Ableton Forum

Live's piano roll is OK but is not as strong as in some other products IMHO. The clip envelopes and racks/drum racks are something special though as far as I'm concerned (along with Session view obviously).

Live is still awesome software however. There are still reasons to use other apps though if you have them and run Live as rewire or export audio or MIDI tracks and finish up in other DAWS, if you have an alternative and prefer it.

I guess it depends what you want from a piano roll - I want speed and simplicity. I'm more audio-focussed, and I usually resample all my synth sounds early on. I like seeing my waveforms. So for me, Live's piano roll is perfect.

I think I prefer Reaper as a pure audio mixing and editing environment, but in terms creativity, it just has to be Live.

Pitch Black wrote:

That's great. It left me speech less.

I agree with you. I use Cubase 5 at home for much of my mixing and audio editing, after rendering out all audio files from Live - it has better and easier audio editing, better dual monitor support so I can run an arrangement page on one screen and a mixer page on the second monitor, and a better mixer GUI. Also, sometimes I render out a midi file from Live if I want more automation control, such as bezier curves etc which Cubase provides. Also for my more alternative/rock project which is vocal heavy, having a top convolution reverb and Variaudio (melodyne style pitch correction) are attractions for mixing in Cubase. For my instrumental electronic music project, I tend to mostly use Live for everything.

Live is my inspiration and the tool I use for all my composition and arrangement and that won't change much (I also just got into Renoise which compliments Live well in this regard too). If you try building up a song from scratch on a default blank arrange page as presented in Logic, Cubase, Reaper, ProTools, Sonar, DP etc, it's one of the coldest and least inspirational things ever and it takes me 2-3 times longer to make a track that way as opposed to jamming in Session view. Cubase has a non linear option called 'Play Order' which allows you to lay down sections at a time and restructure/reorder it but it's nowhere near as cool as using Live's Session View.

leedsquietman wrote:I agree with you. I use Cubase 5 at home for much of my mixing and audio editing, after rendering out all audio files from Live - it has better and easier audio editing, better dual monitor support so I can run an arrangement page on one screen and a mixer page on the second monitor, and a better mixer GUI. Also, sometimes I render out a midi file from Live if I want more automation control, such as bezier curves etc which Cubase provides. Also for my more alternative/rock project which is vocal heavy, having a top convolution reverb and Variaudio (melodyne style pitch correction) are attractions for mixing in Cubase. For my instrumental electronic music project, I tend to mostly use Live for everything.

Live is my inspiration and the tool I use for all my composition and arrangement and that won't change much (I also just got into Renoise which compliments Live well in this regard too). If you try building up a song from scratch on a default blank arrange page as presented in Logic, Cubase, Reaper, ProTools, Sonar, DP etc, it's one of the coldest and least inspirational things ever and it takes me 2-3 times longer to make a track that way as opposed to jamming in Session view. Cubase has a non linear option called 'Play Order' which allows you to lay down sections at a time and restructure/reorder it but it's nowhere near as cool as using Live's Session View.

+1 Completeness of MIDI editing lives elsewhere.
However since I use Live I understood that I do not need all that complex capabilities anymore.
Sure having some Macros to clean up a MIDI Clip like my Roland JW50 internal sequencer does would be fine. Things like take all C notes and make them 119 velocity is something that could be built in a Rack but not as a right click command. Roland JW50, Jurassic as it can be sports all of these goodies... but the question is do we really need it? When I see Live clean GUI I feel like I can dismiss the tecno-mask I use 8h a day @ work and began being a Musician, again.. and this happens every time.

3phase wrote:

squelcht wrote:Abletons sequencer/piano roll editor is bar none the best around. I just had a heavy dose of Logic 9 over the holidays working with a good friend---And FUCK was it pissing me off. Love lots of other goodies within it, but the hell with sequence editing inside of it. It was like coming home to a warm fire with a bottle of brandy and a pot of vege' stew once I finally got to get back to the Abe' flow of things. It just makes sense.

this makes me curious.. do i miss some important hidden functions here? because for me the pianoroll editor in live is rather rudimentry and missing a lot of functions like overlap correction or elimination of doubled notes or showing exact event positions... all the keycommands



what is it you especially like in the ableton editor ? maybe i underestimate it?

