 Re: Ableton Live
Hi guys. I've been using Ableton live 6 (full version) for a few months now and find its interface really intuitive. It's a lot to get your head round and very different to cubase (which I used to use - I haven't used cubase since SX3, forgive me if my knowledge is out of date.)
Firstly - Cubase is geared around creating a final finished product. You can audition parts as you build up the layers of your track, but you should have a final idea of what the track will sound like.
Live is more geared towards live performance (hence the name), and really strives to allow the interface to integrate with a live performance.
Personally, I use it to create housed up mixes of old disco tunes, mixing them together, adding drums, effects and accapellas.
Live has 2 views, a session view, for creating a live performance and an arrangement view for recording what you have done (this is much similar to the sort of interface you see with cubase and protools)
For each track you can record a series of clips, which can be looped and triggered, so I might have a drum loop going, this will loop indefinitely unless I (a) decide to trigger another loop, perhaps with an odd extra snare in it, much like a real musician will hit, or (b) set up follow actions which enable live to randomly decide whether to play the new loop or repeat the old one. Using follow actions enables you to set up loops that 'jam' with themselves. Add a bit of shuffle in the groove quantize and a loop can really start to approximate a real drummer.
As I'm using dance music, I set up the quantize setting to 4 bars, which means that nomatter when I set a new section going, it won't come in until the right moment.
Also I use warp markers quite extensively. Just as you can timestretch loops in cubase, warp markers allow you to define each beat, or even just the rhythm and Live will automatically make it fit with whatever else is playing (at least in time - you can then adjust the key, if need be). As I use a lot of Disco loops I have to adjust them to fit with dance beats as (apologies to all drummers, but) real drummers don't keep perfect time. The recording then either sppeds up or slows down each section between the markers to make it fit perfectly. This of course means you can incorporate samples from things that would never normally fit, but you can set the markers according to beats, tones or a complex algorithm that smoothes out frequencies that don't fit.
Each horizontal line of clips across the tracks can make up a intro, verse, breakdown or chorus and you can trigger a line at once, so the track will automatically change each instrument at the time you want it to (if you want it to).
Lastly the point I want to make is setting up midi instruments and controls is incredibly easy. I bought an M-Audio midiman radium 69key controller some time ago, but struggled to get it working with cubase (things might have improved since then :-) In Ableton, I selected it from a list in midi preferences and that was it. Worked as a midi keyboard. To use the controllers, just click Midi, Click the feature I want to control (eg resonance on a live plugin), move the slider on the radium and click midi to finish. Moving the slider now controls that input on screen.
Having set this up I can play my PC like an instrument, bringing in sections, maniputating effects, and trying new clips. Live just keeps playing, I don't have to plan it all out beforehand.
When I've got something I like, I hit record and play that arrangement, which is then rendered to disk.
Oh, and it has never once crashed on me. Maybe I'm just lucky, but I have given it some hammer.
I would recommend the Live 6 textbook, by John Von Seggern (US not UK!). It's encyclopedic, rather than get going instantly, but it does tell you everything you need to know.
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