Switching from FL Studio 10 to Ableton Live 8... Worth it?

I loved FL because of the midi sequencer and always preferred it over Ableton. That was until I learned to warp. Ever since then, everything has been falling into place. You can really see how Ableton's design makes workflow flawless. I won't be going back to FL.
 
Elaborate if you will on warping, please.

I recently went from FL Studio 10 to Live 8. Live 8 had a pretty fresh look, a good amount easier to dive into over FL, and I genuinely like session view. It handles any VST's flawlessly, whereas I'm still trying to get any output sound with Battery 3 on FL Studio 10 (Go figure).

Only thing is, I'm not sure what I'm missing. I downloaded sets of tutorials off TPB and they briefly touched on subjects so I sorta know my way around. Sampling just didn't feel right. Adjusting the end-points was done in a weird manner, and zooming in on a waveform quickly was anything but -- to the point where I gave up on Live, rearranged the same exact thing into FL in about 5 minutes flat and it sounded a whole lot better.

Hopefully you can shine some light on this and motivate me to give Live a shot. I tried so hard to get into it and something just wasn't clicking.
 
Welcome to the world of information overload. If it makes your music better in the end and you have more fun creating using Live, go for it.

Jack of all trades, master of none. Master Fruityloops. Heard some pretty dope stuff out of it.

Time spent relearning software is time lost making music.
 
ableton is harder to learn because theres not as many tutorials but its definitly worth it if you take the time and really just learn both the views because its clearly a better daw then flstudio once you really get into it.
 
Just a few of my thoughts on this subject Matter. FL Studio is tied for my favorite DAW along with Studio One. I love the step sequencer, the work flow and it has the best piano roll period. However, there are a few things that worry me about the software. There is still no Mac version as of yet and its built on an old programing language. And I do not see this changing because once FL switched to free updates they dont have the cash flow to have programmers rebuild the software that can run on Mac and PC or create a new sound engine if needed (this is just a opinion, not a fact) But it just dont make sense in this day and age to not have a Mac and PC version yet. I went from FL studio to Reason, to Ableton to FL Studio and now to Studio One. I still use FL studio for a change up, in case i have a music/writers block . But I dont see FL studio being future proof. With that said, Ableton really is a great software, it may take a little getting use to at first, but once you understand it its dope. It took me two weeks to get it down. the only reason I switched away from it because it crashed alot and I couldn't justify the price of it (499 for basic version and 799 for full version!??) so I switched back to FL before my Ableton Trial was up.
 
From a personal standpoint, I switched from FL Studio 10 to Abelton Suite 8 a couple of years ago and I am now a die hard Abelton fan.

FL Studio has a much friendlier interface than Abelton does, however once you become familiar with FL the learning curve becomes tremendous. Abelton is almost the opposite; confusing to pick up at first but if you learn the program well enough you'll begin to wonder how you ever produced without it.

On the flip side, this is based on my personal experience. People have made some great productions from FL as well as Abelton. It comes down to your personal preference.
 
Every time I have switched DAW, it has really sat me back to square one.
I bought Live 9 Suite and PUSH 3 days ago. Been a Logic user for years.
The first night I though; what the hell have I done.
The second night I thought, I can do all this in Logic - only quicker.
But tonight I feel I have come enough under the hood of Ableton to see that there is so much that this DAW can do better than Logic.
Especially in the creativespeed of making new ideas. Not to mention chopping up samples and playing around.
But I will use them together. Make ideas and beats in Ableton and bring it into Logic for the final mix and arrangement.
A littl longer down the road I´m switching to ProTools 11 and HDX and then I plan to rewire Abelton into PT.

Try out ableton; just give it a couple of weeks before you judge it.

Every DAW it´s own greatness.
 
Stick to your guns unless they're misfiring.

To paraphrase...if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I've tried every DAW under the sun and found nothing comparable to the functionality of FL Studio for what I do. I'm on a Mac, so I settled in to Reason and 7.0 is making me happy with faders built in with the module because it's reminiscent of FL.

I've used FL since 3.56 I'm surgical with it. The step sequencer and sample cell alone provide more functionality than most programs for sampling and drums FACTUALLY, problem is, most people don't delve enough into the functionality to understand what they're missing.

While some complain about things within FL, 9/10 there is a workaround that you can save to template and start every song without those factors in place.

From my experience the only thing that can't be done in FL fluently as other programs is use of a mod wheel. That's a big issue depending on how you create, was always my biggest/ONLY issue, I can name like 20 with any other program.

Same time, if your list of shortcomings with FL are continuously growing, you may want to find something to fit your needs better.
 
deRaNged 4 Phuk'dup said:
Stick to your guns unless they're misfiring.

To paraphrase...if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I've tried every DAW under the sun and found nothing comparable to the functionality of FL Studio for what I do. I'm on a Mac, so I settled in to Reason and 7.0 is making me happy with faders built in with the module because it's reminiscent of FL.

I've used FL since 3.56 I'm surgical with it. The step sequencer and sample cell alone provide more functionality than most programs for sampling and drums FACTUALLY, problem is, most people don't delve enough into the functionality to understand what they're missing.

