Anyone switch from Cubase (or any DAW) to using ableton??

daveashe · Post by **daveashe** » Tue Feb 02, 2010 8:28 pm

Using ableton made me lazy and stopped me from thinking about the overall flow of my music from start to finish.

However, you can do some nifty things like random pattern selection.

I used to swear by it until i realised that

1. its not modular in any way - you cant modulate any of the fx parameters with an lfo etc.
2. using clips makes you lazy, just grab some sample cds and you are away
3. the linear editor is horrible to use, so you end up using patterns, and thinking based on patterns is not great because you cant see the overall tune.
4. its greyscale interface is so uninspiring
5. its got a horrible way of handling vst plugins
6. its buggy as hell
7. its really slow on laptops, even on a core 2 duo

Great for audio manipulation, stretching etc. internal effects are pretty cool but not for writing music in.

And if you want to dj, use traktor instead, its a lot better and easier than using ableton - you can slipstream tracks in 2 seconds, where with ableton you have to check all the warping pointers etc. it sucks really..

If you want a rock-solid sequencer that is cpu-efficient, propellerhead record with reason is my number one choice now.

Daemonix · Post by **Daemonix** » Tue Feb 02, 2010 11:47 pm

daveashe wrote: 3. the linear editor is horrible to use, so you end up using patterns, and thinking based on patterns is not great because you cant see the overall tune.

what do you mean by that? in logic you use also patterns.. (maybe I dont get because of my english)
Can you elaborate a bit more?

thnx
tasos

tone-def · Post by **tone-def** » Sat Feb 27, 2010 5:24 pm

i understand what dave is saying. when you have the vertical window open where you trigger what loop you want to play it's cool but when you change to the timeline window and try to get out of that loop way of working it's not so good.

KrisM · Post by **KrisM** » Sat Feb 27, 2010 7:39 pm

You could always drop stems from Cubase into Live's Arrangement view, chop them up using ctrl/cmd e, highlight all of it, copy, and then paste it into Session view. Go into your clips and set follow actions up for your phrasing and your song will now play in Session just as it was originally written.

But you also have the ability to change it up however you want, say if you or the crowd are just really digging a section, you can remix it on the fly, jam it out longer, switch some parts around, or whatever comes to mind.

regler · Post by **regler** » Sat Feb 27, 2010 9:42 pm

yeah I do, but I just use the arrange view or do something really "live" in the session view and records it.

but 'working' in session on a track don't work for me. you may ask why I don't use cubase when I do mostly linear arranging, I love cubase and know it well, but even if I miss a lot of features from cubase (!) the workflow is still better for me. the routing, effects handling are just too good in ableton. and there are often very simple direct solutions for missing functions in cubase you don't see at first.

I hope ableton is getting these missing basic sequencer functions one day (ghost clips, advanced midi editing, etc., better gui :-) )

tone-def · Post by **tone-def** » Sat Feb 27, 2010 9:56 pm

regler wrote:the routing, effects handling are just too good in ableton. and there are often very simple direct solutions for missing functions in cubase you don't see at first.

could you expand on this a little more. why is ableton's routing better than cubase? effects handling?

hydrogen · Post by **hydrogen** » Sat Feb 27, 2010 10:29 pm

Opuswerk wrote:
hydrogen wrote:
Minimal Samples wrote:I find live easier to use than Cubase or Sonar, but I'm not a fan of the piano roll midi editing in live, it needs to be seriously improved IMHO.
people complain about the live midi editor but after using cubase 3, cubase sx, logic 9, reason 1 - 4. i think its the best in the business. what needs to be improved about it?
to me it really really lacks ghost clips.

ghosting? like instancing of clips?

Opuswerk · Post by **Opuswerk** » Sat Feb 27, 2010 11:15 pm

hydrogen wrote:
Opuswerk wrote:
hydrogen wrote:
Minimal Samples wrote:I find live easier to use than Cubase or Sonar, but I'm not a fan of the piano roll midi editing in live, it needs to be seriously improved IMHO.
people complain about the live midi editor but after using cubase 3, cubase sx, logic 9, reason 1 - 4. i think its the best in the business. what needs to be improved about it?
to me it really really lacks ghost clips.
ghosting? like instancing of clips?

not too sure what instancing is, but what i'm talking about is what logic does so flawlessly. Seems like the easiest thing to do in my opinion, but i might be very wrong.