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

[fisto]

silveriofunk, you will thank yourself for using Reaper .
Just mix a track in reaper and hear for your self. I bet you will be positively surprised

[mrdelurk]

As I become more and more proficient in Ableton, I find myself playing more and more with a concept that might take the artist past the stage of having to mix with faders.

Mixing is a manual approach to change the level of track A compared to a more "important" track B (or silence) at some given time. When you think about it, this can be automated by inserting a compressor on track A, to take a sidechain input from Track B. And such a compressor can be inserted on each track, its on/off state (and source) controlled by an envelope, etc...

In other words, if ducking works (and it seems to) why limit it just to 2 tracks instead of letting it deal with the whole mix while one sips coffee.

[Khazul]

and of cause a better audio quality in the mix..

what applies especially when you work with premixed acoustical stems..there the ableton sound does more harm than on single tracks..

You keep saying this and AFAIK have yet to come up with a test case for it. If you really beleive this to be true - come up with a test case to proove it beyond any subjective doubt - ie something provable by digital comparison of the resulting audio files. And not justt a repro for the known missing latency compensation features - we allready know about that.

And post both projects (The live and whatever other DAW), so that even if you might not understand why there is a difference, someone who might can check them over as well.

Just has to be enough materal to proove the case - a few seconds. Do it with no DAW native plugins or EQs etc.

Im not disputing this completely as there have been a few times when Ive thought there is something wrong, but the few times Ive ever tried to figure out what it is, all Ive done is proved that there wasnt a problem that could be explained by the audio engine (ie taking native EQs out of the equation by not using them) and it must have been something else outside the DAW, or even just me.

[H20nly]

Have some of you guys checked out reaper already? I've been mixing in reaper for over a year now and as I've looked deeper into it I think I'm gonna start also writing in it besides Live.

so get on with it already.

why is it that every thread you pop up in turns in to (at least) a 2 page discussion about Reaper?

The two complement each other very well especially with ReaRoute.
If Live only had a propper midisync, the world would be veeeeeeery bright

now if only you would compliment both. obviously you don't have a proper forum sync because you seem to do all your whining at this one.

am i wrong... or do you go over to the Reaper forum and bitch and moan about some aspect that doesn't suit you about that product and then try to convince everyone who just wants to read a thread to switch to Live for sketching out ideas?

i mean shit, i'm all for equal opportunity whining, but if you're doing it all here, then do us a favor and stfu. migrate. you're starting to sound like 3phase on english lessons.


@ the OP... i mix in Live or i mix in Cubase. i only use Cubase because thats what i started with. i still have version SX3 of that. either way, when i'm done with my mix one of two things happen... i send it to someone else to adjust the mix (who also uses Live) or it goes straight to a fella who masters it... regardless of the hops its mixed in Live. so Live is capable unless all you care about is automation and plugin hosting, in which case apparently there is some problem with Live not handling every possible scenario and every possible bit of third party code that happens to be thrown at it - this is considered in some circles to be a flaw... personally i hope the plugin whores move on. if all i wanted was an application host on steroids, i'd get an iPad.

[fisto]

H2O, whats your problem? We have a discussion about mixing here, and I just state my opinion. So what?
It's no whining it's an observation, and what is bad if I say that Live & Reaper work well together?
Just want to help out when I see that some people here have a problem with Live, then I show them a program which does that better. I think this is called "giving a suggestion" or no?

[3phase]

You keep saying this and AFAIK have yet to come up with a test case for it. If you really beleive this to be true - come up with a test case to proove it beyond any subjective doubt - ie something provable by digital comparison of the resulting audio files. And not justt a repro for the known missing latency compensation features - we allready know about that.

And post both projects (The live and whatever other DAW), so that even if you might not understand why there is a difference, someone who might can check them over as well.

Just has to be enough materal to proove the case - a few seconds. Do it with no DAW native plugins or EQs etc.

Im not disputing this completely as there have been a few times when Ive thought there is something wrong, but the few times Ive ever tried to figure out what it is, all Ive done is proved that there wasnt a problem that could be explained by the audio engine (ie taking native EQs out of the equation by not using them) and it must have been something else outside the DAW, or even just me.

why should i? its long ago that ableton has considred that they have/had problems and started working on it..what resulted in an improoved soundquality of any new version of live.
The request for proove is pretty old too..but why bother?..the next version that will sound better again will proove your point anyway. its lot of little things that can make a differnce here..its not like that that life screws your audiofile as soon you play it from within the program.. but just a few years ago we had this state.
And people asked for proove and you wondred wether they have tomatos on the ears or potatos.. life had states where assigning the crossfader allready alterd the sound quality..and rewiring it in other daws was a huge improovement.. but all the time the fanbase stated a perfect sound quality..and by now they are acting even like if they would deal with a conspiracy..good tactic.. just stick to the belife up to the moment ableton has fixed everything in the background and all critics of the past will appear like the tomato on the ears fraction..
And we are close to that point..
By now the audio quality is good enough ..is ok exept of the glitches.. and stil in the highs in the mix..a modern cubase sounds smoother somehow..but harder to proove anything. Some even claim that steinberg works with dirty tricks..but when ther are tricks one can use to achive a better sound.. please use them thats no dirty tricks than..thats just progress.

