Quality of Live's Plugins

slow riot · Post by **slow riot** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 9:16 pm

DJ VAKIS wrote: Ok if you want to go a bit farther then waves is the way.

I just bought one of the waves plugins, but I had some difficulties with it. so I wrote to customer support who told me that they can't help me because they don't support ableton as a host.

seems very silly to me. it's by far the most I've spent on a plugin, and by far the least respect I've been shown as a customer. obviously I am partly to blame for not reading up about host compatibility before forking out the cash. but i thought the whole point of plugins was that it is relatively easy to make them compatible in different hosts.

i blame capitalism. All the other plugins I've bought have been from independent developers, all of whom have been lovely to deal with, some of which even going so far as to offer to compile me a new (personal) version of the plugin when I've had problems. As soon as I buy anything from a corporation it all goes to shit. Waves' reason for not supporting ableton is apparently that the developers have determined that their plugs don't support ableton. Some rather backwards logic there if you ask me.

sorry for hijacking the thread. i'm just feeling a little pissed off.

DJ VAKIS · Post by **DJ VAKIS** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 9:25 pm

slow riot wrote:
DJ VAKIS wrote: Ok if you want to go a bit farther then waves is the way.
I just bought one of the waves plugins, but I had some difficulties with it. so I wrote to customer support who told me that they can't help me because they don't support ableton as a host.

seems very silly to me. it's by far the most I've spent on a plugin, and by far the least respect I've been shown as a customer. obviously I am partly to blame for not reading up about host compatibility before forking out the cash. but i thought the whole point of plugins was that it is relatively easy to make them compatible in different hosts.

i blame capitalism. All the other plugins I've bought have been from independent developers, all of whom have been lovely to deal with, some of which even going so far as to offer to compile me a new (personal) version of the plugin when I've had problems. As soon as I buy anything from a corporation it all goes to shit. Waves' reason for not supporting ableton is apparently that the developers have determined that their plugs don't support ableton. Some rather backwards logic there if you ask me.

sorry for hijacking the thread. i'm just feeling a little pissed off.

Sorry for you man.
The thing is i don't use 3rd plugins i am happy with Live plugs.

ethios4 · Post by **ethios4** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 9:33 pm

After years of using Live's plugins, I like the FX-type plugins (chorus, flange, phaser, beat repeat, redux, etc). I do not find the native EQs, compressors, filters, and reverbs to be of sufficient quality for most serious production work.

The EQ and compressor seem to suck the life out sounds, and when there are many tracks going on the cumulative effect is definitely not my cup of tea. I like them if I am mangling sounds into completely new sounds, but if I want to simply EQ a really great synth part I prefer nicer plugins.

I'm sure it is a combination of Ableton wanting CPU-friendly plugins for live performance, and not wanting to spend a lot of development time on something that probably only serious users would want, and most serious users probably already have their EQ and compressor plugins of choice.

I've tried beginning production with Live's plugins, and then switching them out for high-quality, but that is a huge pain in the ass and never works out right. From now on I'm beginning with nice plugins

segue · Post by **segue** » Fri Dec 22, 2006 12:53 am

LIVE's reverb and compressor arent worth much in my ears. I do personally love the filter though, it has its own character. Reverbs are big ticket items though... you do get what you pay for though its all to flavour. I dont like Waves verbs either.

knotkranky · Post by **knotkranky** » Fri Dec 22, 2006 4:57 am

segue wrote:LIVE's reverb and compressor arent worth much in my ears. I do personally love the filter though, it has its own character. Reverbs are big ticket items though... you do get what you pay for though its all to flavour. I dont like Waves verbs either.

totally right about waves verb. I never use them. Digi's reverb one is surprisingly good.
I don't like waves flanges and chorus's either. I should dump them all together. :idea

Contra · Post by **Contra** » Fri Dec 22, 2006 5:28 am

slow riot wrote:
DJ VAKIS wrote: Ok if you want to go a bit farther then waves is the way.
I just bought one of the waves plugins, but I had some difficulties with it. so I wrote to customer support who told me that they can't help me because they don't support ableton as a host.

seems very silly to me. it's by far the most I've spent on a plugin, and by far the least respect I've been shown as a customer. obviously I am partly to blame for not reading up about host compatibility before forking out the cash. but i thought the whole point of plugins was that it is relatively easy to make them compatible in different hosts.

i blame capitalism. All the other plugins I've bought have been from independent developers, all of whom have been lovely to deal with, some of which even going so far as to offer to compile me a new (personal) version of the plugin when I've had problems. As soon as I buy anything from a corporation it all goes to shit. Waves' reason for not supporting ableton is apparently that the developers have determined that their plugs don't support ableton. Some rather backwards logic there if you ask me.

