Ableton Live from Cubase.. NEW USER

[[email protected]]

Hello all,

I've finaly begun to make the switch to ableton from Cubase(latest version). They seem vastly different even down the layout!

As i may never completely give up Cubase I'm certainly willing to invest some time learning all the benefits with ableton and hopefully go full time..

Has anyone here ever worked with cubase and switched to or from ableton?

Any major difference, good or bad? Writing styles, ease of use, workflow(obvious), have/have not, etc etc??

Thanks, any advice would be much appreciated!

[JayNiko]

I've switched to Ableton from Nuendo few years ago. Of course it takes some time to get used to new workflow. At first glance Ableton looked a bit like a toy compared to Nuendo, but after a couple of days of rebuilding my brains I never looked back )
PS I'm still on Suite 8 and regarding to Suite's goods I use effects and Sampler/Drum Racks mostly (sometimes Operator), otherwise I'm NI's big fan.

[[email protected]]

I've switched to Ableton from Nuendo few years ago. Of course it takes some time to get used to new workflow. At first glance Ableton looked a bit like a toy compared to Nuendo, but after a couple of days of rebuilding my brains I never looked back )
PS I'm still on Suite 8 and regarding to Suite's goods I use effects and Sampler/Drum Racks mostly (sometimes Operator), otherwise I'm NI's big fan.

yes, the completely opposite interface is what threw me off first... other daws seem a lot more linear as well.

But i have noticed with the track view.. its not so bad(still cant justify the track info being on the right side! )

Loving the automation so far. Baby steps for now

[Airyck]

I work with both. For me you can't beat the fine tuning and editing you can do with audio clips in Cubase so the way I tend to work with both is like this. Initial ideas/sketches to almost complete in Ableton, or if I lose inspiration in Ableton sometimes moving it to Cubase will give me a little spark I need to finish it. Ableton has a lot of things that help with experimenting and trying different ideas so it's great for coming up with creative things in a not so linear fashion. Once I have some really solid grooves and possibly a basic layout I move to Cubase. I wouldn't say that Ableton's arrangement mode is anything overly special compared to Cubase. With Cubase it's really easy to block out sections and do slightly different mixes for every section which I feel is important for a balanced mix throughout the song. You can't rely on the same setting through the whole mix, while it's possible in Ableton through automation and other ways, Cubase is just more built for this type of mixing.

Cubase is very good at very fine detail editing, so all of the transitional stuff, final mixing, and other detail work gets done in Cubase.
I think of Live as more of an instrument (which it excels at IMO) for creating the parts and getting the idea out quickly and Cubase as the mixing, editing, automation and finalizing program.

Don't give up Cubase just use Ableton to augment it.

Oh and I do mostly dance music type stuff, always melodic, ranging from Prog House, Melodic Techno, and whatever else you want to call my music, I just do what feels right. The style label just gets applied later.

[[email protected]]

I work with both. For me you can't beat the fine tuning and editing you can do with audio clips in Cubase so the way I tend to work with both is like this. Initial ideas/sketches to almost complete in Ableton, or if I lose inspiration in Ableton sometimes moving it to Cubase will give me a little spark I need to finish it. Ableton has a lot of things that help with experimenting and trying different ideas so it's great for coming up with creative things in a not so linear fashion. Once I have some really solid grooves and possibly a basic layout I move to Cubase. I wouldn't say that Ableton's arrangement mode is anything overly special compared to Cubase. With Cubase it's really easy to block out sections and do slightly different mixes for every section which I feel is important for a balanced mix throughout the song. You can't rely on the same setting through the whole mix, while it's possible in Ableton through automation and other ways, Cubase is just more built for this type of mixing.

Cubase is very good at very fine detail editing, so all of the transitional stuff, final mixing, and other detail work gets done in Cubase.
I think of Live as more of an instrument (which it excels at IMO) for creating the parts and getting the idea out quickly and Cubase as the mixing, editing, automation and finalizing program.

