Why I use Ableton Live
One of the questions I frequently get is from people wanting to know why I use Ableton Live. It’s a completely understandable question. There is so much great software available today. If you want to start using loops or start recording there is no better time than now to get going. Your options are limitless. I’ve worked first hand with Reason, Logic, Garageband, and of course Live. I have a lot of friends that swear by ProTools and for recording and mixing it’s definitely the industry standard. I’ve worked with Live for over 7 years and made it through the good times and bad, worked with version after version, and update after update. Here are some of the reasons I’ve decided to stick with Live and make it my DAW of choice.
I can play WITH loops, not just TO loops
Hands down this is the number one reason Live is my software of choice. There is no other software on the market that allows you to “perform” with pre-recorded content like Live does. I have total freedom to go where I want to go when I want and I can craft my arrangement the way I want to. With Live I get to treat loops like another instrument in the band and Live allows me to play WITH loops, not just TO loops.
A Plugin and Rewire Host
When I’m creating loops or playing keys/synths live I’m typically using a few plugins and instruments out of Reason. Live works as a great “host” for plugins (VST and AU) and Reason instruments. Using midi and Instrument racks I can combine Live’s devices, VST’s, and Reason instruments to create unique instruments. Live allows me to blend unique sounds together, making velocity and octave assignments to create instruments that respond in different ways depending how you play them.
Working with MIDI is a breeze
Do you have a midi keyboard? Do you own Live? Have a few fingers? Plug them in, press midi mode and assign away. Select what function you want to assign, turn a knob or press a key on your keyboard and BAM – it’s assigned. It’s a long leap from the early days of racks of computers and having to understand the inner workings of midi. This makes playing keys live, layering sounds and controlling VSTs and instruments incredibly easy and enjoyable. Spend less time figuring it out and just do it.
I can transcribe and learn parts
I remember in the past using software and VSTs to slow down audio to learn guitar/piano parts and to transcribe charts/vocals. I now do this just using Live. I can slow down a song without altering the pitch and learn the song lick for lick.Anyone can learn even the most complex song; it just may take a bit longer to learn it. I’m constantly frustrated that my ear isn’t as good as others and it takes me longer to learn licks than other people. But, I can throw anything into Live and after a few minutes I’ve got it down.
Its great for Recording
I’ve recorded tons of songs, demos, and projects. Live isn’t built to be a software for tracking full-on projects but it can hold it’s own very well. I’ve tracked quite a few projects and demos over the years ranging from full bands to just myself singing with an acoustic. Live’s worked like a champ and with each update of Live mixing is getting better and better. The only problems recording/mixing in Live come from my ability (or lack thereof) to mix!
It’s incredibly easy to use
Live is a very intuitive software. I often tell people that once you learn the language in which the software uses to communicate with itself everything else will be a breeze. I like Live because it’s an easy program to learn and get going with right away. Learn the way Live communicates and start cranking away at it now.
I’m comfortable with it
This is one of the most under-acknowledged reasons for using software. I know a lot of people that use software other than Live just because they know it well and they are comfortable with it. A few of them are slowly starting to make the transition over to using Live. I’ve worked with Live for over 7 years and I’m just really comfortable with it. I know where to go to do what I need to and can move around the software quickly. Probably most importantly of all, when I step on stage I know I can trust it.
It turns out I’m not alone in my decision. The website Synthtopia just wrapped up a poll of the best DAW’s in the world and Live was chosen as the best DAW. Granted…It won with only one percent more votes than Fruity Loops, but it still won!
These are only a few reasons that I use Ableton Live as my DAW of choice.
Do you use Ableton Live? Why have you made the choice? If you’ve got another DAW of choice, why have you picked it? Let me know by leaving a comment below.
Related posts:
9 Comments
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
- Tweets that mention Why I use Ableton Live -- Topsy.com - [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Loops in Worship and Loops in Worship. Loops in Worship said: New ...
Leave a Comment
For worship, I use live and ReWire Reason into it as well.
I play with 2 keyboards. Using 2 keyboards in Reason is a pain. I have one controlling the selected patch in Reason. I use Live to tell the other what to play. Switching between Reason patches in Live is kind of a pain since Live reads all the devices within Combinators, so what I’ll do before service is create multiple MIDI tracks in Live and have them set to whichever instruments I need, then I Monitor In/Out each track at the appropriate time during service.
As stated in the article, the MIDI controls are fantastic. This alone justified the purchase of Live for me.
I use an old Kurzweil K2500 and that has four inputs for sustain pedals. I have one for sustain, one for tap tempo, and another to control Live’s looper (although I never really use that).
My church is recording a CD soon. So I have a session file for each of our songs already set to the right instruments, tempo, and time signature.
I used Reason 3 for so long, so Live was a no-brainer when it came to choosing a sequencer. Reason 4 is much better, but it still isn’t as flexible.
When it comes to actual loops, I do use a few. I try to play as much as I can, just because I like to. If I use loops, a lot of times I’m already alternating between two other instruments in the song. I have a Novation Launchpad, so launching/recording clips is easy.
Although, I’ve been eying Cubase for a few months. They have this new feature called Loop Mash which looks really cool, especially for drums. I don’t ever use drum loops so I really don’t see how I could use that in a worship setting.
@Jacob Thanks for the comment! I would try using Live’s External Instrument Device instead of midi/audio tracks.. So much easier to work it! And you can wrap multiple instruments in an instrument rack and create chains (presets). You can scroll through your presets or create midi clips and program the changes. It makes using Live and Reason together so much easier!
