Guitar Gear Forum

Ableton Live guys (like Loop and I) will tell you that it's easily the most inspiring recording software in existence. One of the many reasons is because of the way you can nest effects in insanely complex ways with ease. I have plenty fun just firing it up, plugging the guitar into my interface (Saffire Pro 40), applying an amp sim and then just playing with lots of effects. Here's one I came up with tonight. Not much on the playing side here...I'm just playing with some chords. Check it out though and let me know what you think of the patch.

https://soundcloud.com/joe_overdriven/washy-atmosphere

Very swooshy.

what sim/patch etc? Another ableton fan here

GRANKOR wrote:what sim/patch etc? Another ableton fan here

A lot of stuff. First it hits some slight overdrive, then some chorus/reverb, then another reverb patch, then and autopanner. Then it's all recombined with the dry signal.

been using stuidio one 2, on your suggestion, and i dont like the way they do effects. used a sample of ableton once and liked it. you using a free version or did you buy it?

Y0UNGBL00D wrote:been using stuidio one 2, on your suggestion, and i dont like the way they do effects. used a sample of ableton once and liked it. you using a free version or did you buy it?

I bought it. Studio One is still my recommendation for a traditional straight-forward DAW though. Ableton really isn't ideal if you want to record straight forward rock - it's made more for loops, effects, samples, synths and stuff like that. You can use it like a traditional DAW, but it doesn't have most of the editing features.

I used Ableton when I was working for Line 6 and I liked it quite a bit, but I still prefer Sonar, just because I've been using it since forever and I am so used to it.

i like S1's ease of use (once you go to youtube to find out where fucking everything is) control wise, but i have been looking for some of the things joe describes about ableton. might check it out again. how much it run you?

Reminds me of Enya...

oh my god I've just admitted that I know who Enya is...

Cool stuff Joe! One of my favorites from you.

Mike LX-R wrote:Reminds me of Enya...

oh my god I've just admitted that I know who Enya is...

Enya? Hahahah not quite what I was going for

gibson5413 wrote:Cool stuff Joe! One of my favorites from you.

Thanks man! I'm going to try to put an actual song together with this patch.

Sounds really good.

I hear snarling agressive riffage there in a few of the spots were it hangs on, maybe that's just me.

sleewell wrote:Sounds really good.

I hear snarling agressive riffage there in a few of the spots were it hangs on, maybe that's just me.

Thanks bro!

If anyone is interested, the reverb comes from a free reverb VST called Ambience. You can download the full version here:

http://www.smartelectronix.com/refer.php?url=~magnus/files/ambience-full-win-vst-2003-10-25.zip

Just copy the DLL into your VST folder. Another great free reverb plugin is Glaceverb:

http://dasample.com/products/glaceverb/

Both plugins are every bit as good as commercial reverb plugins. They're different - Glaceverb creates a very dense reverb with a delay-like echo on top. Ambience is big and airy sounding. If you like big ambient/postrock type reverbs then get both and you'll have a wide palette of sounds available.

Guitar tone fits the mood of song. Very nice OD!

I disagree about it not being a good DAW for rock songs though.

I've done multiple rock records in Ableton and love it so much. Editing is unconventional, but not incapable.

Loop wrote:I disagree about it not being a good DAW for rock songs though.

I've done multiple rock records in Ableton and love it so much. Editing is unconventional, but not incapable.

I've done rock songs in it as well. What I mean to say is that I think there are better options if you're looking for a straight forward typical DAW for just recording audio tracks and editing them.

OverDriven wrote:

Loop wrote:I disagree about it not being a good DAW for rock songs though.

I've done multiple rock records in Ableton and love it so much. Editing is unconventional, but not incapable.

I've done rock songs in it as well. What I mean to say is that I think there are better options if you're looking for a straight forward typical DAW for just recording audio tracks and editing them.

Depends on how you write, I guess.

I love clip view in Ableton for constructing multiple passages, then easily auditioning different song arrangements by having all of those passages assigned to a clip grid!!

Loop wrote:

OverDriven wrote:

Loop wrote:I disagree about it not being a good DAW for rock songs though.

I've done multiple rock records in Ableton and love it so much. Editing is unconventional, but not incapable.

I've done rock songs in it as well. What I mean to say is that I think there are better options if you're looking for a straight forward typical DAW for just recording audio tracks and editing them.

Depends on how you write, I guess.

I love clip view in Ableton for constructing multiple passages, then easily auditioning different song arrangements by having all of those passages assigned to a clip grid!!

Yeah and that's why I think it's the absolute best for writing. It's inspirational and you can try so many things on the fly. If my friend's rock band comes over to record some stuff (already written, they just want to lay it down) I'll just usually fire up Studio One.

Just got Ableton Live Lite with my Scarlett 2i2.
Not to get off topic but do you think thats good enough just for writing or am I really missing out and some useful stuff?

K-Bizzle wrote:Just got Ableton Live Lite with my Scarlett 2i2.
Not to get off topic but do you think thats good enough just for writing or am I really missing out and some useful stuff?

There are 2 big things missing from Live Lite IMO - the ability to slice audio to MIDI and the effects collection. You may not use the slice audio to midi feature much unless you are into sample based music, but the effects are a major missing feature and part of what makes Live what it is. Still, you can get into the workflow of Live with the Lite version and upgrade if you decide it's right for you. Live 9 is coming out soon as well, and the Ableton Push will be available with it. I can't wait.

OverDriven wrote:

K-Bizzle wrote:Just got Ableton Live Lite with my Scarlett 2i2.
Not to get off topic but do you think thats good enough just for writing or am I really missing out and some useful stuff?

There are 2 big things missing from Live Lite IMO - the ability to slice audio to MIDI and the effects collection. You may not use the slice audio to midi feature much unless you are into sample based music, but the effects are a major missing feature and part of what makes Live what it is. Still, you can get into the workflow of Live with the Lite version and upgrade if you decide it's right for you. Live 9 is coming out soon as well, and the Ableton Push will be available with it. I can't wait.

Well the Scarlett came with an FX suite so hopefully I'll be covered with that.
Basically I just want to use it for writing rather straight forward rock songs.
Got it installed and it working with my interface but I haven't had time to work in it yet, hoping to do that in the next couple days.
Have you seen ableton's video tutorials?
I was gonna start there to try and get over the learning curve as fast as possible.

Sounds cool. Does it have any plugins bundled with it?