Where to start with Ableton? And why is it so special?

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philfoxnj

New member
I downloaded the Ableton Live demo, and the stock instruments don't sound too good. If I have to download drum packs and Vst plugins, what makes Ableton so much better (soundwise at least) than FL Studio? Where do I get started with it? Ive tried to learn with the demo multiple times but I don't have the money for all these plugins. I've been using Reason for about a year, but as long as I have that, I can't stay dedicated to learing Ableton (Reason has great stock sounds). Any advice?
 
Live is all about the workflow, imo. The Session view, the easy warping, manipulating samples, getting shit done - it's the DAW you can truly jam with (which sounds cheesy, I know...).
 
^^^I say the same of Reason, and it comes with a sound library, lol.

Not trying to say 1 is better, just remember checking the demo to live thinking the same thing as the OP. Just wondering, does the full ver. come with more sounds or did I miss their location in the demo? I'm all for the answer being user error, I gave up on the demo fairly quickly.

The lack of foundation sounds is one of the things that instantly drew me away from Live. Not always a bad thing, the bloatware(7dvds) of Logic threw me off more because of how cheesy the sounds were. Just funny how many people comment on the sound libraries of stuff like Reason and FL that IMO both come with a decent collection of stock instruments/sounds/effects.

I just didn't get live's angle. if it was meant for remixers and samplebased producers, it makes sense, and don't get me wrong, I can bring my own sounds to the table, but when demoing, I rely on what the program provides. I couldn't locate many good sounds in it.
 
deRaNged 4 Phuk'dup said:
^^^I say the same of Reason, and it comes with a sound library, lol.

Not trying to say 1 is better, just remember checking the demo to live thinking the same thing as the OP. Just wondering, does the full ver. come with more sounds or did I miss their location in the demo? I'm all for the answer being user error, I gave up on the demo fairly quickly.

The lack of foundation sounds is one of the things that instantly drew me away from Live. Not always a bad thing, the bloatware(7dvds) of Logic threw me off more because of how cheesy the sounds were. Just funny how many people comment on the sound libraries of stuff like Reason and FL that IMO both come with a decent collection of stock instruments/sounds/effects.

I just didn't get live's angle. if it was meant for remixers and samplebased producers, it makes sense, and don't get me wrong, I can bring my own sounds to the table, but when demoing, I rely on what the program provides. I couldn't locate many good sounds in it.
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I guess I'm exactly the opposite as I don't care about the bundled sounds & presets at all :D Back when I started on Live at v3, it didn't really have any sounds with it...although I do understand that many people do value a good stock library.
 
I never use Ableton's stock sounds. I think it's selling points are like Krushing said are it's workflow and session view. I'd also throw in it's ability to sample and to setup racks. The racks function is very similar to combinator feature on Reason.
 
Learn to use Operator. I don't really enjoy many of the presets, but when you learn to manipulate it you can come up with some inspiring stuff!
 
I'm also having a hard time learning Ableton. The interface is not so much user friendly as FL Studio, IMO.
 
Ddream said:
I'm also having a hard time learning Ableton. The interface is not so much user friendly as FL Studio, IMO.
Click to expand...

Best thing you can do as a starting point is grabbing a bunch of different samples from the ableton library and dragging them into session view, set up a key mapping for your scenes so you can launch different samples using numbers 0-9. it's really quite amazing how well completely random samples can start grooving together. Have a track with drum loops, synth parts, bass parts and keep them separated so you always know what you are launching. LET THE RANDOMNESS BEGIN! after that I suggest dragging the bits that work together into arrangement mode and begin composing! it feels like cheating when you are using random samples and just hoping for the best but this will help you when you get around to having a library of your own samples.
 
If you're not inspired by the stock sounds, use the instrument rack. Layer up a few instruments. Stick some samples and an Operator in there. You can get some quite nice sounding stuff.

Nowadays, I'm digging Massive .. you can get some awesome sounds out of that thing!
 
deRaNged 4 Phuk'dup said:
^^^I say the same of Reason, and it comes with a sound library, lol.

Not trying to say 1 is better, just remember checking the demo to live thinking the same thing as the OP. Just wondering, does the full ver. come with more sounds or did I miss their location in the demo? I'm all for the answer being user error, I gave up on the demo fairly quickly.

The lack of foundation sounds is one of the things that instantly drew me away from Live. Not always a bad thing, the bloatware(7dvds) of Logic threw me off more because of how cheesy the sounds were. Just funny how many people comment on the sound libraries of stuff like Reason and FL that IMO both come with a decent collection of stock instruments/sounds/effects.

I just didn't get live's angle. if it was meant for remixers and samplebased producers, it makes sense, and don't get me wrong, I can bring my own sounds to the table, but when demoing, I rely on what the program provides. I couldn't locate many good sounds in it.
Click to expand...

thanks for comment
 
Soon as you get past the learning curve the work flows and different ways to conform to an artist production for ease of use is really cool. most DAW's just give you one main working environment. I suppose the best feature for beginners with Live would be just the drag-n-drop sample loops directly in the session view and the ability to create a starting vibe in seconds. When you get advanced the automation is really great for me... :)
 
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