Ableton vs. FL Studio

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ParloProductions

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I've recently considered making the switch to Ableton, though everytime I try and open it up I feel limited in what I can do because I'm not as familiar with it as FL and Reason. I was just wondering if anybody out there who has used both programs could run through what the pros and cons you found between the two.
 
Ive only used ableton once, cuz when I looked at it, it got annoyed lol, I don't know it looks weird but supposedly its really good. FL studio is a lot easier and capable of doing so much! I love it
 
I've used FL and for me the music sounds too electronic however it is a very easy program to use. I am currently using ableton live 8 and can honestly say it is a lot better in my opinion. It is a lil difficult but once you play around with it a bit you realize the vast potential you have. Samples are easy to achieve and you can make tracks that sound MPC quality. I've searched a lot of YouTube vids to learn as much as possible. If you make the switch let me know and i will show you what I've learned so far to help your transition.
 
I love Reason, I just find FL Studio easier for sampling since I dont have ReCycle. Thor is still my go to synth I ReWire it into FL Studio usually. The reason I'm thinking about making the switch is because Ableton is steady becoming the industry standard...definitely gonna make the switch as soon as I finish up any FL Studio beats that are worth the effort.

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I would really appreciate that I can find tutorials on how to do the basic stuff but I figured all that out when just tinkering around with the program. My main problem is how I route effects to everything plus I see a lot of potential in the session view its just really foreign to me
 
I have never used fruityloops but I presently use Ableton. I was a die hard hardware guy before I switched to a Cubase guy. I've also used protools. Out of those 4 platforms ABLETON is BY FAR ahead of the other platforms. The automation is super easy, the effects are great, the sequencers and tools are a God sent. I bought Ableton 8 months ago just for the Bridge intergration with Serato (I'm a DJ) and I just recently started working 100% only in Ableton (except my VST's and VSTi's) and my workflow has gotten soooo easy. Once you understand how it is e=setup...you will make the switch also. Just watch some tutorials and do some of the lessons that Ableton offers in live and on their site and it will all make sense in a matter of hours and making even more incredible music in a matter of days. Case in point this was created and mixed in Ableton...in 2 hours:


 
Ableton is better but my work flow includes Fl studio i bring the samples in Edison chop add then to the playlist then time stretch and then export the wav into ableton
 
AudioCzar said:
Ableton is better but my work flow includes Fl studio i bring the samples in Edison chop add then to the playlist then time stretch and then export the wav into ableton
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OMG brother you are doing 5 to many steps. You can do all of that in 2 steps in ABleton. Or yo can use the warp markers and get even more freedom.
 
In my opinion, no DAW is truly better than any other. It's all a matter of how deep the user wants to dig into what they will do. Ableton, Reason and FL all do the same thing - make music. The difference is how they go about it. Each one has its strong points and each one has its weaknesses. They're all tools, its the user that makes them shine or not.
 
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dacalion said:
In my opinion, no DAW is truly better than any other. It's all a matter of how deep the user wants to dig into what they will do. Ableton, Reason and FL all do the same thing - make music. The difference is how they go about it. Each one has its strong points and each one has its weaknesses. They're all tools, its the user that makes them shine or not.
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well said!
 
I like Ableton for the recording especially in the session view. I have mentioned it in a few threads. If you had say a 4 bar loop. like most programs if you want to record an instrument after you would need to make it 4 bars also unless you go in and copy and paste a few things then extend your loop point. With Ableton if your nice and confident with your keyboarding you can make your next instrument like 8, 16, 32, 64 anything long as you know second grade multiplication lol. What you just recorded will always go along with your 4 bar loop and it will keep repeating till you change to the next pattern. That got me out of a serious beat block where I would make a nice melody but it got repetitive to fast.

I have battery 3 and its a beast for drums. When I'm in Ableton I don't touch it. Everything battery does Drumracks is all over it and then some. Alot of people like FL for its step sequencer but I hosntly perfer live for its pinao roll. Things like the hi hats and snare rolls on popular southern music is easy with just snapping the grid or zooming into the piano roll. You would use the pencil tool and just drag your mouse the grid snapping goes to 128 you wouldn't need more than that for anything. I think FL goes to like 32 then you need to zoom in and clone your notes to get them on beat because the grid wont snap to 64.

Sampler is great also. Its everything you need in one module to make sampled songs. Then it also supports other formats pasted from the site "AKAI S1000, S3000, GigaStudio, EXS, SoundFont and (non-encrypted) Kontakt". Also you can have a bunch of singleshot waves you just drag them in and their automatically mapped out. If you had say like a bunch of strings and have them named string001, string002 etc it will map it so you can play it on a keyboard like any other instrument. Even if you like to sample in small pieces. You can go to the arrangement view and rightclick on your audio file and it will cut and map your samples according to the transients.
Then the warping and time stretching is a godsend. Unless you picked a really bad song to sample then you really have no excuse for it to sound off beat. All those songs from say the 60's & 70's where they had live drums with swing where everything Wasn't on beat and snapped to a grid. You can easily just find the hit of a kick, snare, hat etc and drop a marker at the start of the hit/transient and slide it over to match with your Ableton grid so its on beat. This sort of thing is much better than FL because you can visually see it rather than right-clicking on the time stretch knob and choosing from some options to do it for you and hoping it sounds right.

The grouping and layering tracks isnt complicated cmd or ctrl+left click to select your tracks, drum, or sample and then right click its grouped.

The routing is also easy to understand. Between just your audio tracks, and then things like drumracks, sampler and your vsts. You can group and throw effects on that easily or you can route them to a send.

