Audio editing Sucks

[Ajbbklyn]

Rule of thumb: Stack your toolkit with whatever tools you need to do the job. If Live doesn't have the crossfade capability you need - Pro Tools is certainly a viable alternative. As this is an Ableton forum, you're all familiar with the areas in which Live excels. And most of you have a firm grasp of what's available in the marketplace.

When it comes to modern-day tools, you guys have access to an embarassment of riches. <Strikes an "old codger" pose> In my day, we edited audio with a grease pencil, a splicing block and a razor blade. And, mixing was only possible using a console that cost many tens of thousands of shekels.

Maybe Live isn't as strong in certain features as other DAWs. Maybe it is positioned for a slightly different user who prefers to use it as a composition and performance tool, leaving the final mixdown to another program. No one piece of software or equipment can be all things to all people.

[Dan Dare]

I come from a Pro Tools background as well, and at first Live bothered me with it's approach to editing, but after a while you seem to establish your own methods of managing your edits.

I now don't really sweat it, I do lots of editing in live and unless I'm recording a band I don't go to Pro Tools or any external for editing.

I do find i have to be very careful editing in arrangement view that I don't lose good ideas by easily going over them.

With with Pro Tools when you make an edit, that edit (region) is instantly renamed in the region list . In Live this only happens if you consolidate the clip, which is not ideal as it renders the warp engine and some clip parameters with it.

You can create a folder in the browser and just drag your edits to the folder for "smarter management"

[andydes]

Why does everyone keep talking about crossfades as if they are something Ableton can just throw into the software in a couple of minutes. Well all the other DAWs have crosssfades, why can't ableton?

In order to add crossfades, clips must be overlapped with each track able to play both clips at once. So we're talking about allowing multiple lines of audio in each track. And Ableton would have to fit this round their wapping system and also keep to their philososy of ease of use.

To me that sounds like both a major headache in working out how to implement it and a bastard lot of reprograming.

Don't get me wrong, I think it would great if it can be done, but I don't see it as easy as all that. Perhaps, if they added Group tracks, they could include functionallity for mutiple takes there for comping / fades etc.

[leisuremuffin]

agreed. The gapless audio playback might be part of what makes this difficult.


however, they could impliment it as a non-realtime render function, but i'll bet people would just complain about it.


anyway, anybody who hasn't edited this way:




should shut the fuck up about how hard it is in live.





.lm.

[Tarekith]

In order to add crossfades, clips must be overlapped with each track able to play both clips at once. So we're talking about allowing multiple lines of audio in each track. And Ableton would have to fit this round their wapping system and also keep to their philososy of ease of use..

I had the idea that they could implement crossfade clips. If you wanted to overlap two piece of audio and crossfade them, Live would generate a new audio file compositing the two files into one new one and place this inbetween the previous two audio files. This way you would still retain the 1 audio stream per track work flow, and users get crossfades. Still a coding headache I'm sure, but it could be done without completely breaking the way Live works.

[eggnchips]

I'm pretty new to this game. I've only ever used Ableton and Cubase on a Atari about 13 years ago. What's so good about this Protools anyway?

[dj superflat]

this could get ugly, but IMHO it's not so much that pro tools is great -- though some of the plugs available for it truly are -- but that it's an industry standard, and what most trad producers are most comfortable in the electronic world. that is, if you're an old school neve/studer producer who got dragged kicking and screaming into digital, you're using pro tools, not logic as much, and certainly not live, cause pro tools is the closest analog (ha!) in the digital world. most of the other DAWs came out of midi/computer music, at first weren't so friendly for just straight audio tracking (e.g., earlier versions of logic and all that silliness with environment).

[laird]

A crossfade is a crossfade. Just put each clip on it's own track. Automate your crossfade with the crossfader in arrangement view. Resample that into one clip and delete the original 2 clips. Done.

In theory, yes, what you say is true. But not realistic.
Several Major Problems with your approach:

1. No Effects. You'd have to either duplicate the number of plugins you use, or temporarily disable all of them

2. No Undo. There's no "unresample" command, so you are left with either bouncing the whole track at once and potentially losing track of the original audio, or bouncing in sections and STILL being stuck with buttsplices.

3. Too many keystrokes, too many tracks. In Pro Tools or Cubase, crossfades are visually elegant and manageable, and can be created with a click+drag+1 keystroke. What you describe takes how many keystrokes and clicks?? Lots. I already do enough typing at work, I dont need to killl my wrists at home, too.

If you only need 1 crossfade, then Live's crossfader is OK.
But I used to have 40 or 50 of them in one finished song. If you counted all the crossfades I created and deleted, or edited... that might top a hundred. I don't want to create 100 extra tracks, disable all of their effects, and resample them 100 times.


That being said, don't take this to mean Pro Tools is better than Live.
I switched to Live afer a decade of PT knowledge and use for many reasons. The only thing I miss is a crossfade function. PT is fine for linear, point-A to point-B recording. But Live is such a poweful compositional tool... and a powerful enough DAW I can see no real benefit to try to juggle two programs just for a few extra functions.

[laird]

In order to add crossfades, clips must be overlapped with each track able to play both clips at once. So we're talking about allowing multiple lines of audio in each track. And Ableton would have to fit this round their wapping system and also keep to their philososy of ease of use..

I had the idea that they could implement crossfade clips. If you wanted to overlap two piece of audio and crossfade them, Live would generate a new audio file compositing the two files into one new one and place this inbetween the previous two audio files. This way you would still retain the 1 audio stream per track work flow, and users get crossfades. Still a coding headache I'm sure, but it could be done without completely breaking the way Live works.

This is how Pro Tools and Cubase work, at least to my inexpert observations that both programs create new audio files, kept in a "Crossfades folder", that supplant the regions they mixed together.

I can't really see this working in the Session view, but in arrangement view it shouldn't it be a snap if it happens offline?

[Pitch Black]

anyway, anybody who hasn't edited this way:




should shut the fuck up about how hard it is in live.

Why the animosity? I've done my time with a razor blade and grease pencil. Now I just use Logic as its the better tool for me for serious arranging at the moment.

I love Live to the point of evangelism, but the Arrange page aint its strongest feature.

[leisuremuffin]

i'm sorry, i forget that some people still take me seriously.


Anyway, i don't really mean "fuck you" personally i'm just pointing out how silly it is. fuck is really just a word that i grunt out every few minutes or so, not a really big deal.


but yeah, i understand why people who comp takes would want this, and they should get it. And i bet they will eventually.



.lm.

[laird]

So, if I were to edit my music by splicing tape, I'd be better?
OK, I'm ebaying TEAC and FOSTEX as we speak!


PS, yes, I laffed.

[Ajbbklyn]

So, if I were to edit my music by splicing tape, I'd be better?
OK, I'm ebaying TEAC and FOSTEX as we speak!


PS, yes, I laffed.

Don't waste time with TEAC or Fostex - go for the Ampex or the Scully!! In lm's photo, it looks like his friend is cutting ½" 4-track. The photo in my signature shows an old Gates radio board and two cart machines (for commercials). It was old back then... And, "back then" is 35 years ago.

[leisuremuffin]

oh yeah.

I miss being an on air dj.
isd that you?


.lm.

[Ajbbklyn]

That is me, circa Watergate.