Understanding Ableton

I have some real difficulty understanding Ableton, coming from Acid and Reaper.

Something about Ableton makes me feel uncomfortable. difficult to get around in it or something.

Anybody else have a take on it? Especially relating to

oops, i mean

I share your dilemma, I played around with garageband and rebirth (yes, rebirth) a lot in the past, then audacity. I'm one who gets very comfortable with one way of doing things, so changing from a "traditional" DAW to Ableton's session and arrangement view set up was a big wrench in my efforts.

This is a good thread idea. I know many here use ableton, any tips and advice would be good for those not used to it's setup. I always get the impression that once you get a workflow going it's a lot easier.

Welp, with ableton you can make it as easy or complicated for yourself. I'm on my 7th or 8th year and still learning from it. I was able to teach my buddy recently how to use it whom had zero DAW knowledge and he's coming along nicely.

What are you getting stuck on?

I always recommend youtube video's.

Well upon further thought I realized how much more of this was related to me own lack of planning on how I was going to put my track together.

What's the main thing that makes you uncomfortable skibby?

im looking for the right mindset. i'm coming from cubase acid reaper style sequencing, with tracks that take up the whole screen, but with ableton one is confronted with 2 screens, the clips and the arrange.

first of all, im not sure how the two commingle. i've watched some youtubes, and i think some concepts dawned on me, but i'm just trying to figure out how to pick up from say, reaper, and move over to ableton, and try to make spaghetti with routing, modulation, and automation.

the reason im interested is cause it seems more solid, and theres more functionality in the built in effects, not to mention onboard instruments and samples. I can really fly in reaper, but there are reasons for going the ableton way, they're just not totally clear to me yet.

also, ableton feels like being stuffed into a shoebox for some reason.

I feel the opposite, especially with the addition of max4live, the possibilities are truly endless.

I use clip view to get the basic structure, or skeleton, of the track going. So say intro on row one, verse one on row two, chorus on row three, verse two on row four, etc.

Then i record the structure into arrange view and add all the little details in there.

o cool, so its sort of like tracker style in a way right?

would you do tempo changes in the arrange view?

  On 8/9/2013 at 7:19 AM, skibby said:

o cool, so its sort of like tracker style in a way right?

 

would you do tempo changes in the arrange view?

Yeah you can automate tempo changes in there, in the master track I believe

https://www.ableton.com/answers/tempo-automation.

  On 8/9/2013 at 7:44 AM, usagi said:

 

  On 8/9/2013 at 6:36 AM, skibby said:

ableton feels like being stuffed into a shoebox for some reason.

 

Disableton

 

thats funny a friend of mine says that too...

Tried to get on with it several times and just don't really like it. Don't get me wrong, I understand the software and can use it (I think a few of the tracks I've posted on here in years gone by have been done in Ableton) but I always have a little fling with it, realise I prefer Reaper, Logic, Cubase or EnergyXT and go back to one of those. Dunno, just don't like it very much...

It's taken me a few months but I think I'm slowly getting there with Ableton. It's been quite a change from my tracker background, and it sounds like the change from your usual workflow is what's become a stumbling block for you two.

I've just been following countless tutorials and things are definitely falling into place now.

For free tutorials, I suggest subscribing to the Dubspot channel on Youtube. Here's a list of the Ableton tutorials (I tried sorting by date but it didn't like it) - http://www.youtube.com/user/DubSpot/search?query=ableton

And for a bit of cash I highly recommend this 4 hour tutorial - http://streamworksaudio.com/products/swaCompleteLive9 ( using the promo code 8390DFC0 you can get 50% off - hopefully that code hasn't expired yet)

Making a proper build-up in Ableton sucks shit.

Sorry, that's the best thing I have to say about Ableton.

  On 8/9/2013 at 12:14 PM, Squee said:

Making a proper build-up in Ableton sucks shit.

Here's me going mental on a recent project:

what about routing? does reaper have ableton licked in that dept?

Ah the routing matrix is an absolute beast - though I guess you can get similar results in Ablton by creating lots of 'send' tracks

Hey

  On 8/9/2013 at 12:26 PM, mcbpete said:

 

  On 8/9/2013 at 12:14 PM, Squee said:

Making a proper build-up in Ableton sucks shit.

Naw, that's bawbags - you just have to embrance the nuances of the arrangement view
Here's me going mental on a recent project:

 

Hey Mcbpete, If you don't mind me asking, what are all those vertical lines?

I still use Ableton version 6. I like it a lot and can use it without frustration. Tho I wonder how much I'm missing by not having the latest version.

Those are cue points (you can just about make up the writing at the top with a description to each cue) - I was doing a soundtrack project and those vertical lines meant I could quickly jump to the various sections and also align foley stuff to exact frames.

Yeh, agreed with mcbpete. Live is the most user friendly DAW to me, I've even taught non-neckbeards how to use it... Every track I have on my soundcloud page including the one below was done in Live.

I start by recording the bulk parts of the song while looping back drums/synths/live recordings ect. for timing, then when the loops are all polished and sit well within the mix, move to arrangement mode. In arrangement mode, treat it as any other DAW and build the song. It works for me.

Watch some videos, research some shiz, just like every other program, it is what you make it!

-mcbpete- I have Live 9 suite and I must say that the new EQ8, glue compressor (lush), and updated menus (no more gigantic open mess of horror) are lovely. Some of my VST's that used to not work (Waves bundle) now work! They even fixed little things from 8.0.1 like if you record 4 bars @4/4 and don't press the spacebar in a hummingbirds heartbeat, it sums it back to a 4 bar loop instead of a 4.1235 bar loop you have to manually cut back. Also, you can drag things off the grid easier than before.

  On 8/9/2013 at 12:59 PM, skibby said:

what about routing? does reaper have ableton licked in that dept?

ive heard ableton has some issues, i dont remember the specifics but something about unexpected results when complicated routing is involved, i got the impression that the routing implementation was somewhat flaky

well, whats this max for live thing that the beatwife plugins use?

You need to give it a few years