ILM music making thread for techno and other Ableton/Reason/Reaktor/whatever based questions and chat

id like to know the answer to that too. do any well-known remixers or producers or music-makers out there use FLS?

Heh, I remember Dominik Eulberg once made a track entirely out of preset cheesy FL samples. I read once that Deadbeat uses it just as a basic sequencer, but then runs his tracks through something else.

I also hope that these tracks aren't unsalvagable, like, if wouldn't be able to get the samples (with effects etc.) without encoding them first. Hmmn.

I use FLS all the time in my music.

One of the ways Ive found to make it sound less corny or cheap sounding is that I don't use any of the stock sounds or instruments. For all the drums or percussion I usually slice up samples from rap songs or old rock songs and most of my instruments and effects are VST.

That and I often don't just use FLS. I'll sometimes save all the individual tracks and load them into Ableton and mess with them more, or more often, program a few basic things in FLS and then go back and record other stuff on top of that live.

But the type of music I'm making usually leans towards noise or experimental.

The beat slice is what makes FL worth having

what's the pc equivalent for logic 8? can logic 8 run on a pc?

fd, what does ableton enable you to do a track that fl cannot?

better interface, better workflow, better effects, better sound quality.

Use it and you will notice the difference in 5 minutes or less.

The effects and sound quality are both better in Ableton, although to be honest I prefer the interface of FL Studio.

Anyone tried Reason 4 yet? It looks lovely.

The problem with FL is that it's really really fucking awkward to string all the little parts together to make a song. Ableton, and most other sequencers, are better at this part. Sound quality should end up the same in either if y're using external samples/VSTs.

Logic is Mac only coz they bought the brand. Cubase is yr PC equivalent.

xpost
reason 4 is in the mail right now, can't wait for it to get here. i'm mostly excited about the new sequencer, i can take or leave the arpeggiator and groove thing. thor looks neat. hopefully there will be some decent new sounds in the factory bank, but it looks like it will be worth the price for vector automation, tempo/time automation, virtual tracks, tools panel, etc.

FL's rendering engine is garbage. It makes everything sound small and tinny. I was using Waves Platnum to massage the audio before rendering and I couldn't get passable results.

I switched over to Ableton and just used to built in effects and with enough work I was able to get decent results. Good enough to have a lot of people assuming that I was rocking a hardware set up. It takes a lot of work to make it not sound like ableton, but it can be done.

The real secret is to stop rendering your mixes in the first place.

Also, don't think I am just hating FL because it isn't a "real" audio program. There are a lot of things that I did like about it. I used it for a long time, but I had to give it up because I could only push that engine so far. I wasn't having any problems actually getting my ideas into the program.

I couldn't get those ideas to *sound* the way I wanted them to sound. It was the program itself that was the problem, it wasn't my lack of skill.

The real secret is to stop rendering your mixes in the first place.

Eh?

which for some reason is incapable of exporting tracks at volumes that aren't incredibly low

Not to get all Nick Southall on you, but it's too easy to get this feeling now with ANYTHING you're making, because the CDs you buy in the store have been mastered to be very loud. Before you fall into the trap of trying to make your mixes compare with someone else's masters, play them on decent-sized speakers with the volume up. Maybe they sound good like that. (If it makes you feel any better, I have seen a Renowned Electronic Artist send someone a remix to play out somewhere with that caveat: "this is straight off my computer and not mastered, so it's quiet, and you'll have to play it louder," etc.)

That said, there are loads of mastering effects for use with this kind of software -- compressors, limiters, and EQs -- so you can give your tracks the finished feel of a "hot" master. (You can use them on individual tracks as you're working, or just use them as global effects to master your finished mix.)

You also say you're mixing your tracks on small computer speakers, which would mean of course they come out tinny and quiet -- that's how you're mixing them!

I haven't used FL -- if it's particularly bad at rendering stuff, well then yeah, you might be better off switching to something else, rather than trying to bulk up your finished mixes with compressors and such. But don't necessarily imagine any other software is just automatically as loud as the hot-as-hell mastering you hear on people's albums.

