Ableton Forum

Hi to everyone on the board.
I have been looking for some software to use to play live with. I have been considering using ableton and downloaded the demo. From reading the forum here and my initial playing around, it reads and sounds great. Playing around with ableton has been fun, but having tried to remix an existing live track, I only ended up reverting to my old sequencing programme. The inability to nudge and shuffle and the navigation became somewhat tiresome. Off course I'm well aware this is only a barrier I have to break through and only time will allow me that, but none the less ableton in my first hand experience I found to be somewhat tiresome.

Any how having remixed my track and bounced out all my elements into stems I loaded them into the ableton demo and convinced the rest of the band this is the way forward.

I loaded all the tracks into a scene on the sessions page and my intention was just to press play to see how it sounded and how well it faired with regards the current software we used.

It played for about 2minutes and then crashed. The rest of the band just looked at me, any how we tried it again and yet again it crashed.

so we've abandoned the idea. Primarily because of the crashing but also it sounded muddy in comparison to the other software we use. which having crashed the second time we rebooted the machine and loaded up our other software and played the song, instantaneously we could tell the difference.

off course I questioned this because I still believe in Ableton and checked out to see if there were any effects going on. which there weren't. what I cannot understand is we bounced out the sound from our other software and imported it directly into ableton and played it and yet it ended up sounding awful.

Okay so I need yours or anyone else's help

Firstly I am considering using ableton because currently we use pro tools and that means unless we get a digirack we're restricted to an mbox which means two outputs and no midi control. which is our current predicament.

I'm thinking about getting an m audio 1814 firewire interface to replace the mbox, hence in conjunction with ableton, i have a setup or do I.

my setup is as follows:

1 ghz powerbook
osx 10.3.4 (panther)
1 g ram
ableton software loaded onto hardrive.
audio files loaded onto sperate 7200 rpm lacie harddrive
1 x usb midi sport
1 x digidesign m box.

please give me the support I need.
thankyou.

About the Live 4 beta: This beta test enables people to test Live 4 on
their systems and to report any possible compatibility problems. Since
it is the nature of beta software to be less stable than the official or
"real" version, testers may encounter bugs or even a crash while testing
their unique system and set of plug-ins. Please help Ableton and other
Live users by sending us your remarks via the Beta Forum or to
[email protected]. Please include all relevant information, such as
computer specs, operating system, version of Live and any third party
plug-ins in use at the time of the bug. Ableton thanks you in advance
for your time and hopes you enjoy making music with Live 4.

If only that was the case.
I was using the ableton 3.04 demo version that you download off the website.

if it was the beta version you could expect that but this is a tried and tested version.

oops not trying to confuse any one, metso is my real name and rollerboy is my username, in case your wondering about why metso is replying to roller boy's original question.

if ya don't like it..don't use it..
easy as that
Many hear love it..including me
Sorry to hear you had a problem..For me, it is the most stable sofware I have on my Mac, next to Reason..

Also, the best thing that has happened in music seq software for me

Were you enableing any warp markers ? Thats the only obvious thing which could impact the quality of the ported tracks ?

More info on what was involved in that session might be helpful to allow us to sus anything out i.e. how may tracks, plugins used etc etc.

Hi,

Yep, there's been several discussions on the board about Live's Sound quality VS Acid VS Cubase VS Fruity Loops etc...and they all seem to amount to the same thing...that when the audio files are left intact with no warping and default quality settings set to high - the audio quality is the same binary bit by binary bit....

I'm not just saying this because I use Live...I've also used Cubase, Logic and downloaded the demo of Acid and compared the output between these softwares and found no difference

Things to look out for would be make sure default quality is set to 'High', and that no audio is set to Warp or Loop, and that the tempo is the same.

All the best!

David

PS

As a sideline I find it strange how I like the 'sound' my tunes get when there compressed to 32kbps and made into Real Player files...I think the compression method from Wav (4411kbps) to .ram (32kbps) introduces a really nice warm feel, where as really a .ram file should sound thin and sparse but it just doesnt..its really weird, there must be some underlying psychoacoustic thing going in there...anyone else experienced this?? or is it just me

You might want to demo again once Live 4 has been out a few months and has settled into its groove. Remember, what you've been testing is a version that's about to be superseded. :-)

I hope you find the best tool for your way of working, whatever that is.

Best regards,

Meffy

thankyou to everyone who has replied
indeed with some good suggestions, I will give it another go and i'll check that my samples are on high quality. and that no warp markers are set.
all the best
metso

you are using an mbox for your interface, correct?
have you tried using your on-board sound card?
i used to own an mbox and had lots of issues with it..
maybe there's a conflict....
it's worth a try
peace

hi
yes i'm currently using an m box but intend to upgrade to a m audio 1814 interface giving 8 physical outs

As a sideline I find it strange how I like the 'sound' my tunes get when there compressed to 32kbps and made into Real Player files...I think the compression method from Wav (4411kbps) to .ram (32kbps) introduces a really nice warm feel, where as really a .ram file should sound thin and sparse but it just doesnt..its really weird, there must be some underlying psychoacoustic thing going in there...anyone else experienced this?? or is it just me

I thought it was just me!

Use it as a production trick

Anonymous wrote:hi
yes i'm currently using an m box but intend to upgrade to a m audio 1814 interface giving 8 physical outs

Off topic but roller boy, if that's you quoted above, this could be useful to you.

Live Delta might be packed in the box with the 1814. It came with my M-Audio Firewire 410, but that's not as "pro-level" (expensive, heh) as the 1814 so yours might not have the same software package. Couldn't find info on this on the M-Audio website. Maybe an 1814 owner here knows?

If you do get Live Delta, it's not just a "lite" version, it's also like a coupon for $100 off street, $200 off list -- the upgrade to Live 3 saved that much compared to buying it outright. Not bad for a CD I almost threw out. =8-O

Meffy

Hi Roller Boy,

Just checking that the Live song you are playing your stems in is the exact same tempo as the files were originally recorded at?

If not, this would mean that all the tracks ARE being warped slightly [even though you have not set any warp markers] as Live will be "forcing" the files to the song tempo and you would be hearing artifacts.

This is where the choice of different warp algorithms really come into their own. Beats/Tones/Texture/Repitch. For example a bassline slightly timestretched with the Beats algorithm might well sound unuseably lumpy, but on switching it to the Tones algorithm its completely fine.

Also, If the rendered stems you brought in were not an even number of bars (ie just ended arbitrarily as your last reverb died away etc) Live will be taking its informed but "best guess" approach to their length.

The result of this is: If the stems were 200 bars 3 beats and 1 16th in length at their rendered tempo, Live will take its best guess and assume the stems were 200 bars long and will warp them accordingly. A whole song of multitracked stems all warped slightly at the default Beats setting can sound a bit sick.

If the stems were originally rendered at, say, 132 bpm but an odd number of bars/beats you can tell Live their original tempo by typing in the original tempo in the Orig BPM box in the sample display.

Sorry if this is a little long winded and a bit confusing, Its one of those hard things to get across in print. If I was there in your studio, I'm sure I could tweak a couple of settings and say "see it does work..."

Best Wishes
paddy

Personally I think the MBox is a bad choice to use with a band. USB audio devices have too much latency and if you try to lower it you can crash too easily. USB audio is tabu to me!

Either the Echo Indigo PCMCIA or a firewire interface is the best way to go.