ABLETON LIVE 5 (DAW software)

[dave hill jr.]

Thanks Craig! No problem at all.

As for Giga's second question, can you explain what you're trying to do exactly or noticing in terms of behavior?

I'm not sure what you mean. There should be no difference in the way that warp markers behave in Session or Arrangement Views. A clip is a clip in other words . . . but hey, maybe I missed something.

Cheers,
Dave

[AMIEL]

HI I WANT A PROGRAM THAT HANDLES LOOPS ALMOST AS EASY AS ACID DOES, BUT THAT IS MORE STABLE AND THAT THE AUDIO FIDELITY IS BETTER!

I WANT TO KNOW THAT WITH LIVE 5 ALLOWS YOU TO HAVE DIFFERENT WINDOWS TO USE IT WITH 2 MONITORS?

HOW GOOD IS THE MIDI?

ALLOWS YOU TO DETERMINE HOW MANY OUTPUTS YOU CAN HAVE FROM VSTIs THAT HAVE MULTIPLE OUTPUTS AS BATTERY? CAN I REDUCE THEM TO 2 O 4 OUTPUTS?

HOW GOOD IS TO MIX ON LIVE5, HAVE FEATURES AS BUSSES, INSERTS, PRE, POST?

HOW GOOD IS USING VSTiS AND OTHER PLUG INS?
ACCEPT AUTOMATIONS TO OTHERS PLUG INS O VSTiS?
.
ANY OTHER PROGRAM THAT YOU RECCOMEND MAYBE?

THANKS!!

REUVEN AMIEL

[Myshell]

I just recently upgraded to Live 5.

I was wondering...can you control third party soft synths/plug-ins with a controller like you can the native synths/plugs?

I scanned through the 'help' files but couldn't find anything. Of course, I am a little blonde...so it could very well be there.

Thanks,

Myshell:D

[AMIEL]

Same with Acid. When vs. 4 came out with MIDI and VSTi support it almost killed the product. I never heard so many complaints about a bad implimentation of a new feature. Maybe they got it right with 5 but I am almost afraid to look.
]

WELL I AM MOVING FROM ACID 5!!

TOO MANY BUGS, POOR AND UNSUFUL MIDI, TOO MANY CRASHES, NOT STABLE AT ALL.......U NEED TOO MUCH POWER AND IS ALSO NOT A GOOD DAW.....CAN BE ONLY GREAT FOR USING LOOPS

I AM THINKING TO MOVE TO ABLETON LIVE 5
USE PROTOOLS FOR MIXING O REWIRE LIVE 5/REASON TO PROTOOLS......
ANYWAY I THINK LIVE 5 CAN BE GREAT FOR MIXING AND USING IT AS A GREAT DAW TOO.
BUT I WANT A PROGRAM WHEN I CAN BE FOCUSED IN MAKING MUSIC, HAVING GREAT TOOLS AND FEATURES FOR THAT!!
AND NOT WORRY ABOUT CRASHES AS HAPPEN WITH ACID PRO 5.
I NED A PROGRAM TOMAKE ARRAGEMENTS AND MUSIC , BUT IS AFAIRLY GOOD DAW TOO!!

WHAT DO U THINK?

I THINK SONAR PRETENDED TO BE A MIX OF PROTOOLS AND ACID...BUT THE WORKFLOW IS NOT VERY SIMPLE!! IS SOMETIMES ANOYING THAT FOR DOING SIMPLE APPLICATIONS U NEED TO OPEN MAY WINDOWS!!

THANKS!
REUVEN

[dave hill jr.]

Originally posted by Myshell I just recently upgraded to Live 5. I was wondering...can you control third party soft synths/plug-ins with a controller like you can the native synths/plugs? I scanned through the 'help' files but couldn't find anything. Of course, I am a little blonde...so it could very well be there. Thanks, Myshell:D

 

 

Hi Myshell,

 

You may have figured this out by now, but you can control most VST plug-ins with a MIDI controller. The key is to unfold the plug-in (using the arrow in the upper left hand corner of the plug-in) as this picture shows and then use Live's MIDI Map Mode to assign the control.

 

Hope this is helpful.

 

Best,

Dave

[dave hill jr.]

Originally posted by AMIEL HI I WANT A PROGRAM THAT HANDLES LOOPS ALMOST AS EASY AS ACID DOES, BUT THAT IS MORE STABLE AND THAT THE AUDIO FIDELITY IS BETTER! REUVEN AMIEL

Hi Reuven,

I may be a little biased but I think you will not be disappointed with Live 5. Please check earlier pages in this forum for more info / comparisons between Live and other DAWs / Acid Pro.

One thing we don't have is dual monitor support yet for Live's two windows. You can however place third party plug-ins on another monitor.

Speaking to your questions:
STABLE?
dave sez "Yes!"

AUDIO FIDELITY IS BETTER? Live supports 16, 24 and 32 bit audio.

