What can other DAWs offer that Ableton can not

[evon]

my 1cent: IMO Live can do anything sonically...only that somethings present more challanges than others...and probably that's one of the reason I stick with Live. Sometimes I think there may be features present as an offspin of algorithms (kinda the opposite of a bug-or you could call it a good bug)that not even the coders are aware of. Just like bad bugs we tend to come upon some realy cool features as we go along.

[Geezus]

The lack of crossfades, automation curves, track folders, and (most importantly) the 128 vst parameter limit (sooooo stupid) are probably the biggest pains in the ass that force me to use another DAW. Only I cant afford another DAW so I'm fucked.

[Tone Deft]

I'm fucked.

jeebus Geezus, that sucks.

[jamester]

I don't see what track folders give to a project.

Have you used the Drum Racks?

Aside from keeping things neat and tidy in the arrangement by being able to "hide" tracks, folders can also serve as master fx busses, as well as a way to have "grouped" control over the child tracks.

Before the Drum Racks, if you had say two Impulses racked together with every channel having a track out, that's seventeen tracks you've got to look at all the time, just for your drums!

Jamester also mentiones that you can't have per-clip effects which is not entirely true. You can stack all effects you want on a channel and automate the device-on/off for every clip separately.

Not really. First off that's a very cumbersome workaround, and secondly that still doesn't give you discreet control of the effects themselves per-clip. Hardly the same as when I'm in Reaper for instance, I highlight a clip and hit Shift+E and the effects browser pops right up just for that clip.

The key mapping is hit-or-miss in Live; I can't change Split to just "S" and I can't make "W" my Rewind button, for example. I can't zoom with the mousewhell+modifier keys unless I use that AutoHotKey tool somebody made. (thanks for that, whoever you are!)

I'm not slamming Live or anything...the OP asked what's missing, and these are important things that are missing IMO.

[Daim]

arrangment view is "cleaner" in any other daw.. i can't say why but it is like that.. it's looking sort of messy when u got 5 tracks unfolded

[Hervé]

arrangment view is "cleaner" in any other daw.. i can't say why but it is like that.. it's looking sort of messy when u got 5 tracks unfolded

Totally agree and having the tools,mixer, ect on the right side doesnt help me eather.

[thefool]

Hell yes i wish for track grouping. It would make it all much cleaner.

I don't use the arranger in cubase though, i like to keep everything running in live that way. The only thing that bother me of arrangement view is the track grouping, really.

Automation curves? Yeah alright.

[spkey]

Aside from keeping things neat and tidy in the arrangement by being able to "hide" tracks, folders can also serve as master fx busses, as well as a way to have "grouped" control over the child tracks.

Before the Drum Racks, if you had say two Impulses racked together with every channel having a track out, that's seventeen tracks you've got to look at all the time, just for your drums!

So track folders is a way to group channels then? Is there no other way to group channels in Ableton? Btw, you mention Reaper, do you mind telling me what is your normal workflow? Do you record in Ableton and move audio to Reaper? I personally like Ableton even for doing my final mix as I change mind oftenly about how this or that should sound.

thanks
sp.

[Angstrom]

Aside from keeping things neat and tidy in the arrangement by being able to "hide" tracks, folders can also serve as master fx busses, as well as a way to have "grouped" control over the child tracks.

Before the Drum Racks, if you had say two Impulses racked together with every channel having a track out, that's seventeen tracks you've got to look at all the time, just for your drums!

So track folders is a way to group channels then? Is there no other way to group channels in Ableton? Btw, you mention Reaper, do you mind telling me what is your normal workflow? Do you record in Ableton and move audio to Reaper? I personally like Ableton even for doing my final mix as I change mind oftenly about how this or that should sound.

thanks
sp.

yes, you can group channels (buss them) by sending all the track outputs to a new audio track which has its monitor set to 'on'.

of course - if you routed 16 tracks to one, you might like to hide those 16, at the moment you can't do that so it's quite easy to fill the screen with tracks which you don;t need to see all the time.