Oh, PS: if you really like the workflow, etc., with FL, you can always build things there, then export each track/instrument individually as a sound file -- then import them and lay them all out in some other program, and use THAT program to do the mixing, adding of mastering effects, etc.

that is the bitch of it, Nabisco. I had the same bright idea but you can't polish a turd. If the loop sounds weak and tinny in the first place, processing the hell out of it isn't going to help.

Robt Henke of Ableton (and Monolake) did some tests on the rendering abilities of all the major sequencers and came to the conclusion that although some were slightly better than others, that the differences were so infinitesimal as to be not worthy of consideration. There's info about it on the Ableton site somewhere but I can't find it anywhere.

IIRC, Imageline, the company behind FL, did the same thing a couple of years ago and came to the same conclusion.

I think if people have sound problems, rendering is NOT where it's gonna come from.

x-post.

Yeah, basically -- "if the loop sounds weak and tinny" = this sounds like a problem with the loop, you know?

I've done that track-by-track outputting in the past, mostly because Reason didn't do plug-ins: I'd have to load the tracks and add all the mixing/mastering effects elsewhere. (These days, thankfully, I can just wire it straight into Ableton for plug-ins and mixing.)

sort of related -

If people talk about sound quality they should listen to, say Pink Floyd recordings from 1980. Even the cheapest low cost mixer nowadays has a more linear frequency response and even the cheapest soundcard today has more headroom and less distortions then the most expensive mastering tape recorder 25 years ago.

Robert Henke

The volume thing was the biggest source of problems, so hearing that that is common is a great relief. The problem for me is that I''m so used to using FL I could make a track with the sound off, I tried using ableton and reason demos and couldn't even know how to make any noise with them let alone work out the fine details.

That Robert Henke quote is a half truth at best. Robert Henke has a vested interest in promoting the idea that computer music is the end-all-be-all of music technology. If you want to talk about sound quality talk about a Pink Floyd recording from the early 70's. Using The Final Cut as an example of something we have progressed from is misleading. If I had to choose between that and the last Monolake album, I will take the old stuff.

I would be very interested in seeing his methodology for those tests that claim there isn't a difference. It doesn't jibe with my experiences. If there is no difference why did I see an immediate jump in the quality of my productions when I moved to Ableton? Why did I immediately hear the difference? It wasn't like I was using stock VST's and effects in FL, I was using NI and Waves stuff and still not getting solid mixes.

If there isn't a difference, why could I hear it? Why did my mixes in ableton sound instantly warm and full and my FL mixes from a month earlier sound tinny while using the same VST instruments and effects while mixing, programming, and EQ'ing basically the same way?

Also, if rendering isn't an issue why do a lot of dudes use analogue summing boxes for their mixes instead of just doing automation inside the box?

http://mixguides.com/consoles/product_features/consoles-strictly-summing-1204/

Why did my mixes suddenly sound way better when I stopped rendering and recorded my mixes in real time on outboard recording gear? Why was there a difference between recording the rendered mix and recording the song as it played back? I wish I didn't hear a difference, rendering is a hell of a lot cheaper, quicker, and more convenient.

I'm at work so In can't poke around the Ableton forum but there is a thread about it somewhere. (There's a thread on KVR about it too.) There's a press release as well but I dunno if it's on their site.

Obviously if you record to outboard gear then that gear has an effect beyond what the sequencer/computer is doing, esp. if you were going to tape or suchlike.

If there is a difference between recording a rendered track as a stereo pair and recording the actual output of ableton as a stereo track in real time on the same gear then there is something going on in the rendering.

When ableton renders audio it makes things sound like ableton. The first rule of recording is that you can't fix anything in the mix. If it doesn't sound good in the first place, it will not sound good with heavy EQ and dynamics processing.

You can avoid that distinct sound by capturing the audio during a live playback. If ableton doesn't have a characteristic sound, how come I can tell that certain records across different genres were made in it when I flip through the racks? How come I can hear ableton across a room when I am out at a club? I am not the only one who can do this.

can you describe that sound? do all audio programs have this?

Yes and no, I have synthenesia so sound is more of a visual experience than an auditory one. When I remember or write music in my head, it is a visual experience. It is as much shapes, colors, and patterns as it is sound. I am not saying this to be pretentious, it is just the way my mind works.

