Who still not use Live as main sequencing soft?

Marx · Post by **Marx** » Wed Jun 25, 2008 5:48 pm

In order to do this in Live, I'd either have to have a different MIDI clip for each measure, or keep track of how many 16th notes away from the the beginning I am. As it's a long tune (around 250 measures), neither of these solutions is practical.

hmmm... I think I have an idea. Have you tried making each measure a separate MIDI clip in one track. But then instead of manually switching them, Use the follow arrows and a "back to top" function so that your couple bars of changing time sig will loop itself.

Maybe, you could set the the Follow command to Random so it picks a random measure each time, then put a beat repeat plug in on a send track. A little compression and EQ after that. The drums will explode!

Thank you for the ideas. I wish I brought my computer to work!! Now I must wait to tinker with these ideas.[/quote]

Marx · Post by **Marx** » Wed Jun 25, 2008 5:57 pm

http://www.ableton.com/_common/download ... ual_en.pdf

Go to "Launching Clips" > Follow Actions > Creating Cycles

I think this is what could help solve your problem

ewistrand · Post by **ewistrand** » Wed Jun 25, 2008 6:06 pm

Sonar's still my main sequencer. While I do some things completely in Live, more often than not I'll end up bouncing my Live tracks to audio and bring them into Sonar via ReWire.

ew

Machinesworking · Post by **Machinesworking** » Wed Jun 25, 2008 8:55 pm

I go back and forth between Logic and Live, though Live is more often used. MIDI in Live if you're POS keyboard player like I am, can be a PITA. Editing MIDI in Live isn't as advanced as in Logic, and both of them pale in comparison to Digital Performers input quantize.
Beyond that I like the speed of Live's quantize feature, but not the lack of an Event Editor.

For what it's worth the only major drawbacks to working entirely in Live are in the mixing workflow (no track colors, no automation tools like curve etc.), MIDI editing, (Event Editor, access to more than one piano roll interface at a time, 128 parameter limit on automating MIDI), and general navigation in the Arrangement page.

The intuitiveness of Session View, and being able to fire clips with Input Quantize makes up for it enough to where I do write in Live probably 80% of the time, but probably 30% of the time at some point, I end up moving the project over to Logic for one of the above mentioned reasons.
Anyway like people have mentioned, you can do workarounds to these sort of problems, I have the option to save some headache (admittedly mainly due to knowing that Logic has a better way, rather than because it's a serious PITA), so I do.
To top it all off, probably going to switch from Logic to Digital Performer, and that's mainly because DP and live seem like a killer duo for live performance and DP's mixer just seriously kicks ass.

jgerry · Post by **jgerry** » Wed Jun 25, 2008 9:39 pm

I have owned Reason since version 1, and I recently bought Logic. Even more recently bought Live 7 after playing with the LE versions for a couple of years.

It took me a while to understand Live's workflow, but now that I'm getting it down, I find it easier than anything else for roughing out tracks. Admittedly, I'm not making really complex stuff, and I use Live more as a notepad for composing as I rarely seem to complete entire tracks. But I keep getting closer as I get better with Live. I think it will be my tool of choice from now on.

The key for me: It took me forever to understand that the arrangement view can just be a plain old sequencer, and doesn't have to have every single clip permutation represented in session view. I can create plain-jane 4/4 clips, drop them in, loop them, then break them up and change them in the arrangement view. Not sure why it took me so long to figure this out, but it's helped immensely. Once I quit creating clips for every single little thing, I really started liking Live.

What I really like is how well the built-in instruments work. I love the drum racks. I don't have to bother with Battery anymore. It's so much faster to do beats now. I bought the drum machines too, super nice. Hot swap makes it incredibly fast to change stuff out. I can't believe how quick I'm picking it up.

Warping works great for me too. I understand this feature, and have been using it a lot. I used to cut up stuff in Recycle, and warp is so much easier and more powerful.

kuniklo · Post by **kuniklo** » Wed Jun 25, 2008 9:59 pm

In a lot of ways I'd rather use Logic but honestly I prefer Live's sampler and drum racks so much to anything in Logic or AU land that I still find myself in Live, even though the arrange view is primitive.

joeyfivecents · Post by **joeyfivecents** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 9:39 pm

so.....did anyone have anything to add to what I wrote about the latency issue? All the sudden the thread went on some wild midi goosechase and I got ignored. I should be used to it. Been posting on here for almost five years and maybe got 2 responses. Anyway, anyone having latency problems with apogee duet and Live?

dcease · Post by **dcease** » Mon Jun 30, 2008 10:31 pm

joeyfivecents wrote:so.....did anyone have anything to add to what I wrote about the latency issue? All the sudden the thread went on some wild midi goosechase and I got ignored. I should be used to it. Been posting on here for almost five years and maybe got 2 responses. Anyway, anyone having latency problems with apogee duet and Live?

now you can make it three

try starting you own thread, didn't the duet used to only work with logic? prolly apoge's driver's, i mean, a high end company like them, why should they care if their product works with a toy, such as live

ain't used anything else this year, cept live, save a couple of time's i recorded vocs in ptle. but i'm gettin more comfy cuttin vocs in live now. gimme folder tracks, dammit!

joeyfivecents · Post by **joeyfivecents** » Tue Jul 01, 2008 1:24 am

thanks for the reply. feels good to matter. just kidding. I'll start a new thread. I just get pissed at this latency because I love working in Live but what's the use if I can't record ideas quickly right?

