Does live has a characteristic sound? What do you think?

tomperson · Post by **tomperson** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 2:11 am

Well,
This is not another thread regarding whether live sounds "better" or "worse" than (insert_another_music_software_name_here). It's about the character of live. Do you think that live has a characteristic sonic imprint?

There have been several times when listening to music that I've had the feeling of hearing the sound of live's warping on loops or the sound of live's plug ins such as filter delay or granulator or whatever. And I mean in a quite noticeable way.

What do you think? Does live have a characteristic sound? Do you see it as a bad or good thing? Do you try to avoid that? How?

I don't know if I want to be related to the tool which i use to make music. I want a sonic imprint, clearly but that should be my own, not the softwares?

Even more, do you think that live's way of working has influence on the kind of musical structures that you get? I mean, the way of working with clips and scenes and quantization...do you think that gives your music a "standard" organization?

Let's discuss.

leisuremuffin · Post by **leisuremuffin** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 2:25 am

Does guitar have a characteristic sound?

It depends on how you play it. Some things will be obvious as guitar, others not.
Are you playing power chords thru distortion, or are you using an ebow and playing thru delicate effects?

live is just as open ended, actually more so.

Yes, if you use extremely streched out clips in your track, i will be able to pick out that you're doing that. But nobody says you have to. You use any audio you want to as source material in live, and that will define your sonic imprint more that the program will.

.lm.

theque · Post by **theque** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 6:17 am

i think live 4 had more of a characteristic sound than live 5, maybe i will get badmouthed for saying it but i think 4 was a little grainy, dirtier and lo-fi where live 5 sounds a lot cleaner and punchier . also the improved looping makes it sound better, thats my opinion

David · Post by **David** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 12:15 pm

I think the effects give it a characteristic sound, if no effects are applied i dont think it has a characteristic sound, unless some extreme warping is used...

I've heard a few tunes that sound like they've possible used some of Live's effects. Difficult to say for sure though.

tomperson · Post by **tomperson** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 12:58 pm

So, in your opinion, it has no particular sonic imprint?

Due to processor performance and easy of use as well as portability I'm more and more inclined towards using the built in effects as much as possible, and sometimes I find that the sound of the plugins and live kinda reveals that you are using this software instead of being transparent. I'm not really saying that its BAAAAAAAAD, but i wanted to know if you sometimes feel the same or not.

Interesting what you mention about live 5 being punchier, i haven't noticed that myself. Was the audio engine rewritten in some way?

elektrovert · Post by **elektrovert** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 2:09 pm

I kind of fel that it does.
Live 5 sounds way better than live 4 that's for sure.
Also some of lives effects do stand out quite a bit.
They definitly have their own character.

ALso the way people use live tends to give you an idea too, tracks that have been created in Live are usually arranged very differently than tracks arranged in say Logic or cubase for example.

Not that any method is better than the other, just different.

glu · Post by **glu** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 5:09 pm

If I use live's impulse presets, combined with effects, I think it sounds like live. I feel the same way about using Korg triton sounds. I am working on a track now with all audio, triton, moog, a little bit of impulse, electric guitar running through a few triton fx, and I don't think it sounds too much like live. If you doctor your sounds outside of live it helps, it just depends on what kind of music you are making, how much you depend on certain instruments or fx within live, etc. I find that my best sounding tracks are the ones with multiple sound sources, live is like my sounding board, and it only colors the sounds if they are heavily laced with live fx and presets. That is why I like burning fx from Pro Tools or my korg triton or sound forge. There is more variety in the overtones, more dynamic color to the sound than just using live. Some electronic music sounds the same if you just use live impulse presets and fx. The diversity of your tracks will also reveal that you use live if you use the same bag of tricks for most of your tracks. Given that, diversifying your song writing process (if you use live to write songs) is probably the best way to get different sounding tracks that don't sound like live. Live can help the continuity between tracks without stamping your music with ableton sound. It's like any software/hardware in that respect. my .02
peace
g

David · Post by **David** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 6:55 pm

tomperson wrote:So, in your opinion, it has no particular sonic imprint?

