Surface Laptop: 1.6 pounds and real damn fast

[pencilrocket]

How can't you spend $1500 on Live when base FL program comes with 6osc FM synth, LFO generator, spectral audio editor, maximus, Envelope follower, non-destructive single-window clip slicer, Envelope generator, Key to CC, Vel to CC, and etc without M4L hack?... Anyway you don't need Edison to record vocal....

Tracking: advantages in Protools, Cubase, etc that have easy comping. DJ: Pioneer CDJ, Traktor. Composing: Cubase, FL, Logic, Studio one, etc.

Live does simple thing in simple way. But when asked "is it the best for [ ]?" It's hard to say yes. When asked "is it easy?" Yes.

[login]

Isn't FL Studio licenses NFR?

Every company has its business model for making money, pay employees and invest in R&D, choose the one you are more comfortable with.

I feel Live has a fair model, unlike protools, a better product that sonar and FL studio. But for sure there are other developers offering good alternatives or different choices, it's a crowded market.

Bitwig is heating up the competition, but right now they seem very focused on the production side and not much on the live performance which live is pretty much the king still.

I hope both companies keep succeeding nevertheless and for sure they will borrow stuff from each other all the time from now on.

One thing that I feel Bitwig has gone backwards is the GUI, leaving the 2d design and the docked windows, to me it makes more cluttered the program. I will really love to see live with its own touch interface to compare implementations,

[yur2die4]

https://www.facebook.com/daniel.socha.1 ... 764480277/

What I like about waveforms on touchscreens is, "I can feel it".

[ivarin]

it's ridiculous to compare version numbers when it comes to Live vs Bitwig discussion to my mind, Live's been being developed for 10+ years while Bitwig started just few years ago. it's just a sequence number. Many things in Live were unique by when they were implemented while Bitwig just takes existing ones and puts it from scratch. Live has a vast legacy structure which makes it quite difficult to integrate new features without breaking its wonted workflow. again, why one expects Live and Bitwig would be that identical? i wish Abe's didnt't copycat some of theirs competitors as they weren't doing so before. it's exceedingly hard to keep things that clean and at the same time that capable and versatile.
sorry if it's quite offtopic, i just wouldn't think that Ableton must take advantage of these touchscreens (which isn't something new novadays)

[Emanresu0891]

That was a nice three page discussion on the "Surface Laptop"

Op, How does the surface work with Live? Do you get any audio drop outs?
It would be nice to hear that Microsoft really took the time to test each component making it ready for music/video work.

[kitekrazy]

as a person who used FL Studio early on and can still take advantage of the free upgrades over a decade later, i'd like to politely call bullshit.

the main app is free upgrades. the 5000 add ons they try and sell you afterward are not. you can easily spend $1500 (or more) on FL Studio if you chose too. THAT is how they make their continuing revenue.

Ableton sells Vanilla Live for more than (most versions of) FL Studio, but it comes with the ability to effectively record audio and numerous other things that FL studio either does not have or has but is questionably implemented or strapped on with duct tape later... such as that horrid Edison in FL Studio for recording vocals. the upgrade pricing for Vanilla Live is not that far fetched. it is a little pricey, but it's not out of range. it can also do a lot more than step sequence, including record audio like a professional DAW.

one thing i've always liked about owning Live Suite... i NEVER get to a point where Live shows me a greyed out menu for a feature that i could have if i purchase the unlock for it.

i have a lot of love for FL Studio, but i've also had to navigate that atrocious website of theirs and had a shower of addon/plugin offers in emails (59 bucks here, 99 bucks there). it's a cool and powerful tool... to a point, but the strap-on nature of it is all over the place. it's just a MIDI sequencer at it's core. i love programming drums in it, but it's no Live, Cubase, or Logic, etc. once you whip out a mic, guitar, or a keyboard... FL Studio suddenly needs to stand in the corner and watch. it offers next to nothing for DJs and has no use in a live performance setting whatsoever.

Hmmmm....not correct on a lot of this. You confuse FL with Reason and their REs.

[kitekrazy]

That was a nice three page discussion on the "Surface Laptop"

Op, How does the surface work with Live? Do you get any audio drop outs?
It would be nice to hear that Microsoft really took the time to test each component making it ready for music/video work.

People are creating straw man arguments. It's one the screen and you click. Duh. Sure some developers have made GUI "improvements" for those using a touch screen. Sonar upgrade their start menu for touch screen. I think going overboard and any DAW can have a reverse effect and you have a DAW like W8 which few will like. Cubase has an iPad version.

I think the portability in audio will be a fad. There is no laptop that can perform nowhere near what a desktop can do. I could build a killer desktop and furnish it with an RME device for what some of these tricked out portable devices cost.

[mekanism1200]

Here's a vid on what Ableton is like on a Surface Pro 3-

https://youtu.be/IPLUivPDK0Q

[Kent_in_CO]

That was a nice three page discussion on the "Surface Laptop"

Op, How does the surface work with Live? Do you get any audio drop outs?

At least it didn't devolve into a Mac/PC debate. Yet.

Only tech bloggers have been hands-on with the device, so I can't speak to its performance. I think given the specs, audio and performance-wise, it should be very awesome. However, in the initial rush of coverage I mistakenly thought the entire thing was 1.6 pounds, which would be insanely thin and light. In fact with the "laptop" portion, it's more like 3.3 pounds - on par with a Macbook Pro and quite a bit heftier than modern ultrabooks.

I hope Windows 10 is truly audio friendly, in the same way OSX is. I recently played a gig which entailed the most complex audio routing setup I've ever done - I routed Audio from my iPad into Live, which required a Aggregate Device that combined that audio with my guitar coming in via my sound interface. Meanwhile, I used Soundflower to route my audio OUT of Live in order to broadcast a live stream. Really complex, and still a bit shaky; there were occasional glitches, and it felt like I was pushing the envelope the whole time. But OSX made it possible. I hope the same sort of capabilities are offered by Windows 10. Judging by the way they're pushing Bitwig at launch, it seems like MSFT is making a heavy play for the pro/prosumer audio space that's erstwhile been occupied by Apple.

[pencilrocket]

instability is nothing to do with OS. It's user that are using it.
http://www.solid-state-logic.co.jp/prod ... _large.jpg
http://www.miroc.co.jp/show-report/nab2 ... day-98.jpg

Keep blaming and using bloat OSX machine if you are going to stay as coolkids noob.

[tedlogan]

Anyone care to share their experience with the Surface Pro 4 and Live? I'm thinking of buying one mainly for concept art drawing and zbrush modeling, as i'm not quite that comfortable with a Wacom Intuos for drawing purposes (not drawing directly on the screen).

Using Live on this will be a nice bonus. The £1300 spec one seems fine - i7, 8gb ram, 256GB SSD. My main desktop handles heavy duty CG work and CPU-heavy plugins.

A typical Live set of mine would be a few,m aybe 3 or 4 channels of CPU-heavy Zebra patches (not that Zebra is CPU-heavy in general, I mean the specific modules and amount used), some Bazille and Hive. Convolution Reverb Pro x 2, a bit of audio, two drumracks with varied stuff inside, often more Zebra. 8 - 12 tracks.