And of cause the bug state of the program..its just a few month ago where i still had regular appearances of brown henke dither in the middle of a session.. thats not really the platform you want to do final mixdowns and masterings on.. at least not yet...

And omf support ..i miss that..really helps when you want to do a mix for somebody else.. or just import his work to do a remix... that the faders show precise db steps is also a pretty young feature.. and automation in live is possible but eats way more time than in other daws wher you can run edits of fadermoves in real time...
in logic you can load different mix versions at once and compare between them without minute long reloading gaps. for example.. or yo can lock tracks to timecode.. and bit transparent behavior is guaranteed no matter what you do with the song tempo. The 4 digits and precise tempochanges really help on album compilation and mastering..aso aso..

so before i change my mind it needs a bit more than a few month of half decend behavior
So for now in short..you can mix with life..but you can do it better with other daws..

[Khazul]

OK, so heres the problem - ranting on an allmost daily basis about something you cant / unwilling to prove is just hot air (whther or not people have a similar subjective experience).

If there is an audiable difference then there will definately be a significant bit level differences that will show up through various forms of frequency and time domain digital analyis of the resulting export or bounce data if someone who knows what to look for (and just as importantly - what to ignore) and has the right tools looks for it and also knows what was done to the audio (for eg post mix SRC and dithering algorythm) - and null tests will not give you an answer unless identical algorythms are used in both DAWs (especially in filters/EQs) and that random modulations in processors such as reverbs can be ruled out.

The point is - if you can come up with differences that are genuine, there are folks around here who might be able to understand the why behind them and point to something real. Noone is going to spend effort on chasing ghosts however, so there is fuck all point in continuing to rant about them until there is something real to analyse and test.

[3phase]

you talking bullshit..i am not ranting on a daily basis i just name sometimes the idotie in and around life..

and to the topic of mixing in life i ve said clearly that the diferences are little by now.. but just a few month ago my "ranting" about brown henke dither actually showed a bug in the audio engine..

you know,,its way to many people that have the opinion that life sounds inferior.. to put this all on mass hypnosis is a bit short sighted.

however.. as long ableton sticks to the lies of the past it will one day look like that peole like me are the one with tomatos on the ear ..questioned the super pristine soundquality of ableton life.. uhhh what a dummi..

however.. that the sound quality will be superpristine is dfenetly not because evrybody was continous raving about it beeing perfect when it obviously sounded flat

its not lifes sound qauality that is the problem with the program by now.. its rather functional handling things that also make it not ideal for mixing.. and its no ranting pointing that out..

And you never know when the brown henke dither will strike again. They called it impossible before.. but it was there for years...many people experianced it.. just the ableton bug hunting team was a bit snow blind again.

[Angstrom]

you forgot to say "fanboys"

[H20nly]

H2O, whats your problem? We have a discussion about mixing here, and I just state my opinion. So what?
It's no whining it's an observation, and what is bad if I say that Live & Reaper work well together?
Just want to help out when I see that some people here have a problem with Live, then I show them a program which does that better. I think this is called "giving a suggestion" or no?

my problem is that lately, when ever i change the channel in this forum, i seem to end up watching a commercial for Reaper starring you. we already have a resident Live basher here. he goes by 3phase. since your solution to most every issue is "switch to Reaper" why don't you just put in your sig and spare us the endless re-runs of the same sales pitch? better yet ditch Live altogether and take 3phase with you.

there are email servers with less SPAM on them.

[dazzer]

3phase - 10 years and you still think it's called Ableton life?

If I didn't know better I'd think you were trollin'...

[3dot...]

I have Reaper2+Samplitude9+Live8 ...
reaper is very nice ... (I hardly use it...is there such a thing as too many options?)..
Samplitude I use whenever there's a need to batch-render stuff..
or need 'event-based' processing..

most of the 'technical' jobs are doable in Live..
but much more efficient/quick with other DAWs...
and that's alright..
it can't (and shouldn't) be everything for everybody...
(although it's getting there)

as far as making music..and performing it... Live is second to none..

now..
I can deal with the workarounds...even the midi-sync issue...
one thing I can't stand for though.. is CRASHES.. they ruin my creativeness in a second..
(oh and the constant betas..
the last 2 versions of Live have been simply horrible for me. at least a year long of never-ending crashes and bug-reports)
I can't stress enough how much these bother me..
they simply stop me from working
..
oh yeah... the bottom line :
yes. I primarily mix in Live
out of all DAWS
..it's the one who's architecture is simplified ...
and makes the most sense to me ..(as an "artist"..)
(and overlooking some seriously simple design flaws..)
as an 'engineer'..
I'd probably go with something else

[polyslax]

I've mixed in Live for years, but I'm actually in the process of changing that.

I picked up Logic Studio last week and plan to at least begin mixing in Logic, and perhaps creating there as well. So far I've been pleasantly surprised by Logic... pretty easy to set up, nice selection of instruments and fx. Not sure if anything can knock Live's Session View out of top spot for creative recording though.

[Khazul]

Pain in the arse the apple dont have a demo version of logic 9.

[3phase]

you forgot to say "fanboys"

Fanboys are the salt of the earth. But if the fanboy loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?
They are no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men

(Book of Ableton, L5.13 )