Ableton Forum

Bit of a broad question but you get my drift.

Do all the improvements make it a no brainer or, if getting by with v6, should one wait for v8 (presumably out 4th Q 2008) ?

BC

the built in side chaining, and drum racks, and rex, and new comp, and eq, and " better audio " and all

just get the basic, you dont need the whole suit..

basic upgrade, whats that? not much for all those features.

an upgrade to Live 7, and getting the new logic express is a good combination if you can afford it. If you don't need drum racks, probably best to stick to your current version and wait for the next upgrade.

BC wrote:Bit of a broad question but you get my drift.

Do all the improvements make it a no brainer or, if getting by with v6, should one wait for v8 (presumably out 4th Q 2008) ?

BC

yes, especially for basic channel / chain reaction style minimal with the new sidechaining and enhanced audio engine.... you'll me making more metal-cased cd's in no time.

formatk wrote:an upgrade to Live 7, and getting the new logic express is a good combination.

That's what i'm thinking...Possibly The Studio version for the amount of content alone
is a GREAT DEAL!

If you can afford it...get Live 7 and Logic Studio...powerful enough...no regrets.

I'm also asking the same question but I'm more worried about CPU hit. I mostly use Live "live" so will I get the better sound? Is it a big hit for CPU usage? I'm on a Toshiba Laptop with a dual core 2ghz laptop with 2 gig of ram and a M-Audio Firewire Solo interface.

4ace wrote:

formatk wrote:an upgrade to Live 7, and getting the new logic express is a good combination.

That's what i'm thinking...Possibly The Studio version for the amount of content alone
is a GREAT DEAL!

I went for the Studio download version. I doubt I'll use the extra bits that much, except for the drum machines, but it was dirt cheap for what you get so I couldn't resist it. I did resist boxed version though as I'll never use EIC and session drums.

Yes for me - primarily because of the external instrument and external fx support and a few other little bits that clean up workflow a littte for us hardware dinosaurs - it was worth the upgrade just for that.

I dont use the drum racks at all as they dont seem to have given a moments thought to real use with non ableton plugins (stupid.. but whatever...) - Ableton getting a bad dose of not-invented-here / we-know-best syndrome - to be expected when a bit of sucess goes to their heads. Actually - Im not entrely sure that the whole drum racks thing was really thought through at all - the effort would have been better spent on simply enabling any tracks to be grouped and hidden etc, or maybe I missed the point of it all..? I use Stylus RMX anyway...

As for sidechaining - well yeh - nice I guess but nothing new - there have been good side chain capable compresors around for a while now that worked perfectly in live 6, and TBH - im still using the same one - other than testing it briefly and not being hugely impressed Ive not used the compressor in Live 7. Yes - its a huge improvement over the old ones, but each to their own and all that and I just much prefer the sound of the other software and hardware compressor I use.


Oh yeh - one huge piss off - I upgraded to the Live 7 Suite only to find out that because my old Live 6 didnt come with the instrument library, then the Live 7 suite wont let me use the instruments collection in that either - FFS Ableton - thats just being silly, so now I have to buy the damn thing twice???? .. one cell out looking for the other...

zerocrossing wrote:I'm also asking the same question but I'm more worried about CPU hit. I mostly use Live "live" so will I get the better sound? Is it a big hit for CPU usage? I'm on a Toshiba Laptop with a dual core 2ghz laptop with 2 gig of ram and a M-Audio Firewire Solo interface.

I'll answer my own question: 7 is horrible for CPU usage. Unusable. I started up a project file that runs perfectly in 6 and I kept getting horrible spikes and their coorasponding glitches. Guess my upgrade path ends here.

The upgrade is totally worth it.

In my experience it only runs 2-4% more CPU and it's only the first revision of 7.

Live 6 was unusable at 6.0.1 for me on CPU, way more so than Live 7.

The next upgrade, Live 6.0.3 fixed that to a large extent and then 6.0.7 had it nailed.

Just done a project with 36 tracks and plugins galore with an automated timing signature change (not possible in L6) with Live 7, drum racks, sidechaining, improved compressor and EQ8 and all and uses Tension, Electric and Sampler from the instruments. Superb stuff.

I wasn't going to upgrade, thought an upgrade of Reason might have been a better way of spending my limited cash. However I downloaded the demo out of curiosity (remembering to backup my L6 library first) and I was instantly hooked.

I still have some sympathy for those who say its only 6.5 rather than 7, but its well worth it IMO.

The ext instrument is very good but the slicer / drum rack is amazing - I particularly like how you can slice an audio file or Rex file to a drum rack and apply different FX to each slice. Better still is the trick of pulling slices out of the rack - it creates a new drum rack but keeps all the midi notes intact so playing both together it sounds the same. Then you can put FX on the new drum rack. Its a bit like the 'edit groups' idea in RMX, but its so much easier to do and you can see exactly what's going on.

So anyway I bought it the next day (basic D/L only) and I think its the best version yet (love the visuals on the new compressors too). Reason 4 will have to wait...

Hardly noticed any CPU problems either (Core Duo 1.7GHz 2G Ram)

Try the demo and see what you think (but backup L6 library first just in case you want to keep using L6)

to me it is worth it
for one little but extremely
powerful upgrade.

the edit button is back.

6.5 is a bit harsh. If anything, Live 6 was Live 5.5 if we are getting into snitty put downs of upgrades (OK racks and freeze tracks were major but so are slicer, sidechaining and auto timing sigs for me)

Slicer, rex file support, automated timing signatures, drum racks, tempo nudge, better MIDI and audio, support for external instruments, massively improved compressor with sidechaining (I use it loads, used the one in Live 6 very infrequently), better EQ8, better sounding Operator and Sampler (Operator especially in hiq mode is very noticeable), multiple automation lanes, the return of the edit button, plus kick ass new instruments in the Suite, of which Electric and Tension are especially great for my workflow and also the very cool Drum Machines, some very authentic sounding retro electronic drums there and also (not crucial but still useful) extended video support.

Now we need crossfading on audio clips on arrangement, dual monitor support, folder tracks and maybe a seperate mixer window that isn't cramped due to Session View clips and I will be a very happy camper...

Just a quick comment on the Logic thing.
I bought Logic studio (couldnt resist the features for the price)
I played with it for a bit and it is indeed very "logical"
Then I tried to integrate Live session view which it does quite well using rewire etc.
It just destroyed my workflow.
My 2.16 c2d macbook pro seemed to run them both ok, but just wasnt "snappy" if thats the right word.
If you could use the Logic effects etc in live it would be very worth the price.
But you cant
I sold Logic studio to a friend and my productivity was suddenly restored.
Upgraded to Live suite, and even though it is a bit buggy i'm sure that will be fixed.
So my personal verdict is - you use live because it is your weapon of choice.
If thats still true, Logic will possibly drive u nuts - YMMV
As for the Live 6 - 7 debate - for me the live suite was easily worth it
but as a cheap upgrade the basic live 7 is a no brainer.
Just my 2pence worth