Ableton Forum

Has anyone tried to battle these machines - head to head?

I noticed that Battery has an inbuilt compressor and a quite powerful filter to apply to individual samples. However I do find it a bit anoying that it is not fully integrated (though thats is most understadable) into Live interface, like the impulse is.

Any thoughts, ideas? Pro´s & Con´s?

One word : CPU usage.

Right then, two words.

Battery can do alot. Impulse is a lot simpler and hands-on. But then again I don't think it's a fair comparison since Battery alone costs about half of what the whole Ableton package costs...

Get a demo? Is there one?

Cheers,
Mikael

Just wondering if there are any spectacular differences. I mean, the hands-on experience I get with impulse is great. Battery is not as personal and friendly as the impulse... but if battery is better sounding and heavier for drums i might consider using it.

linzatti wrote:Just wondering if there are any spectacular differences. I mean, the hands-on experience I get with impulse is great. Battery is not as personal and friendly as the impulse... but if battery is better sounding and heavier for drums i might consider using it.

Impulse is great, no doubt. But in my experience (trying to "replace" a drummer in my recorded music, and some more creative stuff), Impulse was just a little too limited feature-wise. 8 sound slots, no multi-level samples, etc. Of course, Battery is more complex to use and program, but I have found it to work well with Ableton. I would give you a link to the demo, but of course the website seems to be having problems.

Just my .2

Battery can hold a much bigger sample set in a single instance, and can also hold multiple samples per cell. This is useful for multiple velocity layer sounds and layered samples. I wouldn't say either is "better sounding" or "heavier", just that Battery does more, hence the price.

Thanks for the help guys - and gals .

I´ll be checking the battery demo the coming days.
Maybe I´ll buy the new synthetic drum package along with it

I do so enjoy Battery, I've just ordered an Akai MPD16 to play it with. Quite often I'll use Impulse to sketch out drumbeats while I work on arrangements, then I'll add Battery and start shifting patterns over to it. Doing stuff like passing bass to the track audio output but snare to a separate track, then hats & cymbals to a third, you can easily apply different compression/reverb to different drum sections. I enjoy distorting my snares but leaving bass clean, for example.

But yeah, each has its place. If you don't need the complex stuff, Battery may be overkill for your purposes...

the sound quality with battery is outstanding. this is defiantly my favorite program for creating drum sounds.

For me, the clincher is that, with Battery, I can audition sounds instantly. With Impulse, I have to use lives sluggish Browser which takes about 2 secs or more before it plays a sound. Makes a big difference!!

Battery 1 was nice on the CPU version 2 is the bomb but a bit hungry!!
Also seems to have probs on render, for some sounds I have to record/resample to make sure my rendered file is as it should be.

Try Guru, it will beat both impulse and battery. If you're into MPC style music making you really shouldn't miss out on this one

You are writing from Gothenberg, yet make no mention of Machinedrum?

Actually, I can while away so many hours finding insane sounds in MD that
lately I appreciate very much the relative simplicity of Impulse.

Yeah I know, slight price difference as well.

j.

another swedish product, one of the best -
Vember Audio Short Circuit:
http://vemberaudio.se/products.php

plainclothes wrote:You are writing from Gothenberg, yet make no mention of Machinedrum?

Actually, I can while away so many hours finding insane sounds in MD that
lately I appreciate very much the relative simplicity of Impulse.

Yeah I know, slight price difference as well.

j.

Yeah, a bit expensive but well worth the cash! I actually aplied for work at electron the other day

Yeah, a bit expensive but well worth the cash! I actually aplied for work at electron the other day

Cool! Good luck...

/Mikael (owner of a set of new Elektron stickers and posters)