This is incredible, I love it. I've recently switched to using Ableton exclusively for making music, it feels like more of an instrument than a computer program to me. It's so expressive and lets me make the sounds I want to hear as well as things I can't even conceive of. I can't really articulate what it is about Ableton, but I really love it and I'm so thankful that it's around.
I got into programming as a kid through a desire to make music (my first program was a "song" written in pascal, playing a series beep tones at different frequencies and durations.) I got into trackers (fast, impulse, buzz) in my teens, and then synths.
These days I have a strong preference towards "hardware"* only music making -- I spend most of my waking life staring at a screen, so I find it satisfying to step away and be hands on when creating music. The brains of my studio is a Synthstrom Deluge, which is an amazingly intuitive little gizmo - it has a built in synth and drum machine, a looper, a sampler, and a MIDI sequencer allowing you to drive all other synths in the studio. I also have an Arturia Keystep, which has a great live MIDI sequencer. Another fun gadget is the Roland RC 505, which gives you 5 independent and dubbable loops - I drive one of the two fx sends from my mixer through it, letting me build loops live from any of the other synths. Aside from those I've collected a handful of synths, both FM and analog.
(* quotes because pretty much all available synths, analog included, run on software. Most come with USB ports allowing you to connect and change settings, update firmware, etc.)
I'm getting back into making electronic music now and I've agonized over where to go the software/computer/DAW route or hardware/groovebox/sequencer. Right now, I'm doing it all on a computer using Reason and a very nice MIDI controller (Arturia KeyLab 61 mkii <3 <3 <3). But I follow the r/synthesizers subreddit and all of the pretty blinky lights and buttons look so fun and the sounds can be amazing.
The main things I like about doing it all on a computer are:
* Great screen and interface. It's easy to drag and drop and see the composition visually. Boxes like the Digitakt look like a lot of fun, but then I watch a youTube video of it and it's like 80% knob-scrolling through menus on a tiny LCD screen and that doesn't look like fun.
* Easy file and data management. It's all just files on a hard drive. It's trivial to switch between projects, back up, restore state, etc. Managing that when the data lives on flash cards across a handful of sequencers seems really stressful to me. I'd be so worried about accidentally losing a patch or something.
* It's cheaper. If I want two separate delays with different settings, I can just add a second delay. I don't have to go on Sweetwater and drop another $200. Sure, Eurorack stuff is "modular", but each module requires shelling out cash. In Reason, I can wire up huge racks of crazy stuff without spending a dime.
But..., man, the hardware stuff looks like a lot of fun. I also feel like it can be a real struggle to get something that sounds rich and full out of Reason. I can get there, but it takes effort. It's default sound tends to be kind of brittle and dry, which is to be expected from software but can be uninspiring. (I should maybe check out a different DAW, but I know Reason well and exploring different software is a whole other can of worms.) With a lot of hardware gear — at least judging by videos online — you power it up and it sounds fat immediately.
I think what really matters the most to me is finding a path that gets me finishing music I like quickly. I don't want to just noodle, but I also want something fun and immediate enough to stay in the moment. I'm still not sure if software or hardware (or a mixture of both?) is the right path for that.
Any thoughts on how to dip my toes in the water with hardware to see if that's a better fit?
I'm in the same boat. However, I love the flexibility of a DAW. My "hybrid" solution is the Ableton Push (small LCD screen, but not a monitor) and Komplete Kontrol S88 keyboard. Still get my soft synths, but I can do a ton without even looking at my monitor. I have both facing my window rather than my screen, and it's surprisingly easy to get in the flow.
My story is similar to yours. I've just recently gone from 100% hardware to a more hybrid setup. I found that while I was having more fun with the hardware setup I wasn't finishing songs. Personally, I still need a computer to do editing and arranging. My new setup is a small eurorack skiff, Bitwig 3 and NI Maschine Mk3/Jam/S49 Mk2 w/ Komplete Ultimate. The integration between NI hardware and Maschine/Komplete Kontrol is amazing, feels like the best of both worlds. I'm definitely considering the Push 2 for Bitwig, although the Maschine Jam does a pretty good job as Bitwig controller.
I'd recommend you check out the Tennage Engineering OP-Z. It's a neat little thing that can do a bunch of the stuff you mentioned, but in a crazy small form factor.
Precisely why I prefer using elektron machines. As awesome as ableton and NI's Maschine is I wanted to get as far away from a screen, a desk, OS updates, driver issues and all the junk you deal with as a developer day to day with software.
Its great, when I flip on the little machines I know is music making time and I wont have to deal with any hurdles.
Ableton is great and paved the way for a more creative and intuitive workflow! I switched from Cubase very early on and never looked back. That is, until I found Bitwig (https://www.bitwig.com) which supports Linux! They also deserve a shout out taking it even further!
