Ableton Forum

are the new instruments quality enough to upgrade to the suite?

I'm still thinking about it, but as of now, probably not. I love the L7 improvements, but I have plenty of instruments to master before I sink my teeth into new tools.

thinking about going for it myself, sure I have loads of things to learn as well, including a jp8080 that some fine gentleman sold to me, but eventually I'm sure I'll want the other 3 instruments, so it's cough up now and get the 'deal' or pay later 100 something euro each for them. Wish I could pay in US dollar really, cos it's weak and the pound is strong, pound v's euro not so great.

lerky wrote:sure I have loads of things to learn as well, including a jp8080 that some fine gentleman sold to me

*sniff* sure am missing ol' JP lately. Hope you're treating her well!

I'll most likely get the system improvements upgrade.

I won't have the cash to do the instruments. I don't think I would if I had it, anyway. I really think the stuff Live comes with is usable enough for me. Having so much stuff is a distraction a lot of the time. That being said, if you need a synth and have a keyboard controller the upgrade stuff seems pretty cool. Fairly demanding on the old processor, though, from what I can tell. I'm not wielding the sharpest axe at the moment.

nebulae wrote:

lerky wrote:sure I have loads of things to learn as well, including a jp8080 that some fine gentleman sold to me

*sniff* sure am missing ol' JP lately. Hope you're treating her well!

she has been neglected along with the rest of my gear but will see some love soon

Nope. I'm sticking with the core update.

Just creamed my shorts with the Zebra2 Transmission pack. That were some 30 bucks well spent.

Don't feel that excitement with the new instruments. Nothing I haven't heard before. Even they are dead cheap in the suite I just don't need them.

And thanks to Ableton for not forcing them upon us and giving us a choice here.

Hey, what do you think of that transmission pack? there's also another two or three commercial banks too, right? what's good, what's bad? And how does it stack up to other big-sounding synths, like say Z3ta?

I'll just be getting the application.
I already have the AAS studio pack that includes UA. Tasman. LL and Stringmachine so i have no use for the Ableton versions.
I would have been interested in the drum kit deal,, but i already run BFD and BFD 2 will be out soon.

The Transmission pack is pretty good, I bought that when it came out. Lots of nice 'quick presets' too.

I'm seriously debating the new Live instruments. Analog is pretty simple for the money, but it does sound good. Right now the beta version is causing all sorts of dropouts randomly, so I haven't been able to really use it a ton yet and make up my mind.

Tension looks cool, physcal modellin can generate some really cool sounds when you stop trying to emulate things. Not in the beta yet though, so I have no idea if it's strong enough to tempt me from Sculpture (which I like a lot).

Electric is fun, but I honestly don't need an electric piano enough to pay that much for it. If it was $49, then I'd get it just for fun.

No desire to get any of the drum packs to be honest. I already have more drum samples than I probably need as it is, especially acoustic kits. I kind of found myself wishing for the electronic ones the other day, but only because my MD-UW is in storage as we move. Otherwise I'd just use that.

i'll just be getting the basic app upgrade. I've got a stack of vsti's i'm really happy with and a tonne of sample library/orc/drums/fx that's are also stellar.
I played with drum racks today for some time and it's very impressive. I was really taken aback by the amount of ideas it instantly gave me, ditto for the new 'slice to new midi track' function. That blew me away. To have every slice com e up on it's own simpler/mixer channel was quite something to behold. Quite hefty on the cpu though perhaps. I sliced up a 4 bar loop and ended up with 64 channels/simplers on the mixer just for one rex clip.
It's going to take some time to work out a game plan to use these things.
Top marks though Abe's.

nebulae wrote:Hey, what do you think of that transmission pack? there's also another two or three commercial banks too, right? what's good, what's bad? And how does it stack up to other big-sounding synths, like say Z3ta?

Well I got the pack yesterday and didn't come further than trying out five patches or so because I was instantly stuck making music and noodling on my Axiom.

Ben Hall the creator put some serious effort into this pack.
160 nice patches, plus patch, envelop and oscillator templates and a frickin manual where he describes every single patch and the templates in great detail.
Man I can literally feel the love drippin off my monitor.

Don't know about the other packs but talk in the u-he forum is they are excellent too. What sold me to Transmission is the XY-mapping for every patch and the templates.

I'm driving some minimal setup these days and Zebra is my one and only synth now. Looks complicated first but having only one synth really helps learning the beast inside out (and there is a lot to learn).
Never really tested Z3ta but almost all NI stuff (excluding Massive), the LinPlugs, Terra and some other big names. Don't miss any of them.

What I love most about Zebra is the clever and user friendly interface, the modular possibilities and the XY-controls, which are amazing for live use.

Only thing I'm really missing these days is patch loading via program change. But this can also be compensated with racks.