Do you like the Live Instruments?

[loquat]

Recently I've really been enjoying Electric, and Collision. Overall I'm very happy with the Live 8 Suite sounds. I agree with some of the comments about Analog. I think that the interface leaves something to be desired, but I'm pretty happy with how Operator works.

[akm]

i have seen this type of fishing time and again on the site, and truthfully have been guilty of it myself at times. if you are looking for someone to tell you that the instruments are good or bad, you will get a mixed bag of answers. if you don't like the instruments, and 15 people do, does that change your opinion? if it does change your opinion, i would be interested in the reasons that you opinion has changed.

I see... I asked because I gave Live instruments a try several times, and all the time it was obvious for me that they are the 2-nd league members, not the 1-st class. I did not made an extensive search in the forum just shared my opinion and was curious what others think.

[Michael Hatsis]

i have seen this type of fishing time and again on the site, and truthfully have been guilty of it myself at times. if you are looking for someone to tell you that the instruments are good or bad, you will get a mixed bag of answers. if you don't like the instruments, and 15 people do, does that change your opinion? if it does change your opinion, i would be interested in the reasons that you opinion has changed.

I see... I asked because I gave Live instruments a try several times, and all the time it was obvious for me that they are the 2-nd league members, not the 1-st class. I did not made an extensive search in the forum just shared my opinion and was curious what others think.

Why do you care what we think anyway? YOUR ears are the important thing here. I'm having trouble figuring out what your trying to do with this thread. If dozens of people on here give there opinion, do you think that's going to have any bearing on the dsp code inside the app? If you think they are 2nd class, then don't use them. obviously, anyone who uses them can't make any good music, and no amount of effects, processing and songwriting can change that.

[mcphable]

Before I start, I'm a huge fan of Ableton Live and have been since I started using it in version 6.

Back to the original post, after demoing Absynth, Massive, FM8, Zebra, and Alchemy, I too feel that they have a better quality of sound than in similar Live instruments. I've spent a good amount of time with even the basic presets of the above mentioned demo'd offerings and tried duplicating them in Operator... and the sound just isn't the same. Granted, I'm a novice at synth creation/manipulation but I just can't get my head around the idea of why one would want to have to run Operator through another Live instrument or two AND THEN through a collection of FX just to get **close** to what the above demo software offers in a single instance of the plugin. Granted, those would have to be purchased in addition to the Live 8 Suite I already have, but I don't think "price of plugins" was the issue that started the post.... but I could be wrong.

If you can't tell, I'm debating the purchase of Omnisphere or one of the above demos.

[Tone Deft]

I'm a novice at synth creation/manipulation but I just can't get my head around the idea of why one would want to have to run Operator through another Live instrument or two AND THEN through a collection of FX just to get **close** to what the above demo software offers in a single instance of the plugin.

those other soft synths have the effects built into them. Absynth is the only one of those I'm familiar with, its use of effects on presets is egregious.

FM synthesis isn't something someone can wrangle immediately, it takes time and you have to go read about how it works and study patches to recreate a patch.

I mostly use Operator, some patches suck, others are phat.

I wish electric had the same presets that Lounge Lizard had (Electric is the same as Lizard.)

[kb420]

To each his own.

But here is something that I learned a while ago about presets. Presets sell. If one were to go to a music store and sit down with just about any hardware workstation out there, they would probably be blown away by the sounds. That's because the manufacturers had professonals design the presets. If you were to sit down and actually disect the sounds, you would see that they are drenched in effects. I first realized this when disecting the sounds on my Motif ES7. Each preset runs through 6 to 8 effects. It was a good thing that I did that because I learned a little about sound design.

In the demo's that you just metioned, try disecting the sound to see exactly why it sounds the way it does. I'm not trying to stop you from buying them if you want, I'm just trying to make a point.

[Michael Hatsis]

To each his own.

But here is something that I learned a while ago about presets. Presets sell. If one were to go to a music store and sit down with just about any hardware workstation out there, they would probably be blown away by the sounds. That's because the manufacturers had professonals design the presets. If you were to sit down and actually disect the sounds, you would see that they are drenched in effects.

exactly, and not to diss on ableton's sound designers, but native instruments really spares no expense when choosing sound designers, the presets sound great, but while flipping through them ( ie massive, fm8 ), ill think, now how the hell would anyone be able to fit this into an arrangement.
I teach ableton at a school, and people come to me and they're all, "oh FM8, i gotta get this thing, it sounds so great". Ill mention that they already own a very capable FM synth in Operator. Ill turn off the effects for the sounds in fm8, they don't quite sound that good at all.