Ableton is a different ballgame if you have the Push interface. Other than that Reaper needs a mention, it is the best DAW[1] in terms of functionality and power. Truly for power-users and not necessarily as a musical idea starter.
Recently I switched to Ardour for recording guitars on Linux - it has great VST support, allows syncing music with videos, and has automation built-in. Even Amplitube works through LinVst.
I was also blown away by their pricing - you can pay as little as $1 for the full version, which is what I did, but after seeing how well it works, I did a donation to match the recommended price of $45.
I've been through them all, started on Audition, then to Cubase, then to Pro Tools and finally settled on Ableton. There's just nothing like Ableton for composing, especially with the right hardware (controller or push). It allows you to get completely lost in a way no other DAW I've used can match. Although I do now use Pro Tools for mixing since I find it to be far superior in that area.
I also use Bitwig (And Tracktion's Waveform 10) They both work on Linux and are great.
Bitwig works on a subscription program for updates. You want the latest you buy a subscription and it lasts for a year. After the subscription is over you get to use whatever version you are on for life, but no updates.
379€ - wow, that's an absurd amount of money for personal software. Include that with every tutorial being priced too and having to buy synths and samples etc this turns into one expensive hobbie.
As a dev, I find Ableton incredibly frustrating. The Live Object Model (LOM) allows custom automation and software control. But it's half-closed, and half-open.
Access is through Max for Live, which is a dataflow language "programmed" by joining little object blocks to other object blocks - like Scratch. There's unofficial Python support, but it's poorly documented.
Many things are possible, but many other things aren't possible - even though they're available on Push, so obviously the hooks are there.
It would make me unbelievably happy if Ableton opened up the LOM and included a properly documented hook for absolutely every important feature - preferably one that could be used from any language, maybe via OSC, rather than M4L.
To be fair Live at least has a LOM, while other sequencers/DAWs don't. So that's a plus. But it's still a shame it isn't more complete - because that would make all kinds of cool things possible.
This is great!, I thought they were only gonna do a simple piano roll and start/stop, they touch on pretty good topics including song structure, chords, modes, scales, diatonic triads, voicing, etc. This is a pretty good intro to getting into Ableton Live really. I come from using Cubase and honestly the new Live is very capable for building fluid songs, it has so many features now and the interface makes it really easy to draw automation curves, set different timings, route midi, build drum kits, etc.
I really tried to get into Ableton. I found a Push 2 at a pawn shop and while I can say that the push 2 controller is pretty damn amazing and turns Ableton into a pretty cool device, I can't get the arrangement to feel natural to me. I am a long term linear sequencer user, and Logic is pretty much muscle memory to me now. However, Ive used FL studio since version 1.x and that also feels much easier to use than Ableton. I can create patterns super easily on Ableton but then turning that into a song is just clunky to me.
I came from CUBASE and it took me a couple attempts to get used to ableton
Frankly thinking of it as a sequencer is a limiting mental model.
Think of it as a instrument to jam with.
When I used cubase I spend about 20% of the time with jamming together a basic idea and then 80% with arranging.
Ableton flipped that for me...now I spend 80% of the time jamming (and loving it) and only all the way at the end I quickly create the arrangement once I am already super familiar with all the parts I created during jamming.
It’s had a really super positive on my creative quality!
I use both Logic and Ableton. What about the arrangement is so difficult for you!? my complaints about Ableton are much more editing-centric. I also greatly miss take folders when I work in Ableton, and I prefer mixing with busses to grouping tracks in Ableton.
In the same boat.. I used trackers, then FL Studio, Cubase for a while, then Logic for years and I've always found Ableton Live really hard to get into.
I love seeing how the big brands are picking up web audio. I refuse to work on anything else these days, and it's easier than I thought when I started. Built 5 web games using tone.js for Red Bull Mind Gamers last year and just launched a site that auto generates unlimited royalty free mp3s using web audio for a dollar[1].
[1] https://strikefreemusic.com
prefer renoise, it's cheap and super easy to work with :D. Never actually liked the workflow of ableton (personal flavour i suppose), its audio engine is fairly decent, but imho for 500ish euros it costs to get the suite it's a bit expensive for what u get.
Cubase has a much superior audio and processing engine like Logic Pro for mac users, and is in a similar pricing range. It has less quality built-in dps etc. ,but most DAWs lack on that.
Renoise for like 50 euros is super cheap in comparison, and most dps it has have awesome performance and quality.
That being said, ableton does offer a better 'live' environment for live/performance based things.
on workflows, bitwig is really the innovator, as it combines workflows from different daws like cubase and ableton and lets the user itself choose its work-flow instead of forcing it upon the user.
I recently bought a Maschine MK2 to get into the music making thing. It surprised me how easy to use it is.