Theres just something more fluid about Lives sequencer. Many other DAW's editors seems too much---Were not a robot, we are human---You don't really need rocket science sequencing abilities---I for one prefer leaving room for some error & limitation. But hey, to each his own right? Live has been improving their editor better & better thru the years. It might not be long before Logic users can call it ace when in comparison

If only my tracks could sound as good as when their produced in Logic...because we all know Live makes our tracks sound like shat

Pasha wrote:
+1 Completeness of MIDI editing lives elsewhere..... Things like take all C notes and make them 119 velocity is something that could be built in a Rack but not as a right click command....

MaxForLive + Python API?







oops - wrong login...

leedsquietman wrote:I agree with you. I use Cubase 5 at home for much of my mixing and audio editing, after rendering out all audio files from Live - it has better and easier audio editing, better dual monitor support so I can run an arrangement page on one screen and a mixer page on the second monitor, and a better mixer GUI. Also, sometimes I render out a midi file from Live if I want more automation control, such as bezier curves etc which Cubase provides. Also for my more alternative/rock project which is vocal heavy, having a top convolution reverb and Variaudio (melodyne style pitch correction) are attractions for mixing in Cubase. For my instrumental electronic music project, I tend to mostly use Live for everything.

Live is my inspiration and the tool I use for all my composition and arrangement and that won't change much (I also just got into Renoise which compliments Live well in this regard too). If you try building up a song from scratch on a default blank arrange page as presented in Logic, Cubase, Reaper, ProTools, Sonar, DP etc, it's one of the coldest and least inspirational things ever and it takes me 2-3 times longer to make a track that way as opposed to jamming in Session view. Cubase has a non linear option called 'Play Order' which allows you to lay down sections at a time and restructure/reorder it but it's nowhere near as cool as using Live's Session View.

This. But I'm using Logic rather than Cubase.

Live's piano rolling might be lacking in comparison to others, but it's quicker to use, definitely is compared to Logic.

Pitch Black wrote:

big one, we want wallpapers

actually, even bigger, we want printout wallpapers

squelcht wrote: Live has been improving their editor better & better thru the years. It might not be long before Logic users can call it ace when in comparison

I just found a new key commands that add a main feature i missed..dont know how long its inside.. the abilty to stretch time in the midi domain... rather important in an elastic audio sequencer... since when this is implemented?

but good thats there... overlap corection is still missing... i also always loved the fetures of my former main midi editor in opcode studiovison..which looked by the way very similar to abletons one... there you had a popup that modified the selected controler values...aplying a sine curve for example... so you was able to do lfo like modulations... or envelope like shapes over a few bars...

3phase wrote:

squelcht wrote: Live has been improving their editor better & better thru the years. It might not be long before Logic users can call it ace when in comparison

I just found a new key commands that add a main feature i missed..dont know how long its inside.. the abilty to stretch time in the midi domain... rather important in an elastic audio sequencer... since when this is implemented?

but good thats there... overlap corection is still missing... i also always loved the fetures of my former main midi editor in opcode studiovison..which looked by the way very similar to abletons one... there you had a popup that modified the selected controler values...aplying a sine curve for example... so you was able to do lfo like modulations... or envelope like shapes over a few bars...

Share the commands... please...

davepermen wrote:

Pitch Black wrote:

big one, we want wallpapers

YES PLEASE!

1600 x 1024!

necho wrote:

davepermen wrote:

Pitch Black wrote:

big one, we want wallpapers

YES PLEASE!

1600 x 1024!

1920 x 1200!

and more, for prints yes, i would hang it on my wall, yes i would, yes i would

davepermen wrote: 1920 x 1200!

It's what you do with it that counts.....

necho wrote:

davepermen wrote: 1920 x 1200!

It's what you do with it that counts.....

i would use it as a wallpaper..