Ableton Forum

i have an ongoing arguements with my acquantance:
we both use Live
but he insists on opening every single thing he records in a wav editor because he says Live "lies" about what the wav actually looks like
i say to him "so what" it still sounds the same...
he says it is essential to see what dB the samples is inside of wav editor
but i say as long as it sounds good to your ears then you are fine and you are wasting your times

how you guys and ladies feeling about this and what would be your arguments to him on this subject?

Well I would agree with your friend that a wave editor is an essential companion to Live 4. I certainly don't open every audio clip in my external wave editor, but I do find it very useful to edit audio using the specialist tools that (in my case) Adobe Audition offers.

Because Live is quite CPU intensive, its also convenient to apply some effects destructively in a wave editor if they are integral to how you always want a clip to sound.

And look for Audacity if you want a good, quick, and free one.

Another vote for Audacity! I've been using it as a wav editor for a while now, and it definitely does the job.

the_planet wrote:Another vote for Audacity! I've been using it as a wav editor for a while now, and it definitely does the job.

wow, i'd heard about this but didnt try it till just now. i'd rather use this than soundforge for 90% of audio tasks i do, its lighter, faster, does simple things easier *and*takes up less memory

nice tip ...

Chalupa wrote: but i say as long as it sounds good to your ears then you are fine and you are wasting your times
how you guys and ladies feeling about this and what would be your arguments to him on this subject?

Opening every single audio file in a sample editor just to check it's volume doesn't quite make sense to me, espescially if he's goin to use them back in Live after. If your friend feels "cheated" by Live, he could use a more "honest" app - there are plenty on the market - or get a therapy to cure his paranoia

This being said, when I was in art college, a drawing teacher someday came up with that theory:

There are two types of drawers
1- Some people are very precise and focus their attention on details when they work
2- others are more "intuitive" and pay attention to the overall picture, to things in their globality, ignoring details.

The problem of ppl 1, is that when they focus too much on details, they lose perspective and end up doing soporific technical tricks.

The problem of ppl 2, is that sometimes they forget that precision can bring a lot of expressive power to sound or picture. Sometimes the idea is great but the format on which it is executed makes it weak...

Im conscient this theory borders cliche and oversimplification, but I think somehow it makes sense. I guess the "argument" you have with your friend reflects these 2 schools of thinking.

I would tend to be like you and not give a shit about details, as long as the Big Picture looks/sounds nice. I also think Live answers the needs of ppl "like us" who want to bypass the technical details and make music in a freestyle kinda way. Anyway, in the end what counts is the result.

Ben

PS: there are no ladies on this forum. Don't you know that there is nothing better than a discussion about midi controllers to scare the ladies away???