After 10 years with ableton I just tried Studio One...

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
beats me
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Re: After 10 years with ableton I just tried Studio One...

Post by beats me » Wed Oct 23, 2013 6:21 pm

leisuremuffin wrote:I am constantly mystified by what people think they NEED to do.

The first concern should be the quality of the material. Sound quality doesn't matter if your material is shit.

Agreed. But sometimes the quality is tied largely into the production of the sound. I’m a huge fan of Progressive and Electro House but can’t write a track in those styles to save my life. Musically a lot of it sounds really basic to my ears but when I try to write similar it just sounds stupid and like a genre specific preset on a cheap Casio keyboard. That’s because the quality is tied more to the production of the sounds than an interesting musical progression.

Similarly I tried to give House music another go a couple weeks back. I started with one of the House kits in Logic’s Ultrabeat. The song I was coming up with sounded like shit. So I then started a kit from scratch using Vengeance samples and holy shit did that make a massive difference. I know Vengeance samples aren’t the only way to get that sound, but my brain isn’t interested in figuring out how to alternatively reproduce them. I can just drop them in the sampler and get on with what I’m more skilled at.

Of course all that doesn’t mean you need a song that is 100 tracks deep with 150 plug-ins. I’m just saying musically bland (notes) songs can sound great if the production is solid.

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Re: After 10 years with ableton I just tried Studio One...

Post by leisuremuffin » Wed Oct 23, 2013 6:36 pm

i think you're confusing sound design and quality. good sound design can be achieved by a number of different means and doesn't require a bazzilion plug ins or a specific soft synth. It does require you to really know how to use what have, though.
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Re: After 10 years with ableton I just tried Studio One...

Post by leisuremuffin » Wed Oct 23, 2013 6:39 pm

And honestly, if you commit right now, to never use a preset again, it will be harder to make the music you want to make right now. But it will be much easier for you 5 years down the road.
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beats me
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Re: After 10 years with ableton I just tried Studio One...

Post by beats me » Wed Oct 23, 2013 6:57 pm

leisuremuffin wrote:And honestly, if you commit right now, to never use a preset again, it will be harder to make the music you want to make right now. But it will be much easier for you 5 years down the road.

I’m realizing this slowly. I couldn’t tell you how much time I’ve wasted looking for a bass preset that would just magically work in a song and then recently I discovered Logic’s Mono Synth. Very basic and easy to dial in a bass sound instead of getting distracted by presets that either don’t work or take the song into another rabbit hole direction.

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Re: After 10 years with ableton I just tried Studio One...

Post by ian_halsall » Wed Oct 30, 2013 5:15 pm

leisuremuffin wrote:And honestly, if you commit right now, to never use a preset again, it will be harder to make the music you want to make right now. But it will be much easier for you 5 years down the road.
When was the last time you programmed a piano preset from scratch?

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Re: After 10 years with ableton I just tried Studio One...

Post by leisuremuffin » Wed Oct 30, 2013 8:44 pm

hahah, yeah you're right. I'm lucky enough to have a baby grand in my current room so i don't need one.

But yes, i use presets for the times i need to cheat on a "real" instrument or making a scratch track, but never for anything else. Next time i make such a statement i'll be sure to be annoyingly specific so as to avoid this kind of misunderstanding.
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Royalston
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Re: After 10 years with ableton I just tried Studio One...

Post by Royalston » Wed Oct 30, 2013 9:51 pm

update: I'm back on Live 9 as the automation system in S1 is too weird (and slow!) ....as far as i know you cant copy and paste it directly in an audio track. Also, the performance, which was great that first day, seems fairly sluggish now too- especially with automation.
I just returned to Ableton - when it decides to work it works well and you can't beat the speed of workflow. At the random times when it decides to jack up the cpu for no obvious reason... I start bouncing stems, although it often makes no difference to the CPU. I use hardly any "fancy plugins' - maybe 1 instance of a vintage warmer, a fabfilter limiter, and two 3rd party reverbs max. The rest are just basic eq's. I bounce any software instruments early on.

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Re: After 10 years with ableton I just tried Studio One...

Post by ian_halsall » Wed Oct 30, 2013 9:52 pm

leisuremuffin wrote:hahah, yeah you're right. I'm lucky enough to have a baby grand in my current room so i don't need one.

But yes, i use presets for the times i need to cheat on a "real" instrument or making a scratch track, but never for anything else. Next time i make such a statement i'll be sure to be annoyingly specific so as to avoid this kind of misunderstanding.
trouble is if you commit to never using a preset when you start off making music you will be so disillusioned with only making fart sounds after six months that you will most likely give up.

Surely there's a balance???

I used to have a grand piano, now just a Yamaha c2 or something which I rarely play - it's just too much like a preset to me.

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Re: After 10 years with ableton I just tried Studio One...

