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

[Khazul]

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.

Im saying, if it works, just do it, but also be aware of what is happening as well. You would surpised how many people can get obsessed by potential DAC->Mixer->ADC degredation of a sound that is a horribly distorted glitch allready :p

OTOH- on something more delicate, you may actually knotice the impact of imperfect audio interface etc, vs say something from RME etc.

[hussey]

If I wanted to mix my tracks coming from Live, and apply eq and effects etc.. is it possible to obtain a mixer which acts as an interface and has alot of inputs and outputs?

[Khazul]

If I wanted to mix my tracks coming from Live, and apply eq and effects etc.. is it possible to obtain a mixer which acts as an interface and has alot of inputs and outputs?

Yes, but generally the control surface on them sux, as does the EQ and pretty much everything else unless you spend huge amount of cash (10K+), though allen and heath might do something thats a decent affordable hybrid.

Tell me you have 250K to spend - and can point you at loads of good stuff (actually even 25K will get you something thats nice to work on), tell me you have <2.5K and I might suggest behringers and a dremmel cutter to do a DIY job

[fx23]

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?

there are two main pbs in 3 letters words. A) PDC and B) SRC. (MIDI for later)

A)PDC PluginDelayCompensation.Live compensates audio but don't compensate related controls (sync, modulation and automations) for VSTs inducing latencies(most of them)and as a result all devices, beeing vst or native, following in the chain will drift from the original drawn on grid modulations or sync effects.
ex: the two most used tools in mastering are certainly linear phase EQ and multiband, limiter or other 'need buffer' plugin. they are high latency process, nothing coming after that in the chain can be automated or modulated with accuracy with live, and will produce out of sync and unprecise, unwanted results, and will be incremental, proportionally linked to vsts uses. this apply and is worse in mixing as the pb is spread on X process, and not on a single stereo file so relative offsets occur between sources.
you can read one of the X pdc/adc threadZ like this recent one:
http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=157048
and can test by yourself to understand the problem here:
http://rapidshare.com/files/443477011/P ... roject.rar

B)SRC SampleRateConvertion. in lot's of case live performs a sample rate conversion. this is a non neutral operation that
apply rounding and interpolations to raw audio. like if you scale a picture and rereduct it, each gen loose definition and
introduce artefacts. generally it's not drasticly hearable, but repeated it can for some. i don't have much time but
you can search for SRC threads too, i think 3phaze recurently complained about that, among few others..
im personally much more affected by PDC, but i can understand some highly suffer of SRC pbs.

so globally automations precisions/latency and SRC problems linked to live architecture make it's definitely not the ultimate daw for mixing and mastering VS few other like pt or logic, despite what most people used to claim in the past. (robert henke said that himself for info, about src).

Howerver, don't take that as a drastic info It's still totally possible to mix and master in live. just be aware and avoid those pb
when it is possible. if you didn't noticed this that mean you don't have to care or stress much about that. it's not the thing that change a shit song in a tune usually. it depends of music kinds and processing/routing chains complexity, personal setups. global music that don't need to be ultra tight and ultra phased don't need more than what live actually offer and are totally possible to produce with live. If you like the out result and your friend/clients too, then its cool. no one care about pdc or src or whatever if it just sounds good.

In some other cases, if you work at sample accurate level, do music that rely on strong tightness and phazing (a good ex is psytrance, in my case)or make any other kind of music but use a lot 3rd party with automations/rytmic effects, you can definitely feel live's limits. it's not the best tool to do chirurgical tight or synced stuff in short. however in those problematic cases it remains a great creative tool before engaging the mixing or mastering in later external process , if the liveset deserve it and if it suffers from live's limitation. pre-rendering as audio is a pain but possible workaround to remain all in live.

still, they have to sort this out, that's a long time pain, and they are the essential reasons live is globally not very used
in studios for mixing or mastering. it's not only because op are used to pt despite what some claim imo.

[The Carpet Cleaner]

blablabla

I mainly produce with Maschine, pre-mix in it, then export to Live and finish the job over there with APC40, with 8 to 16 tracks maximum.

