Ableton Forum

I don't think they suck - I just wanted to attract the attention of folks who agree, avidly disagree or have other insight into using the instruments well. My original post would have read "Upgrade from Live 7 to Suite 8 or Live 8" That title probably would not attract the audience I hope to hear from. Anybody who is putting on boxing gloves and loading clips to fire at me, settle down-I'm just fishing for info - not trying to start flames. as much as I hate it, my subject heading is not unlike having a scantily clad woman in a commercial that has nothing to do with the woman or being half-naked. So, now that I've hooked you, please sample my thoughts below.
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Ok. Here it is . . .I own Logic Pro 8, Cubase 5, REason 3, Kontakt 3, Battery 3, a Motif +some hardware synths. That covers a lot of synth needs.
Why should I go for the Suite instead of the Live 8 ? I play live acoustic(electric) music, I write jazz, gospel, R&B My primary interest in Live is for ive performance using effects and looping. I alsofind Live to be a great non-linear writing tool. What in Suite 8 is worth it for me?

My experience is that Kontakt covers my need for natural sounding traditional instruments. Live's instruments don't sound as 'real' to me. What instruments ? The rhodes pianos for example. On the other side, Reason's instruments sound good to me on the digital side (though nowhere as good as Linplug's soft symths -the best soft synths to my ears ) and out perform Ableton's synths. It seems Ableton's synth strength is electronica oriented.

Understand, I'm not trying to slam Ableton's sounds - just want you to know how I hear so that you can be of better help to me and anyone who hears as I do. if I didn't already own the synths above, I wouldn't have a question, I'd upgrade to Suite 8 immediately given the near $800.00 reduction in price over purchasing the synths separately.

I'm hoping someone can talk me into buying the suite with great reasons why it might be valuable to me. I haven't listened to every patch in the synth collection, in fact, only three or four patches of 3 or 4 synths but I wasn't so impressed to browse further.

I'm hoping someone will answer who is not a drag and drop "musician" but rather an instrumentalist who composes/samples with DAWs and computer synths. Thanks all. If my post offends you in anyway, feel free to pick up a 'real' instrument and play me under a table. I welcome the music. Otherwise, make a track that is so alive that I can't resist wanting to drag and drop like you. I'm open to that toJust haven't heard it yet(and knew that I was hearing it.)

Again, I think Live is great, I 'sell' live every month to friends and musicians I know. So again to dedicated Abletonites, be at peace, no need to take a shot at me. Shawn Pelton, Kid Beyond, and Praful are doing great things. Hope to hear from anyone else who does the like and finds value in the synths too. Again thanks all, apologies for the bate and switch.

i will fight you in a cage

Let me preface by pledging my undying allegiance to Ableton Live.
There.

I have words:
M-Audio's KeyRig sounds better than Electric.
That is teh all.

Bring on the long knives.

Sound quality is too subjective, so I don't think anyone can talk you into or out of buying the Suite based on how 'good' or 'real' its instruments sound. Your best bet would be to simply download the Demo and try them out for yourself. Stay away from the presets, just drag down the initial plug in and play around with it. See what the parameters do and what range of sounds each instrument can give you, then decide if they're for you or not.

Can you make it sound like Ozzy Osbourne Blizzard of Oz?

It sounds like you may not need Suite, and that's okay. That's why they offer Live 8 and Live 8 Suite.

What I personally find likable about Live's synths are:

- Interface
- Integration
- GUI

For what it's worth I have FM8 and Live 7 Suite, I use them both. FM8 has way more presets and I admittedly use presets regularly, however, Operator has an elegantly simple interface that really makes it enjoyable to craft sounds with, that perfectly blends into the Live workflow. All of the Live synths have this, Analog, Tension, etc - there is something about them that captures the spirit of Live (to me) and my guess is the 3 things I listed above.

While, I think that the Suite is designed to give users all the tools to meet your needs, it is my interpretation that part of Ableton's approach is to give you enough to get you going, but to keep things simple, yet powerful so everyone can customize their own approach, sounds, etc. NOTE: That is my interpretation not some sort of company statement, I am just going with my gut and perceptions.

rbmonosylabik and contakt321- great suggestion regarding presets and my free time I'll spend some time tweaking.

rbmonosylabik wrote:Sound quality is too subjective, so I don't think anyone can talk you into or out of buying the Suite based on how 'good' or 'real' its instruments sound. Your best bet would be to simply download the Demo and try them out for yourself. Stay away from the presets, just drag down the initial plug in and play around with it. See what the parameters do and what range of sounds each instrument can give you, then decide if they're for you or not.

What he said ^^
Forget the presets, and get down to tweaking!

About the sound of the synths: A few of them are built on the AAS synths engine, which sounds really good. Operator is not one of those. But it is a very precise "digital" synth, kinda crispy and dry like a nordlead. Its great for programing fast, and it can cover a lot of ground. The 8 update has some new filters and other additions, it might sound "more" then before.

The real downside of Ableton synths are: - No floating windows. -No midi automation. (vst automation only) -No recording into session. -And if you like to have all the synths parameters on one page, the suite synths rather have a lot of pages that you have to flick through. Especially Operator and Sampler.

Still, I use most of them. Tassman from AAS was a real pain (imho) to use, but it sounded really good. Now the same synth code is accessible through Tension and Collision. Ive wanted this for a long time! Ableton synths in general are good in a live performance situation, because they dont tax the cpu when idle. For the same reason, you can build huge drum racks with loads of synths, without taxing the cpu much at all, unless you press all keys at the same time of course!


And they DONT sound terrible at all, they sound great!

Ableton needs to pay you for "The Spirit of Live"

contakt321 wrote: that captures the spirit of Live (to me)

More marketing - " you too can mix the spirit of life with Ableton Live "

or - "download the spirit of Ableton Live and breathe life into your drag and drops

or " get the spirit, of Ableton Life - Live 8"

or "Live is Suite, get the spirit of Ableton "

or perhaps, "are your loops dead? revive them and give them new life with the spirit of Ableton Live"

all of these would of course have scantily clad synths
OK I get 10%


going tweaking

1 word alchemy lol........but yeah presets suck tweak em man. the engine is good.

ze2be

thanks ok I almost went for the credit card. Great advice.
Read up on AAS - nice.

How well do the synths handled CC data for parameters. breath, volume for keyswitching, sample selecting, modulation ??

Jekblad wrote:i will fight you in a cage

INTARNET CAGE FIGHT... AGAIN!!!!

OK Let's fight. what are the rules of the fight?

which cage - SESSION OR PAGE VIEW ?
which weapons - ALL ABLETON INS OR OTHER AU VST ?
44.1/16 audio rules or 48/24 video rules
a mix off ?
tag team (co producer) ?

Let's do this. I'm smashing foot pedals on my head getting ready.

nslhrn wrote:ze2be

thanks ok I almost went for the credit card. Great advice.
Read up on AAS - nice.

How well do the synths handled CC data for parameters. breath, volume for keyswitching, sample selecting, modulation ??

They all work very easy and very well with midi mapping.

I cant believe someone out there actually thinks sampled rhodes sound better than the AAS electric/lounge lizard engine

also, learn how to use the synths before you go judging them on presets.