cubase
Out of context: Reply #12
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Usrper,
I used to use Cubase for years and years but switched to Ableton live a couple of years ago.
Cubase is a very 'fixed' studio piece of software, it is purely timeline based. If you wanted to perform your music live, the only thing yu can do is press play and sit back and watch it play along the timeline, you could of course tweak parameters or effects etc but you are stuck with the same song structure.
The beauty of Ableton Live is that you can use it in the same way as Cubase - working along the timeline to create your song, but then when it comes to live performance, you can split the song up into segments: ie. intro / verse / chorus / build-up / breaks etc etc.
You can trigger these parts as you wish (and deconstruct the parts on the fly as well as tweaking levels/effects etc).
This means that if your crowd starts going daft for a build up that you are playing, you can keep them going for longer by building up the buildup into somthing longer and even more epic.
Its a good way for being able to remix your own music too and come up with differnt structures.A nice touch on Ableton is "Warp" which will automatically fit samples or songs to loops. very handy for importing accapellas into songs youve made and they fit (pretty much perfectly) first time its pasted in there.
I was overseeing the recording of a soundtrack for a CDRom we were doing and I was talking to the guy who ran the recording studio about Cubase and Ableton. This guy used to do dance music and had some tunes in the charts and has ran a studio for years so he knows his stuff.
He said that Ableton was a really good tool but wasnt high enough quality for recording studio use. Now, you and me wouldnt notice this difference - even on the best sound systems, but for a complete audiophile with the highest spec of recording studio monitors, "he" could hear the difference.
Saying that, a lot of artists these days are using ableton to make music that makes its way to the charts - just check out the ableton website for a list of the people using it. Its very impressive and these artists obviously love it for its ability to be both a recording tool and a performance tool.
In the past artists would have had to create their music in cubase or whatever then transfer it to some other format to be able to play it back live. Ableton allows your laptop to be both your studio and everything you would ever need to take your music on the road.Ableton isnt just geared at dance music, you can do whatever you want with it.
If someone was asking me for advice, id reccomend Ableton to them anyday over Cubase.