I've been using Cubase from the days of VST 3.x right up to SX3 now, and I am pretty comfortable with the environment. However I keep on feeling a nag that I should check out Live 5/6 to see what all the fuss is about.
I've looked at the product demo videos on the Ableton site, and the way that automation is handled in particular grabbed me and looks like a great, efficient way of working.
Can anyone with experience of both environments let me know what they think of Live compared to Cubase? In particular, what are the benefits of each system to you?
I started in the early atari days with b/w cubase 2.0 (oh man that was so long ago...) and bought live by version 2.1.
The first time, due to live lack of midi, I had to rewire it to cubase in order to use hardware synths and so on, and this was over with live 4 thanks to its midi implementation.
For quite a year I haven't opened cubase, since I could do everything I needed in live but one day, a friend of mine came to my studio and we did a track in cubase, and I rediscovered it again, now I use them both.
In cubase you have serious track routing (which you can do in live as well but it's not straight forward as in cubase), you see all the automation at a time -unlike live- and the sound engine, according to lots of people, it's better (I agree to this one after doing some A/B comparisons).
Now I use live as a live performing tool and sketchpad for new tracks.
I arrange in live and then export every single track in cubase and rebuild the track there and I do all the fine tunings and whatsoever in cubase.
If you know cubase insideout just keep on working with it, but give absolutely a look at live -it's worth a demo download- you may be pleased of the nice straight forward workflow that live offers. Once you've mastered it (I'd say since you already know what a sequencer can /should do you should have it within 2 months if you are slow in learning, if not even sooner) you'll surely find live a good companion and you will be able to decide if it can replace or just complement cubase.
I'd say use both, totally agree with sorgenkind. Live is absolutely great to play with fx, quickly & easily customable, midi assign, etc..., it's fun to do too. Cubase is much more precise and definitely better sounding. More and more i use them together or go back and forth. And you can often hear "Live" productions go very very very loopy, in Cubase you can really see what's going on exactly, midi or audio, not just coloured clips. Well, my point of view, for all it's worth !
Ill third it. Cubase is an awsome studio recording solution but Ableton cannot be beat for the hybrid recording performance market. If you plan on doing live PAs via laptop Ableton all the way
If you are doing strictly recording and arranging and production, stick with cubase. They've been doing it a lot longer and have things nailed down and sounding better.
However, Ableton is excellent for on the stage and offers a different way of putting your music together in the studio. maybe worth checking out if you maybe need a new creative spark.
i love ableton live because i can develop an idea and hear the result in minutes. but for real production the sound engine is crap... i'm waiting to hear the promised improvements of the sound engine in live6.
for my personal experience the price for the best sound engine goes to logic
i'm waiting to hear the promised improvements of the sound engine in live6.