and so i've been trying out Ableton Live 7 for a few days now.
For those who don't know, Ableton is a DAW with a few tricks up its sleeves.
to start with, Ableton is both for PC and MAc.
i would recommend using a computer that is no older than 2 years to run it.
it is VERY stable, some musicians use it live to run loops, samples, etc...
there are 3 versions: Ableton Live 7, Ableton Suite and Ableton Live LE.
the Light Edition is 149$ all the way to 649$ for the Suite.
the Suite is the blown up edition.
Ableton Live 7 is the "regular" edition while LE is the "Light Edition"
Prices go from 149$ for the light edition all the way to 649$ for the Suite.
There is a demo available.
Now what is so special about Ableton is the creation process.
Ableton is divided into 2 sections, the "Arrangement" view which is like your Sonar. Cubase etc and the "Section" view.
You can easily switch from Section to Arrangement and vice versa.
The Section view is where you preview and organize "clips", be it audio or MIDI.
But the Section view is a totally new paradigm in creating music:
it is non-linear, unlike regular DAWs.
it is a veritable musical instrument in itself.
I will not waste time describing it further as you can read other reviews on the net or try the demo for yourself.
There's quite a few musicians that have learned to use drum software like BFD or Addictive Drums because drum loops could be stretched time wise only so much before the sound quality would start to deteriorate.
This is a thing of the past with Ableton; audio clips can be time-stretched drastically without any adverse effect through granular resynthesis.
One absolutely cool thing about this is that you can listen to a drum loop at, let's say, 120 BPM in your project, while previewing other audio or MIDI clips at the same time.
and they will always be synchronized even if they were originally created in another tempo/BPM. Amazing!
I haven't created any music in the last few years but Ableton is so refreshing in it's approach that i might just actually take the plunge again.
Like any other DAWs, it require a good time investment to learn but if you can wrap your head around this new way ow creating music i suspect you will not want to return to your "old" sequencer again.
there is so much cool stuff about it that i could write a review of many pages.
check it out @:
http://www.ableton.com/
moon
