Logic Studio 9 vs Ableton live 8 Suite

[posssu]

Björk (or actually her crew) has both Live and Logic on stage: http://www.apple.com/pro/profiles/pollard/index2.html

This is a question I'm constantly thinking about. There are really annoying things with Live. But on the other hand, I've used Logic and Cubase before and the ALSO have really annoying things. You can't have it all in one program, some other program almost always does some of your favourite features better.

I think Live is a better composition tool. I never realized this until someone wrote it, but that's really true. ProTools or Logic are probably better for constant recording work and of course you will have to record too as a musician and at those recording moments you'll maybe feel irritated at certain features missing from Live. But then those everyday moments when you're NOT recording in a studio and you DON'T need vocal comping, keyboard shortcuts to activate/deactivate clips etc etc, you'll find out that working with Live is a real joy. It's truely inspirating piece of software and what it does, it does it in a really innovative and easy way. It's really quick and easy to get the sound you want out of Live.

And like with all the software, it gets better every year (guys, don't start with the bugs+beta-conversation....)

So my verdict is (too): for songwriting, producing and especially composing and innovating in music, Live is really cool. But if you work really much with video and need abilities to stretch midi to video, work with timecode etc etc, that's an area where Logic wins hands down. I'm also studying film music and so far I've gotten along with Live, too, but Logic does have some very compelling features here. Also an in-built notation module, which is quite cool... although it seems to be quite a bit harder to use than a specialized notation software.

[Android Bishop]

Live is good for people who want to get to business with making music or playing live without having to remember a bunch of keyboard shortcuts or esoteric menus.

Logic is for people that need more than 5 tracks in a song without their cpu meter hitting 60% and cracking up their audio drivers

[beats me]

Live has a better forum.

[drako]

Both have the pro and cons.
Whatever suits you to work with.


Maybe logic has some better plugs, dunno for sure
But..
Live is just fast to work with, i love it over all daws.

[luddy]

I'm a long-time Logic user, and relatively new to Live. I prefer Live in almost every respect except:

-comping and take management
-surround support
-handling of SysEx and other esoteric MIDI event types
-handling many tracks (i.e., CPU efficiency)

Out of all of those, it is the handling of high track counts that makes the biggest difference to me in practice. I actually very much prefer to mix in Live over Logic (I love the routing and automation in Live) but if it exhausts the CPU with 1/3 or 1/4 as many tracks as a comparable Logic session, then it's just not practical ...

-Luddy

[posssu]

I'm a long-time Logic user, and relatively new to Live. I prefer Live in almost every respect except:

-comping and take management
-surround support
-handling of SysEx and other esoteric MIDI event types
-handling many tracks (i.e., CPU efficiency)

Out of all of those, it is the handling of high track counts that makes the biggest difference to me in practice. I actually very much prefer to mix in Live over Logic (I love the routing and automation in Live) but if it exhausts the CPU with 1/3 or 1/4 as many tracks as a comparable Logic session, then it's just not practical ...

-Luddy

This is a good post. (although I don't have experience about the third point, but all the others I can agree with)

[UKRuss]

Working with Logic is dull. Dull as ditchwater, it strips you of your creativity and leaves you a husk of your former self.

Live is fun, fun, fun!

[SubFunk]

wow, for once real arguments and facts.

i agree with most of the differences mentioned here.

one thing that is purely! a matter of preference, is that i like Logics mixer more for really large mix projects.

the handling of group tracks is way advanced in logic and i like more the plug in visuality in Logic.

also there are a few other advantages, very small details but sometimes from great importance in certain commercial circumstances... like a the possibility of a giant SMPTE display you can show on a second screen for overdubbing, etc.

logic is still a way more 'traditional' studio tool. for everything but the creating process.

Live is way better for creating and writing and sound design and obviously LIVE use, but sadly it feels lately that they forget about the LIVE use a bit and instead of putting emphasis to midi and other LIVE issues (like the automatic recognition of midi and firewire devices after a disconnection), they try to become another logic in a certain respect, at least it feels right now a bit like that. sad. EDIT: tempo nudge per track... another LIVE important feature...

also, talking ONLY about the classic plugs like reverb, compressor, eq... logic is still another level altogether, but then again, i don't expect Live to catch up with that, they should rather do more weirdo stuff for electronic laptop musicians.

[necho]

Live use = Live (Never witnessed anyone using Logic live for anything other than as a backing track, whereas Live is designed as a performance tool)

simon posford uses logic with shpongle for his live shows, although i think he will be using live soon

yeah, but he's just an old trustafarian who was fiddling with 303s when we were in playschool.

I used Logic since version 5. I own Logic 8, but hardly ever use it. IMO Live has completely overtaken pretty much everything else for electronic composition. Logic is great for recording, scoring, notation etc - but for electronic composition, Live's workflow is unrivaled.

TBH When I'm recording or mixing, I use Reaper now instead of Logic.

[necho]

Working with Logic is dull. Dull as ditchwater, it strips you of your creativity and leaves you a husk of your former self.

Live is fun, fun, fun!

Yeah - exactly. Getting ideas down QUICKLY is essential for me. When I open Logic, I usually just end up staring at the screen for a while, before switching over to Live.

[nebulae]

PCs running Windows 7 x64 RULE!

[sparklepuff]

Capture as recording. That alone makes Logic my hero.

[Obvious Alias]

I like them both, but for different reasons.

Logic is much more CPU-friendly.

Live is much more fun when writing/composing/jamming.

Either way, you can accomplish the goals that you put forth in your earlier post. If possible, try both and see which you prefer. The demo version of Live works for 14 days, so that one is easy to take for a test drive!

[Machinesworking]

You can always do like some of do and use a fuck ton of different shit to get the job done.
This to a lot of people can be stressful, and I admit it's annoying in some ways, I really like working in Live sometimes, but start using two hands to compose keyboard lines, then try editing large three or four octave stretching MIDI parts in Lives piano roll sub freaking window.....
Well then Logic or Digital Performer 7 (which just came out) start looking really good.

I love Live for glitchy audio mangling, but using the algorithms to clean up out of tune parts (Which is necessary using the tube synth I own for instance) just isn't as effective as in Digital Performer.

Anyway point is, it's not a VS situation, it's perfectly possible to use more than one DAW. My only complaints are in the checkbook area ! Live 8, DP7, and Logic 9 are all vying for my pocketbook. Probably go for DP7. I'm gonna wait for upgrading Live til MFL comes out and they finally announce what kind up discount those of us that own Pluggo will get. Also curious to see if they don't offer a Live 8 Suite / MFL bundle price.

[opus40]

I had Logic for a long time (got it for free!)
I just made the switch to Ableton, and it seems superior to Logic in every way except CPU efficiency. I don't know what the deal is, just make sure your computer can handle it. Otherwise, I'm very pleased with my purchase.