Don't give up Cubase just use Ableton to augment it.

Oh and I do mostly dance music type stuff, always melodic, ranging from Prog House, Melodic Techno, and whatever else you want to call my music, I just do what feels right. The style label just gets applied later.

Thanks for the advice!

Have you found a seamless/harmonious way to transfer project info/data?? besides rendering audio.. or is that the only way?

[doghouse]

Has anyone here ever worked with cubase and switched to or from ableton?

Any major difference, good or bad? Writing styles, ease of use, workflow(obvious), have/have not, etc etc??

I went the other way, from Live to Cubase 7...then back to Live 9.

What I like about Cubase:

-- really, really deep MIDI editing. Live doesn't even support sysex or have an event editor
-- score editing/printing
-- fantastic integration with Yamaha Motif synths (I own one)

What I like about Live:

-- jamming arrangements in session view...the core of the Live experience
-- faster flow in general...more drag and drop (disclaimer: Cubase key commands might make up for this, but there were too many for me to learn)
-- better audio and MIDI routing (IMHO)
-- unique/unusual plugins
-- Max4Live allows deep customization
-- single window interface
-- way less CPU drain...I was running Live 7 on two computers that would hang after launch with Cubase 4 and 5
-- no dongles
-- can be a MIDI slave (very useful for live hosting of softsynths)
-- supports AU as well as VST


Since I'm not a pro studio owner, I didn't want or use a lot of Cubase features.

[Airyck]

Thanks for the advice!

Have you found a seamless/harmonious way to transfer project info/data?? besides rendering audio.. or is that the only way?

I find that rendering the audio as individual tracks works best. After that just set the BPM the same in Cubase and drag and drop the files. You could try rewiring but I think that would just be slower. After that I go through and chop out all of the silent parts on the full length audio files. I organize a bit, put things into folders and route similar tracks to groups, name things properly for Cubase and sometimes color code things. I will usually lay down markers for sections of the track so I can jump around and compare etc. Then I get started on the mix and adding transitional parts or accent sounds as needed.

*edit - Also when I do the mix down to audio tracks for Cubase I find that this really helps me to separate the processes going from creation to mixing. This way I don't really go back and screw with the main parts at all. When I make the move it's because I feel I have enough content to make the track great without adding any more new main parts.

[102455]

I'm a long term Cubase user. I actually started using Steinberg sequencers before Cubase, with Pro 12 and Pro 24.

Steinberg are the ones who started this whole linear track layout thing that almost every DAW copies.

After being used to the way Cubase edits tracks right there in the "arrangement view" with little tools like the scissors, eraser and mute X, it was a bit of a paradigm shift trying to work out how to do it in Live.

Some things which are really easy in Cubase are a real struggle in Live. OTOH some things in Live (like warping) are awkward in Cubase.

I do use Live more often these days, mainly due to the type of stuff I'm dabbling with. Cubase is still here on my system though, and up to date, should I wish to use it for a task which I'd consider difficult in Live.

[mholloway]

I'm a hard-core Live user, but I do have a history with Cubase that pre-dates Live. These days I don't use Cubase much, but I always keep it on my system, and update it. Why? I guess because of the audio editing. It can do so much that Live simply can't when it comes to detailed audio editing, with offline effects processing being the main thing in this area (but there's more). It's just so nice to be able to open an audio file into a full-featured editor right inside the main DAW, render FX to specific sections of the audio, then drop back into the arrangement. In live, you have to either automate your real-time FX (far longer process) or do a cumbersome process of re-sampling to get the same result. Whereas in Cubase you just select a section of audio, do a process (offline) effect, hit apply, done. This is enormously helpeful when editing vocals, among other things. Live just can't touch it.

That said, for compositional purposes Live wins for me in just about every department, and that's why I use it 90% of the time. Session view ftw...

[[email protected]]

Has anyone here ever worked with cubase and switched to or from ableton?