My wife is a professional acoustic musician, and although she firstly was a bit hesitant with this 'instrument' she quickly turned around. And we started making music together.
It's perfect for me since it is very well arranged, the buttons make sense in my head.
I play a bit of guitar and always have trouble making sense of the notes in my head.
Is there a way to try it or learn more before signup/email list sub?
I started composing about a year ago using general tools like CuBase and Garage Band and wow, it's tedious, even when the initial sketch is worked out before hand on a keyboard.
There are just a ton of ideas that come to mind on how it could be an order of magnitude more efficient. Maybe there are apps that don't focus so much on production, that do a better job solely for the writing music part?
FLStudio has a great community and Image-Line deserve kudos for their "lifetime" license model. I used it extensively for a few years and found it solid and productive. It's maybe closer to Ableton than Cubase.
Bit of a side note, but I've been playing with http://sonic-pi.net/ and it's teaching me so much about synthesizers AND music (even though I have a bit of a background in both).
Yes, you could definitely make this in Ableton. Basically, all you need is samples (recordings of instrument sounds, either individual notes that you put in whatever order you like, or recordings of someone playing a whole musical phrase, preferably something that loops well) and a sequencer of some kind, which is the main function of Ableton. There are also effects and mixing and mastering techniques that can drastically change the sound of music, but all you need to get started are some samples and a sequencer.
It's really awesome Ableton is going in this direction. Live is a beast, but it's a quite intimidating beast if you don't have experience working with DAWs and music software in general. I worked there for three years, and couldn't bring myself to learn the basics. Tutorials like these will definitely make it easier to pick the basics and start off with Live with more confidence.
Fruity Loops, Cubase, Reason, Reaper, Cantabile Performer, Presonus Studio One, Ableton, OpenMPT, Jazz and Logic before apple...
I love to have a good sequencer on my hands to handle the recording of my creative spirits.
I also love to look back in time and stumbled over some old music programs on the amiga system. I would love to learn more about working with tracker based sequencing but iam faster done in a modern daw. Presonus Studio One is a good DAW. Ideas sketching via webtools is also awesome. I love me my little beepbox.co
https://tinyurl.com/y6rr2rok
At the end it only counts if you have fun, how to control or create, do things with a digital working station.
[+] [-] PascLeRasc|6 years ago|reply
If anyone wants more, Ableton also has a synthesizer playground site at https://learningsynths.ableton.com/.
[+] [-] flavor8|6 years ago|reply
These days I have a strong preference towards "hardware"* only music making -- I spend most of my waking life staring at a screen, so I find it satisfying to step away and be hands on when creating music. The brains of my studio is a Synthstrom Deluge, which is an amazingly intuitive little gizmo - it has a built in synth and drum machine, a looper, a sampler, and a MIDI sequencer allowing you to drive all other synths in the studio. I also have an Arturia Keystep, which has a great live MIDI sequencer. Another fun gadget is the Roland RC 505, which gives you 5 independent and dubbable loops - I drive one of the two fx sends from my mixer through it, letting me build loops live from any of the other synths. Aside from those I've collected a handful of synths, both FM and analog.
(* quotes because pretty much all available synths, analog included, run on software. Most come with USB ports allowing you to connect and change settings, update firmware, etc.)
[+] [-] munificent|6 years ago|reply
The main things I like about doing it all on a computer are:
* Great screen and interface. It's easy to drag and drop and see the composition visually. Boxes like the Digitakt look like a lot of fun, but then I watch a youTube video of it and it's like 80% knob-scrolling through menus on a tiny LCD screen and that doesn't look like fun.
* Easy file and data management. It's all just files on a hard drive. It's trivial to switch between projects, back up, restore state, etc. Managing that when the data lives on flash cards across a handful of sequencers seems really stressful to me. I'd be so worried about accidentally losing a patch or something.
* It's cheaper. If I want two separate delays with different settings, I can just add a second delay. I don't have to go on Sweetwater and drop another $200. Sure, Eurorack stuff is "modular", but each module requires shelling out cash. In Reason, I can wire up huge racks of crazy stuff without spending a dime.
But..., man, the hardware stuff looks like a lot of fun. I also feel like it can be a real struggle to get something that sounds rich and full out of Reason. I can get there, but it takes effort. It's default sound tends to be kind of brittle and dry, which is to be expected from software but can be uninspiring. (I should maybe check out a different DAW, but I know Reason well and exploring different software is a whole other can of worms.) With a lot of hardware gear — at least judging by videos online — you power it up and it sounds fat immediately.
I think what really matters the most to me is finding a path that gets me finishing music I like quickly. I don't want to just noodle, but I also want something fun and immediate enough to stay in the moment. I'm still not sure if software or hardware (or a mixture of both?) is the right path for that.