Post by ian_halsall » Wed Oct 30, 2013 10:03 pm

Royalston wrote:update: I'm back on Live 9 as the automation system in S1 is too weird (and slow!) ....as far as i know you cant copy and paste it directly in an audio track. Also, the performance, which was great that first day, seems fairly sluggish now too- especially with automation.
I just returned to Ableton - when it decides to work it works well and you can't beat the speed of workflow. At the random times when it decides to jack up the cpu for no obvious reason... I start bouncing stems, although it often makes no difference to the CPU. I use hardly any "fancy plugins' - maybe 1 instance of a vintage warmer, a fabfilter limiter, and two 3rd party reverbs max. The rest are just basic eq's. I bounce any software instruments early on.
I used to get this weird performance issue with the disk light coming on in Live 8 and I narrowed it down to one (1) sample - switched everything off until just this one was left and that was the culprit.

Never found out what was wrong with that sample but that was it - one sample within an instance of Sampler.

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Re: After 10 years with ableton I just tried Studio One...

Post by leisuremuffin » Wed Oct 30, 2013 10:31 pm

ian_halsall wrote: trouble is if you commit to never using a preset when you start off making music you will be so disillusioned with only making fart sounds after six months that you will most likely give up.

Surely there's a balance???

If you can still only manage fart sounds after six months of actually really trying, including some study in the form or reading or finding a mentor, you may as well give up trying to design your own sounds all together. And frankly you should probably just give up electronic music and do something else. Learning to create your own synth sampler and effect patches does more than just expand your ability to make those patches. It builds a fundamental understanding of the language and process of electronic music. you will understand signal flow much better, you will understand the basic building blocks of electronic instruments and effects better.

finding a balance, sure, and you don't have to never use a preset again, but if you force yourself not to for a good period of time i promise it will make you a better electronic musician. On the other hand, if you are excellent at sound design, but your arrangements are no good, maybe it's a good plan to only use presets for a while and focus on arrangements.


Personally i don't use presets for any sounds other than "standard" instruments because designing my own sounds is half the fun. And also because it's why my tracks are unique and sound like I made them. Then again, maybe i'm not the best person to give advice, i've been making and performing electronic music for almost 20 years and my first release is just coming now. I'm not exactly the model of conventional success. but i am satisfied with my output and have a lot of fun making the stuff.
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Re: After 10 years with ableton I just tried Studio One...

Post by Nick the Zombie » Wed Oct 30, 2013 10:46 pm

leisuremuffin wrote:And honestly, if you commit right now, to never use a preset again, it will be harder to make the music you want to make right now. But it will be much easier for you 5 years down the road.
Piano-related snark aside, I completely agree with this philosophy. The sense of empowerment that comes along with knowing how to make your ideal sound from scratch is enormous.

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Re: After 10 years with ableton I just tried Studio One...

Post by ian_halsall » Thu Oct 31, 2013 8:48 am

Nick the Zombie wrote:
leisuremuffin wrote:And honestly, if you commit right now, to never use a preset again, it will be harder to make the music you want to make right now. But it will be much easier for you 5 years down the road.
Piano-related snark aside, I completely agree with this philosophy. The sense of empowerment that comes along with knowing how to make your ideal sound from scratch is enormous.
I bet that the likes of David Guetta and that Scottish bloke use lots of presets and sample packs.

Depends what you want to do - give up the day job and churn out pop songs that people actually buy or remain true to your "philosophy".

I wouldn't judge either way.

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Re: After 10 years with ableton I just tried Studio One...

Post by Royalston » Thu Oct 31, 2013 11:10 am

ian_halsall wrote:
I used to get this weird performance issue with the disk light coming on in Live 8 and I narrowed it down to one (1) sample - switched everything off until just this one was left and that was the culprit.

Never found out what was wrong with that sample but that was it - one sample within an instance of Sampler.
Interesting! I have suspected something like this for a while. Its so weird how you can be working on a mix, only adjusting eq values (not adding any plugins or cpu processes) and suddenly the cpu just goes bad... I've found that moving/ deleting any clips that are deactivated from anywhere near the play head can help too.

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Re: After 10 years with ableton I just tried Studio One...

Post by Nick the Zombie » Thu Oct 31, 2013 12:30 pm

ian_halsall wrote:
Nick the Zombie wrote:
leisuremuffin wrote:And honestly, if you commit right now, to never use a preset again, it will be harder to make the music you want to make right now. But it will be much easier for you 5 years down the road.
Piano-related snark aside, I completely agree with this philosophy. The sense of empowerment that comes along with knowing how to make your ideal sound from scratch is enormous.
I bet that the likes of David Guetta and that Scottish bloke use lots of presets and sample packs.

Depends what you want to do - give up the day job and churn out pop songs that people actually buy or remain true to your "philosophy".

I wouldn't judge either way.
I wouldn't judge them either, and I use sample packs as well. They're a really fun way to kickstart my inspiration! That being said, I think it's important to know how your instruments work. That knowledge allows you to take those samples and make them your own which is half of the fun.

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Re: After 10 years with ableton I just tried Studio One...

Post by leisuremuffin » Thu Oct 31, 2013 1:37 pm

ian_halsall wrote:
I bet that the likes of David Guetta and that Scottish bloke use lots of presets and sample packs.

Depends what you want to do - give up the day job and churn out pop songs that people actually buy or remain true to your "philosophy".

I wouldn't judge either way.

So it's that easy, huh? Grab some sample packs, put em together and make a hit? Don't forget us when you're getting your dick sucked behind the decks somewhere on Ibiza. Send a post card or something.

Seriously, fuck you.
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