I really don't like to compare FL to Ableton but FL is like boom everything in your face with like the channel button, all your envelopes, various knobs tabs etc. Ableton has all that, but its broken down in the browser or just one click can show you a bunch of stuff you had no idea was there. FL also has like more easy button options, like the arpeggiator for example it has a bunch of chords there already...thats good in all but it wont help you learn. Well not everyone, but alot of people like to just to let the daw create for them like click and hope it sounds good. Why not just learn to do it yourself so you can make it sound the exact way you want. Thats what I get out of Ableton. I used Ableton way back on version 5 I got it from a computer music magazine and I hated it because I was accustomed to FL and knew nothing else.

Tried Reason out and its another one that makes it more like a do it yourself thing and helps you learn. I liked the stability and the instruments always just glued right and inspired me to make better tracks...but the limitations still got to me and I got tired of workarounds rewiring etc. I honestly just gotten board with FL because I had it from the very beginning where you could just mess with drum sounds only. For me it just feels like same shit using it. I tried out various others too by being with others who made music and being in different studio environments. Some even just gave me stuff they didnt use. I tried out the demo for live 7 like a month before 8 came out. I gave it a shot and instead or comparing, I just made tracks and developed a workflow. Went and got 8 and it still works for me. FL isn't the most mentioned around here for no reason at all neither for alot of people its a starting point. Its just some people don't like to give new things a fair shot because what they learned and accomplished and gotten used to.
 
I used FL Studio for 7 years. I took a 4 year break from music production and decided that was as good a time as any to try new software.

Ableton took longer to learn. But I read the entire Ableton Live 8 Power! Book and the entire Groove3 tutorials and Lynda.com tutorials.

Here is my take after extensively using both software:

FL Studio

Pros:
- The instruments and effects - I just "get" the FL effects and mixer. I definitely like the sound of the included reverb and delay 2.
- The look. FL Studio is "Pretty" to me. (Being a girl, this can be important for some reason lol)
- Multiple monitor support - it's nice to view things as you want to see them.
- Lower learning curve
- In my opinion, better and faster time-stretching
- Directwave - for CPU saving & distributing projects for collaboration
- Users are friendly and eager to help
- Cost! Nothing better for the money

Cons:
- Too many windows for me
- Having to name and color and assign every channel to both the pattern, track list and the mixer! What a pain!!
- Creativity feels hampered to me in FL Studio after using Live.
- Users that are total "noobs" posting everywhere how do I make the bassline in 'x' song? It's annoying to me
- The stupid idea that if you are using FL Studio, you must be one of those above mentioned noobs


Ableton Live 8 (Suite)

Pros
- SESSION VIEW! - wow. It allows me to audition everything together and try out new parts without making me go through a lot of hassle and is giving me a feel for live performance (as the name states).

- Effect racks - It's just much faster and more intuitive to me to build an effect preset in Ableton. Drag and drop of the racks is great

- Making pattern variations is much easier! Just copy and paste the clip, make your edit and move on!

- Start and end points in clips. - If I think the bass sounds better when starting in the middle of the bar, I just move the start point in the clip, no need to move notes!

- Warping - though I don't like the automatic time stretching as much as FL Studio, I find warping to be a creative tool! Take a loop and mangle the hell out of it! Move beats around on the fly! It's a great tool!

- The browser (and the whole way that live manages ALL files) - Just a great tool for auditioning loops while your beat is playing

- A bunch of other stuff - there are so many tricks to Ableton! My creativity is enhanced

- MidiFX support. Wow - I can't live without the Midifx!

Cons

- The time stretching (as mentioned above)

- Can't see session view and arrange view together (tab between the two)

- Still some confusion when it comes to using Session and Arrange together (but it's getting more clear)

- Just overall learning curve is higher (but worth it in my opinion)


My verdict: I use FL Studio for a few things still, but it's all Ableton for the most part. I love it. I can't get enough of it. It has come a LONG way since version 5 (when I first tried it out and didn't like it)

It is GREAT!

Definitely look into the book and tutorials I have mentioned! :)
 
Reason's the way to go. For sure, especially for someone who has used racks. It's intimidating at first, but once you get it... you got it.
 
my vote is ableton. yes, there is a learning curve with everything and daw's are no exception. ableton is great for me because of the work-flow and the gui, as they work together. once you understand ableton you realize the benefit of its sparse and clean interface. everything is quick and organized, minimalist and - once learned - ideas can come to full fruition. i think in the end, for arranging, you will like ableton. then again, ive always been a minimalist.

fl studio, for me, was too busy. too many windows, too much red tape. my thoughts were cluttered because the user interface was. i am interested in look at fl studio 10 though, supposedly they took a big step in terms of...well, everything.

do not use reason or logic, please. i despise them both...that is my unashamed plug. both of them are down right tacky and, from my delving into daws a long time ago, are suggested largely as a beginner daw. in my mind, this is why a lot of people use it. i am biased however, i do not have the amount of experience i have with ableton with anything else besides maybe pro tools. but from what i hear and what i see, ableton is one of the most flexible daws available and i really cant see how anything could top its level of flexibility. in ableton, with enough shortcuts you can do arranging almost purely with the keyboard (thought you wouldnt)!

there arent many pros and cons when it comes to daws besides maybe vst/au support. this is mainly because work-flow its user specific and most daws are the same its just a matter of how you want to work. though i do love the busing in fl studio! a lot of electronic music producers use ableton. i think because they use hardware and they benefit from the simple interface. no bullsh**, just a riff, out with midi into cv conversion into analogue rack. simple. at the same time, a lot of big fish use ableton as master and slave another daw to it.
 
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I think that Ableton ableton is designed for live performances...Maybe you should try Cubase or Logic...maybe a little more difficult to use but it is the right way to learn music production
 
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