Any thoughts on how to dip my toes in the water with hardware to see if that's a better fit?
[+] [-] WarDores|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] discohead|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] npmaile|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 1290cc|6 years ago|reply
Its great, when I flip on the little machines I know is music making time and I wont have to deal with any hurdles.
[+] [-] mattmar96|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zupreme|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TomMarius|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fractalf|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] haywirez|6 years ago|reply
[1] http://reaper.fm/
[+] [-] 0x70dd|6 years ago|reply
I was also blown away by their pricing - you can pay as little as $1 for the full version, which is what I did, but after seeing how well it works, I did a donation to match the recommended price of $45.
[+] [-] kofejnik|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Shinchy|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codesternews|6 years ago|reply
Just asking out of curiosity. Thanks
[+] [-] uxcolumbo|6 years ago|reply
I'm a beginner, so don't know much about Ableton or Bitwig.
[+] [-] baldfat|6 years ago|reply
Bitwig works on a subscription program for updates. You want the latest you buy a subscription and it lasts for a year. After the subscription is over you get to use whatever version you are on for life, but no updates.
[+] [-] alok-g|6 years ago|reply
1. What would one miss if using Bitwig over others, if anything?
2. Same question as the above for Reaper?
3. How would the two compare with each other.
Note: I have already noted the comments child to yours.
Thanks.
[+] [-] kristiandupont|6 years ago|reply
EDIT: sorry, my question was about whether Linux supports VST. I would assume that Bitwig did at v0.1 :-)
[+] [-] jonathanstrange|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] kabacha|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Heliosmaster|6 years ago|reply
What I mostly love is that through plugins you can find virtual versions of existing hardware modules!
[0]: https://vcvrack.com/
[+] [-] TheOtherHobbes|6 years ago|reply
Access is through Max for Live, which is a dataflow language "programmed" by joining little object blocks to other object blocks - like Scratch. There's unofficial Python support, but it's poorly documented.
Many things are possible, but many other things aren't possible - even though they're available on Push, so obviously the hooks are there.
It would make me unbelievably happy if Ableton opened up the LOM and included a properly documented hook for absolutely every important feature - preferably one that could be used from any language, maybe via OSC, rather than M4L.
To be fair Live at least has a LOM, while other sequencers/DAWs don't. So that's a plus. But it's still a shame it isn't more complete - because that would make all kinds of cool things possible.
[+] [-] pacomerh|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] S_A_P|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rock_hard|6 years ago|reply
Frankly thinking of it as a sequencer is a limiting mental model.
Think of it as a instrument to jam with.
When I used cubase I spend about 20% of the time with jamming together a basic idea and then 80% with arranging.
Ableton flipped that for me...now I spend 80% of the time jamming (and loving it) and only all the way at the end I quickly create the arrangement once I am already super familiar with all the parts I created during jamming.
It’s had a really super positive on my creative quality!
[+] [-] fenwick67|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vonseel|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amatecha|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bartproost|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dang|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thrwn_frthr_awy|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vectorEQ|6 years ago|reply
Cubase has a much superior audio and processing engine like Logic Pro for mac users, and is in a similar pricing range. It has less quality built-in dps etc. ,but most DAWs lack on that.
Renoise for like 50 euros is super cheap in comparison, and most dps it has have awesome performance and quality.
That being said, ableton does offer a better 'live' environment for live/performance based things.
on workflows, bitwig is really the innovator, as it combines workflows from different daws like cubase and ableton and lets the user itself choose its work-flow instead of forcing it upon the user.
[+] [-] marapuru|6 years ago|reply
I recently bought a Maschine MK2 to get into the music making thing. It surprised me how easy to use it is.
My wife is a professional acoustic musician, and although she firstly was a bit hesitant with this 'instrument' she quickly turned around. And we started making music together.
It's perfect for me since it is very well arranged, the buttons make sense in my head.
I play a bit of guitar and always have trouble making sense of the notes in my head.
[+] [-] bauerd|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] milesward|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adamnemecek|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WhitneyLand|6 years ago|reply
I started composing about a year ago using general tools like CuBase and Garage Band and wow, it's tedious, even when the initial sketch is worked out before hand on a keyboard.
There are just a ton of ideas that come to mind on how it could be an order of magnitude more efficient. Maybe there are apps that don't focus so much on production, that do a better job solely for the writing music part?
[+] [-] w56rjrtyu6ru|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] JacKTrocinskI|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] taffronaut|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cyberpip|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] redmaverick|6 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqjeNSNuNPM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9QU5-9DFC4
Can we do it using Ableton? How does one even approach trying to do something like this?
[+] [-] gagege|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] afroisalreadyin|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] josmall|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rcarmo|6 years ago|reply
Notes: https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2019/09/07/1140
[+] [-] totoe|6 years ago|reply