sorry for hijacking the thread. i'm just feeling a little pissed off.

please dont tell me it was the SSL Bundle....id be disappointed if so.

forge · Post by **forge** » Fri Dec 22, 2006 5:30 am

actually since the EQ8 I've been using that and not replacing it when I get further along like I used to

that said, it totally depends on what you're doing

If I'm just recording a vocalist and guitar then I'd be more inclined to use the waves plugs, but for purely electronic music I often find Live's more than adequate

the compressors in live has always been it's main Achilles heel IMO, although I dont mind them, just for more "serious" work it often needs replacing

Contra · Post by **Contra** » Fri Dec 22, 2006 5:35 am

forge wrote:actually since the EQ8 I've been using that and not replacing it when I get further along like I used to

that said, it totally depends on what you're doing

If I'm just recording a vocalist and guitar then I'd be more inclined to use the waves plugs, but for purely electronic music I often find Live's more than adequate

the compressors in live has always been it's main Achilles heel IMO, although I dont mind them, just for more "serious" work it often needs replacing

im not sure if you know, but can you open up liquid mix plugin inside of Live?

Machinesworking · Post by **Machinesworking** » Fri Dec 22, 2006 5:40 am

The Live compressor has little or no color to my ears I'll give it that, useful for that reason I guess. even cheap sounding plug ins have a use IMO. The only thing I don't use from Live or any of the cheaper ones of is reverb. what with the decent quality of the built in Apple matrix reverb, and the few paid ones I own, like reverence, the blue verb, and Space designer in Logic, or Reactors reverbs, I don't mess with the Live one.

DJ VAKIS · Post by **DJ VAKIS** » Fri Dec 22, 2006 7:04 am

Or get for your self LEXICON reverb and you are done.

Johnisfaster · Post by **Johnisfaster** » Fri Dec 22, 2006 7:38 am

[quote="knotkranky"]What is definitely true is that a super great sounding eq, compressor and reverb are hard on the cpu. That said, the more powerful the computer, the better the sound quality.
quote]

wha wha what?

jamester · Post by **jamester** » Fri Dec 22, 2006 8:03 am

slow riot wrote: All the other plugins I've bought have been from independent developers, all of whom have been lovely to deal with, some of which even going so far as to offer to compile me a new (personal) version of the plugin when I've had problems. As soon as I buy anything from a corporation it all goes to shit.

Right on! I have really gotten into exploring more independent solutions, and have found that in many cases you can get superior products and service for considerably less money than the big companies.

Not sure if capatalism is to blame though; many of these small companies are still charging for their work, though it's doubtful they're making much profit. It's just an unfortunate reality that it's harder for a company to serve 10,000 people than 1,000, and if it gets to 100,000 then the company itself will have to change dramatically to meet that demand. And inevitably, this ends up producing less services for higher costs.

It's the price of success, I suppose...

knotkranky · Post by **knotkranky** » Fri Dec 22, 2006 8:41 am

Johnisfaster wrote:
knotkranky wrote:What is definitely true is that a super great sounding eq, compressor and reverb are hard on the cpu. That said, the more powerful the computer, the better the sound quality.quote]

wha wha what?

Ok, well if you have a more powerful computer you can use hoggy plugs that sound great, right? I'll tell ya, If I can have a couple great verbs and all the great sounding cpu hungry eqz and comps where I want them, i'm good. If I can't bummer. And that's the diff. More power= more quality. imho

slow riot · Post by **slow riot** » Fri Dec 22, 2006 12:04 pm

Contra wrote:
please dont tell me it was the SSL Bundle....id be disappointed if so.

nah it was just the doppler effect plugin. but they don't offer support to ableton users with any of their plugs I don't think.

slow riot · Post by **slow riot** » Fri Dec 22, 2006 12:07 pm

jamester wrote: Right on! I have really gotten into exploring more independent solutions, and have found that in many cases you can get superior products and service for considerably less money than the big companies.

Not sure if capatalism is to blame though; many of these small companies are still charging for their work, though it's doubtful they're making much profit. It's just an unfortunate reality that it's harder for a company to serve 10,000 people than 1,000, and if it gets to 100,000 then the company itself will have to change dramatically to meet that demand. And inevitably, this ends up producing less services for higher costs.

It's the price of success, I suppose...

yeah I think you're probably right there. the walmart episode in south park comes to mind...

Quality of Live's Plugins

Are Live's Plugins Good Enough?