Ableton Forum

forget about software:

i use this...its much better.

wildcon,

i definitely agree with your criticisms - i miss using the numeric pad for quick navigation, and having a list of recent documents would be extremely helpful. and the cpu usage isn't all that, but they'll improve it as they have before.

i would consider your method of composing in Live & mixing in SX, except that was the precise reason i ditched ... Reason. i would take tracks and replace almost every sound (except for Redrum and the occasional Malstrom patch) with vsti. i hate doing the work twice, so for now i'm bouncing a lot of stuff in Live. that i don't mind doing since i'm amassing a nice collection of loops to use for sets.

i figure for every little negative Live has, we can come up with a bad-ass positive that nothing else has. i'm still pretty amazed at what they've managed to do in a few short years.

wildcon wrote: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'.

I do exeactly the same as you... although I sometimes mix a track in Live but because of PDC issue I still use SX for mixing.. + I find that a lot of the time, once I port a track over to SX I start adding more things to it as well..

I havent written the bulk of a track in SX since I got live though.. + im making music quicker & its more enjoyable..

Ive been thinking about upgrading from SX1 to 3.. but im sure how much extra CPU it will eat up..

[.]

i used to use cubaseSX to create all of my loops, then i would use live to put them together- since live's integration of midi, i havn't had the urge or need to open up cubase at all.

cubase is a great program, and addmitedly can do many things live can't, so it all comes down to the needs of the individual producer. for repetitive electronic music, live is much more efficient. the only cubase feature i miss is the built in analog-style squencer with randomize.

i forgot to mention - i liked Tonic a LOT. i would maim to be able to use it in Live.

I only started using Cubase SX2.xx recently after watching all the horror stories from when it came out first.
I was using VST5.1 as I was able to do everything i wanted to in it.

Then i started using live and thought it was great, but for me the arrangement window still doesn't have the flexibilty of a traditional sequencer.

I am really impressed wtih SX2.xx. It is stable, not too heavy on resources and is very intuitive.

People so far have talked about screen clutter - managing screen layouts is so simple. You just save screen layout and then use ALT-$keypad_number to call up that screen layout.
If you make a change to the screen layout, you simply do ALT-0 to 'recapture' that screen layout.

Like anything else, you get what you put into the program. And i find with only about 2 weeks in working in SX2 i love it already.

I use Live alongside SX as a composing tool. my desktop isn't powerful enough to run Live rewired into SX but that is where i want to be.

Right now i have my laptop with live midi synced up to my desktop and if i want to share files, i have a shared folder between the two. I warp audio in live, bounce down to the shared folder and then sequence it in SX.

I just find i can handle audio better in SX and individual samples effects etc etc.

I do believe though that i can get more out of the arrangement page in Live as i don't know it half as well as the session view. So maybe in few weeks my opinion will change.

But as already said here, its all about what works for you. Find a way, stick to it, get really fast at it and just make music!

Cache

Spacerboy wrote:forget about software:

i use this...its much better.

For some things it would be...

I'm using DP much like one these days. The International Church of Mensa Dance can say what it likes, it makes so much more sense for me to work like this. My tracks go from A to B so I like my sequencer to do the same..!

Live's time stretching is still rather nice cos you can make it sound so dodgy... DP's is perfect. Since when do you want perfect timestretching?!

-Paws

I ran screaing from Cubase SL 1.06 into the open arms of Live 4. The interface is great. The EQ is *really* great. The effects and devices are great. reWiring is terrific.

But..there are several things that led me to buy SX3 (part of which was the competitive upgrade price.) My 2 biggest beefs with Live 4:

1) (The kicker): There is just no comfortable way for me to do large (i.e. many-tracked) songs in Live 4. The track management is just not there. Subgrouping is a virtual impossibility the way the solo/mute system is implemented (though the routing is *dynamite*). The horizontal scolling of the clip view becomes a full time job and in both the clip view and the arrange view there is no nesting.

2) I just cannot get with the play marker positioning, start/end point setting, and grid/quantize sizing implementation. It has always felt "non-standard" to me, and that's a feel thing that is there with you every second.

I love Live for what it can do in terms of creating music, and I'll grant you that I am not a live performer and that I have very little use for the clip view composing paradigm. I realize that I have been asking Live to be something that it's not, whcih is a more audio editor Cubasey thing. But, at the same time, that's obviously where Ableton was heading with 4--more full DAW functionality.

For selfish reasons I wish that my two workflow issues would either get changed or added to. This could happen by having a user-defined set of keyboard prefs (in the case of navigation and play marker behavior) and some very minor feature additions in terms of subgroup nesting and solo/mute latching. The quantize and grid issues just seem to me like an unnecessary complication of a very simple concept: Keep the scaling and quantize level completely separate. (It's possible that I have missed a little something here or ther in this zoom/quantize issue, so feel free to hip me out to something if I've somehow missied it thus far.)

Over and out.

.nick

yeah live 4 sux for bigass projects.

I dropped using SX when I got pro tools LE, but I am limited to 32 voices and thats almost as hindering as live even though I just use it for arranging and pre mixing.

Goddamn, I know that music software and hardware has always been one step behind the heavy duty users of their times, but it's more disappointing now because all the different apps have the right parts, just need someone to combine the best parts into a nice streamlined great application. DAW Remix!

It seems stupid for me to even consider now building elements in Live4, then arranging in SX and mixing down in Pro Tools!

SJ_

I feel your pain. I have had the same thought, well, pretty much every night when I go into a DAW--it's all there in the app-o-sphere, but they're all separated by company, philosophy, platform, or format.

We need a Grand Unified DAW. GUDAW! For a reasonable price, that's CPU efficient, that's user friendly, that sounds good, that' fun...

Obviously none of those can all be on, 100% all the time. Sacrifices are made to benefit the developers' plan, and it becomes obvious that all of those issues get sperad over 10 different products.

It was a beautiful dream, though.

RIP, GUDAW.

.nick

I'm not running this app right now but it looks too me like Sonar has everything folks want, best rewire implementation (if needed), audio syncing, audio slicing, beatmapping, excellent stretching, best freezing implementation, folder tracks, and individual track export... the only thing it doesn't have is the session view of Live, have any of you tried it

::mic-minimal:: wrote:I'm not running this app right now but it looks too me like Sonar has everything folks want, best rewire implementation (if needed), audio syncing, audio slicing, beatmapping, excellent stretching, best freezing implementation, folder tracks, and individual track export... the only thing it doesn't have is the session view of Live, have any of you tried it

Tried it. Only thing is Live is so much easier to deal with for nearly everything IMO.

Cubase sx 3 has more bugs as live 4 has features:)

millionVALVE wrote:SJ_

RIP, GUDAW.

.nick

I want GUDAW.

As for the post saying SX has as many bugs as Live has features. Cubase spares the CPU as much as Live rapes it.