** How many people actually MIX songs in Ableton ? **

[Cezband]

For some people it may be a great all in one solution, for some it is just a tool.

You've just described every DAW on the market. In fact, you've described several instruments and genres too.

Regarding seriousness, I meant that If someone REALLY is serious (in terms of quality) about his mixes, Live is not good for this. That does not mean that making music should not be fun, but serious mixing is not that fun (although sometimes it can be)

So is mixing fun or not? In terms of SERIOUS mixing, Live certainly doesn't have the flexibility or feature set of some of the more traditional DAWs (as stated much more clearly by Khazul), but the suggestion that a good producer would not be able to mix a song well in Live is absurd. For some, the limitations for extreme workflow sophistication in the "pure" mixing stage are completely counterbalanced by levels of flexibility in terms of songwriting and tracking workflow, not to mention real-time performance. If in theory it took twice as long to get a good mix, but took 25% of the time to write and record the track up to that point then a SERIOUS producer or songwriter working to a deadline would still see it as worthwhile.

To me it just seems that Live users are for the most part hobbiists (and maybe some pros, but don't turn this into pro vs hobbiist) at a younger age who use Live because it is so easy to use.
What is the problem with that? it is just a fact.

So Live users consist of both hobbyists and pros? Isn't that like every other DAW? Or is there a company out there who won't sell you it's DAW until they see a copy of the contract you signed with a record label?

You might also want to double check ending a paragraph that began "To me it just seems..." with "It is just a fact." Here, let me help you:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/opinion


I'm not trying to sound like a fanboy, I am well aware of many of the drawbacks of using Live. However I take issue with anyone who believes that people have to do things their way in order to make great, listenable, professional music. That's not how music works.

[nylarch]

Regardless of where you do a final mix, I personally find it good to separate the act of arrangement and mix to support composition and arrangement from the actual sound engineering job of creating a mix by bouncing all your tracks to audio and then doinga ground up mix in the DAW of your choice based only on the audio. Its far simpler to just focus on the mix and lots of issues that something plague users of live just go away (even when doing this in live - just be careful about warp modes etc). also this provides the oppotunity and files needed to get an external mix engineer involved if required.

Likewise - bouncing the master mix and then starting another new project to do a mastering process for you own purposes allows for better focus when you separate that job out as well as well as yielding the righ mix to send off to a masttering house etc.

Nice post. Just curious - b/c I'm working towards somewhat of a similar workflow - how much of your Ableton mix do you keep before you print stems for your real mix? Because we all mix a bit as we write - basic panning, maybe grouping drums...do you eliminate much or just print and take it from there?

[Khazul]

Regardless of where you do a final mix, I personally find it good to separate the act of arrangement and mix to support composition and arrangement from the actual sound engineering job of creating a mix by bouncing all your tracks to audio and then doinga ground up mix in the DAW of your choice based only on the audio. Its far simpler to just focus on the mix and lots of issues that something plague users of live just go away (even when doing this in live - just be careful about warp modes etc). also this provides the oppotunity and files needed to get an external mix engineer involved if required.

Likewise - bouncing the master mix and then starting another new project to do a mastering process for you own purposes allows for better focus when you separate that job out as well as well as yielding the righ mix to send off to a masttering house etc.

Nice post. Just curious - b/c I'm working towards somewhat of a similar workflow - how much of your Ableton mix do you keep before you print stems for your real mix? Because we all mix a bit as we write - basic panning, maybe grouping drums...do you eliminate much or just print and take it from there?

The instructions I give to my priduction partners are basically to split tracks into two phases of processing and chain the audio from one track to the other as follows:
track a - original source audio or instrument + eseential creatue processing that I am not likely to want to touch - ie this is the design designpart of the track. Any sends that are considered part of the sound design fo a track also go from here (if possible).
track b - the mix processing part of the track, for example, this might include even sidechain compression, definately EQ, static/manual filtering and general mixer stuff, generic reverb/delay sends, but not special sound design type sends. Ie anything that you might want to have re-touched by a mix engineer - so this part of the procesing is consider to be a quide rather than final mix. (this is only needed when there is some questionable processing between the sound design part and the relevent mix bus/panning/sends etc).

I encourage a similar approach with submixes - submixes for sound design and submix elements for mix purposes - again for him to guide me in terms of doing a final mix of his essential core material. I allways want the kick separate as well - often ill replace it entirely - sometimes the bass sound too.

Once done as much as reasonable, then use Live bulk export to export everything. Name all tracks properly in some way that help the mix engineer quickly associate a track name with what he can hear and also easily understand if its the original source part (track a above) or the mix part, or a design sub mix or a mix submix etc, a return ettc.
Also I ask for an info sheet that roughly describes anything unusual/non-obvious in the routing or processing, however as the project are generally in live, he just gives me the original project to serve as a technical visual refernce as well.

