Ableton Forum

Love ableton for a ton of reasons:

love the creative efx (beat repeat, grain delay)
love session view
love warping
love resampling
love being able to use it live
love racks / 8 macros

Because I drank a shitload of koolaid

(kidding)

Actually what really made it my DAW of choice was how well otherwise-difficult concepts were presented to me. Juxtaposing things in session view clips is a snap, finding parameters to tweak is pretty straightforward, and the menu-diving never goes very deep. Things like warping or resmpling have this fantastic visual presentation that I really like.

That, and lots of things are stored by reference, so you can have lots of "versions" of something like a sample, but with different, evolving effect settings via unlinked clip envelopes.

It mostly matches how I like to think about this kind of production, and for now at least it's the best-suited general purpose tool for me I've yet found.

EDIT: that said, when something IS missing that I think should be there (augh bezier automations why why why) it stands out that much more. No tool is perfect

Racks !!!

- Session View

- Clip Envelopes

- Racks

- Warping so effective I usually don't even have to think about it (like when dropping in loops or changing tempo)

- Drum Racks in particular

- the Left to Right, visible signal-chain layout for devices and FX (rather than little titles on a mixer strip opened separately, like every other DAW)

- the browser (try doing lots of drag-n-dropping from Cubase's mediabay...ugh)

- clicking on anything changes to that thing's automation lane in the track

- locked, non-overlapping window areas

- you can copy and paste anything, including VST plugins and chains. didn't realize how great this is until I tried working elsewhere again...

- the native FX plugins are good, creative and fun



-M

Addiction has little to do with Love.

_1. Session View (and recording to Arrange from Session View)
_2. Drum racks (Effect and Instrument are nice too, but Drum Racks are my favorite)
_3. Being able to write drums with my QWERTY keyboard only.(duplicate + [shift] arrow keys)
_4. File Manager + Browser (being able to drag channels/patterns from other projects)
_5. A never ending plethora of tricks you can do
_6. Warping audio
_7. Being generally lite-weight enough that my crappy laptop can run it

Its pretty easy to get hands on, its versatile, and flexible, and versatile. Did I mention the flexibility?

plus the drum kits, session view, all the things you can do with it, that includes all the crazy things I've heard other people do with it like running fire breathing dragons, ooh and the pretty colours and that god gives me nice dreams when I use it

I first loved that I could produce with ease after using FL3 for YEARS. Small learning curve for me. Then I fell in love with the session view, as a sketchpad. Then drum racks and using my Maschine as either a VST or a generic controller for the amazing drumracks. Then the APC40 sitting next to the maschine and playing live shows [for my biggest fans, my 3 year old twins]. Then the routing making a unique and cool way to DJ. People love to give Ableton a hard time [which is fine, to each their own], but me? Well, I love the ever living shit outta live. Oh, and this forum is the best Ive seen for any DAW or really anything else for that matter.

The interface.

Honest reason I love Ableton is the ease and simplicity of the piano roll. I came from Digital Performer which has some amazing midi editing ability but it was very noisy. By noisy I mean there is a plethora of features and it was a bit overwhelming at times.

Simple things like the "fold" feature. It makes editing a drum track using a plugin like Superior Drummer 2 very easy to program. Other little things like push the key on the side of the piano roll and it highlights all of that note.

Of course I love the instruments and effects.

Session View

Yeah, I'm finally getting a handle on session view and I think it's going to completely change the way that I record. Even as a vocalist, cutting vocals is so much easier. I usually tend to flesh out the production before I'm ready to lay down vocals. If I'm doing this in arrangement view, oftentimes it means once it's time to sing I have to mute a bunch of tracks / lower a bunch of levels just so I can hear myself. In session view this isn't an issue.

Arrangement view is awesome, too, for its own reasons. But from now on I think I'll find myself starting with it less, and flipping over to it more when I'm ready to begin the final stages of the process.

I love that Live is both user-friendly and astonishingly intricate!

c33 wrote:

Session View

Yeah, I'm finally getting a handle on session view and I think it's going to completely change the way that I record. Even as a vocalist, cutting vocals is so much easier. I usually tend to flesh out the production before I'm ready to lay down vocals. If I'm doing this in arrangement view, oftentimes it means once it's time to sing I have to mute a bunch of tracks / lower a bunch of levels just so I can hear myself. In session view this isn't an issue.

Arrangement view is awesome, too, for its own reasons. But from now on I think I'll find myself starting with it less, and flipping over to it more when I'm ready to begin the final stages of the process.

I love that Live is both user-friendly and astonishingly intricate!

When I first tried Ableton Live, I didn't like it because it seemed to lack basic features that i was used to in Cubase or FL Studio (piano roll / midi editing stuff). I remember complaining to the guy who told me about Live about those features and he told me i'm not thinking of it right. It's not about drawing, it's about performing.

So I turned the monitor off, and PLAYED things. Completely changed my view. Ableton Live is an instrument you can also use as a DAW. That's just totally new thinking to many people used to other things.

Session View FTW!!

Session view
Warping
Macros
Scenes
Routing
etc
etc

It's way too easy to use

...that you can do anything you can imagine

putting a full sampler inside a drum rack!

simpler sampled wobbler!

OPERATOR!

recording a live bounce from session to arrangement!

i dream of the gui

on and on and on ..........

I have over 250 songs in my project file. I gig with it every week (2 -5 gigs) without a problem. It's the only program that will do what I need.