Ableton Forum

Im just doing a bit of homework before i buy Ableton live, Its a bit expensive to just buy.. so please answer a few questions to help me!

Ive used a few DAWs, Firtly REASON, but i felt it was limited without VSTs..
then i got FL Studio, Cheap, Easy to use.. but when i export to WAV it never sounded like the track i had created, as if it had lost its shine!

Ive watched a few YouTube vids about Ableton, But the only thing thats putting me off is, (This may be obvious) Is it just aimed at Live music creation..??
When ive been watching track creation vids on Youtube, they have made differant tracks, ie .. drums,bass,lead .. ect .. then pressed record and turned on and off tracks to mix them together..
Is this right..? is this how you make a track by turning on and off differant sections..?

Thanks in advance for helping ...

There's so many ways to use Live.

Did you watch the videos on the Ableton site?

Mozzy31 wrote:when i export to WAV it never sounded like the track i had created, as if it had lost its shine!

this was your fault, not the DAW.

download the demo and play with it. there are many many ways to use Live. it can be for live performance, it can be just for studio use.

no, Live is not just for live music.

people come on the forum all the time complaining that Live makes their music loose it's shine too. it really boils down to how you treat any samples you are importing and more importantly how you mix the music. Live has everything you need... but people like to blame it for their shortcomings.

if you want music to always be as shiny as you'd expect it to be, i recommend getting it from the iTunes store and calling it a day.

Yeah check out the demo. If you already have FL, maybe you should simply get more experience with that, particularly if you liked how it worked. Reads like your problems are mixing, you'll hit the same problems with Live.... And some more due to warping in clips... And have spent more money finding out that mixing is difficult.

Just out of curiosity, what is it that you ARE attracted to about Live? What does it have that you want that you can't do in FL? Don't get me wrong, I love Live, and there's a (probably) a long list of what Live does that FL doesn't, but what specifically for you is making you want to make the switch.

I agree with the above posts -- download the demo and play around. It's a great program. But only by playing with it for a while will you know if it's for you and your workflow.

Cheers,

Chris

Thanks for all your comments.

But, i didnt say exporting a Ableton track to wav lost its shine.. i said thats one of the reasons im thinking of leaving FL Studio, Because
Ill be happy with a track, and its mixed well and sounds good, but when ive bumped it to wav, i play back the wav and it sounds dull.. (but, maybe its still me!)

Just thought, maybe thats why Ableton is a bit more expensive that FL Studio because you get a better quality end product.


Have a listen to my latest ... http://soundcloud.com/protocol/protocol-diskothek

Should i jump ship..??


Thanks in advance for comments!

Hello,

I jumped on the Ableton band wagon back in 2005. I had a decent 18 month old PC computer so I decided to incorporate it into my Commercial Project Studio. This was before You Tube, Face Book etc. Even back then, my research revealed that Ableton was THE clip based sequencing software, specially in Europe. I had a client that was using Ableton at home on his desktop so he was able to just bring in his files only after he loaded all his clips from a CD he burned. So Ableton paid for itself immediately. I didn't use it very much until about a year ago. I upgraded to the current version 8, then to 8.3

My studio partner is on FL Studio XL. I guess the big battle is Ableton vs FL Studio. I don't hear a difference in the Audio Quality. WAV file is supposed to be a "lossless" conversion, technically. But, its still a proprietary conversion TO WAV file. In my studio, all audio files are at 24bit. The conversion to 16 bit only happens when I burn an audio CD on my Alesis Masterlink. The CD always sounded identical.

After being used to Ableton, FL always seemed awkward to use . . . well, anysoftware is awkward if you're not used to it.

My vote is Ableton all the way.

Just my 2 cents worth.
Ed

I never did a decent song with anything until I tried Ableton. It was the only thing I could understand as a beginner. I started out making clips like you are talking about. But now I don't use it that way. I use it as a full multi-track recorder. I never use it live, only as a studio. It is the easiest DAW out there IMO.

Mozzy31 wrote:But, i didnt say exporting a Ableton track to wav lost its shine..

I didn't write that you were using Live.

look, if ANY DAW had obvious problems with sound quality it would be well known because people bitch and moan and look for things to complain about. we've beat this discussion to death around here. generally speaking this topic can end with the differences between DAWs is their work flow, does it work for you, not the sound quality. how easy is it for you to get from idea to great sounding track with the tool?

I might sound like a poet now but I really think this makes sence. I used FL studio for about 4 years before I switched over to Ableton Live 3 years ago. And I always told thought it was hard learning ableton because I did not at first feel creative in it, but I wanted to change since I found a better workflow in it and it had the things I needed and I could access them easier. So I came up with the conclusion that all DAW's are like people. The only thing that differs is the appearance which symbolizes the interface of the DAW and we are all (most of the time) pretty much the same on the inside.

Download the demo and even though you may find it hard - you will get over a certain point where everything makes sence and you will find stuff easier than you did before!