Ableton Live question

Yo
Just curious if any of you out there doing hip-hop are incorporating Ableton Live into your produced work and to what degree you use it and what features you find it useful for. Any comments/suggestions well 'preciated.
PAYCE!!
Tha Saint

I don't use live, so I really can't help you, but you have to know that there are probably better places to ask this.

i used to use live, and now use the mpc as well. altho live is clearly the most exciting piece of soft ive ever used. its the quick workflow that i love with live. at the mo, cos the mpc is my freshest gear, i havnt touched live for a while, but i still use it to add synths and wat not. just love how easy it is it to assign midi to your controllers. also the timestretching is the best ive used, warping is seriously useful for getting samples stretched correctly. the assignable effects are just amazing as well, 'beat repeat' is a sick effect. each version gets better and better. seriously, dj'ing using live is pretty neat as well, if uve gotta keyboard with assignable rotary knobs, use should try assigning the crossfader to one rotary, and then adding eq's to channel 'a' and 'b', and assigning the low, mid and high's to the remaining rotataries. and uve got a mock dj setup. obviously not as good as decks, but you can do some interesting stuff that decks seriously cant do. furthermore, u can use the effects in realtime, so if u plug in a guitar, u can hear all the effects u add to it as u play.

i always make the majority of the beat on the mpc, record it onto ableton, then add some extra layers, and then some cuts on my turntable....i love the fact u can compress and eq ur scratching and add effects in realtime.

i just started using ableton live a couple weeks and it blows me away. really is the best software i've used as far as getting your ideas done quickly.

getting this post back to the forum topic, using my 1000 with it destroys everything else i've used (cubase, nuendo, everything).

i got my 1000 midi'd up with ableton as the master and the mpc as the slave. i start up a sequence on ableton, and do the drums immediatley on the 1000. leave the 1000 playing the drums and now i can play live instruments in (guitar, bass, piano, etc...) and record them the same way i would using the mpc. i can record multpile takes of instruments or scratches without ever having to stop the sequence from playing. it just handles things much better.

when i would try to do the same thing on the 1000 i'd have to record the instruments/scratches in, trim them, assign them to a program, and then enter them into a sequence. with ableton i can record them without ever stopping the sequence. to me its the perfect software to go along with a mpc (especially if you play live instruments).

download the demo for free. its completely functional, but you cant save anything. once you learn how to use it, most people never want to go back to regular DAW's and i completely understand why....

i have live 5 but i can't really get into it. i mean i can understand how to use it but it's not for me. (at least right now...) for those who are in this game for live shows and performances, i've heard plenty of good things about live so i can see where you would agree with punchdrunk's post saying using live is better for than any DAW but to me, i don't plan on doing live gigs so it would benefit me more to use Nuendo or Pro Tools. i'm not taking anything away from the cats who uses Live and maybe i'll get into at some point but right now, i'll have to pass on it.


wait... the one thing that i like about Live better than nuendo or pro tools is the ability to rewire reason directly into an audio track instead of messing around with routing aux tracks to an audio track (pro tools) or bouncing down the rewire channels to an audio file then importing the file into the DAW (nuendo) but other than that, my statement above still stands.

isajeep wrote:I don't use live, so I really can't help you, but you have to know that there are probably better places to ask this.

Say wah? There is no better place to ask 'bout incorporating Live with the rest of your gear. The mpc is the heart of my setup yo

Anyway to move on to more important items, thanks to all who gave great feedback. Gonna try the rewire item with reason, seems worth checkin out.
PAYCE!!

I try to use Live 5 as the center of my setup.

I record my MPC2000xl and Triton as MIDI into Live, keeping the MPC timing. Then I can go back and edit.

