Live + 3rd party plugins = FAIL

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
kb420
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Re: Live + 3rd party plugins = FAIL

Post by kb420 » Thu Feb 10, 2011 6:27 am

scutheotaku wrote:
Khazul wrote:
scutheotaku wrote:Pro Tools now has delay compensation (yes - before the version that just recently came out, it did not have it). It's also got a brand new frontend along with third party hardware support (and I think VST support too?). I haven't tried it, but it might be worth considering - Computer Music Magazine gave it a good review.
The only other DAW I would consider investing in at the mo is Logic - as I dont yet have a mac, then backup plan for now is cubase 6 :)
Well, Pro Tools is supposed to be pretty spiffy with the new workflow, so you might wanna check it out. The same with the new version of Sonar (I think Computer Music gave it a 9/10).

I don't know if I would recommend Sonar X1 to anyone right now. Have you been to their X1 user forum recently????? There are a lot of angry users who are desperately awaiting a bug fix. At this point X1 is a bit of a train wreck.
"That which does not kill us makes us stronger..........."
-Friedrich Nietzsche-

William
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Re: Live + 3rd party plugins = FAIL

Post by William » Thu Feb 10, 2011 6:02 pm

I'm pretty interested in looking into Pro Tools too. As I get deeper into the pop/remix production world I want to be able to send my projects to a pro mix engineer for the mixdown. The majority of those guys use Pro Tools.

Even if Pro Tools midi still sucks I could always use Live or Maschine to do the initial beat/synth programming. The drag and drop export of Maschine tracks seems to be really easy to use.

So yeah...Live 9 needs to fix some things and add some things if I'm going to continue to use it as my only DAW.
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LeifonMars
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Re: Live + 3rd party plugins = FAIL

Post by LeifonMars » Thu Feb 10, 2011 8:06 pm

William wrote:I'm pretty interested in looking into Pro Tools too. As I get deeper into the pop/remix production world I want to be able to send my projects to a pro mix engineer for the mixdown.
You mean you want to send them as Pro Tools projects? Rendering tracks with all tracks command isn't very hideous task to perform.
MBP OSX 10.6.8, Live 8.4, MFII, Evolver, Monomachine, Octatrack, APC40, Launchpad

William
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Re: Live + 3rd party plugins = FAIL

Post by William » Thu Feb 10, 2011 9:18 pm

LeifonMars wrote:
William wrote:I'm pretty interested in looking into Pro Tools too. As I get deeper into the pop/remix production world I want to be able to send my projects to a pro mix engineer for the mixdown.
You mean you want to send them as Pro Tools projects? Rendering tracks with all tracks command isn't very hideous task to perform.
Yea Pro Tools projects. I know rendering tracks is no big deal...I do it every time I get a track mastered. I'd like to be able to collaborate with bigger studios using the same project file.
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ninox_rufa
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Re: Live + 3rd party plugins = FAIL

Post by ninox_rufa » Tue Feb 22, 2011 1:46 am

Tone Deft wrote:strike me as odd that with all this noise there's zero effort to try to find which ones work and which ones don't.
There is no point in testing each of your plugins to see if they sound good or bad. It's not a black and white problem.
wayfinder wrote:...this isn't about how good or bad plugins sound...
EXACTLY! IT'S ABOUT CHAINS AND COMBINATIONS OF PLUGINS. Sure some plugins (like CamelSpace) sound bad straight away and can't be used. As I've said before the problem is latent. All polling plugins are affected. It may not be noticeable at first but it will be there, compounding with each new track added. One track/plugin/effects chain might sound okay. Combine it with another track and you still might not notice. Keep going. It's not until sometime when you're deep into production that things may start to sound a little loose and phasey.
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sanosdole
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Re: Live + 3rd party plugins = FAIL

Post by sanosdole » Tue Mar 15, 2011 3:20 pm

Nice thread (although too long :wink: ).
until sometime when you're deep into production that things may start to sound a little loose and phasey
I was having problems with my timing lately and could not quite explain them.

Good solutions i found for those "tightness" problems were:
- resampling and micro-adjustments (using the "alt" key on PC)
- recording the automation (the human brain is a great latency compensation system!)

As always one´s ears are the ultimate check.

Knowing how Live behaves in this area helps a lot,
although i would prefer live to have a perfect synchronisation between what i see and hear.

alexaaz
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Re: Live + 3rd party plugins = FAIL

Post by alexaaz » Tue Apr 12, 2011 1:31 pm

This really makes using a UAD-2 difficult… :-(

I'm going on holiday for 2 weeks tomorrow. If Live 9 isn't announced when I get back, I'm switching to Logic.

