Does anyone use Live for audio recording?How do you find it?

mauve · Post by **mauve** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 8:29 pm

Until recently I've been using GarageBand for recording guitars, vocals and.....
I 'd like to upgrade and really like Live for its simplicity.
I've used a bit of Pro Tools on mBox and to my surprise found recording quality poorer than the one I did on garage Band plugging directly into the computer. I guess I was doing something wrong..... Plus plugins limitation. However, the PT had a lot of usefull features that I found lacking in Garage Band.
So I wonder if Live is good for audio recording. How's editing features/process?
Thanks
Alex

dhilsabeck · Post by **dhilsabeck** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 8:45 pm

yes, its good.
editing: good

mauve · Post by **mauve** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 8:55 pm

Does it have "Slip" mode? Or do you zoom-in to the finest grid to move the track /note just a bit?

D K · Post by **D K** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 9:19 pm

you can do both.

mauve · Post by **mauve** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 9:26 pm

I heard that there is no crossfade.

Michael-SW · Post by **Michael-SW** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 10:08 pm

PT is an excellent recording application. That is what PT does best. You will not find the same level of micro editing in Live. (No crossfades in Lives...)

I definitely prefer Live, but if I extensively worked with recorded tracks I might use another application.

went to the gypsy · Post by **went to the gypsy** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 12:03 am

i use LIVE to record both acoustic guitars and electric guitars via guit rig.

ole!

-wttg-

noisetonepause · Post by **noisetonepause** » Sat Dec 16, 2006 12:15 am

mauve wrote:I heard that there is no crossfade.

Well, no. But even on some of my more complex vocal comps, in the mix, I've never actually heard the lack of a crossfade... if you get me...

Might be the ears, might be the mix. Never actually seen much of a problem.

mauve · Post by **mauve** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 3:58 am

I am having real trouble with pro tools in terms of CPU overload. It is unacceptable.
I can't even play a few track without being interrupted. 've done everything to maximize the performance. I have G5 iMac with 1.5 Gig Ram and 2.1Ghz Cpu!

I've been trying Live 6 Demo and it is so much easier on the CPU! Plus you can easily freeze the tracks to make it even better.
Now, the crossfade I am talking about is when you are editing and chopping up track
and then using crossfade to avoid popping. Pro tools has a nice feature to do that. What do you do in Live to get rid of the POps?
Thanks
Happy New Year.

dep affect · Post by **dep affect** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 4:53 am

live SUCKS for audio when compared with protools. if you want to crossfade you need to use 2 tracks and manually do it... gay

tylenol · Post by **tylenol** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 5:09 am

mauve wrote:I am having real trouble with pro tools in terms of CPU overload. It is unacceptable.
I can't even play a few track without being interrupted. 've done everything to maximize the performance. I have G5 iMac with 1.5 Gig Ram and 2.1Ghz Cpu!

I've been trying Live 6 Demo and it is so much easier on the CPU! Plus you can easily freeze the tracks to make it even better.
Now, the crossfade I am talking about is when you are editing and chopping up track
and then using crossfade to avoid popping. Pro tools has a nice feature to do that. What do you do in Live to get rid of the POps?
Thanks
Happy New Year.

If you mean pops because you didn't cut at 0 points, this isn't an issue because live by default automatically applies a 0-4ms fade to all clips (though you can turn it off). But there is no one-track crossfade in live.

mauve · Post by **mauve** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 5:51 am

tylenol wrote:
mauve wrote:I am having real trouble with pro tools in terms of CPU overload. It is unacceptable.
I can't even play a few track without being interrupted. 've done everything to maximize the performance. I have G5 iMac with 1.5 Gig Ram and 2.1Ghz Cpu!

I've been trying Live 6 Demo and it is so much easier on the CPU! Plus you can easily freeze the tracks to make it even better.
Now, the crossfade I am talking about is when you are editing and chopping up track
and then using crossfade to avoid popping. Pro tools has a nice feature to do that. What do you do in Live to get rid of the POps?
Thanks
Happy New Year.
If you mean pops because you didn't cut at 0 points, this isn't an issue because live by default automatically applies a 0-4ms fade to all clips (though you can turn it off). But there is no one-track crossfade in live.

So it does it automatically? That's good to know. Thanks.
Pro TOols is good I agree but the CPU problem makes it unusable for me unfortunately.

knotkranky · Post by **knotkranky** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 6:55 am

you are doing something wrong with your protoolz setup. Your results are not the norm. You should be doing 32 tracks with tons of edits and quite a few plugs without a single glitch. My nephews are getting that and better on a g4 1.25.

mauve · Post by **mauve** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 7:25 am

knotkranky wrote:you are doing something wrong with your protoolz setup. Your results are not the norm. You should be doing 32 tracks with tons of edits and quite a few plugs without a single glitch. My nephews are getting that and better on a g4 1.25.

I realize it is not normal, A friend of mine is using PT 6 on G4 and something around 800 Mhz with no problem.
Another friend who is an engineer at Metal Works couldn't believe what he saw on my CPU meter.
I can't figure out what the deal is with my my computer or the PT so I am close to giving up. So I am looking for a simple DAW that would work. Live seems good plus you can freeze the tracks easily. I used the same plugins with Live6 demo and it performed fine.

ikke · Post by **ikke** » Tue Jan 02, 2007 5:36 pm

the great thing ( maybe the greatest imo) about Live is that it xfades the clip a tiny little bit in the beginning and the ending. So that all chops playback smooth (without clicks!) after eachother. So there is a crossfade.. an auto-crossfade!
Nevertheless a real crossfader (like in Cubase) would be nice aswell. You can however draw automation lines in a track and/or you can adjust the amp envelopes of any clip if the clip is warped (sadly enough) but if you warp it to a quarter note instead of 8th/16th notes, the warp effect is less present and you can still draw automation in a fine resolution. ..... .... Still a crossfade clip tool exactly like in Cubase would be handy and will speed up the workflow even more

The SLIP function is not present in Live. But you can use a MIDI controller or a single keystroke to switch between the smart grid and no grid at all. Use Macro Express to build keystroke macros. It is a great tool! http://www.macros.com/ (Ive tested a few and Macro Express is the best and works very well with Live 6.0.1. I donno about 6.0.3 cause I downgraded immediatly after trying 6.0.3. It is the worst)