Ableton & Logic sound (yes I know...)

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
beats me
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Re: Ableton & Logic sound (yes I know...)

Post by beats me » Mon Dec 03, 2012 9:25 pm

perehj wrote:
Tarekith wrote:There's been discussion on why do people keep on bringing up this whole Live sound quality thing, and I think a large part of it IS that so much gets enabled by default. Warping, Fades, beats warp mode, not defaulting to high SR or plug in antialiasing, etc.
I can certainly see now that all of these factors make a big difference, but annoyingly I still find myself wanting to switch to Logic permanently because every time I open it and hit play, the sound is fuller, richer and louder (without clipping as quickly as Ableton does).

THIS

perehj
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Re: Ableton & Logic sound (yes I know...)

Post by perehj » Mon Dec 03, 2012 10:39 pm

ttilberg wrote:I'm truly being sincere when I say this because it seems to me like for the majority of people producing, it should be a non issue, unless your production revolves strictly around using loops...?

Obviously everyone uses the software differently, and I can see adverse affects if a) you are using a lot of pre-looped content instead of programming your own drum patterns, and B) if you are doing tempo changes.

Beyond that though, anything new that you record in Live, is recorded at the project tempo, so no warping is taking place unless you are using Complex/Pro. But this is true for all DAWs right? So how is Live different?

Like I said, I'm sincerely not trying to troll -- just trying to understand people better.

Kent's point about warping artifacts causing a lot of issues with people's perception of sound quality is spot on I think. Probably also in that: people probably see the word "PRO" in one of the warping algorithm and think "Oh that's what I should use."

In general though, the default algorithm is Beats mode, which is non destructive until you change the tempo-- which is the same case in any DAW right?
I make all my own drum patterns and definately don't use loops. I work with racks and make sure to put the velocity high enough and the volume too so that it's equal to other daw's default settings.

I figured that if I was using MIDI i.e. drum racks / sampler / simpler that Ableton wouldn't warp them by default? I'm pretty sure I have auto warp turned off anyway!


There are quite a few producers who I love that use Ableton such as Objekt, Pangaea, Andy Stott, julio bashmore etc and clearly they get great sounds out of it, but I'm not there yet. I've been making beats for about a year and have a pretty good idea about how to mix down..... but again and again while I'm trying to be unbiased I have to pick Logic over Ableton because it's so clean!

Seriously, I'm not anti-Ableton so I'm giving a non-prejudiced view here....

Tone Deft
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Re: Ableton & Logic sound (yes I know...)

Post by Tone Deft » Mon Dec 03, 2012 10:45 pm

with DAW comparison I leave the argument that usability is the main factor. some people click with a certain DAW, some don't. I couldn't get a good sound out of Reason but friends of mine could, the problem was me not Reason. it's 2012, people figured out how to record and playback audio many decades ago. there are more problems with the users than the basics of a DAW.
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perehj
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Re: Ableton & Logic sound (yes I know...)

Post by perehj » Mon Dec 03, 2012 11:37 pm

Tone Deft wrote:with DAW comparison I leave the argument that usability is the main factor. some people click with a certain DAW, some don't. I couldn't get a good sound out of Reason but friends of mine could, the problem was me not Reason. it's 2012, people figured out how to record and playback audio many decades ago. there are more problems with the users than the basics of a DAW.
I'd agree with that in the case of all other DAW's EXCEPT Ableton.

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Re: Ableton & Logic sound (yes I know...)

Post by Tone Deft » Mon Dec 03, 2012 11:41 pm

yeah, they suck.
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perehj
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Re: Ableton & Logic sound (yes I know...)

Post by perehj » Tue Dec 04, 2012 2:02 pm

Tone Deft wrote:yeah, they suck.
naw, I actually meant that other DAW's depend on the user but with Ableton, it seems like even if you are experienced you can still experience drawbacks. The finished mix is going to sound better on Logic.

beats me
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Re: Ableton & Logic sound (yes I know...)

Post by beats me » Tue Dec 04, 2012 3:48 pm

perehj wrote:The finished mix is going to sound better on Logic.

I also write differently in Logic because of the lack of session view, get a lot further in a song because of it. And I’m not going to do some “scientific” study comparison by trying to reproduce the exact same track in both Ableton and Logic. I procrastinate and get distracted enough as it already is.

A rough mix of anything I do in Logic always sounds better than any rough mix of a track I do in Live, in a lot of cases the rough mix of a track I did in Logic sounds better than what I’m thinking is the final mix of a track in Live.

That's my experience anyway.

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Re: Ableton & Logic sound (yes I know...)

