WHY I STARTED USING ABLETON LIVE
I was really quite relieved to see electronic music producer, Ilpo Karkkainen, discuss his use of various different DAWs in one of his most recent blog posts. As a long-time user of Logic Pro for a number of my film related projects, I was somewhat reluctant to make the switch to Ableton Live when I began to enter the electronic music realm.
Earlier this year I purchased a Maschine MK2 groove production studio, with the intention of producing techno and experimental music. Although I was made aware by several people that Ableton was the route to go down, I just didn’t feel comfortable changing my workflow after such a long time using the same DAW. Ultimately, I forced myself to do it, and much like Karkkainen I found benefits to using both.
One of the main reasons I took to the Ableton Live format was due to the template that makes Maschine fully compatible inside the software. Parameters can be tweaked and parts can be recorded in with ease, which ultimately cannot be done in Logic Pro due to its slightly more complex interface. Ableton’s session view (shown below) allows for an extremely fast workflow, and is particularly useful for someone like myself who isn’t a seasoned music producer. I can create multiple different scenes, essentially creating a layout for my tracks, and record the finished song into the arrangement view for further tweaking. What’s more, live automation can be done with Maschine during recording, providing me with a track that is performed entirely in real time.
THE MIXING PROCESS - LOGIC PRO
Live is great for getting ideas down fast, and allows you to work with the arrangement before it has been recorded into the arrangement window. This is extremely good, but personally I find it difficult to mix down within Ableton due to its fairly compact layout and slightly lacking mix window. As Karkkainen points out, there has been much talk online about Ableton’s supposed difference of sound quality in comparison to Logic Pro’s, although personally I feel it is difficult to tell.
Logic Pro houses a dedicated mix window, which allows you to view and access all plug-ins across the range of channels that are active. In Live, channels need to be selected individually to see what plug-ins are currently in use, somewhat slowing the mixing process down. I also enjoy audio editing in Logic Pro, as waveforms appear to be significantly clearer and there is a range of tools available for advanced manipulation. Additionally, metering in Logic Pro is extremely good, although I find Ableton’s peak metering just as useful when approaching the gain staging process.
Overall, I think I will continue to use the two-DAW approach in future, although I have high hopes for future Ableton updates that may integrate my current workflow into one DAW. I have learnt that all DAWs have their positives and negatives, and preference is dependent upon musical style just as much as your mixing preferences.
I would recommend Ableton to anyone looking for a quick and painless approach to producing electronic music!
Submitted November 01, 2016 at 11:49AM by ryanblackett https://www.reddit.com/r/edmproduction/comments/5ajgur/why_i_cant_decide_between_ableton_and_logic_pro/?utm_source=ifttt