While some complain about things within FL, 9/10 there is a workaround that you can save to template and start every song without those factors in place.

From my experience the only thing that can't be done in FL fluently as other programs is use of a mod wheel. That's a big issue depending on how you create, was always my biggest/ONLY issue, I can name like 20 with any other program.

Same time, if your list of shortcomings with FL are continuously growing, you may want to find something to fit your needs better.
Click to expand...

I don't like how FL assigns (or "doesn't assign") channels to mixer tracks. The paradigm is powerful, but lends itself toward disorganization. Have you ever watched Avcii's Future Music interview on YouTube? He uses FL and basically says, "Yeah, I just assign things randomly and don't remember where they're assigned, so it's a big mess for me". Sure, you can go through and assign each channel one-by-one to sequential mixer tracks, but it's tedious and becomes a major PITA when you decide to delete channels or reorganize their order. You end up with orphaned mixer tracks and sequences that don't correspond to one another.

The mixer track names don't sync up with the channel names either! In the paradigm they're built on, I can understand why. Regardless, it just adds a lot of tedium if you like to keep large projects organized. If you "Auto-Assign" a mixer track, it will copy the channel's name to the mixer track initially. If you have an instance of Sylenth1 that you just loaded up, you had better decide the exact sound it's going to be before you assign it to a mixer track. Is it going to be a "buzzing synth"? Is it going to be a "goa lead"? Choose once and choose wisely, because if you decide to change it later, you have to change it in two places. If you forget to change it in both, you may very well confuse yourself in large projects. You'll find yourself thinking, "OK, Sylenth1 #1, Sylenth1 #2, [...], Syleth1 #12. Which one is the secondary lead in the first part of the hook again? I renamed the channels, but not the mixer tracks. Argh!"

I think this is one of the reasons FL Studio gets a bad rap as having a "bad sound engine" (lol). The mixing workflow is really so tedious and unintuitive (albeit powerful, admittedly) that many producers don't really mix at all. The others generally avoid the established practices of setting up organized sub-mixes on different buses for different groups (i.e. drum sub-mix, vocal sub-mix, etc.). A few work in a more organized fashion, but with an amount of tedium that increases exponentially with project size/complexity.

I really, really like FL Studio apart from this paradigm, its instability (random crashes), and lack of native 64-bit support in the final release (although I know it's just around the corner and available in beta!). I've used it since version 3.0. Since version 11 just came out, I'm going to download it and give it a try.

-Ki
Salem Beats
 
^^^Just unassign 1 channel (-- instead of a number), delete every other one, save as a template, and when start your project and you add new channels, they're automatically unassigned as well.

If you want to start with more than 1 channel, still works just make them all unassigned.

Cutoff works the same way, if you unassign cut by/cut on everything, the next channel won't automatically cut itself.

I'm saying all this from memory, so there may be a step I'm missing, maybe you also have to switch something in the settings, but I never liked how it assigned either, easily solved issue.

Give it a try though!
 
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deRaNged 4 Phuk'dup said:
^^^Just unassign 1 channel (-- instead of a number), delete every other one, save as a template, and when start your project and you add new channels, they're automatically unassigned as well.

If you want to start with more than 1 channel, still works just make them all unassigned.

Cutoff works the same way, if you unassign cut by/cut on everything, the next channel won't automatically cut itself.

I'm saying all this from memory, so there may be a step I'm missing, maybe you also have to switch something in the settings, but I never liked how it assigned either, easily solved issue.

Give it a try though!
Click to expand...

I'm fairly certain I didn't explain my issue well enough...

-Ki
Salem Beats
 
^^^Lol, nah, I halfread it, I get what you're saying.

I thought you were referencing the channel auto assign issue. There is indeed validity to your claim that the mixer and routing is quirky in comparison to other DAWs. :cheers:
 
deRaNged 4 Phuk'dup said:
From my experience the only thing that can't be done in FL fluently as other programs is use of a mod wheel.
Click to expand...

go to the browser click on Current Project then click on "Generators" whatever VST you're using should be listed click it, scroll down to you see MIDI CC# (Modulation Wheel) right click that and select link to controller then move your Modulation Wheel on your keyboard and it will automatically link. If you notice all the other MIDI CC# you can link all of those most people over look the MIDI CC# options in FL Studio.
 
If you're comfortable with FL Studio then stick with it. You won't gain much by switching to another DAW. If anything, you lose time while learning how to do basically the same thing in a different environment. Now if you wanted to use the same software to remix and possibly perform live, then yes, I'd say switch to Ableton.
 
FL Studio has better stock sounds, Ableton has better logic.

Most people get frustrated with Ableton because they dont follow the built-in tutorials of how to get started. A little bit of instruction goes a long way...they put a lot of effort into those tuts, and I think every user should use it. 90% of users I meet do not know how to open the tutorial side bar :4theloveofgod:.
 
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Ableton is better than FL. Switching to Ableton can be a little difficult....Understanding the workflow,UI can take some time.
 
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