When I write and program parts with digital synths I get them to sound as full and solid as possible. I usually mix things very close together with aux reverb so that my sound field is more like a solid surface with elements moving towards or away from the main surface like if you were looking into water and seeing objects in and out of water. I do this because digital sounds aren't as immediately pleasing to me as analogue ones, so I do a lot of massaging and layering to hide the weakness of last generation vst instruments. It makes the elements seem a lot fuller than they actually are. I am pretty good at coaxing decent results out VST's because I have surprised a few names when they asked me how I made my demo.

When I play these mixes in real time they sound like I intended them to sound, and when I render them they sound different. It is like taking a solid object and making the object look semitransparent with a glassy sheen coating the surface of the audio. Ableton does this in a particular way that is unique. I can hear that glassy sound on other people's records.

FL Studio 5 is a different story. It can sound decent when you aren't directly comparing it to other audio, but it comes up real short when you try and mix with anything else. I can't really explain what FL sounds like with a visual metaphor, it just sounds small, brittle and tinny. I never could make a space that sounded solid and rich. I wrote decent stuff that worked floors because the writing was solid, but they would have killed if the same musical ideas were expressed in a better environment.

The one thing I really liked about FL was that the sequencer made the drums feel good. My best drum parts came out of FL, They sounded like shit but they brought the funk. I gave up on computers earlier this year because I couldn't get a solid drum sound out of ableton. I loved the way ableton handled VST's but I never got a drum sound that I liked. Due to straight up poverty I use a record player and an MPC to make tracks these days and I have few complaints. It isn't as quick or convenient as a computer but I don't have to fight hard to make it not sound like a computer either.

Other programs I cannot talk about because I don't have personal experience with them. I have read other people talk about cubase, sonar, and logic and they say they all have a particular sound of their own. I assume they would. I don't buy the idea that any of these programs are transparent. The people that are trying to sell you these high dollar programs would like you to think so, but I don't think so.

I am not completely against computers. I think the technology is getting better all the time and that computer music sounds a lot better than it did five years ago. I think Native Instruments is making some very solid products. I DL'ed the demo of Reaktor 5 and I was extremely impressed with what it could do. I am very interested to see what will be available 5-10 years from now. The technology will be very solid by then.

is ableton a good program for a beginner to use for their first remix? the tutorials don't seem to cover this, are there any guides anywhere for remixing using ableton?

you can use it to remix, absolutely. you should look at the warping tutorial and fiddle around with the new 'slice to midi' feature. great way to chop up loops into interesting sounding pieces.

if you are a total beginner then this:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51LfbQZD%2BoL._SS500_.jpg

oops, my head hurts
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51LfbQZD%2BoL._SS500_.jpg

just play around with it you'll get it eventually

"slice to midi" is ruling my world.

i clearly need to spend more time with ableton

note to everyone: midi with pro tools is an unbelievable freaking nightmare, so i'm assuming since i've mostly learned how to work with it everything else must be a breeze

thanks macallan! is the buskirk book particularly good? i have the ric snoman book here which seems great, if a little lofty
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dance-Music-Manual-Tools-Techniques/dp/0240519159/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203415831&sr=8-1

what does 'slice to midi' do?

which tutorials should i go through on ableton to get the gist of how to remix a track?

...the manual. if you don't have two screens then print it out. when you come across a feature that you don't understand, make a little excercise for yourself to try it out.

the ableton manual is less than 400 pages and full of big dumb writing.

if you're looking to remix a simple stereo recording and really don't know where to start one way of getting into it would be to read up on warp markers and then clip envelopes.

re slice tool:

"Mark my word, this feature will become the basis for a new production sound in 2008"

1)arggghhhhh noooooooo

2) LOL 2001

also, stirmonster, what is this new nudge tempo feature all about? do you guys use ableton in your dj stuff?

the nudge feature slightly increases or decreases the bpm momentarily. it's the equivalent of slightly speeding up or slowing down a turntable with your finger.

I'd forgotten about this thread.

xpost

What Crackle Box says is right, but the tutorials are really good, too (although it's an awful piece of music that they use).

You need to get familiar with the session view and the arrange view and how they relate before you do anything, and then learn how to use warp markers, or how Ableton autowarps. That should be enough to get started, then you can decide how you want to work and look stuff up as you need it.