[kb420]

There were a lot of good points made in this thread about some of the features that other programs have that Live lacks, but for what it's worth, I'm sick of using more than one program to achieve completion.

I've found that if I stick with doing everything in Live, I seem to be able to get everything done, and if I have to use a workaround, or think outside the box a little to do it, then so be it. I choose to accept it's limitations and respect what it can do, and it's made life a little easier.



Just my $.02.

[evon]

of course - if you routed 16 tracks to one, you might like to hide those 16, at the moment you can't do that so it's quite easy to fill the screen with tracks which you don;t need to see all the time.

So "Save As" "Save A Copy" then delete those tracks from the copy and continue to work in the copy. It is also safer since you can always go back to the original tracks.
For me this type of operation would be a stage in the project, not like you would want to be doing this often while mixing.

Also, I guess it depends on what type of production each person does. I only do recordings.

However, I agree and also add to the petition for the folding of tracks...this should be a basic DAW feature. I stopped freezing tracks...they never seem to make any significant difference to my cpu load.

[Angstrom]

you are misunderstanding - if you deleted the original tracks it would all go silent.
the tracks are routed, not resampled.
you need them therre so you can work on the submixes, the idea is not to flatten them but to just reclaim a bit of screenspace while you don't need to see their mixer

[capo-wear-i]

There were a lot of good points made in this thread about some of the features that other programs have that Live lacks, but for what it's worth, I'm sick of using more than one program to achieve completion.

I've found that if I stick with doing everything in Live, I seem to be able to get everything done, and if I have to use a workaround, or think outside the box a little to do it, then so be it. I choose to accept it's limitations and respect what it can do, and it's made life a little easier.



Just my $.02.

+1

You took the words right out of my mouth !

Why people doing basically minimal electronic music feel the need to have a separate mixing stage using another DAW is beyond me.

For me I found that thinking about this magic mixing stage ended up as an(other) excuse never to finish a tune - and it becomes hard to know when your mixing, and when your actually writing the tune.

Sound familiar ?

[Machinesworking]

Grrove templates
Powerful and easier midi editing
Sysex, NRPN, external instrument and fx support that actually supports automations
tracks folders and hiding
Drum maps - ie where you can set the names of the drum sounds for *any* plugins or hardware drum machine
more than just stereo - mono, quad, 5.1, 7.1 etc
mp3 export
real time exports
Separate and multiple mixer and workspace views
Overlapping clips *in the same track* allowing crossfades for eg
Multiple takes in a single track - just loop and hit record and stack them, easy to switch between them and cut out the best from each - no copying clips between each take and preparing for the next one manually.
Generally much easier to edit automations. (Yes - this improved alot with live 7 as at least now you can see more than one at a time)
Simple export of selected stems

And that without even really thinking about it.

What live offers that makes it worth tolerating the loss of all those features is unrestricted audio and midi routing, session view and racks.

Thats it for studio use.

Then there is live use - well I allready covered that - sesion view and easy midi assignments etc *so long as* what you want to assign to is a clip or an automation - you cant assign to a CC on a hardware synth directly. (Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!)


Forget the plugins - the equivalent is available in other packages, so while its a good collection and most of not all are usful, especially for electronics music, they aint that special.

Is the trade off worth it - for creation yes - for getting ideas together quicklyy - yes. Would I record a band with it and produce a mix for them with it - very unlikely.

TBH - the main reason I stay in live end to end is because it is so much hassle to export selected stems and mix them in something that has better workflow - once you are past the creative stage and have an arrangement, bounced audio etc and just need to mix it with good metering etc, then Live becomes a liability unless you need all of its routing flexibility (which TBH, I often do).

Agree with almost all of this. I'm confused a bit by the MIDI cc in bold? Do you mean if you want to assign a hardware controller to a Hardware synth MIDI cc?

[ilia]

The key mapping is hit-or-miss in Live; I can't change Split to just "S" and I can't make "W" my Rewind button, for example. I can't zoom with the mousewhell+modifier keys unless I use that AutoHotKey tool somebody made. (thanks for that, whoever you are!)

welcome!
you might want to take a look at Vitamin L