Ableton Forum

I am currently using Acid4.0 (not pro4.0) and have decided its time to upgrade so something a little more involved. I am planning on composing the music on my desktop and transfering it to my laptop for the puerpose of playing out. I am running live4.0 on my lappy. Im not sure which would be best. I very much like acids interface and have been using for 3 years now. So i am not sure about acidpro5.0 or reason2.5, or any other kind of software. around $300.00 would be nice also.

Also i know you can use reason directly with live but im not sure how that works(slave routing) so if anyone has any tips 4 me it would be appreciated.
thanx

OneX

It's apples and oranges, Acid is an audio sequencer, and Reason is a softsynth that doesn't even support audio tracks.

Why not just use Live? It along with some vstis, will do what both of those apps do.

its more like apples and giraffe's. lol, the only thing these two products have in common is they are software. I would do a little more reseach and figure out exactly what you want to start doing. Then, go to guitar center or something and ask them. Most people hate GC, and i cant disagree, but for this kind of basic starting inof, they would be fine. You are missing a ton of other software in the same spectrum.

ok lol did not know this. the guys at sam ash and gc bot suggested reason or acid as programs to compose music. i hate both of them equally with a passion. they have no idea what theya re talking about. ive spent about 7 grand in the last 6 months on equip and so forth with no help from them.

back to the topic. I basically want to compose my own music.I like the loop based stuff and am not to the point of cutting my own loops yet. although i would like to do my own beats and drums. i do trance, house that sorta thing. i could use live but i dont really like the interface. maybe i just need to spend some more time with it. like i said i am 3 years used to acid and i am really hAppy with the simplicity of the interface they have going. acid 5 has just added hte ability of using midi and a midi controller so that is a big plus. maybe i will research this more like suggested and in the mean time i will work with live some mroe as far as composing music.
also . so thanx all

the beat chopper in acid pro is the most highly underrated tool in any audio program in my honest opinion

if your going to be doing any kind of deep editing/glitching/stuttering
get acid pro

my two cents

thank you. im leaning towards it anyhow but i just dont wanna spend 250 if there is somehting better for the same price.

Why not just use Live??? You already own it (aren't you allowed to install you copy on two of you computers?) and it is an excellent tool for creating/composing/producing.

But if you are more comfortable with Acid, go for the Pro version by all means. I think you can actually Rewire Live and Acid together.

Reason is nice, but I can't understand why you should start learning a totally new environment when you already have Live and Acid. Together they can do far more than Reason.

fruitylooops... not to be underestimated.

I've never used acid so I'm not about to bash it. I saw someone calling reason a soft synth in this topic. I don't want to go on and on as I possibly could but reason has two soft synths, two samplers a rex player and a drum machine. Plus lots of excellent effects. All of these can have there outputs routed into an abelton channel strip so that you can use ableton effects on them. Also any midi loops you have in ableton can be used as teh midi input for these files. Reason doesn't record audio but with its seemless rewiring through Live this won't be a problem. You say you want to do trance and house. Reason is excellent for these things but it can stretch much further. I don't know if you have a broadband connection but if you do you should download the reason demo and listen to the demo songs that come with it....also fool around with the link between it and ableton. I love Ableton Live but if I was without Reason I'd die.....in combination they give you everything you could ever dream of....I've never been stuck for anything with this combination....anything I've thought of doing ever has been possible and I don't know who they keep coming up with new upgrade ideas. I have reason 3 and never regretted buying it for an instant...so please....try the demo.

EVOLEME wrote:I basically want to compose my own music.I like the loop based stuff and am not to the point of cutting my own loops yet. although i would like to do my own beats and drums. i do trance, house that sorta thing. i could use live but i dont really like the interface. maybe i just need to spend some more time with it...

Live is all you need.

if you've spent $7K and don't feel like you're at the point of cutting your own loops (what does that mean anyway..?), stop spending money and start getting deeply into one main app. Live will do everything you want and more.

Yeah you can do everything in live 10times more easily than in acid and to my opininion having used acid pro4&5 for some time ,they are a headache when it comes to midi or vst support(and to stability in general).

you have 7k worth of gear and i bet theres a few synths or drmmachines included in this list.
When it comes to using software to sequence and record these, possibly more than 1 device at a time, you can only go with live...at least acid wont let you do this.


get around live you wont regret it.... its abit dull looking was what i thought about it first but man im happy that i wasn't too skeptic.

I haven't used Cubase as a sequencer, but I do use Ableton and Reason professionally (among other things) and they are a good team to get just about anything you need. The thing that hasn't been said yet is that it is very light on the CPU ... very light in comparison to some of the other plugs I use. When I am on my laptop I have to be concerned with that. Reason is also a very stable rewire slave for me, and has never crashed on me in stand-alone mode (in 2 years)

oops ... I meant I haven't used Acid ...

I use Live in combination with Reason. It is a good team and very easy to connect Reason via Rewire with Live.

But: when you use Acid for years and like this progarmm, why would you switch to another program? It make no sense for me. Reason is a very good Softstudio with good Synth, Sampler and FX, but without Audio-Recording. And I guess, it is not an alternative to Acid.

greetings, claas

hey thanx everyone. i geuss my problem is, is that i am kinda stuck as far as where to go from here in live. i figured acid would be good cuz i already know the basics of it. i baught all this equip and i dont know how to use half of it yet. lol. i could sit down and work with live but i have no clue what im working towards or even what possibilities i have. I dont even know what can be done in general. i baught the csi master for live 4.0 and have been working with that but i geuss all i can do is see.
i also dl a whole shitload of plugins (synths and all) and sure they are cool but wtf do i do with them. they make awsome sounds but i dont know what does what or even what most of the terms are. so yea im a nooby with a shit load of creativity and enough equipmest to do whatever the hell i feel like but without any foundation its all useless. so yea thats where im at
but thanx everyone for all your tips. i think i will stick with live for now and go from there.