Ableton Forum

Every time I think I've found something that Cubase can do that Live can't I just read the manual a little more and figure out it's possible in Live.

The difference between Cubase and Live for me:
I go to the Cubase forums to find out how to make Cubase work.
I got to the Live forums so see what others are doing with it so I can learn more about a program that already works. And works well.

Anubis wrote:Working with Cubase, Logic, Sonar, whatever...is like being limited to the Arrange view in Live. It's the Session view and the creative possibilities that it opens up which sets Live apart from everything else.

Personally, I spend about three minutes in session view but days and weeks in arrange view.

It's in the arrange view that you take the original idea, which can be a jam session or a simple loop or whatever, and turn it into a track that has focus and will stand up to repeated listening.

I have a strong mistrust of tracks that break the five minute barrier - only rarely is it done successfully. Long jam sessions can be a lot of fun for those involved (quite often more fun than the nitpicking!), but most of the time I find that 90% of what gets played is more or less worthless, and I want to chop that out and spend as much energy I can to make all the good things stand out, and in Live, the only place to do that is the arrange view.

My three minute "dysfunctional pop" songs will be cut together from hours of recording, usually, and the basic structure might be improvised using the session view - but I'd never be able to finish my tracks without slightly silly amounts of automation and bar:beat editing in the Arrange view.

That being said... Cubase is a bit shit though, isn't it?

-Paws

I have sx2 sitting on my mac and i haven used it fro a year now.Before that i was trying to run Sx1 with much difficulty crashes etc etc and relying heavily on Live 2 and 3 as my compostional and arrangment tool.

Cubase doesnt work for me anymore - maybe it will again - but i like to keep it simple and with live i can do anything i need easily.
So no i wont be switching or wasting anymore of my tim,e trying to work out why my system while running Sx likes to crash. Not my job !

Not my Job with Sx2
Not my Job with Sx1
Not my Job with VST32 5.1
Not my Job with VST32 5.0
Not my Job with VST32 4.8

etc etc etc ( just ridding myself of some very old frustrations)

louZ wrote:SX has all those devices fighting for screen space... yug
and then when you've minimized something you can move 5 windows and try 3 scroll bars, before you find it again.
nope, the layout alone is reason enough to choose Live.

Yep that's the hideous thing about most uber-sequencers. So cluttered. I prefer the benign dictatorship approach of Live. ie, "this window's gonna go here and you're gonna like it" as opposed to Cubase's method of "hey look at all these windows, you can put them on top of each other in whichever order you like and make a jumbled shitty mess" And having the transport bar floating over the top of the arrangement is so not feng shui.

Moonburnt wrote: And having the transport bar floating over the top of the arrangement is so not feng shui.

i wouldn't mind having hotkeys for live view arrangements, tho, like one with a maximized piano roll, one with all mixer routing hidden, etc.

Moonburnt wrote:I prefer the benign dictatorship approach of Live. ie, "this window's gonna go here and you're gonna like it"

Ha - yeah, me too. Those windows in Cubase are such a mess, but often you don't even realise design problems like that until you experience a different way of doing things. I remember when the floating transport bar was first added to Cubase, I thought it was a nice feature. I love being able to just tab between two windows in Live to do everything (although personally I'd like a third window just containing a mixer page with EQ on every channel, detailed metering etc.).

Having worked with Live continuously now for 4 months (after 12 years of Cubase), I can see a few minor things I'd like to change, but in general, it continues to have a huge advantage in it's user interface and general design. People who only use Live occasionally mostly seem to think of it as warping software, whereas that's such a minor part of what makes it so special. It's real strength is that the interface is so well-designed; you can get so much done so much faster. The only thing I'd criticise is what someone else mentioned: having to zoom to quantize - I'd like to see that changed.

Back to Cubase though? Absolutely no way, life's way too good over here!

Steinberg....sigh. SX3 made my 1.5GHz PowerBook from late June feel like a 3 year old comp. The GUI is severely nonresponsive so working with warp is pretty much out of the question. And no to mention the support: on the forum 50% calls you a moron, 50% say you are mishandling the app, and the staff is typically nowhere to be seen. The latest progress makes me hope Yamaha will shut it down. Sad, since I used Steinberg since Atari in -89.

I have a dear friend (TonyB) with whom I have close contact and we discuss at length what I consider the great good fortune that Steinberg has been acquired by Yamaha. Big they are, but they have always been strong on their engineering and architecture . . . and what with that Nick Howes in there . . . . I feel they will make "the Pinnacle Period" look like a bad hair day. SX3 certainly seems to be the most rock-solid of the releases.

. . . I wonder which of the Ableton Live releases will the most rock-solid ?

Thanks,
GDR

Glennzone wrote: . . . I wonder which of the Ableton Live releases will the most rock-solid ?

the one with true dual cpu audio engine support and altivec instruction

majestic wrote:People who only use Live occasionally mostly seem to think of it as warping software, whereas that's such a minor part of what makes it so special.

I first came to Live because of the warp features, but now I mostly work in midi and still find the workflow much better than anything else I've tried in most ways.

And I also mostly work in arrange view, and just use session view to organize midi and audio clips that I plan to bring in to arrange. Session view is great for making a 2-4 bar midi clip, then modifying it into several phrases and keeping it all organized. You can easily see how the clips will mesh with the rest of your composition.

The worst thing I think I hear about Live is from people who think it is just a DJ tool. I know it gets marketed that way, but it has nearly every basic thing that any other DAW has.

I personally think the great thing about Live is that its both a production tool AND a DJ app. I use it for everything now from making tracks at home to taking it out and DJing.

To be able to set up a single app to do so many different things and have it ACTUALLY WORK at all of these is light years from anythign else I;ve seen

i ditched SX for Live just because i wanted one app for both purposes.

I use live for the 'creative' process (especially for my more 'dance' oriented stuff). Putting the track together so that it's
90% done and then import al the parts into cubase for the final Mix.

Once the song is complete in its 'arrange' format, Cubase SX leaves live standing for navigation, folder tracks, midi implementation, automation etc.

I still can't believe Live has no 'marker' track to quickly jump to verse, chorus etc. I also wish Albeton would implement a option to go straight to the most recent files insterad of having to navigate to the folder a small but very, very annoying issue.

Also the processor usage is a lot less in Cubase so it free's up resource for more hungry plug ins etc (although this is not so great with SX3).

Both programs compliment each other. But I have been using Cubase for a long time. Not sure I would bother with it if I was starting out and had Live.

Live has increased my workflow 'significantly'.