Which is the best music production software ?

4ace · Post by **4ace** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 4:49 pm

Tarekith wrote:
zenmonk wrote:I'm on the fence between a full upgrade to the Ableton Live 7 suite vs Logic 8 Studio.
That's a really tough call these days, really comes down to which you feel most comfortable in I guess.

Tell me about it

My last project was harder than it should've been.Lot's of track's with LOT'S of automation in Live 6........ehhh

I feel most comfortable creating in Live but i'm really considering making the move to Logic after i checked it out at the apple store.

I think it would make mixing large track count's with multiple automation lanes easier.That being said i am excited about Live7 having multi-lanes for automation also.

paradiddle · Post by **paradiddle** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 5:01 pm

I think I'm gonna go for to update to live 7 suite from live 6. I wanted to get sampler anyway.

Thoses instruments seem to be well integrated with live's interface. Perfect for tweaking live without having a VST window that gets in the way all the time.

They seem to be decent sounding also.

Tarekith wrote:Less is definitely more when it comes to being productive IMO. I try to keep my gear purchases to once or twice a year, and only during downtimes when I'm not working on songs anyway.

It's a shame that Ableton has made all the new add on synths so much more expensive to the basic package. With the new synths, you could easily have a complete production environment in one easy to learn package, which would be ideal for beginners. Sadly, the total price makes this a VERY large investment for someone new to producing.

darclex · Post by **darclex** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 5:01 pm

...fruity loops, no question!

singer.arnab · Post by **singer.arnab** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 5:38 pm

forge wrote:yeah man - dont just assume because all the other sheep say x or y is better that means you have to have it

you have Live 6 - if you cant make good music with Live 6 you should quit and do something else

then when you have spent long enough to know what you're doing then you will know what it is you dont get out of Live and you can make an informed decision

but for $119 US to upgrade to Live 7 you can do heaps of great stuff!!!

next year I think Live 8 will be the most mature version when they sort out the workflow things we have all been waiting for!

that's only a year away, plenty of time to get really good with Live 6 or 7

i agree with you on this.i was totally satisfied with Live but then I read up on the internet where many users belive that Live is good only for DJs and also the final output is not of cutting edge quality as opposed to the performance output of Cubase/Nuendo etc. In short they mean that Cubase,Nuendo,Sonar etc. have a better audio engine than Live and you get a better and more professional sounding master. and i was hence confused as i have very limited idea about all these stuff so i went forward asking expert opinion from you guys and i must say that you guys have given a tremendous response and it's very helpful for a novice like me.

forge · Post by **forge** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 1:49 am

singer.arnab wrote:
forge wrote:yeah man - dont just assume because all the other sheep say x or y is better that means you have to have it

you have Live 6 - if you cant make good music with Live 6 you should quit and do something else

then when you have spent long enough to know what you're doing then you will know what it is you dont get out of Live and you can make an informed decision

but for $119 US to upgrade to Live 7 you can do heaps of great stuff!!!

next year I think Live 8 will be the most mature version when they sort out the workflow things we have all been waiting for!

that's only a year away, plenty of time to get really good with Live 6 or 7
i agree with you on this.i was totally satisfied with Live but then I read up on the internet where many users belive that Live is good only for DJs and also the final output is not of cutting edge quality as opposed to the performance output of Cubase/Nuendo etc. In short they mean that Cubase,Nuendo,Sonar etc. have a better audio engine than Live and you get a better and more professional sounding master. and i was hence confused as i have very limited idea about all these stuff so i went forward asking expert opinion from you guys and i must say that you guys have given a tremendous response and it's very helpful for a novice like me.

yeah well it's just not true

the area that creates confusion is warping by default - if you start changing the tempo of audio and warp is enabled then you are timestretching it which will affect quality

there have been numerous tests done on the quality with current versions of Live and it's been proven that Live was not any different, but ABleton have now stepped up and gone to 64 bit internal processing which alot of others still havent done, so that should kill it dead for a while

you'll be fine with Live, it's more than capable of top notch sound

where it might lack is in the more in depth editing areas - but you can still get around that and it wont affect your sound - those are the things I was meaning I'm hoping (as it seems are alot of people) will be sorted in Live 8

singer.arnab · Post by **singer.arnab** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 7:15 am

forge wrote:
singer.arnab wrote:
forge wrote:yeah man - dont just assume because all the other sheep say x or y is better that means you have to have it

you have Live 6 - if you cant make good music with Live 6 you should quit and do something else

then when you have spent long enough to know what you're doing then you will know what it is you dont get out of Live and you can make an informed decision

but for $119 US to upgrade to Live 7 you can do heaps of great stuff!!!

next year I think Live 8 will be the most mature version when they sort out the workflow things we have all been waiting for!

that's only a year away, plenty of time to get really good with Live 6 or 7
i agree with you on this.i was totally satisfied with Live but then I read up on the internet where many users belive that Live is good only for DJs and also the final output is not of cutting edge quality as opposed to the performance output of Cubase/Nuendo etc. In short they mean that Cubase,Nuendo,Sonar etc. have a better audio engine than Live and you get a better and more professional sounding master. and i was hence confused as i have very limited idea about all these stuff so i went forward asking expert opinion from you guys and i must say that you guys have given a tremendous response and it's very helpful for a novice like me.
yeah well it's just not true

the area that creates confusion is warping by default - if you start changing the tempo of audio and warp is enabled then you are timestretching it which will affect quality

there have been numerous tests done on the quality with current versions of Live and it's been proven that Live was not any different, but ABleton have now stepped up and gone to 64 bit internal processing which alot of others still havent done, so that should kill it dead for a while

you'll be fine with Live, it's more than capable of top notch sound

where it might lack is in the more in depth editing areas - but you can still get around that and it wont affect your sound - those are the things I was meaning I'm hoping (as it seems are alot of people) will be sorted in Live 8

i saw your myspace page and was very impressed by the way workshops on Live are conducted. do you yourself teach? all the tutorial Dvd s available in the market teaches only the general operations. they don't talk about mixing and mastering techniques which is so very essential when we are delivering the final product. i also saw berklee music's website where they have a course on Live but have not found anyone who has done the course and vouch for it's credibility.

