Is Ableton rock-able?

[XVampireX]

Hello, I'm a piano/synth player, and I've also tried a little bit of ableton live demo, but I would like to know, if in your experience, Ableton Live is suitable for bands that play Progressive/Power/Gothic Rock/Metal? It's just that I see so much talk about it more as a DJ/Electronica tool, but I'm not really interested in that.

Basically I need to know about using the live performance tools there, if I can easily change presets, if I can open up several VSTi's at the same time and change between them in a live setting? Also adding external effects (Not related to the VSTi I'm using) to the VSTi/'s. I'm not a person who goes for pre-recorded stuff so I'm mostly going to play the stuff myself (Except for the rest of my band of course) so I don't need the loopers/drum machines/etc...

Thanks

[oblique strategies]

Abso-lutely.

[nathannn]

of course its good for rock.
i am not really interested in making electronic music either (at least the type that does not have real drums or guitar) in fact im very very bored with traditional electronic music,
and i think live is great.
i dont ever use anything else to record with i love it!!

[Jekblad]

changing presets is not the easiest thing in the world, you'll probably use midi channels or some monster racks since there are no Program Changes.

It's def the way to go though, i've played on it w/rock bands quite a bit.

[XVampireX]

Well yes, probably the way to go is via midi channels, if I'm not wrong, there could be up to 16 midi channels, but who really needs that many? though it's weird you're saying patch changes are difficult? so I can't just say in omnisphere I can have a pallet of live sounds preloaded to memory (16 patches) and it also has the same effect of changing without hearing that very short knock out of sound, you're saying I can't use a foot controller to trigger the patch change, say at least with that VSTi?

Also can anyone please explain the chaining element in ableton? I see that I can open up any instrument rack and there's a drop in of midi effects/etc.. but when I put them in there's nothing (Other than the usual sound), only if I put the effects in a separate slot (As in beside the vsti slot)

Also another thing that's interesting me is the vocoder, can I use it like a real vocoder synth? Can I use a microphone and "sing the notes" via the microphone?

Anyhow, I'm really considering getting ableton live 8 suite, would be perfect for me live I think...

[vicz]

Duh - the clue is in the name....

[twisted-space]

If your vsti supports bank and patch changes and you have a contoller that can send them then your fine. You can also use dummy clips to send patch changes to your instruments.
Live's devices don't support bank or patch changes, but if your not using the built in stuff I don't think it'll be a problem (though why would you need the suite if you only want to use vsti's?).

[Jekblad]

twisted thanks for elaborating on that i wan't sure what the rules were for VSTs

[Aequitas123]

Abletons motto:

"You're always ABLE TO with ABLETON!"

[Tone Deft]

dunno. maybe when they close down at night you could get some good reverb in the Ableton offices.

I'd try their flagship product 'Live' if you want to record music, it works pretty well, if you beta tested it.