DAW discussions

[MBTC]

I didn't want to pollute the existing Ableton Live 9 thread with a bunch of stuff about a prior version (8.4), so I created a new one.

In recent years, I've been using FLStudio on the PC and Logic Pro on the Mac, with a greater emphasis on PC.

Logic is good in many ways, but even as a developer of software for Apple's systems, I've come to have deep distrust for Apple and their handling of their software products.

FLStudio is excellent, but it is PC only, it is largely maintained by a single guy who is talented but a pompous asshole, and if he were to ever get run over by a truck or get his arse severely kicked for some of the stuff he says to people, or even if he just decides to retire, then that would be the end of that particular product. It is written in Delphi which is unfortunate on so many levels. No reasonable chance of porting to other platforms, and not many developers left out there that care enough about Pascal to even fill the open positions to do so. As a music creation tool, it deserves the top-rank it consistently holds on KVR host software rankings, and pay-once upgrade-for-life is such a tremendous value that it does not even need to be explained.

I decided sometime back that I need to think more about the future, and settle on a DAW that will unconditionally be there long-term. I want it to be runnable on Mac or PC (I don't care about Linux and I doubt you do either), so that my hardware options are not limited.

So that got me looking at Ableton Live and Cubase. Hearing such good success stories about hardware integration with Cubase (specifically the Virus control software) really got my interest. However, Ableton seems to have gotten a lot of momentum, those who use it really love it, and I see all of the Ableton-specific HW controllers out there and its very clear this DAW is onto something. They both meet my criteria in terms of having a future, and working the same on either platform.

So I tried a lite version of Live 8.4, and ran into some issues with popping/crackling with certain synths that was not an issue in FLStudio on same PC, same audio interface, same buffer size settings. I have not given up on this, because I think its something about my config that Ableton doesn't like, it is not some limitation of the software itself.

Shortly after that, I downloaded the Cubase trial and was instantly smitten. I must confess that Cubase on the Atari ST was the first sequencing software I ever used, so that may explain one reason I had an instant positive reaction to it. Starting up with any new DAW software involves a learning curve; along the learning trail there are lots of things that seem counter-intuitive, but that was true of my recent stint with Live, and it was true about FLStudio when I was first learning my way around it. The pops and clicks with CPU-heavy soft-synths are still worse in Cubase than in FLS, but significantly less of a problem compared to my specific installation of Live 8.4.

First impressions of Cubase vs. Ableton Live are that if I were performing live in any way (DJ-ing or in a band), I would most likely prefer Ableton's workflow. I also see how the workflow in Live leads to some creative possibilities that would need to be approached differently in Cubase. But perhaps the problem is that *I think sequentially*? In other words, for writing and arranging music, Cubase feels more natural to me (as I said, could be due to my Atari ST roots, or the fact that it is more like FLS and Logic than Ableton is). For general remixing, DJ-ing, and combining of clips in real-time Ableton wins (also points for cramming a lot onto a single window, a plus if mobile on a laptop but kind of a negative for my home studio).

So at this point I'm wondering if that last paragraph above is true for everyone? Or, is it a side-effect of not having spent enough time yet with Live and Cubase to fully evaluate their use? Or maybe I'm just an old dog that is hard to teach new tricks?

[grs]

I came from Atari Cubase also, Used cubase PC until I swapped to Ableton for the last few years.
Don't miss Cubase at all, except a few midi things. Like drawing a straight line over note velocity (cubase) instead of free hand drawing of velocity (Live).
New things in live outweigh the missing things in my world, I still like to do full arrangement view creation instead of the clip view.

[MBTC]

You mean you use arrangement view for everything? That might have been part of what seemed unintuitive to me, the tutorials I was watching focused more on clip view, and to me that's more useful for triggering clips and scenes that you've already put together some other way. But starting from a blank slate, the Cubase way of doing things (which is a lot like FLStudio and many others) seems more like how I think.

Also curious what you mean about drawing a straight line over note velocity?

Thanks

[Berni]

Originally Posted by MBTC

You mean you use arrangement view for everything? That might have been part of what seemed unintuitive to me, the tutorials I was watching focused more on clip view, and to me that's more useful for triggering clips and scenes that you've already put together some other way. But starting from a blank slate, the Cubase way of doing things (which is a lot like FLStudio and many others) seems more like how I think.

Also curious what you mean about drawing a straight line over note velocity?

Thanks

I tend to use the arrangement view most of the time & use the session view as a sketch pad to throw ideas around in. If you are more used to the linear style of arrangement then it's the way to go.

[MBTC]

Originally Posted by Berni

I tend to use the arrangement view most of the time & use the session view as a sketch pad to throw ideas around in. If you are more used to the linear style of arrangement then it's the way to go.

I may take another look at it from that angle, I need to figure out what's causing the audio issue in Live vs. other hosts. The session view was nifty but not that useful to me, I can do that kind of stuff with Maschine and FLStudio: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xQFvvzqQYk (or actually I guess I could probably do it strictly with Maschine). So many DAWs, not enough time

[grs]

Originally Posted by MBTC

You mean you use arrangement view for everything? That might have been part of what seemed unintuitive to me, the tutorials I was watching focused more on clip view, and to me that's more useful for triggering clips and scenes that you've already put together some other way. But starting from a blank slate, the Cubase way of doing things (which is a lot like FLStudio and many others) seems more like how I think.