2 MONITORS?
dave sez "not yet"

HOW GOOD IS THE MIDI?
I am not sure about Acid's MIDI these days, anyone care to comment? Live's MIDI is different from the standard approach. Some folks in this thread say it isn't enough, some say it is plenty. Perhaps check our demo at www.ableton.com/downloads

ALLOWS YOU TO DETERMINE HOW MANY OUTPUTS YOU CAN HAVE FROM VSTIs THAT HAVE MULTIPLE OUTPUTS AS BATTERY? CAN I REDUCE THEM TO 2 O 4 OUTPUTS?
dave sez Yes!

HOW GOOD IS TO MIX ON LIVE5, HAVE FEATURES AS BUSSES, INSERTS, PRE, POST?
Our routing is simple, flexible and can even be set up while you listen / playback. Yes you can do that stuff (pre/post returns and create inserts).

HOW GOOD IS USING VSTiS AND OTHER PLUG INS?
dave sez "very good but you should always make sure you have the latest patch of your third party plug-in and try at home before you take the stage"

ACCEPT AUTOMATIONS TO OTHERS PLUG INS O VSTiS?
er, do you mean FROM other VSTi plug-ins? You can automate plug-ins in Live and I hear Live can accept MIDI from other plug-ins but I haven't tried this myself. Perhaps try our forum? Anyone want to help Reuven get loop crazy?

ANY OTHER PROGRAM THAT YOU RECCOMEND MAYBE?
hmmm. . . well, for loops there are lots of fun tools out there but from the questions you are asking you are looking for a DAW I think. I'll leave this one to the forum . . .

You also mention: IS SOMETIMES ANOYING THAT FOR DOING SIMPLE APPLICATIONS U NEED TO OPEN MAY WINDOWS!
I would say that Live's limit of 2 views will help you a lot here.

Good luck on the music project,
dave

[Myshell]

Thanks, Dave.

I'll give that a try. I assume that will work with Audio Units as well.

Thanks,

Myshell:D

[Anderton]

>

I'm not biased and I agree. It's a hot program.

>

Which should be on the to-do list for L6!

dave sez "Yes!">>

So does Craig.



See the comments in this thread re: the importance of choosing the right stretching algorithm in order to preserve audio quality.



I prefer Live's implementation, it's more oriented toward real time pattern creation. I would consider it on a par with Project5's, which I also think has outstanding MIDI pattern functionality.

www.ableton.com/downloads

Good advice!

>

Dave is right.

I would say that Live's limit of 2 views will help you a lot here. >>

Sonar has greatly improved the MIDI implementation in Sonar 5, you can now edit MIDI "in-place" in a track.

[dave hill jr.]

Craig was too fast for me but I will edit my post above next. Live does support two monitors in that you can drag a third party plug-in to a second monitor. At present Live does not allow Session and Arrangement to be split to two screens. I can't promise when or how, but this feature has been on our list for some time.

cheers,
Dave

[gigabetz]

To all of you who are wondering which one is the cats meow Ableton or Acid I can tell you that each was invented with a different purpose in mind. Acid is outstanding in its design and simplicity and is very good for loops and raw recording. Ableton is a musicians tool and I found that it sounds better. It was quite evident to me that the designers were trying to make a super-tool for musicians and not technicians. I can tell you this. After re-importing some tracks back into Acid from Ableton, my loops were perfect. The fact that it understands ReCycle means no matter what kind of loop you throw at Ableton you can perform magic with it.
Acid is very flexible for editing with but it isn't what I call Computer Aided Composing like Ableton, where Acid is more of a Killer digital tape splicer. Hope it helps!

[AMIEL]

Do u know if Ableton support Daws with Dual processors?

if not , how they will perform?

anybody there using it on a dual procesor DAW?
Thanks

[AMIEL]

hello! what about Live % ...can support dual processors? if not how can be the performance?
also can support windows XP 64 ?
if not how can be the performance?

[EnGee]

Hello there,
Composing music is not my profession, but it is a hobby. I do compose some short melodies for flash movies when designing a web site. I'm also new to Live world. So, I'm from this audience (not a pro, new to live, home use, some pro work for flash). Except for the last one, i think it is not a small audience and it is growing right?
I have the demo (Live 5) and is really impressive. It is already in the top of my wish list and as soon as i get it i will abandon Sonar (what a relief!).
In my opinion, Live 5 is the best 'studio' overall. The interface and GUI design is fantastic and the stability is great. Very responsive (what language you used?! Binary?!) and so organized and easy to use while i lost so many inspirations with Sonar, just because i wanted to edit this 'thing', going to the menu, reading the manual, going back to the interface. Repeat this procedure for two or three times and I said goodbye to this sweet feeling or inspiration I had. Till now i can't figure how to select more than one note in the midi editor while dragging the mouse over them? (i know i must ctrl + click, for every note!!). Cuabase is little bit better but i had stability issue. The two 'big' ones didn't allow me to insert an audio affect (VST effect) into a midi track. I must use bus ..etc. In Live (and Tracktion) i can. Tracktion is a second choice but it lacks drum editor, Live is more responsive and has the Session view, but Tracktion is less expensive. I can go on why i consider Live better than the others, but there are equally important things to write.
I didn't consider Live in the past because i thought it is only for live performance. Live 4 changed my mind but one feature was missing is the Freeze function. Now Live 5 has it and many more features, it is an ideal one for me, well almost.
I wish there is a small view of video (i can see it in the info space with a button or a tab) supporting swf files (flash movies).
Some (not me) wish there is a staff view (or editor) and i can see it also in the bottom panel with some tab to switch to.
I don't know why, but i feel i will see these things in Live 7! without affecting live performers I hope.
Last, i felt so good when i read the great care for customers and the nice comments from 'Dave' and 'Kid'. The comments reflect nice and modest personalities which i adore.