forge · Post by **forge** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 12:56 pm

singer.arnab wrote:
forge wrote:
singer.arnab wrote: i agree with you on this.i was totally satisfied with Live but then I read up on the internet where many users belive that Live is good only for DJs and also the final output is not of cutting edge quality as opposed to the performance output of Cubase/Nuendo etc. In short they mean that Cubase,Nuendo,Sonar etc. have a better audio engine than Live and you get a better and more professional sounding master. and i was hence confused as i have very limited idea about all these stuff so i went forward asking expert opinion from you guys and i must say that you guys have given a tremendous response and it's very helpful for a novice like me.
yeah well it's just not true

the area that creates confusion is warping by default - if you start changing the tempo of audio and warp is enabled then you are timestretching it which will affect quality

there have been numerous tests done on the quality with current versions of Live and it's been proven that Live was not any different, but ABleton have now stepped up and gone to 64 bit internal processing which alot of others still havent done, so that should kill it dead for a while

you'll be fine with Live, it's more than capable of top notch sound

where it might lack is in the more in depth editing areas - but you can still get around that and it wont affect your sound - those are the things I was meaning I'm hoping (as it seems are alot of people) will be sorted in Live 8
i saw your myspace page and was very impressed by the way workshops on Live are conducted. do you yourself teach? all the tutorial Dvd s available in the market teaches only the general operations. they don't talk about mixing and mastering techniques which is so very essential when we are delivering the final product. i also saw berklee music's website where they have a course on Live but have not found anyone who has done the course and vouch for it's credibility.

check out www.grooveboxmusic.com - there are some Live 6 tutorial videos online and on DVD, but there will be some Live 7 videos coming soon!

at the moment alot of them are fairly basic, but we are still working on them and I should be devoting more time to them in the coming months

thanks!

koneko · Post by **koneko** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 1:44 pm

REBIRTH FOREVER

OvertoneZero · Post by **OvertoneZero** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 2:26 pm

I do have a question for those using Logic 8.. I've heard that Logic generall gets a lower latency than Live under OS X. Is this true or merely hyperbole? If so, is the difference significant, or only fractions of a millisecond?

Thanks

Tarekith · Post by **Tarekith** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 3:00 pm

I can run Live and Logic both down to about 128samples on my Ultralite, maybe lower, never even tried to be honest. Anything less than that jacks the CPU useage up higher than I think is worth it for another ms or possibly 2.

Especially as I normally use 256 or 512 samples for producing and DJing, and have never been bothered by the latencies those incur in either case.

Now if you have a newer Apogee Soundcard, you will mostly likely get very, very low latencies with logic, as they are made to work hand in hand now.

singer.arnab · Post by **singer.arnab** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 3:31 pm

Tarekith wrote:I can run Live and Logic both down to about 128samples on my Ultralite, maybe lower, never even tried to be honest. Anything less than that jacks the CPU useage up higher than I think is worth it for another ms or possibly 2.

Especially as I normally use 256 or 512 samples for producing and DJing, and have never been bothered by the latencies those incur in either case.

Now if you have a newer Apogee Soundcard, you will mostly likely get very, very low latencies with logic, as they are made to work hand in hand now.

sir, can you recommend a good sound card for me?
what is your opinion on M-AUDIO OZONIC?
thanks

OvertoneZero · Post by **OvertoneZero** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 3:46 pm

Thanks Tarekith. What I'm wondering about though, does a 128 sample buffer in Logic have the same actual time latency as a 128 sample buffer in Live?

I agree that setting the buffer size too small is not worth it - hence my interest in obtaining a low latency so that I can maintain a comfortable buffer size.

Yeh · Post by **Yeh** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 6:03 pm

I always thought Live was a great sketchbook and Cubase was better for mixing. But I've just made 2 of my best mixes ever in Live 6.

And BTW I just upgraded from Cubase VST5 to Cubase4 and I will upgrade to live 7 (Thanx to the money I made with these two mixes I mentioned above) :

Tarekith · Post by **Tarekith** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 6:08 pm

OvertoneZero wrote:Thanks Tarekith. What I'm wondering about though, does a 128 sample buffer in Logic have the same actual time latency as a 128 sample buffer in Live?

Honestly I have no idea, Logic doesn't show the actual latency in ms, and I'm kinda busy today packing for stage 3 of our move to run some tests to find out, sorry. Just bad timing (pun intended).

Singer - I'm not the person to ask about M-audio soundcards, I personally hear of too many people with issues to think it's worth the risk. As they can vary in price from $50 to $4000, it might help if you said how much you want to spend for people to make recommendations. In general, soundcards from Edirol, Emu, Echo, MOTU, and Apogee are on my list of things to research for beginners looking for cards.

dj superflat · Post by **dj superflat** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 6:34 pm

emu 1616m is awesome if it will work with your system, particularly at the price (setup can be a hassle as you sort out compatability issues (even if you've got an "approved" machine) and how patchmix works). that is, it's pretty much within beginner range, if just a bit more expensive than you might like.

i'm still amazed everytime someone asks about live's sound quality at the same time they're considering some bargain basement card or mic. yes, you can get great results with cheap mics and soundcards. but if you're worried about sound quality, the DAW's about the last place to look in your signal chain.

Which is the best music production software ?

the best, hands down, music production software evar