I dont really think it does if you leave everything at the default i.e no effects and not much warping.

tomperson wrote: Due to processor performance and easy of use as well as portability I'm more and more inclined towards using the built in effects as much as possible, and sometimes I find that the sound of the plugins and live kinda reveals that you are using this software instead of being transparent. I'm not really saying that its BAAAAAAAAD, but i wanted to know if you sometimes feel the same or not.?

Some of the effetcs are more distinctive than others. i would say the resonator effect is quiet distinctive. I dont really know of any other effect which sounds like that. The Grain Delay is quite distinctive as well. But on the whole I think they can be tweaked a lot to get new sounds to make them less distinct, if you want that. But true, if someone used the Berlin preset from Resonator on a track I think I would spot it! Probably my favourite pre in Live.

In general, I guess every host which comes with built in effects will have distinctive sounds in there when the effects are 'on', but i think just playing back wav or aiff files its pretty similar from one host to the next, or maybe I just dont notice too much these differences? What do you think in the case where Live is just used for playback?

tomperson · Post by **tomperson** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 7:37 pm

I wouldn't dare to say I could spot a difference when just doing playback of files, but i haven't also made a test regarding this.

I guess the character I mention comes more from the built in effects, warping engine and maybe from the structures that arise naturally from live's workflow...

4ace · Post by **4ace** » Mon Jan 23, 2006 10:06 pm

Depends what warp settings you lean towards.If i was gonna mix an album in live i would render any warp tracks and then bring them back in unwarped.

I tried mixing a couple of songs in live and i can honestly say that the flexibility of live is a two edged sword.......My mixes sucked.

So back to Pro Tools for mixing work.Just my preference because i've been in P.T's for years.

but i am slowly gonna try to stay in Live cause I'm sick of Digidesign's BS.Hell i'm still with pro tools 6.4.......(old ver.)

That being said Ableton better get their stuff together before they move to 6 cause 5's got a few buggy's in it....

In the end it's what you put in is what you get out ...........

until you try to start a beat on the one in live,cause then you never know what you'll get

ethios4 · Post by **ethios4** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 6:49 am

tomperson wrote:I guess the character I mention comes more from the built in effects, warping engine and maybe from the structures that arise naturally from live's workflow...

That's mostly what I think too. Also, I think that the more inexperienced the producer, the more the sound produced is susceptible to circumstantial influences. If Live does have a "sound or "sonic imprint", a user that lacks the technical know-how to overcome Live's "sound" will be stuck with the sound the software imparts. A more seasoned user will know how to get the sound he/she wants out of whatever software.

Here's to learning more everyday

eyeknow · Post by **eyeknow** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 8:22 am

theque wrote:i think live 4 had more of a characteristic sound than live 5, maybe i will get badmouthed for saying it but i think 4 was a little grainy, dirtier and lo-fi where live 5 sounds a lot cleaner and punchier . also the improved looping makes it sound better, thats my opinion

I have to agree with that. As a person with the curse of the "high frequency hearing ability" I feel the same way.

But at the same time........I do kinda feel live has it's own sound. Nothing bad about that, it just is.

Although, if it were a perfect world

the sends could be much cleaner.............it's probably a panning law or something like that.

kornie · Post by **kornie** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 7:40 pm

theque wrote:i think live4 had more of a characteristic sound than live5, maybe i will get badmouthed for saying it but i think 4 was a little grainy, dirtier and lo-fi where live 5 sounds a lot cleaner and punchier . also the improved looping makes it sound better, thats my opinion

i think so to! i made a lot of dirty grainy beats in live4: extreme warping, using the clip envelopes, especially offset and transpose (like adding a few 32nd spikes that i transpose +36 semitones). when i play those live sets in live5 it sounds very different!

thats why i keep my live lite 4 version...

Does live has a characteristic sound? What do you think?

Does live has a characteristic sound? What do you think?

i hear you

Re: i hear you

Re: i hear you