[Anderton]

I use Live on a dual processor system, and it works fine. I'm not sure if it increases performance.

As far as I know Live is not designed for X64.

[dave hill jr.]

Wow, Thanks EnGee for the nice remarks.

You can rubberband select notes in the MIDI editor when the pencil tool is off. Apple (Ctrl) + B.

As for X64, we do not support at this time.

As for dual processor, I understand we put the audio playback on one processor and video demands on the second for both macs and PCs. Please chime in on our forum with what you'd like to see in the future. www.ableton.com/forum

Cheers,
Dave

[AMIEL]

Hi! My question is that is ableton live 5 will work anyway on windows xp 64 .... i mean will catch 32 bit by default? will work with the same stability and performace than a regular windows xp? o simple will not work at all??


Thanks!!

[EnGee]

Originally posted by dave hill jr. You can rubberband select notes in the MIDI editor when the pencil tool is off. Apple (Ctrl) + B.

Thanks Dave, But it doesn't apply on Sonar Sorry if i gave the impression that i was talking about Live.
With Live is very easy to 'guess' how it is working without even reading the manual. Well at least for my needs.

[Anderton]

Okay everybody, I'm about to close the thread, I think we have all our comments/questions in on Ableton Live 5. But before signing off, note that Live 5.0.2 is now available; it has quite a few bug fixes and some enhancements.

And thanks again to Ableton's Dave Hill. At AES he said "Those Pro Reviews are a lot of work..." Well if it's any consolation, they are for me too! But thanks much for being a standup guy.

[dave hill jr.]

Thanks Craig,

It was also a lot of fun!

BIG THANKS for all the ideas and feature requests as well as the positive review. It’s been really great to hear from the legions of Craig fans and I know I’ll keep watching the other threads on this forum to keep up on what is going on.

By the way, if you already have Live and are looking for the 5.0.2 update, you can grab the latest version of Live quickly by opening Live and selecting "Check For Updates" from the help menu. You will be taken right to our website for the update without having to enter a serial number again.

Love to hear how the fixed Select On Launch via MIDI is working for the loop cognoscenti!

All best and happy music making!
dave

[maneco]

I want to say thanks for this great thread,and post some pictures of me playing live with LIVE5

http://community.webshots.com/user/manecolooper

Best!

[rerdavies]

Probably a silly question, but I've searched and searched, and I can't find a definitive answer on the web.

I'm currently playing with Ableton Live 4.1 Lite, which came bundled with a firewire m-audio adapter I just bought.

I'm tempted to jump to Live 5, but the midi editing in 4.1 Lite is just not going to cut it for me. Having to put every note right on a grid line isn't something I can live with, although the performance features are very very tempting. (Intended application is live nu-jazz; I'm a jazz guitarist, currently working with cubase and an extensive custom software rack).

I've searched and searched, and I can't find any evidence that midi editing improves in full Live 5. Am I wrong?

(btw, earlier comments that I'll be facing $250 a year in upgrade costs if I lock into live are a big turnoff for me too).

[apostate9]

. So...what do you think, Live users? Do you wish it had more DAW-like features?

 

 

Yes. Absolutely. Music authoring tools should target musicians, not just DJs. That seems like it should go without saying somehow...

 

:-)

[jjbraunius]

Craig - another big problem I've had with live besides the 2 paid updates per year is the fact that they are still not incorporating meter changes in their software.

The built in drum sample looked like a great option to do some prog. rock arrangements and after sweating midi notation for 3+ weeks to my utter dismay I ran into the meter/tempo problem.

Basically Live 4 (and what I understand 5) won't do a meter change, so if most of your song is in say 4/4 at 120 bpm and you want to go to 7/8 at 160 bpm - tough luck, Live just won't do it.

I wanted to bring your attention to this as none of the reviews of Live have mentioned this so far.

Compared to Live, say even a cutdown version of Cubase LE handles this like a champ.

[Anderton]

Correct up to a point - you set the time signature for the song as a whole and cannot alter it partway through.

However, you can change the time signature for individual clips. So if you changed to, say, 3/4 at measure 120, you can just start inserting clips in 3/4 at that point. It won't look pretty on the timeline but it'll at least give the intended musical results. Maybe Live 6...

[Anderton]

And speaking of Live 6, it showed up! Maybe Ableton will want a Pro Review on it...