Ableton Forum

What are the pro's and con's of each option and do you have a suggestion?
I have used Operator a bit before and was somewhat lost.'

Thanks for any advice!

I can only afford one :/

Hi Bud

I would run with the demo, of Live 9 ,first see how you get on with it,then if you do decide,purchase this,you can either upgrade )as what I did ( cheaper option),

Or if your really keen,then take a deep breath and go for the Suite,check out the comparison tables,on the Live product page

With the Suite you are getting a lot more sounds,and other stuff,than the standard version.
Some of the collection of Live packs,for the suite are stored in your account,so you can pick and choose which ones to download,since the content is huge,

Both packages are very good,its up to you which path you go down

As regards to Komplete ,I can't advise you,since my knowledge is poor on Native Instruments

hope that helps

I can unequivocally recommend Komplete over Suite. I have both and rarely use anything in Suite. I use synths/samples from Komplete every day.

You may want to wait until Black Friday to make a purchase though. N.I. usually has a sale on that day.

I've used Ableton Live 9 Standard at my friends house numerous times and I've demoed other DAWS (except for logic). Decided Ableton is the one I like so I wanna get my own copy. I'm leaning towards Standard+Komplete right now, but don't know much about Suite and M4L.

A cheap way to get Live is to buy a controller/audio interface that ships with Live Lite and then purchase upgrade to full. This only helps if you're shopping for a controller though.

I have Komplete 8 Ultimate & Live 9 Suite and would agree that if given the choice between Suite or Komplete I would definitely take Komplete, only because of the HUGE amount of instruments and FX you get.

One big plus of Suite is backward compatibility.
For NI every new version of Kontakt for instance is a completely different version, so if you have a song you made a loop of with Kontakt 3 you have to have Kontact 3 installed on your computer or it won't load.

I use Komplete far more than Suite though. Max For Live included now does help.

mode:masters wrote:A cheap way to get Live is to buy a controller/audio interface that ships with Live Lite and then purchase upgrade to full. This only helps if you're shopping for a controller though.

I have Komplete 8 Ultimate & Live 9 Suite and would agree that if given the choice between Suite or Komplete I would definitely take Komplete, only because of the HUGE amount of instruments and FX you get.

I just googled that upgrade pack and it says it around 400 dollars. Plus a midi that would cost around 550 total. I saw Suite (educational version) on the market a bit ago for 350. I'm a college student so I get the educational discount fortunately. Does the education version still work after you graduate college or will I have to upgrade to a full license?

That's kind of a silly question, but yes, your educational version doesn't stop working when you graduate. You would have to pay full upgrade pricing on future versions though. From the FAQ:

"What if I want to upgrade my educational version?

You can upgrade educational versions of Live (and extend it with add-on products) at standard pricing. As of Live 8 we no longer offer educational discounts on upgrades or add-on products. We continue to provide an educational discount of 40% on new licenses."

Also, I'm with anyone above who said Standard + Komplete as pertaining to the original question.

Out of the box Komplete content is better, also the 7synths included are quite good.

The problem is that it may overwhelm you, too much choice.

IMHO a smaller set up is also a good option, specially if you are starting.

So in your position I would get Standard plus a good third party synth: u-he diva, alchemy, even reaktor ( usually on sale on Black Friday). And then I will just put all the time into learning and having fun.

Also, if you have the money for standard and Komplete and you don't have any midi controller I would get push first a soft synth and a good sample pack of electronic drums (if you wanna make edm).

Overall Komplete has better synths, presets, and samples.

That said Max4Live might be the biggest pro for Suite if you are looking for new midi effects/and interface improvements. In that respect Suite is more than just synths, presets, and samples.

That said Suite does have some good presets, they just don't go the extra depth Komplete does.

Komplete's other advantage is that its instruments will work with other DAWs if you ever decide to go somewhere else you won't be stuck with what's in Live.

login wrote:Out of the box Komplete content is better, also the 7synths included are quite good.

The problem is that it may overwhelm you, too much choice.

IMHO a smaller set up is also a good option, specially if you are starting.

So in your position I would get Standard plus a good third party synth: u-he diva, alchemy, even reaktor ( usually on sale on Black Friday). And then I will just put all the time into learning and having fun.

Also, if you have the money for standard and Komplete and you don't have any midi controller I would get push first a soft synth and a good sample pack of electronic drums (if you wanna make edm).

Well, I have a few months of experience on Ableton for EDM, I know my way around it, but I guess you could still say I'm starting out. I've never tried a Push before and the music store near me doesn't have one for me too test. Is it worth the investment instead of getting Komplete? I was debating whether or not to not get Komplete and get a synth like sylenth1/zebra/reaktor/ (not sure which one) +monitors instead.

both are good and have advantages and disadvantages...

aside from all the extras in Suite the "big one" is Max for Live.. which opens up it's functionality quite a bit..

Komplete is simply vast collection of great instruments...well worth the price asked.

personally ... I'd go with suite..
I couldn't imagine using Live without operator and sampler.... and m4l is doing big things for me too.. the AAS stuff I also use quite a bit

If you are starting and if your work is going to be very synth based, I wouldn't buy komplete until I'd learnt a little about synth programing. Spend that money in education, try syntorial (http://www.syntorial.com/), it seems a good shaped synth course and you can use the included synth with live. Learn the live tools in deep, you can make so much just with live standard.

Never buy any tool without demo it and without been really sure you need/want it.

Work not only in learning your tool, work your creativity, watch good films, study a little about the history of your musical genre (or any), listen to good records, travel... Your sound palete must come from you.

Now that I'm older I know that I don't need many of the tools I've been collecting, but now I'm starting to know what I want and what I really need.

vublue24 wrote:

login wrote:Out of the box Komplete content is better, also the 7synths included are quite good.

The problem is that it may overwhelm you, too much choice.

IMHO a smaller set up is also a good option, specially if you are starting.

So in your position I would get Standard plus a good third party synth: u-he diva, alchemy, even reaktor ( usually on sale on Black Friday). And then I will just put all the time into learning and having fun.

Also, if you have the money for standard and Komplete and you don't have any midi controller I would get push first a soft synth and a good sample pack of electronic drums (if you wanna make edm).

Well, I have a few months of experience on Ableton for EDM, I know my way around it, but I guess you could still say I'm starting out. I've never tried a Push before and the music store near me doesn't have one for me too test. Is it worth the investment instead of getting Komplete? I was debating whether or not to not get Komplete and get a synth like sylenth1/zebra/reaktor/ (not sure which one) +monitors instead.

But I can understand you may want to make music as fast as possible, I am 100% sure you will have much more fun with push that with komplete, you will be dedicating more time to make music this way. If you can only pick on product for around 600 I would get push which includes live intro and use some free synth as Tyrell by u-he to learn synthesis. You may add a subscription to online tutorials as Groove3.com for 15 a month (probably you will watch all relevant materials in two months).

A good synth drums sample pack is also very usefull so get good sounding stuff fast, I recommend stuff by wave alchemy, the Synth drums pack is very very good.

Syntorial will also be a great idea to learn synthesis and it comes with a vst synth.

After you are having fun and really getting into making music you for sure will want to get monitors and audio iterface before getting something like Komplete.