Ableton Forum

pottering wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 17, 2018 6:07 pm

Live is non-destructive, it doesn't do destructive editing.

Only editing with external editor, which you can specify in the File/Folder Preferences:

https://www.ableton.com/en/manual/clip- ... le-editing


Personally I don't even get why people want destructive editing, I don't see any advantage in destroying the source and always save edits in new files (not only for audio, for gfx work, etc.), and Live does that automatically already.

Freeze/Flatten is Ableton's version of destructive editing.

Resampling/recording the track is another option but Freeze/Flatten is probably the fastest.

Resampling, Consolidate, Freeze, Flatten and Crop are not destructive editing, they create a entirely new file in the project folder, the original file stays untouched.

Destructive editing literally destroys (overwrites) the original file (with a new one).

Hello,
when I edit an audio sample in live to modify it in audacity and then I import it to ableton live, I have a problem, my sample is defective because when listening it looks like I'm listening to a scratched disc ... I thought that it was a problem of format and encoding of the import, I tried to change its format, ect... but It does not change anything ... I understoood that live had tempo functions in the session window, etc ... which could cause the pb ... If someone knows how to solve the problem I'm interested, thank you ...

Thanks for this post, I was a little confused about this coming from Maschine, and now I get it. I'm so used to just editing the sample directly, maybe I'll learn to do this non-destructive thing in Ableton once I get the hang of it.

Anyway, I found a free plugin here https://www.ocenaudio.com/ that so far works as well as TwistedWave.

I also tried Fission, but I wasn't able to save in place (e.g. export only), that may be because I only had the trial, not sure. It's like $30 for Fission, TwistedWave is like $80, so I'm going with ocenaudio and if it works well, will drop a donation

pottering wrote: ↑

Sun Mar 31, 2019 7:59 pm

Resampling, Consolidate, Freeze, Flatten and Crop are not destructive editing, they create a entirely new file in the project folder, the original file stays untouched.

Destructive editing literally destroys (overwrites) the original file (with a new one).

I agree with most things you post pottering, but sorry I can't agree with you there. Destructive editing means that you are changing the audio file into something new, but is not based on how that changed audio file is then saved - whether you make and/or use a copy or not is not relevant.

pottering wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 17, 2018 6:07 pm

Live is non-destructive, it doesn't do destructive editing.

Only editing with external editor, which you can specify in the File/Folder Preferences:

https://www.ableton.com/en/manual/clip- ... le-editing


Personally I don't even get why people want destructive editing, I don't see any advantage in destroying the source and always save edits in new files (not only for audio, for gfx work, etc.), and Live does that automatically already.

It is not only about doing stuff in a destructive way, sometimes it is about the way itself. My biggest reason for an external editor is a missing waveform drawing tool like the pencil in ProTools and other Daws, to edit clicks in recordings.

It would be OK if Ableton could do this virtually, this would mean
Live had to store audio copies of that edited segments somewhere in the Metadata, (i don't know if this would be technically practical). In theory we can address some scenarios with volume automation, at least it a substractive way, but when we have not a spike but a few sample short full drop out, a volume automation wouldn't be useful at all, because rising the gain +30 db on a silent part means there is still silence, unlike it would be in a real waveform editing where you can easily fill a gap.
And even if we have to edit a usual spike of maybe 10 db, how would you archive this in a precise way with volume automation? If it is a a stereo file where only one side is affected it gets even more complicate. If we want to do this in a clean way, we always have to do it via trial and error, means to flatten stuff just to see what we have really done to the waveform and undo this if it was too much, not enough, too narrow or to wide, with waveform drawing you will immediately see what you have done. The much faster way is to use Audacity or Pro Tools First as external editor.