Ableton live linear vs other DAW's linear???

Henny P

Henny P

New member
Hey whats up FP

I have tried the demo of Ableton Live and it is excellent and excels in audio elastics and their exclusive session mode where you can go nuts triggering midi or audio loops on the fly and improvise to get results you wouldnt normal accomplish with strictly linear.

What I would like undersanding of is why do many say that ableton Linear mode is inferior to the linear mode of DAWS (Cubase SX to be specific)??? What am I missing? Can someone shed light on what things Cubase linear have that makes it far superior to Live linear mode..I ask because i like lives idea of session view but there are times when I'm not in the "on the fly mood" and have compositions planned in my head and have no need for the session mode improvising of live. Sometimes I want to lay out my planned composition the traditional linear way. So please understand I'm not trying to compare Live session mode with cubase cause that makes them 2 different monsters...I'm trying to get a comparision of linear in both cuase and dont want to miss out on any features that is making Cubase so much better in linear aspect? I'm switching over to software sequencing and can only get one so I'm pulling my hair out trying to figure out which one will have the most benifits...
 
Last edited:
Henny P said:
Hey whats up FP

I have tried the demo of Ableton Live and it is excellent and excels in audio elastics and their exclusive session mode where you can go nuts triggering midi or audio loops on the fly and improvise to get results you wouldnt normal accomplish with strictly linear.

What I would like undersanding of is why do many say that ableton Linear mode is inferior to the linear mode of DAWS (Cubase SX to be specific)??? What am I missing?
Click to expand...


If you're not missing anything, then you're probably not missing anything. LOL. Really. Are there differences? Definitely. Night and day. Programs like Ableton Live and FL Studio have areas of specialty and then they touch on or dabble in other areas. Programs like Cubase don't dabble or touch, they take every feature to the max. But if you're really new to software sequencing, you may not know what to expect from a monster like Cubase. With Cubase or Logic, it's easy enough to say, that whatever minor detail you might think you would like to do, it's already in there. If you think to yourself how cool it would be if you could do XY and Z, you will find that it's implemented. Especially in Cubase. And things make sense for the most part. The one thing about Cubase that is just awful is the way it deals with mapping controllers. That's bad while Live is very good.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the info..but i do have a few more questions I wanted to clear up

1. Is it safe to say that Live can hold its OWN weight as an DAW??? I ask because I noticed how many say they do all this inspiring improvised music creation in Live but then they end up sending it over to something like Cubase for further production...whats up wit that?


2. Has anyone had a chance to work with cubase "Warp function" feature...sounds like an attempt to mimic Lives audio elastic abilities..how succesful was cubase attempts at this when it comes to audio?

3. Which has the ability to allow minimal mouse usage...with me coming from hardware sequencing i would like to have as many functions as possible assigned to keyboard buttons

4. Is it even ideal for me to even be considering Ableton Live if I take a 70% planned out composition approach and a 30% experimental, on the fly, improvising approach to music?

5. Being that Cubase is a full fledged "take each and every feature to the max" type of program..does it hinder the workflow of creating music in cubase? I'm just wondering if the million features make cubase somewhat cumbersome?

6. Is there any other factors I should be considering between these 2 that would help me clearly make a final decision?

Sorry about all the questions...its just that i cant afford both and cubase has no demos so i have to ask questions to get a clear understanding of live and cubase abilities...
 
Last edited:
Did you sick with Ableton in the end bro? I tried using it but didn't like the interface. Gone over to Cubase now and am working through the operation manual. I have to say the things I've learned so far have increased my wokflow tenfold. It's not complicated either.
 
All daws can do the same thing for the most part. The bells and whistles are just slightly different in my opinion. Personally I prefer ableton because it makes my workflow easier.
 
I never got on with Ableton myself. I've moved to Cubase now and have to say that it's made mtlynworkflow better. It just seems to have so many tools and options. Some people refer to it as a monster and I think this is pretty accurate. I do prefer the linear editing approach. Is it Abletons session view that makes it for you?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top