something better than sony acid?

so i'm in the process of creating and editing a bunch of stuff i've gleaned from records, field recordings, etc and i'm looking to start putting together some tracks mostly based off of these samples, i haven't yet had the mind to delve into midi devices, drum machines etc but that is an eventuality.

i've been trying to use sony acid pro 7 and i'm finding it rather difficult and non-intuitive... is there some other software package out there, preferably for os x, that i could look into using for track creating/structuring, manipulating and such, probably also with editing capabilities?

using xp just reminds me of being at work which is also not good. i have a macbook so i'm running both atm.

thanx y0

Live 8.

It is stupid how easy everything is. Perfect for manipulating and structuring samples and phrases, and added bonus of the realtime element.

Ableton Live seconded.

thanks dudes i'll report back with results whenever i get off me arse :embrassed:

i still can't wrap my head around the correlation in Ableton live between the timeline/arrangement window and clips view. Am i understanding correctly that there is no correlation and one can choose to make a song using either view but not both at the same time? or would using both on the same track make any sense ?

  Awepittance said:

i still can't wrap my head around the correlation in Ableton live between the timeline/arrangement window and clips view. Am i understanding correctly that there is no correlation and one can choose to make a song using either view but not both at the same time? or would using both on the same track make any sense ?

Yeah, I think this is the only weird aspect that ableton has. Not sure if you can use them both at the same time, I don't think so, session view (clip views) is better for live usage and arrangement view is more appropriate for just producing tracks.

You can of course record your live/clip view session and call it a song, I can see that also being a fun way to go about making a track.

  Berk said:

You can of course record your live/clip view session and call it a song, I can see that also being a fun way to go about making a track.

so far this is the only thing i've been doing because i find the audio splicing and arranging on the timeline to be really cumbersome and seems to have far less features than Logic or Nuendo , maybe i just need to explore more but its been really slow going for me to get used to.

  Awepittance said:

  Berk said:

You can of course record your live/clip view session and call it a song, I can see that also being a fun way to go about making a track.

 

so far this is the only thing i've been doing because i find the audio splicing and arranging on the timeline to be really cumbersome and seems to have far less features than Logic or Nuendo , maybe i just need to explore more but its been really slow going for me to get used to.

I don't think I've ever fully known the ins and outs of the DAWs I've used regarding shortcuts for arranging and whatnot. I always kind of fool around and, although I do get what I want in the end, it probably takes more time then when you know all the chromas and hotkeys and all that stuff.

For instance when I quickly want to create a new MIDI clip for a synth in ableton, I always just copy the MIDI clip of a drum track or something and place it on the MIDI track of the synth, then clear the clip and write new MIDI data in that copied clip, because I don't know how to add an empty MIDI clip other than the ones in session view

I do like ableton though, as I think it's easy to loop stuff, duplicate stuff just by holding ctrl and dragging the clip, route audio all that stuff. It's really intuitive, like Sony Vegas for video editing.

Only other thing that's a bit annoying imo is that you can only use 15 audio outputs, so when I'm using Nepheton I cannot even route the Hihats to another audio track (e.g. for adding effects), because those are on channel 17 or something. In Reaper I can do this, but Reaper is a bit too basic for me after all I've found.

i'm curious how Matt handles his workflow in Ableton live because i know he used to be a hardcore Logic man and for me making the jump from a traditional DAW (nuendo) to Ableton has been weird. Matt do you use the timeline view for the most part or the clip view?

The way it works, is if you have anything in the arrange, it will follow that.

If you change something (ie, trigger a different drum loop, in the session view) a red light at the top pops on. From this point, the arrange still plays, but for that specific track, it'll just keep looping that freshly triggered loop, until you tell it to do something else.

This is super cool, because it means you can have an arrangement that you are playing, and then start fucking with FX, trigger lots of clips, and all that madness, and then just hit the red button at the top, and it will automatically revert back to the arrangement.... so you have the potential to go off into some crazy terrority, but have a way to jump back to the original material.

I'm still getting used to Live, as I've only had it a few weeks... so there is some stuff I am still sorting out, workflow-wise. I haven't abandoned Logic... Ive used it for so long, I know it so well... and it does have more control and features for sure... but as far as shooting out new ideas, quickly, Live has changed that so much.

So, to answer your question, yeah, I use the timeline view... Ill have the master arrangement in Logic (sculpture synths, and other MIDI tracks (because I do write in a more through-composed way, as opposed to loops, when it comes to melody and harmony... so live isnt ideal for that... but for triggering audio clips/loops Live is the shit. I record my nords into Live, because I can so quickly just loop a chunk of the recording, grab some warp markers, and within minutes have crazy amounts of variations of a clip to work with.

Robbie, you should look into the clip launch section, of the session view... im not sure if youve notice, but you can assign all sorts of actions to clips, like "play clip 2 times, and then pick a random clip to play afterwards" (which could have a different action, like "play 4 times, and then move to next clip in row". Its not phrases like that, Im simplifying it... but it's these boxes with various commands and stuff... can be cool, if you set the global clip launch division to like 16th notes, and you can be semirandomly jumping between clips on a track.

and, when I use the arrange, I am more likely improving in session view, and recording it all in to the arrange, will I then go and edit any things I didnt like, or add more details/variation to it.

here is a new promo vid of someone using the apc40.

looks like its integrated perfectly... I really want one.

wouldnt assign all the knobs to stutter plugins though :(

http://www.apc40.com/

its the first video in the video section, with Stephan Vankov (its a flash site, so I cant direct link the vid)

Nice. It would be nice to have a more hands on interface with the program. That's something that has always bothered me about it since I couldn't really do two things at once.

you can drag clips between arrangement and session using the same buttons that switch the view... might be obvious but I blew someone's mind when I did that one time. you can add clips in the arrangement by highlighting the empty time and using the right-click menu, but it's weird because there are 2 different menus depending on what part of the space you click on. also a really cool thing in arrangement is that lock icon that lets you move clips without moving track envelopes.

Watch how this guy switches from Session to Arrange, this is the basic hands on way to get a song into arrange.

I do the same minus the apc, I typically trigger entire scenes sequentially, starting with scene 1 being the intro, and scene 2 being a verse or whatever...

The whole process of kinda jamming the song into the arrange is what got me into Ableton in the first place.

And yes as noted, you can do things afterwards like trigger up a group of drums in the session view or solo on a keyboard, and record while the arrangement is going.

(then you can bring them back into session view when you play out live)

  spraaaa said:

you can add clips in the arrangement by highlighting the empty time and using the right-click menu, but it's weird because there are 2 different menus depending on what part of the space you click on.

thanks, never saw the option 'add midi clip' in that menu actually lol