I use live with my mpc 1k. My main purpose for live was to be able to (no pun intented) perform live w/ it. Other than that I use it to track my stuff now instead of Acid Pro 5 (which occasioanly still use). The effects on it sounds really good. Plus tracking out is breeze with how well the sync of midi is compared to acid. Like Sparq mentioned i myself enjoi how easy it is to rewire in Ableton, compared to Pro Tools, and Acid.

sparq wrote:i have live 5 but i can't really get into it. i mean i can understand how to use it but it's not for me. (at least right now...) for those who are in this game for live shows and performances, i've heard plenty of good things about live so i can see where you would agree with punchdrunk's post saying using live is better for than any DAW but to me, i don't plan on doing live gigs so it would benefit me more to use Nuendo or Pro Tools. i'm not taking anything away from the cats who uses Live and maybe i'll get into at some point but right now, i'll have to pass on it.

the funny thing is that i never plan to use ableton for live purposes.

i've been using nuendo for the last couple years and samuch as i loved it, the only complaint i had about it was my workflow. there was too much in the way of me putting down ideas quickly (especially with my mpc involved). with ableton i feel like i can get right to making music insead of clicking a million things and restarting sequences and whatnot.

the same way i fell in love with mpcs simplicity of looping and immediately overdubbing was how i felt about ableton. it seems like the closest software i've found to go along with my mp.

but in no way is one method or approach neccessarily better or worse. whatever works best for each person works best for that indivudal (not neccessarily everyone else).

nuendo served me well for a long ass time, but i seriously havent opened it once i finally got comfortable with ableton.

...as long as you find what works out best for you, thats the only thing that really matters.

I also use Live with my MPC. I prefer recording into the MPC first. Especially for beats. I just love the flow of the MPC sequencer. Then I track it to Live. Although a lot of times (especially for non Hip-Hop tracks) I find myself using Live exclusively. Punchdrunk, I like your idea of having the Live sequence running in the background and adding clips in Live while your MPC is playing the beat. Do you use Session mode for this?

Anyway, I'm curious for those who use Live+MPC if you record as MIDI or Audio into Live. Both methods have their pros and cons. In my case, the sound source is in Live, but it's sequenced with the MPC. Recording MIDI allows me to fine tune the sequence in Live before eventually bouncing to audio. Since I'm using a Creamware Pulsar II in XTC mode, I have to bounce to audio anyway so recording straight to audio gets rid of that extra step. But I notice that when I record as audio into Live using a MIDI sequence originating from the MPC, the audio gets shifted a bit and my loop doesn't sound quite right. I'm still ironing that part out.

Listen to Blake Beats 1, 2, & 3 for tracks done exclusively with Live and VSTs (software only). Out of the Ashes demo was done exclusively with an MPC1000 and outboard gear (hardware only). All songs are on my soundclick site.

Peace \/
Chisel
www.soundclick.com/chisel316

The only time I record midi in Ableton. Is with my midi keyboard playin melodies. other than that when I use my MPC w/ Ableton I have Ableton as the master sequencer, and just track out my beats from there. Then i'll add some effects to my track, then vocals, and wahla. On a side note the Saturator makes your drums sound ill as f@$k.

metafor wrote:. On a side note the Saturator makes your drums sound ill as f@$k.

sshh

... been using that with all my drums recently, try combining it with the a soft touch of the Redux effect too... and then try the 'Gated Drums' gate preset with this.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Oh yea^^^^^^^^^

yo i just go this and i'm runing it with my edirol pcr 50 but i cant figure out how to get it synced up or how to use it, i was watching voodoo do sh1t with it and it looked ez i just want to use t to crate my melodies how can i do this , i want to make my melodies and then transfer them to my mpc and do all the work there such as sequenceing and buildin my tracks there any ideas.
i got my keyboard hookd up usb how do i get live to read it and how can i play my samples on there.

thanks in advance

any help is appreciated

The brilliant thing about Live is the whole "stopless audio". You can throw stuff around in there and work on different arrangements on the fly. Nothing else really even comes close. It's a great, unique piece of software. I think right now it's almost the perfect DAW, but not quite (it lacks in the "audio" side, particularly when pushed with a lot of data, as the quality slightly suffers to support the stopless audio). However, ReWired with another program to track vocals (like a Cubase or PT), and it makes for the ultimate software workspace, IMHO.
Peace