Live 8 is a little too much for me

[Oscar F]

I haven't used session view in ages myself.
Loved it in Live 3 as an Audio only app which is why I've kept my old laptop.
Decided to use Logic 8 instead as I prefer working in a linear arranging environment .
So I use Live + Reaktor on my Toshiba Lappy being controller by a Yamaha RS7000 (great combination just there to be honest with you).
The iMac has Logic 8, Reason 4 and Gleetchlab (with Automat, Crystal and ZebraCM and Kore Player).
(Not using any 3rd party FX either).
I also use a Korg Prophecy, Roland JP8080, Alesis Fusion 8HD, Yamaha TG-33 and a Technics WSA-1 hardware wise which gives me more than enough voicing, polyphony and synthesis power without the need for anything else.
That said I gave up upgrading Live on Version 5 (which was the most stable bar 3.01 on my PC based system).
Logic has a steep learning curve (as I am finding out) but the native plug ins are pretty damn nice (especially Ultrabeat, Scultpure, ES2, Space and Delay Designer) and I like a few of the concepts it uses BIN wise. Routing is a bit of a head fuck initially, but it's extremely flexible in use and application.
Realistically even if I got Live 7 Suite now in Australia and bought an APC I'd be up for over $1500 AUD before I even purchased MfL.
Which could realistically get me a new bass guitar, a decent mic and some sort of field recorder (which I could put to better use with what I have).
Live is a great application none the less and this is a top notch forum over all.
No doubt we will be seeing and hearing some great start with MfL and Live 8 in the not to distant future.
Hearing and seeing what you peeps do with it is going to be a lot of fun.

[Synthbuilder]

I saw many complaints about CPU load in Live 8.... Sure some new stuff like the Multiband Compressor and Collision/Operator are themselves CPU eaters but plain L8 is not IMHO. Have you got the same impression?

Same here. My now aging 3GHz P4E is running Live8 betas with only a 1 or 2 % extra on top of what it did with Live7. However, try and get too clever with some of the newer plugs, even the upgraded Operator, and you need to use freeze to get you through.

I'll be buying it that's for sure.

But, hey, I don't often use the session view either. Mucking about and having fun I do in session, but track writing I do in the linear arrangement view.

[chis]

Lately, I've been trying to bring loops from hardware into Live. I've used the arrange view almost exclusively, whereas I used to try and compose with session view THEN move to arrange.

I'd still want to stick with Ableton, even if Reaper keeps tempting me, because even the arrange view layout is so simple. Tracks above, clip settings OR effects chain below. NO overlapping windows. Holy crap I hate that. Cubase always felt like such a mess to work with JUST because of overlapping bloody windows. Though, to be fair, Reaper only tends to bring up windows for plugins...

Not sure I really need to upgrade to Live 8 though. But, if someone tells me Live 8 no longer "suffers" with a supposedly inferior rendering process (compared to exporting WAV multitracks from it to Logic / Reaper and rendering there), I'll be tempted.

[Pasha]

I saw many complaints about CPU load in Live 8.... Sure some new stuff like the Multiband Compressor and Collision/Operator are themselves CPU eaters but plain L8 is not IMHO. Have you got the same impression?

Same here. My now aging 3GHz P4E is running Live8 betas with only a 1 or 2 % extra on top of what it did with Live7. However, try and get too clever with some of the newer plugs, even the upgraded Operator, and you need to use freeze to get you through.

I'll be buying it that's for sure.

But, hey, I don't often use the session view either. Mucking about and having fun I do in session, but track writing I do in the linear arrangement view.

Hey Synthbuilder, good to know I'm not alone... Beside that is interesting how everybody looks at Ableton Live in a different way. One of the reason why in 2005 I switched from Cubase to Live was, and still is Session View. It unleashed a composition potential that would have remained unexploited instead.In the end I record from session to arrangement and refine there but the magic happens in session view...
Good to know that Live offers a lot for everybody. I'll be on Live 8 as it touches the Web Store...

[leedsquietman]

I use Session and Arrangement - On my alternative/rock music project, I tend to gather 4 or 8 bar loops of guitars and maybe jam some riffs or solos in, ditto keyboards. And I lay down the core of the track like that into arrangement. But I always end up tweaking MIDI drums in arrangement (mostly overdubbing fills and stuff on the fly as the arrangement plays, I probably did most of the construction in Drum Racks in Session, unless I used jamstix), and for some crazy reason, I always have to play bass into arrangement, I think because that makes it sound less mechanical than repeating 8 bar guitar parts that are just mashed up a bit with some follow actions.

For my electronica type work, I use Session almost exclusively.

Composing stuff from scratch completely in arrangement - I could never go back to that. Live rules for me in terms of freeing my creativity, linear timelines suck for composing, even ones that allow complex play orders, like Cubase SX3 onwards, which allows you to set loop braces and assign parts, which can then be played back in any order for any number of bars or beats.

[ethios4]

I'm really glad to have been using Ableton since v2. The software has grown as my undersanding and abilities have grown, so it's always right where I need it. I can easily imagine being overwhelmed by it all if I had started with v6 or v7.

I usually feel like you can learn something best if you re-trace it's development steps. For Live, it originally had no midi, no clip envelopes, only beats warping. That's a good place to start with.