Have you got all the different parts on separate audio tracks or are you going to work on a whole song?

A "remix" covers a multitude of sins, so which bits of Live you need to be able to use will vary depending on what you want to do. You could load up all the tracks in the arrange view, and apply eq, compression, reverb to each track, change the stereo mix, the levels and so on but leave the basic song arrangement the same, in which case you'd use Live just like a traditional mixing desk, or, at the other extreme, you could just use bits of the song as sample sources and then build up your own piece of music using those clips or playing those sounds in impulse or simpler or whatever, in which case you can have tons of fun with all of ableton's sound-warping features and automation and stuff.

Out of interest, what are you going to remix?

So I have a question. If I record a clip, I can then change it's pitch easily, but is there any way of changing the pitch of an audio track as you play into it? (I want to experiment muck about with singing in a helium voice or whatever).

what does 'slice to midi' do?

it slices audio into small chunks and then assigns each one to a midi note that can be manipulated and effected. i guess it's a a little like ableton's version of recycle.

I get that Ableton tutorial tune in my head all the time. Including now. Gah!

So I have a question. If I record a clip, I can then change it's pitch easily, but is there any way of changing the pitch of an audio track as you play into it? (I want to experiment muck about with singing in a helium voice or whatever).

AFAIK not using the pitch control in ableton, this only affects recorded clips that have been warped. The way I do this is to run the track through an external VST. One of which comes as an effect (not ensemble) in Reaktor, "pitch shifter" the other I made in Max/Msp (but is buggy as fuck in Ableton for some reason).

Doing pitch conversion on the fly is a bit funny, because diff sounds have diff harmonic content, you really need to analyse the recorded sound to choose the best type of algorithm to use. Altho the characeristic chipmunk sound is a result of bad pitch conversion, so any pitch shifting VST would work okay. The best software package for doing this kind of thing is celemony melodyne, incredible bit of software, can hear it all over recent pop vocals.

(Side note, has anyone got their pluggo plugins to be stable within Ableton?)

thank you jamie, that's really helpful. i have all the separate tracks (with drums all on one wav). the kind of remix im aiming to do is chop out the best vocal hoooks and use those, use a similar template to the original songs but with different drum patterns and synth sounds and melodies. that might be overreaching myself though as i've mucked about with a few audio programs before but have zero knowledge about music theory or playing an instrument. i do have ideas in my head though! as for the song i'm remixing it's a pop synthy track with female vocals, i'll say on this thread when i've finished and i'll email you the original and my remix if you like.

stirmonster, i think you've answered this already on ilx somewhere so sorry for repeating but what program do you use for your own remixes? could you feasibly do everything on ableton alone? the editing, mastering, etc.

that celemony program sounds fascinating, what do you use it for CB?

http://www.celemony.com/cms/index.php?id=melodyne_theidea

what program do you use for your own remixes?

i use ableton and then everything is dumped into logic for the final mixdown. it is however totally feasible to do everything on ableton alone.

when i was at uni i used it to do just intonation/microtone stuffs. you can adjust the pitch very accuratly, as well as how the pitch changes over time.

another great thing to try is to improvise single note solos, bring into melodyne for pitch/amplitude recognition. then export the midi information along with all the little pitch bends and amplitude envelopes and use it with yer favourite synth. you can really make a synth sing this way.

note: it only recognises pitch from monophonic sources.

i have 8 different wav files, and two with vocals. both wav files have chunks of vocals i want to chop out and use, what's the best way to do this on ableton? will it involve setting up a new instrument rack?

are you taking the piss? hehe, don't set up an instrument rack, read the manual. just the first few chapters. a few hints to help you along.

hint: you dont really chop audio in ableton. make a duplicate copy of the audio in ableton then find the bit you want to use and loop it. repeat for the rest of the wav files and you'll end up with lots of loops. arrange as needed. easy.

hint2: to loop audio in ableton use the controls "position" and "length" under the loop button. if you find it isn't looping in time (you can check against the metronome) your warp markers arn't set up right.

read the manual!

thanks, haha sorry, i've just spent hours going through tutorials and i couldn't find anything about it. i've got the manual up too and *will* go through it, just wanted a short-cut for this!