Listen here : http://tinyurl.com/6c8fb4o

[fx23]

yes good sound.

please note i never said you can't do great stuff out of live.
in your case you make it very light for live as you preflaten as audio, wich is a very different scenario of using
a complex liveset full of vsts and automations all in one shot in live, i was just trying to explain that,
and just to make people search alternatives such as yours by understanding underlaying potential pbs.
sorry for too long thread, indeed

[Piplodocus]

I get the PDC problem completely in my head. Could someone explain to me about SRC quality issues though...

If all my samples are say 44.1kHz, and I run live at 44.1kHz, then export at 44.1kHz do I get no SRC degredation? Or if I run at 88.2kHz (which is just double)?

If I run at say 96kHz, and use 44.1kHz samples I can see the SRC problem. Once I've converted them though, then why would I get any further SRC degredation, apart from during export if it's not at the same sample rate?

Just wondering if SRC can be avoided by using the same sample rate all the way through, or limited by only using double/half sample rates.

I assume bit depth makes bugger-all difference since it's 24-bit wavs and internal 32-bit float, so thats a lots of simple addition/subtraction at high resolution, no? Or am I missing something?

[Cezband]

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.

No offence, but maybe you need to cut down on the caffeine or something. You seem to be having trouble differentiating between a discussion and an argument. I'll try to keep this reasonably brief, because there's a lot of good discussion in this thread and I don't want to clutter it with what is rapidly turning into a bickering match.

Firstly, I am in no way offended by your opinion. In fact, I agree that Reaper is better for mixing than Live is - before you entered this thread, I was stating that I wanted to get Reaper for that exact purpose. I refer you to your own comments about "Reading my posts better." The main point I was trying to make is that though the mixing side of Live is weaker, it's strengths in workflow and composition make it just as viable as a DAW as any of the others. This is just my opinion, of course. I am 100% sure you will disagree. And I only said that as a side point, as I am well aware that this thread is focused on the mix aspects of Live.

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.

I never said that it is impossible to mix in Live, but it's certainly more comfortable in other programs and more accurate

^^^ Thanks for repeating the same thing as me as a retort to what I said.

What I was, and indeed am, taken aback by is your elitist and condescending tone which has persisted throughout all your posts and is most prevalent in your most recent one. I don't know how you're used to doing things, but when I'm having a discussion with someone I refrain from calling them a child or Mr "I know it better." If I need to go "back to school" in order to change that attitude, I think I'm happy where I am thank you very much.

[fisto]

he cezband, I really don't understand you. If we have nearly the same opinion about mixing in Live than why do we talk about it. I've explained the "elitist" tone (which I did not want to come over like this).
PLEASE read my posts again and you will see that you got me totally wrong on this whole thing .
I don't want to write it again

As others in this thread wrote about the technical issues in Live, thats what I meant with "serious" mixing, and you said you can -->than I said of course you can but it's not that accurate --> than you pretended that I said that a good Producer can't mix in Live but I NEVER said that, I said it's not that good, the same thing that you say

[fisto]

and look: you were 100% sure that I would disagree, but I don't.
Don't assume what opinion others will have before they say something

[luddy]

I mix exclusively in Live these days. I have been lucky I guess, haven't run into a problem with the timing of automation so far. As for sample rate conversion, that affects me a lot more when I'm arranging then when I'm mixing. When mixing I almost always start with audio files at the same sample rate as what I'm mixing in, so it's a non-issue. I think the best approach with SRC is to use a separate program to do it and to pay attention to when it's happening.

I really like Live's mixer view, I love the routing, find the automation to be very easy to work with now that I'm used to it. And I really like the browser, being able to print a stem and then drag the group of tracks that made up the stem into a folder and delete them from the live set to keep things clean. I've mixed quite a lot in Logic but I much prefer Live at this point.

-Luddy

[CFM]

No - Sonar X1

[Cezband]

and look: you were 100% sure that I would disagree, but I don't.
Don't assume what opinion others will have before they say something

From everything you'd said regarding Live being a "tool" or a "toy", I came to the conclusion that you would not agree with me when I stated my own opinion that Live is just as valid a DAW as any of the others. It was an educated guess good to know that we are in agreement after all!

[Khazul]

Get a room!

[Cezband]