Ableton Workflow For Pop Song Creation

[brandondrury]

I'm brand new to Ableton Live 9. I've got a Push and just finished the Groove 3 video series "Ableton 9 Explained". I'm normally a Cubase user. I make my living recording live rock bands, but I love doing the electronic stuff on the side.

I've seen people crucified here (give or take) for complaining about Ableton's not-so-ideal comping system. I'm not really here to complain. (It is what it is.) However, I'm trying to figure out the best way to take advantage of Ableton's enormous benefits and avoid quite a few of it's areas where it's not as strong.

It's a bummer that 5 of my 6 CPU cores aren't used. I understand the point to this, but it raises some questions about using Ableton for industrial music. 2 instances of Recabinet 4 guitar emulator crushed my CPU in no time. Ouch! I'm not used to that. I have to rethink it some. Luckily Ableton has freezing, too.

How are you using Ableton Live 9 for studio work? Do you do all the creating in Ableton and then export out to track vocals and other instruments, mix, etc? The idea of rendering synths down to wav sure seems like it would it force me to commit to all kinds of automation before I even knew where the song was going.

I'd appreciate your help!

Thanks!
Brandon Drury

[fishmonkey]

Live does have multicore support (if it's turned on in your preferences), however because of the way Live works it cannot harness multiple cores as efficiently as a linear DAW like Cubase:

https://www.ableton.com/en/articles/hig ... -machines/


if you have Max4Live you might find this device useful for comping:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Udhd-Rx0Qh8


creating stuff in Live and then exporting tracks or stems into a linear DAW for final mixing seems to be a common way of working, e.g.:

http://hobo-tech.com/technologies/livet ... d-glitchy/

[brandondrury]

Thanks for the links! All 3 were a great help. They've eased my nerves and I may even get some sleep tomorrow night.

Live does have multicore support (if it's turned on in your preferences), however because of the way Live works it cannot harness multiple cores as efficiently as a linear DAW like Cubase:

https://www.ableton.com/en/articles/hig ... -machines/

Okay, that seems much more practical. I doubt if any one plugin I use needs a crazed amount of CPU power so this shouldn't be too big of a problem.

if you have Max4Live you might find this device useful for comping:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Udhd-Rx0Qh8

That looks very interesting. I presume it's a 3rd party addon, but I didn't see a place to buy it or download it.

creating stuff in Live and then exporting tracks or stems into a linear DAW for final mixing seems to be a common way of working, e.g.:

http://hobo-tech.com/technologies/livet ... d-glitchy/

Outstanding article! I was making noise back in 2001 so most of the concepts/mentality in this article are nothing too new to me. I've read enough scary posts, though, and it was nice to read about someone working just fine within Ableton 9 Live. The jury is still out as to whether I can ditch Cubase entirely or not.

[fishmonkey]

the M4L comping device is available here:

http://bitvoltage.com/the-take-folder-a ... r-is-here/

there is no reason why you can't work completely in Live, as long as the limitations don't frustrate you too much. the linear arrange view is pretty basic compared to most other DAWS, but it's workable. CPU use is higher, but if the devices you are using aren't too greedy and/or you have a stonking computer and/or you are happy to freeze or bounce when needed, then that isn't necessarily an issue.

one other limitation of note is that automation isn't compensated for plugin delay. this may or may not be an issue depending on the way you use automation. for some people it isn't an issue at all, for others that build tracks using layers of fast precise automation it can cause phasing issues when changes are made to the plugin chain...

[brandondrury]

there is no reason why you can't work completely in Live, as long as the limitations don't frustrate you too much

Cool! I refuse to get into the find-the-flaws-of-the-DAW game. I've seen WAY too many people who've said, "WOW! X DAW has some tiny feature that I'll use twice, but I'm gonna freak out about how great it is!!". No doubt, the lane thing is handy in Cubase/Studio One/etc, for example. Regardless, if I can work completely in Ableton for my electronic work then I'll definitely find a way to do that even if I have to stick with Cubase for my audio engineering "day job".

one other limitation of note is that automation isn't compensated for plugin delay.

I saw that in the article. BLAAAAAAHH!! I'm not programmer, but it does seem like offsetting automation wouldn't be as difficult as going to Mars. That just seems like a overt flaw to me.

this may or may not be an issue depending on the way you use automation. for some people it isn't an issue at all, for others that build tracks using layers of fast precise automation it can cause phasing issues when changes are made to the plugin chain..

I'll keep that in mind. Thanks, fishmonkey.