i have 200 dollars. Should i buy an Abe inst or 3rd party?

sublimelobc · Post by **sublimelobc** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 5:47 pm

If you are that close, go with the suite upgrade! drum racks and sampler? then you can get get cool new sounds and presets quick from puremagnetik and others that use drum racks and sampler a lot.

/permission_grant = ableton fanboy:on

aisling · Post by **aisling** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 6:09 pm

Tarekith wrote:
aisling wrote:Is Zebra in an another league compared to say albino and blue?
Yes, a much much better league. I personally think Papen's synths are way over-rated myself. Ditto Operator, it's 'ok', but not all that IMO, effects and rack or not.

Thank you for the feedback. I'll want to consider Zebra myself.

Marx · Post by **Marx** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 6:56 pm

you can actually get Motif and Triton Racks on eBay for about 200-300 bucks....

Awesome deal considering they retail for 1000 or more

Gemini Club · Post by **Gemini Club** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 7:51 pm

i second the Reaktor 5 suggestion. its like a lifetime subscription to every new instrument and effect you could ever want. people make replicas of other instruments that sound really good. and the are instruments that challenge your very understanding of a "instrument" and the interfacing inherent in creating music

buy it

it can be complicated though

Jekblad · Post by **Jekblad** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 11:23 pm

I just spent some time in reaktor.... it's pretty cool, but also a steep learning curve. Not really what i'm looking to spend my time on right now, but the thought of it is way cool.

It seem with Zebra 2 you can sort of buid you're own instruments as well, just a lot more rules involved. Am i understanding that correctly?

I looked for some tutorials on Zebra and found nothing on youtube. Anybody know of any? Video would be great, a basic overview before i commit to reading the manual.

glitchrock-buddha · Post by **glitchrock-buddha** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 12:01 am

Actually Reaktor would be my other suggestion. If I could only have one thing, it would probably be reaktor. Back in the Reaktor 4 days it was a comparatively a cpu hog. Now most of it's ensembles can be considered quite low cpu. Not just synths, but sample manglers and drum machines and effects etc.

It may seem daunting at first. But really it's no different than any other synth if you don't want to build ensembles. The only difference is that it's actually thousands of synths and effects and devices instead of one.

Kodama · Post by **Kodama** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 2:02 am

A few of my favorite thingz = Zebra 2, Sampler, Operator, Microtonic

leedsquietman · Post by **leedsquietman** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 2:54 am

Ableton's synths are not weak but unless you qualify for educational discounts or buy the suite, they don't represent best value at full retail price.

For example, for me, I got them in the Suite, so the cost of upgrading L6 (without Operator and Sampler) to L7Suite on educational discount which I qualify for as an educator, it made the cost of the synths less than 40 dollars apiece and that doesn't include Drum Machines.

In that context, they were excellent value and you definately would not get purchasable synths that were better for $50 or less

I'd say that Analog and Electric would be worth 99 dollars of anyone's money (Electric is an awesome EP but that is a limited range of sounds, even if that limited range can be awesome if you need an EP), Tension $119 (as not many similar synths exist out there), and Operator has to worth $150 if FM8 retails for $100 more, Sampler has to worth at least half of what Kontakt costs (granted you don't get the sound library, which is a major selling point for Kontakt, but then again, you don't lose 40GB of precious HD space on stuff you might not even use).

I'd say the same thing for Papen's synths. Albino was a great synth on first release and it's design and sounds have definately inspired some of the others that came since, but Albino no longer has as many sound possibilities and distinctiveness to be worth it's full retail value, again if it was offered at 50-60% less then it would be value for money. Blue was never that great a synth, definately not in the class of Operator or FM8, but again, it has some distinctiveness in that not many people have really dug this synth (unlike Albino), it always had mixed reviews and mediocre sales. If you ever saw it on sale for $80 bucks or so and you didn't have a good FM type synth, it would be a good deal.