*Sigh* (I hate Logic… but I hate this more).

jtdj
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Re: Live + 3rd party plugins = FAIL

Post by jtdj » Tue Apr 12, 2011 2:45 pm

alexaaz wrote:This really makes using a UAD-2 difficult… :-(

I'm going on holiday for 2 weeks tomorrow. If Live 9 isn't announced when I get back, I'm switching to Logic.

*Sigh* (I hate Logic… but I hate this more).

How can you possibly hate Logic? Its probably the best all round DAW, if I was a mac user Id be on it in a flash!

alexaaz
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Re: Live + 3rd party plugins = FAIL

Post by alexaaz » Tue Apr 12, 2011 3:24 pm

It's just too rigid - things like session view and instrument, audio and drum racks make a huge difference to workflow.

And let's be honest, Logic is not entirely logical!

I don't want to stop using Ableton but I just bought a UAD-2 Quad and these plugin compensation problems mean I'm just gonna get sloppy results. I feel a bit cheated by Ableton to be honest - they definitely don't say anything about the plug-in delay compensation not actually compensating!

housemusiclover
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Re: Live + 3rd party plugins = FAIL

Post by housemusiclover » Tue Apr 12, 2011 8:15 pm

just to be clear, audio gets compensated properly, so all your UAD EQs, compressors, limiters etc. run fine. It's only when eg host-synced LFOs, sequenced gates etc. come into play that you might run into trouble.

alexaaz
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Re: Live + 3rd party plugins = FAIL

Post by alexaaz » Tue Apr 12, 2011 8:52 pm

Yes, that's true, but a bit restrictive no? So I can't put any tempo synced gates, LFOs or filters after my UAD stuff? I just bought the Vengeance Sidechain Compressor. It will sync to tempo, but if I put it after a bunch of UAD stuff - no good.

And to be honest, I'm finding this whole thing confusing… what about if I use the kick drum from another track as a sidechain input to Ableton's compressor, but after a bunch of UAD plugs? And what about UAD stuff that syncs to tempo?

Also, Live doesn't remove the latency compensation when a plugin is disabled, which means if I want to replay or add a new part I have to *remove* all the plugins that cause delay. In Logic, I can just enable Low Latency mode and get straight to it.

On top of that, when the plugins are disabled, Live actually offsets the midi by an even greater amount (2x) than when the plugins are enabled!

Maybe a workaround for this part of the problem is: put all effects on a separate track and route the soft synth there. When wanting to record live, route the audio out directly, avoiding the track with all the delaying plugins.

What's a workaround for the tempo synced effects? Freezing the track with the delaying plugins and then outputting that to another track which is where the tempo synced plugin is (e.g. tempo-synced sidechain compressor)? Would that work?

Thanks :-)

Alex

jtdj
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Re: Live + 3rd party plugins = FAIL

Post by jtdj » Tue Apr 12, 2011 9:49 pm

housemusiclover wrote:just to be clear, audio gets compensated properly, so all your UAD EQs, compressors, limiters etc. run fine. It's only when eg host-synced LFOs, sequenced gates etc. come into play that you might run into trouble.

not if u had automation drawn in, it would then be out of sync no matter what it was so fundamentally its a load of shite. no excuses, ableton is the only top-level DAW without this feature and its a total joke for any serious producer.

Tone Deft
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Re: Live + 3rd party plugins = FAIL

Post by Tone Deft » Tue Apr 12, 2011 9:55 pm

jtdj wrote:
housemusiclover wrote:just to be clear, audio gets compensated properly, so all your UAD EQs, compressors, limiters etc. run fine. It's only when eg host-synced LFOs, sequenced gates etc. come into play that you might run into trouble.

not if u had automation drawn in, it would then be out of sync no matter what it was so fundamentally its a load of shite. no excuses, ableton is the only top-level DAW without this feature and its a total joke for any serious producer.
then stop calling it 'top level.'

I don't use other DAWs but it's pretty clear that the Arrange view envelope drawing tools are lacking enough to drive any serious producer to another DAW.

on one hand you label it a serious DAW then you rail on it for not being a serious DAW.

why so serious?
In my life
Why do I smile
At people who I'd much rather kick in the eye?
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alexaaz
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Re: Live + 3rd party plugins = FAIL

Post by alexaaz » Tue Apr 12, 2011 9:58 pm

I think Ableton do market as being on a par with the other DAWs. I am now on Ableton Suite 8 and have upgraded since version 6, so I've given them a considerable sum of money. They should have been fixing all this stuff instead of messing around with Max4Live, which no doubt is just complicating even further the re-write process necessary to fix all of these things.

Would you rather have:

Record into automation, or Max4Live?

Bezier curves for automation, or Looper?

etc…

Tone Deft
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Re: Live + 3rd party plugins = FAIL

Post by Tone Deft » Tue Apr 12, 2011 10:00 pm

:roll:
In my life
Why do I smile
At people who I'd much rather kick in the eye?
-Moz

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