Post by leisuremuffin » Tue Dec 04, 2012 5:10 pm

perehj wrote: I've been making beats for about a year and have a pretty good idea about how to mix down.....
trust me, at a year in you don't even know what you don't know yet. Not trying to put you down at all, its just been my experience that it takes a bit longer to get really good at mixing.


as far as logic somehow magically sounding better than live, i just don't hear it. But as it has been said, theres a bunch of shit you can do in live to fuck up the sound if you don't know what you're doing. SR conversion and warping by accident are the biggest culprits. if you're not doing that, are you using logic's plug ins? you may just prefer the sound of logic's plugs.


whatever, i've kind of given up, this topic is like religion, once people decide to believe one way or another there is no way you can show them otherwise.



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Tone Deft
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Re: Ableton & Logic sound (yes I know...)

Post by Tone Deft » Tue Dec 04, 2012 6:05 pm

perehj wrote:
Tone Deft wrote:yeah, they suck.
naw, I actually meant that other DAW's depend on the user but with Ableton, it seems like even if you are experienced you can still experience drawbacks. The finished mix is going to sound better on Logic.
experienced? you've been at this for a year!
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Slightlydelic
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Re: Ableton & Logic sound (yes I know...)

Post by Slightlydelic » Tue Dec 04, 2012 6:25 pm

beats me wrote:
perehj wrote:The finished mix is going to sound better on Logic.

I also write differently in Logic because of the lack of session view, get a lot further in a song because of it. And I’m not going to do some “scientific” study comparison by trying to reproduce the exact same track in both Ableton and Logic. I procrastinate and get distracted enough as it already is.

A rough mix of anything I do in Logic always sounds better than any rough mix of a track I do in Live, in a lot of cases the rough mix of a track I did in Logic sounds better than what I’m thinking is the final mix of a track in Live.

That's my experience anyway.

this is what im loving about logic.

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Re: Ableton & Logic sound (yes I know...)

Post by SpeedKing » Tue Dec 04, 2012 7:01 pm

Slightlydelic wrote:
beats me wrote:
perehj wrote:The finished mix is going to sound better on Logic.

I also write differently in Logic because of the lack of session view, get a lot further in a song because of it. And I’m not going to do some “scientific” study comparison by trying to reproduce the exact same track in both Ableton and Logic. I procrastinate and get distracted enough as it already is.

A rough mix of anything I do in Logic always sounds better than any rough mix of a track I do in Live, in a lot of cases the rough mix of a track I did in Logic sounds better than what I’m thinking is the final mix of a track in Live.

That's my experience anyway.

this is what im loving about logic.
So (and just curious, as someone who has ~10 months of Session View/Ableton experience vs. years of not having it) do you find that for certain styles of writing, a linear flow actually helps get to a finished product? Is it mostly just because of less "messing around" so to speak in Session View?

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Re: Ableton & Logic sound (yes I know...)

Post by Tarekith » Tue Dec 04, 2012 7:24 pm

I definitely find that to be true myself. I like Session view for quickly sketching out ideas, but once I'm ready to begin making the actual song, I just right to Arrange view and spend most of my time there. Personally I don't find much difference between Live and Logic on this front, the tools and key commands are a bit different, but the workflow is the same for me regardless of the app.
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beats me
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Re: Ableton & Logic sound (yes I know...)

Post by beats me » Tue Dec 04, 2012 7:27 pm

SpeedKing wrote: So (and just curious, as someone who has ~10 months of Session View/Ableton experience vs. years of not having it) do you find that for certain styles of writing, a linear flow actually helps get to a finished product? Is it mostly just because of less "messing around" so to speak in Session View?

For me session view leads to endless stacking and I tended to be less creative in the arrangement, mostly just changing loops.

Granted this is mostly just a mental hurdle and I could do more in arrange in Live, but in Logic time I would spend in Live’s session view is instead spent editing within the arrangement.

But there are things that Live does better even in arrangement view. In Logic I’m still not quite sure how to quickly duplicate entire sections in a song.

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Re: Ableton & Logic sound (yes I know...)

Post by Sage » Tue Dec 04, 2012 9:20 pm

Logic's plugins generally have a 3dB gain boost by default. All synth and channel strip presets clip to hell. All sounds impressive initially until you realise you need to turn everything down and Logic's metering is terrible. Live's plugins are on the whole very clean sounding, probably a bit too clean, so maybe the lack of additional harmonics added to a sound seems a little less exciting to the ears. To be honest, I use both Live & Logic, I doubt even the most seasoned engineer could tell which DAW I used.

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Re: Ableton & Logic sound (yes I know...)

Post by H20nly » Tue Dec 04, 2012 11:05 pm

^ yeah, i can see it now...

Live 9 New Feature - all tracks automatically boosted by 4dB upon track creation.

review headlines read:
Live 9's New and Improved Audio Engine
Deadmau5 Comes Back to Live
Live - The New Industry Standard

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