Everything in perspective. Having Ableton's own synths is definately good for integration and easy workflow, even if they are hamstrung by not having access to as many parameters and the GUI is less attractive. I recommend them all, IF you can get them on discounted prices.

looprication · Post by **looprication** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 4:52 am

...until I really spent some time learning the absolute basics. It's daunting just to get started, but the thing is, if you invest only a few hours more than you would with many other programs, you'll be amazed at what they can do.

Someone else wrote in this post about Reaktor and the fact that other users are posting synths in the user library all the time - absolutely true. All you really need to know to get started with Reaktor is how to work with "Ensembles" - complete packages. Pretty easy once you get the hang of it.

I used to be 100% Reason, and I still love Reason, but there's just nothing like loading up Live with Battery for drums, Absynth for a bassline, Massive for pure phat-ass tone, FM8 for spacey, trippy leads and atmospheres, and Reaktor 5 for virtually ANYTHING. This includes effects. Seriously, you can load up several instances of Reaktor 5 and that would be about all you ever needed.

I haven't even mentioned half the NI things I use, but if you must own one thing from NI, try to get hold of Reaktor 5.

Having said that, if you're leaning heavily toward Zebra 2 and you're INSPIRED by what you hear, go for it. Money comes and goes, you have to catch inspiration when you can.

Cheers,

-ix

OvertoneZero · Post by **OvertoneZero** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 4:55 am

Here's a vote for stashing it in the beans fund

Nick the Zombie · Post by **Nick the Zombie** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 5:11 am

I'll cast my minority vote for Ableton devices. The suite download has been one of my most worthwhile music investments. Operator, Sampler and Drum Racks have essentially replaced everything else for me. With all due respect to Machinesworking, the improved workflow and simplicity have a LOT to do with the quality of the resulting sounds (for me, at least). I have tried lots of feature-laden synths that fell totally flat in the inspiration department.

Try out some demos before taking anybody's word for it, though.

- Nick

micah frank · Post by **micah frank** » Sat Nov 15, 2008 2:15 pm

sublimelobc wrote:If you are that close, go with the suite upgrade! drum racks and sampler? then you can get get cool new sounds and presets quick from puremagnetik and others that use drum racks and sampler a lot.

/permission_grant = ableton fanboy:on

You no longer need Sampler for ANY Puremagnetik packs. Everything is updated to Live 7 with multisample support for Simpler. If you do have Sampler then you can still utilize all PM content in Sampler mode.

bulo · Post by **bulo** » Sat Nov 15, 2008 2:29 pm

One over thing:
You can't record funky controller tweaking in the session view with ableton's plug...
but you CAN with third-party plug-ins.

...

Nick the Zombie · Post by **Nick the Zombie** » Sat Nov 15, 2008 8:05 pm

bulo wrote:One over thing:
You can't record funky controller tweaking in the session view with ableton's plug...
but you CAN with third-party plug-ins.
...

I might be missing something here, but you definitely CAN record tweaks to Sampler's controls in the session view. I've been doing it all morning.

- Nick

Machinesworking · Post by **Machinesworking** » Sat Nov 15, 2008 9:04 pm

Nick the Zombie wrote: With all due respect to Machinesworking, the improved workflow and simplicity have a LOT to do with the quality of the resulting sounds (for me, at least). I have tried lots of feature-laden synths that fell totally flat in the inspiration department.

The one thing I can safely say without it being lame ass bragging is that I'm a pretty advanced sound designer, so in the sense that if too many choices overwhelm you, the suite works, but it works not because of the actual sound design capabilities, but because for someone like you it makes sense.
I've been messing with synths for 20 years now, so I get instantly bored with a limited pallet, so I would MUCH rather use Absynth, Kontakt, or Zebra, than Analog or Sampler etc. Zebra is the most straight forward and powerful out there I believe. I like the lay out better than the Live synths. People get strung out on it when they don't think about it in simple terms and start small.

i have 200 dollars. Should i buy an Abe inst or 3rd party?

I used to hate NI stuff...