[Tone Deft]

^ it really has been Track Team, Cov Ops and Puremagnetik that make the quality patches for Live. the best Abelton presets are on par with the worst those crews put out.

one motivator for me to stay upgraded to is keep up with what those guys put out. this includes the APC, Launch Pad and soon max4Live.

can't wait for max4Live, it should breathe some new life into this forum it's gotten pretty retarded lately.

[beats me]

I've heard the "drenched in effects" argument many times and I really don't get it. If it sounds great then who gives a shit? It's like some people want to take a shitty sound and attempt to make it sound great while others, for reasons I don't quite understand, want to take a great sound and reverse engineer it to sound like shit.

Most hot chicks are drenched in effects but most don't seem to mind if the end result floats your boat.

[jer_mcclain]

i have seen this type of fishing time and again on the site, and truthfully have been guilty of it myself at times. if you are looking for someone to tell you that the instruments are good or bad, you will get a mixed bag of answers. if you don't like the instruments, and 15 people do, does that change your opinion? if it does change your opinion, i would be interested in the reasons that you opinion has changed.

I see... I asked because I gave Live instruments a try several times, and all the time it was obvious for me that they are the 2-nd league members, not the 1-st class. I did not made an extensive search in the forum just shared my opinion and was curious what others think.

If you want to instantiate a plugin that has vast numbers of presets and instantly sits in a mix, the live instruments may not be for you. Don't take that comment as being insulting, lots of people prefer to use presets and integrated fx and spend the bulk of their time on composition. However, Live IS the instrument, Analog, Operator, etc. are blocks of DSP inside the larger instrument THAT IS LIVE. this is a different concept to the traditional DAW, and i think people forget that sometimes. there is an interesting vid from Robert Henke on Youtube here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTpRoXlpGXU
the video demonstrates the idea of simplicity from one who was/is actively involved in the development. if you expect Analog to be like NI Massive or whatever, you are going to be let down.

[jer_mcclain]

Most hot chicks are drenched in effects but most don't seem to mind if the end result floats your boat

lol, that made the thread worth reading

[Tone Deft]

Most hot chicks are drenched in effects but most don't seem to mind if the end result floats your boat.

that analogy plays quite well.

I prefer my synths and chick to sound/look natural. the fake titty, tons of makeup, bleached hair look turns me off.

I brought it up because mcphable wrote

"I just can't get my head around the idea of why one would want to have to run Operator through another Live instrument or two AND THEN through a collection of FX just to get **close** to what the above demo software offers in a single instance of the plugin."
to each their own, just talking about phun stuff.


mcphable - definitely take a look at Sylenth, I bought it over Xmas last year and absolutely love it.

[Michael Hatsis]

@Beats
no, what i mean by the drenched in effects thing is that people will compare an operator sound to an fm8 sound with lots of effects. I mean it as that it's not a fair comparison. like your analogy, is it fair to compare a chick all shined up and effected to a girl who just woke up? Not really, But im sure some would prefer the latter.

[Sage]

The Live stuff doesn't stop me from making music and I can usually get roughly what I want from them. I used to have loads of plugins but only use Live's ones now.

I actually don't mind the GUIs overall, can't be dealing with fake knobs and faders, just makes me wish I was using hardware instead!

There are probably better synths out there, but think of it this way, guitar equipment today is far superior overall to what it was in the 60's, yet people like Hendrix still made better music with it than what is made today.

[disco judas]

Don't want to offend anyone, I love Ableton Live in general, but I found the sound quality of Live Instruments awful in the mix, compared to NI, Arturia or Korg VST's. They are cool integrated, nice gui, sure one can make excellent music with them, but anyway... Same as with Reason - great software, for learning the stuff, but when just exclusive that software - it sound so toyish, even with high programming/sound design skills. Is not it obvious, anyone agree? Same with some effects. Reverb - it is so big compromise to use it... Though they are CPU very friendly...

I would like a sharper more detailed and colorful looking alternative ui