I think one of the most brilliant things about Live is the “blue hand” feature. Taking what you were saying about how easy it is to midi map to another level. Plug in any midi device that has 8 rotary knobs. I use an old Oxygen 8 keyboard. Once you’ve mapped this device you click on the blue hand on any Live instrument, effect or rack that has one in the title bar and 8 parameters are automatically mapped to the rotaries on your device. So quick and useful – you can just jump right in and morph sounds, play with the release on an instrument, etc. etc. Its amazingly useful and allows you to really “play” the software and even “play” mixes when you’re mixing.
@nylarch,
Great point! That is a great feature of Live! Working with midi is such a breeze in Live. It’s great that Live allows you to do the same thing when working with VST’s and customize what features you want to assign and use..So easy to use.
Live is still not the host of choice (really, no standard DAW is, unless you count the MainStage component of Logic) for a keyboard player. My setup is two keyboards, plus two instances of NI Kontakt (one with orchestral sounds that I always load, one with a funk horn section plus slots for other samples that I’ll load specifically for a given service), and an instance of Kore for all my synth sounds. Kore has its issues (I could never recommend using it as a main host after the time it crashed while saving changes in rehearsal and corrupted the save file, causing me to have to recreate it in the 10 minutes before the service) but for the very specific way I’m using it, it seems to do the job alright.
Still, keyboard players probably want something like the following in a host:
1) Ability to completely change MIDI routings, enable and disable instruments, change instrument settings, and so on, in response to a single program change.
2) Ability to rechannelize or map MIDI based on the current preset – sometimes I want my upper keyboard controlling the laptop since it has the better keybed; other times, I have a piano up top and want the lower keyboard to control the laptop.
3) Ability to easily create a set for a specific service without having to recreate everything from scratch – this includes changing the order. Having everything for all the songs we play loaded into Live and removing the things I don’t need isn’t an option – I’ll run out of memory long before loading all the settings I have.
So here’s what I do. The Kontakt instances are easy to configure; it’s not hard to load the specific samples I need. Kore’s pretty easy too; I save a Kore Sound for each song we do, and just drag out the ones I need. Live doesn’t do anything else that I mentioned very well; I could use instrument racks with External Instruments to handle some of those needs, but that’s more work and it doesn’t offer a complete solution.
The trick is to use an external tool to filter and transform the MIDI coming into Live. I use Bome’s MIDI Translator. It listens to the master program change and activates a preset for the current song. The preset activates other presets to allow MIDI from my keyboards to be passed through to Live in the specific ways I need. I even programmed my own patch remain using variables in the software, so that if I’m playing, say, strings in Kontakt and I switch to a program that doesn’t use the strings, they keep sounding until I take my fingers off the keys that were already down, BUT I prevent future note on events from getting into Kontakt.
This is certainly more complicated, but unlike other dedicated performance hosts (most of which are Windows only, like Cantabile and Forte), this gives me the tools Live offers for playing back loops in a convenient way plus it means not having to learn both a DAW for recording projects and loop creation AND a performance tool.
To add on to what I said before, I’d like to post a quasi-complaint.
Live needs have a coarse tap tempo function. It has fine tap tempo, but it’s not very practical.
While I don’t play drum loops, a lot of the instruments/synths I play in Reason are sequenced and therefore dependent on proper tempo and time signature.
I write down the tempo for all our songs on my sheet music, so I just enter it when I need to play an instrument that needs it. When I started playing synth, I had to ask our drummer for the tempo of every single song as we played them over practices and services. Every once in a while we’ll play something I don’t have.
When that happens, or when we start playing spontaneous worship, I have to use tap tempo to find out where we are at. Since Live’s tap tempo is fine, it measures to the nearest hundredth. So if the tempo is 120bpm, I’ll be tapping around something like 188.45 to 122.76. I usually watch it for a few bars and then enter it manually. It’ll usually come up 119.50+ so I round up to 120. As I play, sometimes I’ll add/subtract a bpm or two if I feel like Reason is rushing/lagging.
And then, sometimes our drummer turns off the metronome, which leaves me dead in the water when it comes to tempo-dependent instruments. I found our band will fluctuate 2-3 bpm up/down when we play without. Just some kinks we need work out!
That being said, I’d love to be able to tap to the nearest whole number. I even went to the Ableton forums about this. They recommended I have a another control to adjust fine tempo. So I assigned that to one of the faders of the K2500 to do so. But even that is still impractical. It’s easier to just type it in manually.
@Mike,
Thanks for the great comment! Tons of useful information. Thanks for pointing out a few other options for using Live with Keyboards. Live works incredibly well for me as far as a Plugin host goes. I’m not a keyboard player primarily but when I do play keys in a live setting Live has worked like a charm. The thing I like about it is that I can do ALOT of stuff very very easily. I think that’s one of the best aspects of it. For me, I don’t have the time to deal with alot of the in-depth midi mapping and programming so Rewiring Live and Reason together, using some VST’s and combining and controlling those with an Instrument Rack gives me way more Flexibility then I’ll ever need.
@Jacob,
That would be a great feature for Live. I’d highly highly suggest not have a drummer turn off the click..that is if people need to sync to it…Guitarists using alot of delay, or alot of keyboard effects because it will very quickly turn into a HUGE disaster! I always plug my tempos into Live’s session view depending on a Set, or use a Master set with all my loops/clicks plugged into session view so that I’m not having to manually change those tempos.
If i’m doing something on the fly I’ll just tap the tempo in, and even if it’s not exactly right I’ll live with it, which has worked fine with me. Granted all this is dependent on a band being able to consistently play with a click and if we don’t do a tune with the click then I won’t use any “tempo based” effects, loops etc.
By the way, what VSTs? do you like to use?