RawTheory · Post by **RawTheory** » Tue Jul 01, 2008 1:39 am

I compose in Live and bounce all audio and midi to Reaper for mix down.

leedsquietman · Post by **leedsquietman** » Tue Jul 01, 2008 1:41 am

If Live added cross fading audio clips on the same track in arrangement, folder tracks, freed up the 128 parameter limit and had good dual monitor support (session view on one monitor, arrangement on the other) or improved it's mixer views (Cubase SX3 and C4 allow 3 floating resizeable mixer windows which works great on one monitor with arrangement on the other). Oh and session view automation and preset editing curves for audio or midi (bezier curves etc)

If Live had these things and finally, someone worked out how to squeeze a few more % on the CPU efficiency (I get higher track and plugin counts in Cubase), I would happily masturbate into old sweaty socks multiple times daily for six months at least.

Having said this, I still use Live 7 Suite for 90% of my work and for all my composing and arranging.

Airwave · Post by **Airwave** » Tue Jul 01, 2008 5:37 am

Now I'm gonna explain you why I made the reverse operation from being a 100% Live user and how I switched back to Logic Pro for 50/50 which means I go back and forth between the 2 independently.

First of all, I'd like to say that EACH sequencer, even Reason's has it's pros and cons and that none of them is objectively better. It's just a question of taste.

With my due respect to Ableton people, though, I ended up with a sad feeling that my wallet had been emptied by paying for ableton extra's (buggy and unreliable analog, user-unfriendly tension, but also amazin sampler and operator and updates (more than 1200 Euros), and at that price, I expect music software to boast essential MUSICAL features. Who says Musical features, means MIDI features of course, that Live is badly missing in its Seventh (far from heaven) version.

No Score, No Step input for recording midi parts, no MUSICAL way to write... music. No Surround support or it must be tricky, No automatic adjustable audio fades, and last but not least, no way to use a pen tablet. As a customer, I wanted to support a small company by buying the software and giving my comments so the company could make it even better. I must recognize I did know what to expect when switching entirely to L5 in 2006.

I got back to Logic Pro 4 weeks ago after I got Express 8 in October of Last year alongside with a bunch of Jam packs. 199 Euros, and elastic audio put apart, it does everything better when it comes to midi, or even audio editing. I needed time to realize that Live didn't match some of my musical needs anymore, although it's still a great piece of software, and looking at a 200 Euro piece of software do things better for your personal needs than your favourite sequencer does, it hurts, believe me.

Now for less than 500 Euros, I have stuff that even the fully-featured 1500+ Euro Live 7 will never ever be capable of (add all the orchestral instruments, and every other extra in the ableton shop, you see what I mean??). Convolution reverb, a tape delay, good compressors, a mastering limiter, and all kinds of Sidechain features that compensate the lack of envelopes of Live 7. Im a modular-fan, but I have to manage time, which means I need some things QUICKLY.

Still I really enjoy working in Live 7, as it features extremely fast working methods and modular options, and every now and then I go back to it purely for composing, because after all I can live without score, step recording, etc when doing selfish music (but not collab musicians who play only off a SCORE). And I still use it for my radio shows, too, because it's great for that, and I'll probably still use it for my live shows as well. But Today, I'm not the fan I used to be anymore, unfortunately.

I (beat)repeat, it's not an objective note, it's just my personal view of what Live could have become and still could be in a few years. I hope it will be, and I'll keep on using it, but not for every purpose.

Laurent

leedsquietman · Post by **leedsquietman** » Wed Jul 02, 2008 3:51 pm

That's fair commentary.

I still think that Live will improve on many of those features and is a much less mature (in terms of age) than the likes of Cakewalk, Cubase and Logic (which has been around since tha Atari and called Notator at that time).

Live's workflow and tools set it up as an audio tweakbox and the early community (pre Live 4) were mostly all DJs or people wishing to warp all hell out of sounds. Add in MIDI and VST support and then more features in 5,6,7 (ie. device groups, beat repeat, racks, Live devices/instruments, sidechain, automatyable time signature, drum racks, etc) are still features that appeal more to the electronic/house/techno/trance/electro or more recently to crossover hip hop/electro or hip hop/rnb etc.

For such communities, 5.1 surround sound and musical notation are very low on the priority list.

Yes, certain MIDI features, audio crossfades on tracks, doing away with the 128 parameter limit, automation of session view arefeatures I'm sure we shall see within an update or two, or at least they are heavily requested.

Some things I disagree with you on - The Suite, IMHO is excellent and Analog and Tension have not been buggy for me or user unfriendly.

Secondly - Logic has some nice fx (Space Designer convo reverb being one) but IMHO Live's new compressor in L7 creams the compressors in Logic in terms of sound and variability. I know the compressor in Live 6 and below wasn't exactly amazing, but the new compressor in L7 is miles better.

Anyway, your commentary is valid and it also proves a point. Never choose DAW software (or even vst/au plugins etc) unless you have had a chance to thoroughly explore them. Research your purchase and check several reviews. Download the demos and try them out. That should help to minimize any errors or bad feeling in paying for music software which later disappoints you.