Ableton Live?

Hi Alessandro,

I am wondering if you are at all have worked with Ableton live and if so I what capacity? Sound Design? sequencing? or whatever?

Also, ever worked or considered NI's Maschine? I personally love the sound design possibilities in real time with Ableton and NI Maschine.

Thanks for your time!

CK

Hello CK,

 

i own Live and keep on upgrading every time, but i never really gave it a chance, besides rewiring it to logic back in the day when it came out, in order to easily sync up previously recorded loops to my sessions.

 

It's not that i don't like it...i think it's a very well made program, but i believe it's due to the fact that i am so used to Logic that when it comes to recording music i feel much more at ease with keeping everything in a familiar environment.

 

I don't really do sound design per se , but when i "create sounds" for whichever application i tend to use hardware instruments as opposed to software.

 

 

I hope this helps,

 

A

Live is great for laying down tracks and for throwing together samples and loops and tweaking with stuff in real time. It's also great for loop based music production. As far as managing projects with a lot of tracks (especially sequenced tracks) and any kind of mastering or studio engineering type stuff Logic is far superior.

 

Logic's stock instruments and effects are better (and more versatile) in my opinion. But on the other hand Live's are a bit simpler to use. But using rewire logic's instruments can be used in Live.

 

Live interacts with controllers a bit differently. Much easier to set up on the fly but also any controller modifications are project related rather than permanent. Logic has much more integrated controls but are permanent across all projects.

 

In general Live is great for on the fly control, live playback, and music performance, essentially "on stage" (or "live") while logic shines 'in the studio'. For the most part I use live for all my recording and also for the creative part of the music making process and Logic to put it all together in a final product.

But using rewire logic's instruments can be used in Live.

 

No, not really. There's no MIDI output from Live when it's running as Rewire Slave:

 

 

J.

Sorry I didn't explain that correctly. Logic's instruments can be used in Ableton live by using Mainstage (not Logic itself). So yes logic can't be run together with Live (lack of proper midi out options, in my opinion is Logic's biggest/main weakness) but the workaround is that Mainstage (Logic instruments available) can. Because of this limitation all sequencing also must be done in Live and track send/return effects must be done in Live although logic effects can be added to the instrument track itself (series) before Mainstage output.

So yes logic can't be run together with Live (lack of proper midi out options, in my opinion is Logic's biggest/main weakness)

 

Can you explain what you mean by this? What is Logic's "lack of proper MIDI out options"?

 

J.

So yes logic can't be run together with Live (lack of proper midi out options, in my opinion is Logic's biggest/main weakness)

 

Can you explain what you mean by this? What is Logic's "lack of proper MIDI out options"?

 

J.

 

But using rewire logic's instruments can be used in Live.

 

No, not really. There's no MIDI output from Live when it's running as Rewire Slave:

 

[attachment=0]MIDI Output Rewire Slave.png[/attachment]

 

J.

 

Sorry about that. What I meant was the problem of having to use Live as a rewire slave (because of Logic 8 not being able to be a slave) and then the issue (mentioned by Jordito) about Live not sending midi when it's a rewire slave. My workaround was to use Live as a rewire master and use mainstage to access the Logic instruments (Mainstage has the same plugins as Logic and can be used as a slave). I'm not a 100% sure of the exact details becuase it's been a while since I have had access to Logic. I upgraded to a new mac running Lion and have not updated Logic since (as I haven't been working enough on music production to warrant it at the moment) so I can't open them up and check but I'm pretty sure those were the issues (and hence why I ended up using mainstage with Live instead of Logic).

Sorry about that. What I meant was the problem of having to use Live as a rewire slave (because of Logic 8 not being able to be a slave) and then the issue (mentioned by Jordito) about Live not sending midi when it's a rewire slave. My workaround was to use Live as a rewire master and use mainstage to access the Logic instruments (Mainstage has the same plugins as Logic and can be used as a slave).

 

Thanks for the explanation, robinloops. I still don't understand what you meant by "Logic's lack of proper MIDI out options".

 

Still, Logic can function as slave if synced with MTC. The problem of doing it that way is that you're syncing to absolute time, so any tempo changes happening in the master won't be followed by the slave.

 

J.