Any major difference, good or bad? Writing styles, ease of use, workflow(obvious), have/have not, etc etc??
-- way less CPU drain...I was running Live 7 on two computers that would hang after launch with Cubase 4 and 5

Noticed the cpu benefits almost immediately... the latest version of cubase likes to not even boot up!

(mac 5core 16gb ram)

[[email protected]]

[/quote]

I find that rendering the audio as individual tracks works best. After that just set the BPM the same in Cubase and drag and drop the files. You could try rewiring but I think that would just be slower. After that I go through and chop out all of the silent parts on the full length audio files. I organize a bit, put things into folders and route similar tracks to groups, name things properly for Cubase and sometimes color code things. I will usually lay down markers for sections of the track so I can jump around and compare etc. Then I get started on the mix and adding transitional parts or accent sounds as needed.

*edit - Also when I do the mix down to audio tracks for Cubase I find that this really helps me to separate the processes going from creation to mixing. This way I don't really go back and screw with the main parts at all. When I make the move it's because I feel I have enough content to make the track great without adding any more new main parts.[/quote]


Great point! Good to know as im constantly rendering, exporting for collaborative purposes.

Glad to know the music industry wont explode if i work with more than one program

[[email protected]]

This is all great to know..

i was terrified at the idea of a new DAW, but not so much anymore.

And knowing that people use both is comforting!

[Mage2k]

I can't believe no one has said this yet: Take the time to go through all of the built-in tutorials available in the Help menu. Those more that anything will help you get comfortable with Live's user interface and how to do basic stuff the the differences between the Session and Arrangement views, racks, automation, etc.

[Khazul]

I use Cubase, logic and live, but mostly live.

When I first switched from live to Cubase I had this idea of creating in live and mixing down in Cubase, but over time I couldn't really see the point. The transfer just ended up being more hassle than it was worth for the sake of getting at a much nicer mixing window and more often than not I still ended up wanting to do some audio routing that were trivial in live but a right pain in the ass/near impossible in Cubase at the time.

These days Cubase is something I dig out when I need to work on someone else's Cubase project in a very linear way or need more than stereo. Ill use logic for linear recording and mixing (basically similar to Cubase, but much easier audio routing).

External instrument / fx bus integration, control room features mid editing, and all that of course is far better in Cubase, but in the end I can got used to not having those features and now does miss them at all as I have a decent monitor control and cueing setup in hardware anyway.

About the only thing I sometimes miss is accurate automation with delay compensation and track folders (track folders being the biggie), but even then its rare that I hot issues with that. In the end electronic music production with complex audio routing is just FAR easier in live as is creating a bunch of clips and playing with them to try stuff out on the fly etc.

Its a different way of working which for a musician who doesnt/cant work linearly (for eg they just aint that perfect as a player) is far more flexible and productive IMHO.

Now that live 9.1 has multiple monitor support than finally we can see both view and getting a kind of mixer+meter view with the arrange view up. Still not as good as the Logic/Cubase mix view, but it finally bridges that gap a bit.

In practice I find most things in live seem to involve far less mouse clicks and it seems easier to see the details of what you are doing and setup racks, sidechains to gates, compressors or whatever etc and be able to make drastic changes quickly.

With Cubase I felt I almost needed to plan everything before I did it which kind of sux when you don't know what you want to do - ie your fiddling and seeing where it takes you.

[mareproduction]

Hello all,

I've finaly begun to make the switch to ableton from Cubase(latest version). They seem vastly different even down the layout!

As i may never completely give up Cubase I'm certainly willing to invest some time learning all the benefits with ableton and hopefully go full time..

Has anyone here ever worked with cubase and switched to or from ableton?

Any major difference, good or bad? Writing styles, ease of use, workflow(obvious), have/have not, etc etc??

Thanks, any advice would be much appreciated!

I am.

Ableton is much easier to use. Everything is somehow logically arranged. With Ableton you can concentrate on the music and not the program. Ableton for life
ps I'm selling my latest version of Cubase, it is Cubase 6.