Now pasing stuff to yourself, you dont need all this, but suprisingly it can help especially if you want to carefully define the boundary between engineering mix and creative mix - which in turn can help focus on the end game rather than going back and messing with stuff that you thought was done. Helpe to draw a line.

[fisto]

Regarding seriousness, I meant that If someone REALLY is serious (in terms of quality) about his mixes, Live is not good for this. That does not mean that making music should not be fun, but serious mixing is not that fun (although sometimes it can be)

So is mixing fun or not? In terms of SERIOUS mixing, Live certainly doesn't have the flexibility or feature set of some of the more traditional DAWs (as stated much more clearly by Khazul), but the suggestion that a good producer would not be able to mix a song well in Live is absurd. For some, the limitations for extreme workflow sophistication in the "pure" mixing stage are completely counterbalanced by levels of flexibility in terms of songwriting and tracking workflow, not to mention real-time performance. If in theory it took twice as long to get a good mix, but took 25% of the time to write and record the track up to that point then a SERIOUS producer or songwriter working to a deadline would still see it as worthwhile.

To me it just seems that Live users are for the most part hobbiists (and maybe some pros, but don't turn this into pro vs hobbiist) at a younger age who use Live because it is so easy to use.
What is the problem with that? it is just a fact.

So Live users consist of both hobbyists and pros? Isn't that like every other DAW? Or is there a company out there who won't sell you it's DAW until they see a copy of the contract you signed with a record label?

You might also want to double check ending a paragraph that began "To me it just seems..." with "It is just a fact." Here, let me help you:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/opinion

I'm not trying to sound like a fanboy, I am well aware of many of the drawbacks of using Live. However I take issue with anyone who believes that people have to do things their way in order to make great, listenable, professional music. That's not how music works.

C'mon dude! Cubase is not a "tool" (maybe i should have said toy) also ProTools is not, reaper also.
Just show me a serious mixing studio who records and mix in Live, please?
Now I'm starting to get pissed as you children just argue for the hell of it.
Every consolidation in Live leads to resampling (correct me if i'm wrong), automation is proven to be inaccurate, midi sync never worked well, plug-in delay compensation does not work correct, so what Mr. "I know it better", is that what you call a Programm for SERIOUS mixing, ha?

AND my friend, I said mostly hobbiists and SOME pros. I don't know what is so difficult to read, maybe you should visit school again.
Just be happy that Live is enough for you.
I just wanted to answer some questions of the OP so why are you offended by my opinion. The op wanted to know what we think about mixing in Live, and this is what I think, ok?
And I never said that it is impossible to mix in Live, but it's certainly more comfortable in other programs and more accurate (see automation, PDC, resampling) which leads me to the word SERIOUS in technical terms.
Read my posts better so I don't have to write everything 2 times.

[hussey]

Do any of you mixdown with a hardware mixer, or just simply use software? I use a Behringer BCF-2000 for mixing, but was maybe thinking of investing in a hardware mixer for eqing etc... Would that be a waste of money? I'd like to be able to send tracks out of Ableton to a hardware device which would allow me to eq and apply effects etc... I would probably have to invest in an interface with a number of outputs, however. Is anyone doing this method, or simply using software? I'm somewhat new to production, so excuse me if this is idea is quite basic.

[Piplodocus]

I think the vast majority of all DAW users these days are hobbiests, or the manufacturers would probably all go bust! Especially in these days of "home made music", a lot of bands will try to do their own demos rather than pay a grand or so. Point taken though.

Lots of good thoughts here guys!

[bassik]

I do mix in Ableton but I tend to do the mastering in Wavelab.

Ableton is definitely not the most comfortable program to mix with but it is not that bad.

In my personal experience I have found Logic pro a bit of a pain but Cubase and MOTU Digital Performer very easy and straight forward.

At the end of the day, Ableton is a DAW for live electronic music so probably the mixing capability is not as high profile as the live use of the software but it is understandable to me.

I would never use it in a recording studio to record bands but, as I am more interested in live electronic music nowdays, I bought Live for its intended use.

Cheers

[Mike Goodwin]

I do. Produce and mix in Live then out to Wavelab.

[Khazul]

Do any of you mixdown with a hardware mixer, or just simply use software? I use a Behringer BCF-2000 for mixing, but was maybe thinking of investing in a hardware mixer for eqing etc... Would that be a waste of money? I'd like to be able to send tracks out of Ableton to a hardware device which would allow me to eq and apply effects etc... I would probably have to invest in an interface with a number of outputs, however. Is anyone doing this method, or simply using software? I'm somewhat new to production, so excuse me if this is idea is quite basic.

