Open live, open reason, start messing around, you'll be well into a tune within half an hour, same amount of time in cubase and i'd still be chosing which send effect i wanted.
-
nerveagent
- Posts: 98
- Joined: Fri Jan 03, 2003 3:39 am
- Location: late of sydney, now of brisbane, AU
- Contact:
Re: What's the big Advantage of LIVE
hot chicks. and free drugs.jopo wrote:Hi there,
Can anybody explain to me the advantage of LIVE