Also curious what you mean about drawing a straight line over note velocity?

Thanks

Sometimes use clip view at the beginning of a remix or something, then press record using launching of rows, that takes them to the arrangement view. From there you can do longer filter moves and be more finicky with overdubs and such.

I meant drawing velocities on pre existing midi notes, like snare rolls. In Cubase you could drag a line, straight or parabolic, even LFO shapes over velocity data.

[MBTC]

Originally Posted by grs

I meant drawing velocities on pre existing midi notes, like snare rolls. In Cubase you could drag a line, straight or parabolic, even LFO shapes over velocity data.

Yeah, understanding how I was going to deal with automation (during the times I draw it rather than record it) was one of the first things I learned how to do in Cubase because I use it so frequently.

I think I understand what you're saying about Live... I had to go into Live 8 and try it out. I didn't see a way to draw a line, but I think you mean something like a velocity ramp sloping up left to right that's "linearly perfect", is that correct? If you resize the window in Ableton to a ridiculous height temporarily, you can get it very close with the mouse (close enough that it would look perfect when you make the window smaller and the sound would be indistinguishable from a perfect line). Maybe I'm not following you though.

[MBTC]

Originally Posted by Berni

I tend to use the arrangement view most of the time & use the session view as a sketch pad to throw ideas around in. If you are more used to the linear style of arrangement then it's the way to go.

Yeah, once I play around with arrangement view more, it definitely feels easier to get used to. One thing I will say about Live, if dealing with limited screen space (i.e. gigging on a laptop for example), the UI layout feels better designed for that. I need lots of pixels and I think Cubase works well on a big/dual monitor(s), but it tends to rely more on separate windows like FLStudio than Ableton which keeps things docked and tidy. For my (existing) workflow, the big screen approach works best. Maybe that will change in the future... I can see how the screen space usage is important for those on the go.

One thing that made it kind of an unfair contest -- my Ableton version is "lite", which means it is not time limited but came with very limited (i.e. crappy) instruments. Cubase on the other hand is a trial (only 30 days), but fully functional, and it's got some killer instruments and tools.

One thing that sucks is Cubase seems to release new versions often and they're going to ding me on the upgrades -- hope they're worth it. That's one thing about FLStudio... pay once and that's it... forever, unless you want to buy more of their plugins (some of which are good). I bought it many versions ago around 2007 yet still run the latest version. From what I can tell Ableton doesn't upgrade or ding as often, which I think is a good thing.

[Berni]

Originally Posted by MBTC

Yeah, once I play around with arrangement view more, it definitely feels easier to get used to. One thing I will say about Live, if dealing with limited screen space (i.e. gigging on a laptop for example), the UI layout feels better designed for that. I need lots of pixels and I think Cubase works well on a big/dual monitor(s), but it tends to rely more on separate windows like FLStudio than Ableton which keeps things docked and tidy. For my (existing) workflow, the big screen approach works best. Maybe that will change in the future... I can see how the screen space usage is important for those on the go.

One thing that made it kind of an unfair contest -- my Ableton version is "lite", which means it is not time limited but came with very limited (i.e. crappy) instruments. Cubase on the other hand is a trial (only 30 days), but fully functional, and it's got some killer instruments and tools.

One thing that sucks is Cubase seems to release new versions often and they're going to ding me on the upgrades -- hope they're worth it. That's one thing about FLStudio... pay once and that's it... forever, unless you want to buy more of their plugins (some of which are good). I bought it many versions ago around 2007 yet still run the latest version. From what I can tell Ableton doesn't upgrade or ding as often, which I think is a good thing.

You can use one (session) or the other (arrangement) or both, they are not mutually exclusive. Once you get your head around the idea you realise what a really creative tool live is...& then you get into the routing possibilities...

[MBTC]

Originally Posted by Berni

You can use one (session) or the other (arrangement) or both, they are not mutually exclusive. Once you get your head around the idea you realise what a really creative tool live is...& then you get into the routing possibilities...

I definitely see the creative aspect. The CPU usage (which might be a problem that's limited to VST wrapping on the PC only) is a big concern of mine. Unfortunately this "lite" version I have only allows me to add up to four instruments, so I cannot really put it to the test beyond adding a few heavy CPU eating synths and comparing. I wish they would just give me either a limited trial like Cubase, or something with a more logical functional limitation (like the FLStudio trial lets you do anything you want except save a project).

I did a little research on this, and apparently the CPU use picture on the PC does not seem to get much better. One guy was saying he can load an identical project side by side in Live and Cubase, and the CPU usage is 60% in Live and 15% in Cubase. That's really a big deal for the way I work, CPU for VSTs is everything and is really the only reason I have a need for hardware synths (other than the fact I like them). Again, could be a PC thing only and a non-issue on the Mac.