IMHO it is only really worth mixing through a hardware mixier if yu really like the sound colouration of it, otherwise the whole digital to analog -> mixer summing with distrortion -> analog to digital conversion is allwasy going to degrade your audio and add noise etc. If you break even on the process (ie no artifacts that bother you), then there may be workflow advantages depending upon the capabilities of your machine and audio interface.

Personally, I would do this if I had a very high quality audio interface (considering the new RME Fireface UFX) and happend to have a realy nice sounding desk, for eg one of the TL Audio tube consoles. I has previously thought about a expanded motu interface and the mackie analog 24:8:8 mixer but in the end I didnt feel the benefits to be worth all the extra agrivation and phsyical space etc - its a nice well thought out recording mixer, but not *that* good.

[purpurkatten]

Every consolidation in Live leads to resampling (correct me if i'm wrong), automation is proven to be inaccurate, midi sync never worked well, plug-in delay compensation does not work correct

Is this true?

[casiblake]

Composed, produced, mixed and mastered entirely in Ableton:
http://casimirsblake.bandcamp.com

Don't believe the haters, Live's "live summing" can certainly sound like it has a blanket shrouding it at times (only a thin one, mind), but that certainly cannot be said for renders. Mixed or not.

I'm just curious because I can easily have 110 tracks with vocals and all instruments+drums. And by the time I add plug ins, the RAM usage gets pretty high (3.5 - 3.9). To my understanding, live can't use more than 4 GBs of RAM and when I get to 3.5 GBs of RAM being used, I start getting bad cracks, pops and crashes.

It sucks, doesn't it? Live certainly could benefit from being a 64-bit application. Let us hope Live 9 will be 64-bit because clearly someone like yourself would benefit. For now, try to consolidate, freeze and render things down as much as you can.

(considering the new RME Fireface UFX)

Good choice. *pats his Multiface 2* I'm purposefully re-sampling some of my synths with the Multiface because I find that my previous round of samples - recorded using a Tascam DR-07 - sound rather less clean. RME converters rock.

[Rationalizer]

Until very recently I've mixed my tunes in Live. There's no singing though in most of them . Now I've just got myself Pro Tools (mostly for Eucon support). I'm trying to mix with it but I'm still learning.

[esky]

A few month ago Anders Trentemoeller said in a Future Music Mgazine interview he did his 2010 album in Live 8. (And complained about permanent crashes of early versions... ) So it cannot be so bad, i think...

[hussey]

Do any of you mixdown with a hardware mixer, or just simply use software? I use a Behringer BCF-2000 for mixing, but was maybe thinking of investing in a hardware mixer for eqing etc... Would that be a waste of money? I'd like to be able to send tracks out of Ableton to a hardware device which would allow me to eq and apply effects etc... I would probably have to invest in an interface with a number of outputs, however. Is anyone doing this method, or simply using software? I'm somewhat new to production, so excuse me if this is idea is quite basic.

IMHO it is only really worth mixing through a hardware mixier if yu really like the sound colouration of it, otherwise the whole digital to analog -> mixer summing with distrortion -> analog to digital conversion is allwasy going to degrade your audio and add noise etc. If you break even on the process (ie no artifacts that bother you), then there may be workflow advantages depending upon the capabilities of your machine and audio interface.

Personally, I would do this if I had a very high quality audio interface (considering the new RME Fireface UFX) and happend to have a realy nice sounding desk, for eg one of the TL Audio tube consoles. I has previously thought about a expanded motu interface and the mackie analog 24:8:8 mixer but in the end I didnt feel the benefits to be worth all the extra agrivation and phsyical space etc - its a nice well thought out recording mixer, but not *that* good.

Thanks for your input, Khazul. So basically your saying that if I were to send tracks out from Live to the mixer, I would be degrading the quality of sound? I should probably state i make noise/industrial music, so distortion wouldn't be too much of a problem, provided that it wouldn't completely ruin audio coming from Live. Perhaps I could combine the two and invest in a mixer/interface. That could possibly be an option.

[Goran@Irrupt]

I do! I record (synths), produce, mix and master in Live. It's not perfect, but if you know what you want to do, it can be done. I think a lot of people are put off because of it's GUI and lack of separate mixer, but I say the mixer is quite ok. Drag the slider up to get a better view and you can see all the details you basically need - peak detection, levels, pan, etc. If you're in to arranger view, just click on tab and you're there. Another thing is that you need to keep your levels down and not ever worry about clipping. Use your ears to do the best mix possible and send the files to someone who knows how to master. But that's another topic...