Which Ableton plugins do you never use?

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
JMFOne
Posts: 297
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Which Ableton plugins do you never use?

Post by JMFOne » Wed Mar 14, 2012 4:04 pm

For me it's the note length midi effect, erosion, grain delay, resonator and vinyl distortion. Am I missing a trick or should ableton replace them with better/more usefull tools in 9?
15" Apple Macbook Pro, mid 2012, 2.6GHz 8GB RAM 750GB HD, Ableton Live 9.2, Virus TI Polar

Bizon
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Location: Calgary

Re: Which Ableton plugins do you never use?

Post by Bizon » Wed Mar 14, 2012 4:25 pm

Vocoder.

I can't get this thing to do anything useful.

JMFOne
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Re: Which Ableton plugins do you never use?

Post by JMFOne » Wed Mar 14, 2012 4:28 pm

LOL!! I feel the same about the ones I listed. I haven't got Live 8 but there are lots of youtube videos showing how to use the Vocoder and I actually think it looks fantastic.
15" Apple Macbook Pro, mid 2012, 2.6GHz 8GB RAM 750GB HD, Ableton Live 9.2, Virus TI Polar


acidpenguin
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Re: Which Ableton plugins do you never use?

Post by acidpenguin » Wed Mar 14, 2012 5:01 pm

I like Grain Delay for making weird sounding risers/effects and Resonator is fun for clangy dubby type sounds.. guess we all get different mileage out of different plugins :wink: Can't say I've ever used Vinyl Distortion but sure plenty of folks have.. anyway would rather see them add to the list than replace things.

Tenshi
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Re: Which Ableton plugins do you never use?

Post by Tenshi » Wed Mar 14, 2012 5:13 pm

The vocoder.

It either makes something that sounds OK, but a cliché, or crap.

n8tron
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Re: Which Ableton plugins do you never use?

Post by n8tron » Wed Mar 14, 2012 5:56 pm

I have to say I love the grain delay. I have a setting that I put on pads that gives this amazing texture to the sound, almost like a quickly strummed guitar. I also use erosion a fair amount and resonator occasionally.

Just looking at the audio effects I have used most of them... I think beat repeat might be the only one I never use... possible corpus as well, though I have never really dug into that one. And I also rarely if ever use the vocoder. But I like having them all on hand to use.

Slightlydelic
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Re: Which Ableton plugins do you never use?

Post by Slightlydelic » Wed Mar 14, 2012 6:22 pm

JMFOne wrote:For me it's the note length midi effect, erosion, grain delay, resonator and vinyl distortion. Am I missing a trick or should ableton replace them with better/more usefull tools in 9?
i use the midi note quite often.

JuanSOLO
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Location: Shreveport LA, sometimes Dallas/Ft Worth TX

Re: Which Ableton plugins do you never use?

Post by JuanSOLO » Wed Mar 14, 2012 6:40 pm

I'd say the Vinyl Distortion is probably the most useless.

ALL other Ableton Live plugs have a place for someone, and each is quite useful if you understand how to use it, and you know WHY your trying to use it, and how that fits into your scheme of things.

I'd hate to see Ableton replace or get rid of any of these. I'd rather see a few get updated/revamped, or some new additions.

DualErosion effect:
drag 2 instances of erosion on a track
set both to 'sine'
group them to an effect rack
map the amount of both erosion plugs to the same Macro
map the frequency of both erosion plugs to the same Macro (but a different Macro than the amount)

Now you have a mellow bit crushing effect with a bit of a resonance tone at certain frequencies. Quite nice if you ask me.

Komodovaran
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Re: Which Ableton plugins do you never use?

Post by Komodovaran » Wed Mar 14, 2012 7:12 pm

Like... 80% of them?

icedsushi
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Re: Which Ableton plugins do you never use?

Post by icedsushi » Wed Mar 14, 2012 8:04 pm

For me it's Tension. Everything I make in it turns out sounding like a harpsichord. :lol:

It's kind of like when Bill Cosby did stand up & said everything in art/sculpture class he did turned out to be an ashtray.

But admittedly, I haven't spent enough time with it. That will be next on my list, force myself to coax some beautious & majestical sounds from it.

Least used effect is the chorus. It's not terrible...it's usable especially in an effects rack but I'd consider it the weakest of all the effects. It seems a little anemic & too polite & slightly smeared when you compare it to some 3rd party stuff. Keeping it default in crisp mode helps with this a little bit, but still...

grunzlaut
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Re: Which Ableton plugins do you never use?

Post by grunzlaut » Wed Mar 14, 2012 8:18 pm

yes. I don`t use chorus, flanger and phaser. they`re really weak. lots of 3rd party freeware plugs are better.

I love resonator for making drone sounds and pads or running vocals through it or for wiping out everything in a psychedelic breakdown 8) lately I watched a friend do some crazy stuff with it on a drumbeat. you can basically turn a simple beat into a beautiful melodic theme if you don`t overuse it and crank it up 100% wet.

All above also applies to vocoder.
Last edited by grunzlaut on Wed Mar 14, 2012 9:19 pm, edited 2 times in total.

H20nly
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Re: Which Ableton plugins do you never use?

Post by H20nly » Wed Mar 14, 2012 8:50 pm

Drum Racks. what a piece of shit :twisted:

bartend7
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Re: Which Ableton plugins do you never use?

Post by bartend7 » Wed Mar 14, 2012 9:11 pm

vinyl distortion seems pretty useless. even if you want to add fake vinyl sounds, there are better ways to do it.

3dot...
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Re: Which Ableton plugins do you never use?

Post by 3dot... » Wed Mar 14, 2012 10:05 pm

JMFOne wrote:For me it's the note length midi effect, erosion, grain delay, resonator and vinyl distortion. Am I missing a trick or should ableton replace them with better/more usefull tools in 9?
you've got to be kidding,,
those are some of my favorite ones !!!!
come one... grain delay ?!? resonators ??? erosion ???

those are the ones that made live stand out !
different strokes I guess..
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