What am I missing to get a professional sound?

B

benjibloublou

New member
Hey all,

Noob here. I've been working on Ableton Live 9 for just a few days and I'm surprised how most things sound to me like 00's Nokia ringtones. I've compared my sounds to tracks you can hear on Majestic Casual's Youtube channel (I mainly intend to compose this kind of stuff) and Majestic sounds a lot more pro. Now, I'm sure there are several reasons for that, but I'd like to know where to dig more specifically.


  • does practicing with the effects, instruments, etc. in Ableton eventually makes your stuff sound pro?
  • or do pro tracks rely on more advanced software and hardware?
  • in particular, do pro tracks often use real instruments recordings? I can't imagine having a nice guitar strum directly through Ableton, but I might be wrong...
  • and to make it more practical, can you cite any famous electro artist (let's say with at least some hundred thousands views on Youtube) who uses nearly only Ableton or a comparable DAW?

For info, I have a good music theory and guitar background and I am not a beginner in composition.

Thanks a lot! :o
 
you nailed it in your first suggestion - practice and lots of it, 20 hours to acquire a new skill, perhaps, but several years of 8 hour sessions to master it (ca. 10k hours)

happy hunting
 
It's well possible to make pro sounding stuff with Live alone. Of course, most people will have somewhat differing preferences and will augment Live's capabilities with extra plugins or hardware of their choice - but that's preference, not the line between an amateur and a pro. As said, practice makes perfect.
 
Keep at it, keep experimenting, that's the key, you also have to recognize the point where to stop and to understand what's gonna sound best, most of the time, right sound is hidden somewhere in right mixing settings.
 
Emancipator, GRiZ, The Human Experience, Saqi, David Starfire, Skrillex, Literally THOUSANDS of electornic artists produce on ableton. Hardware doesn't make you sound profesional, you could use a world class studio and the man operating it is what will make it sound "professional" or not. And records made in bedrooms can be indistinguishable if done right. Using real instruments decides your sound. Emancipator uses a ton of real instruments, while Opiuo relies pretty solely on electronic sounds. Both can sound professional or amateur.

It all comes down to you, commitment and time
 
Thanks for all the info, especially the names of artists producing on Ableton.
I've practiced a bit over the past weeks and I understand it takes time and perseverance, just like when I learnt the guitar.

I have a more specific question now : how important are additional plugins, like Sylenth, Nexus or free ones ? Does any artist like those you mentionned rely only on native Ableton instruments? I still have trouble having "full-bodied" sounds.

And finally, is there a place where people share music projects, I mean the source Ableton files? That would be a way to learn quicker!

Thank you all
 
The majority of producers will use external plug-ins. However there are producers that find plug-ins they need and they are producers who think if they have the best plug-ins they will make the best sounds. If you have too many plug-ins you probably won't use any of them.

Start with ableton instruments, you will shortly find they unfortunately are not that good, try and branching out and I would suggest a good synth as your first plug-in. No need to go overboard on effect plug-ins such as compressor, reverbs and stuff, use everything in ableton until you find the one you really don't like and replace those ones, slowly you will have a small plug-in library where you actually have use for all of them instead of getting confused.

I do not think any artists relies solely on native ableton instruments, but it is still the producer that makes the best productions, not the software.

No idea on sharing music projects, learn quickly is easy to do getting so excited with music production, but it is a steep learning curve no matter how you look at it, take time and enjoy what you do, not the end result
 
You've got it right with the persistence and perseverance thing. Also, don't get it in your head that you need a bevy of high-end third party plugins to get a pro sound because that certainly isn't the case. There are numerous videos of heavy hitters like Dada Life in the studio floating around the web that showcase the power of Ableton's stock effects in the hands of a knowledgeable and experienced producer.

Regarding your project sharing question - there's a site called Splice that popped up recently to service this exact need. Ableton has also made available a great deal of free project files over the years that I'm sure are still very much available on their site.
 
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