Production: Vocals in Live

[Landser]

Although i find Live an excellent tool for composing and sound-production, i find it quite cumbersone, when it comes to vocal editing.
So my question is: what is the way you work, when it comes to
a) vocals
b) vocal comping
c) harmonizing?

Maybe those people are right claiming, that Live were a composition/performance tool, but definately not a fully featured production host.
I hope i miss a few things, because in the long term, i can't imagine to work that way. Despite it's great workflow in certain aspects, i'm missing more and more some of the most fundamental DAW features.
So i tend more and more to a solution, where i will export the audio tracks and do the vocal work and mixdown in another app. But before i will do so, i want to ask, if there are some clever users, that have found useable and productive workarounds?

[l3xh2k]

I'm a noob and have been wrestling with this very question for a while. I've recently received 4 vocal tracks from collaborator and I'm trying to beat them into shape. While I'm learning, I can't help but wonder how much easier it could be (particularly having just watched the new Logic marketing video-ware this morning).

I've been playing with chopping up the vocals into sample sized chunks but I find myself in a constant battle with the warping engine...

When I figure it all out, maybe I'll post something. For now, I share your pain.

[BassTooth]

Although i find Live an excellent tool for composing and sound-production, i find it quite cumbersone, when it comes to vocal editing.
So my question is: what is the way you work, when it comes to
a) vocals
b) vocal comping
c) harmonizing?

Maybe those people are right claiming, that Live were a composition/performance tool, but definately not a fully featured production host.
I hope i miss a few things, because in the long term, i can't imagine to work that way. Despite it's great workflow in certain aspects, i'm missing more and more some of the most fundamental DAW features.
So i tend more and more to a solution, where i will export the audio tracks and do the vocal work and mixdown in another app. But before i will do so, i want to ask, if there are some clever users, that have found useable and productive workarounds?

Live isn't meant for destructive editing. which is why you must select your prefered Sample Editor in Preferences and click the File Folder tab, you will find it there. this way, when you want to edit a sample your destructive sample editor will open and you may edit. you may want to purchase a sample editor that does quick slice and dicing. i use Melodyne or ProTools and Melodyne for vocals, not exactly quick but it does the job, whatever.First, I make the instrumental in Live and drag that into Melodyne and then record vocals. melodyne has a plugin now so you could record directly into live but you would still need to slice and dice with something like ProTools or Peak or Logic.

enjoy!

[Angstrom]

you can use consolidate in the arrangement, or 'crop' in the waveform view.
consolidation would take your volume curves and render them to a copy, crop won't. pretty brutal as wave editing goes, but it covers the basics.

sorry, I can't comment on comping as I don't do a lot of it.

[Sir Maybe]

One of the biggest cons of Live 6 is that there´s still no way to do a comping of different takes to get a "perfect" take, like recording/editing in lanes (e.g. offered by Cubase or Reaper).
But I guess this already is high on priority in the feature wish list already.
Another MUST are time sig changes.

[RhythmSickness]

One of the biggest cons of Live 6 is that there´s still no way to do a comping of different takes to get a "perfect" take, like recording/editing in lanes (e.g. offered by Cubase or Reaper).
But I guess this already is high on priority in the feature wish list already.
Another MUST are time sig changes.

uhh, what about recording different takes to seperate tracks / channels, doing your edits on them and then bouncing all those takes to a new channel, through resampling for example? isnt that effectively the same thing?

[Sir Maybe]

uhh, what about recording different takes to seperate tracks / channels, doing your edits on them and then bouncing all those takes to a new channel, through resampling for example? isnt that effectively the same thing?

Theoretically yes, but it´s not easy and quite cumbersome to get there.
Once you have worked with lanes you´d now what I mean, i.e. how comfortable it is to do some copy & paste /mute & unmute to parts of the tracks while all waveforms of all your takes of the track are visible.
Also, you shouldn´t have to do destructive editing for this task (using e.g. Wavelab).
Comping is not Live 6´s strength.

[gabster]

Sorry folks, stupid question: - what is "comping"?

thanks,
Gabi.

[Sir Maybe]

Sorry folks, stupid question: - what is "comping"?

thanks,
Gabi.

It means building a "perfect" take from several takes.
Often used for vocals, but also for guitar solo stuff very useful.
let the singer sing his part 3-5 times, then take the best snippets (intonation - and expression- wise) and build the perfect take.

[RhythmSickness]

Theoretically yes, but it´s not easy and quite cumbersome to get there.
Once you have worked with lanes you´d now what I mean, i.e. how comfortable it is to do some copy & paste /mute & unmute to parts of the tracks while all waveforms of all your takes of the track are visible.

Surely you can see at least 6 or 7 tracks (expanded) in your live window in arrange view at once? Not that I have tried this or the other software you mentioned, but theoretically with envelopes it should be pretty similar

[gabster]

thanks a lot Doc! It makes sense. I knew of the comping regarding improvisation in jazz (as derived from "accompaniament") but wasn't sure of the concept here.

thanks!
Gabi.