Abelton Q (tech-audio-R)
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My set-up:Pristine breakbeat raer vinyls-->Stanton carts & needles-->Vestax 07Pro-->Audacity-->Abelton 5.6.6 (or something)I'd noticed my recordings sounded muddy as hell, and somebody told me to change the carts once I realised I haven't done so in ten+ years, and already a dramatic difference, which makes me wonder how much better it might sound with a better cartridge set-up; do Shures give the best soundquality in relation to money spent?Having listened to the WAV exported from Audacity*, I'm pleased with the results, however in Ableton, I notice it gets a bit tinny and loses some sound dynamics, and I remember reading somewhere on the innerwebs that the WARP function on Ableton tends to give sound clips a 'tinny sheen'. Is there any way to avoid this? Should I switch to cubase or fruitloops or something (I don't use Ableton for DJing, just making mixes, possibly production). 
*Audacity suggests exporting WAVs at 16bit rather than 32bit float. What should I export a WAV from Audacity to Abelton as? Will a 32bit float sound any different than 16bit when opened in Audacity?
*Audacity suggests exporting WAVs at 16bit rather than 32bit float. What should I export a WAV from Audacity to Abelton as? Will a 32bit float sound any different than 16bit when opened in Audacity?
Comments
This.
(Soundblaster sound cards are not very good)
When you use ableton then record in 44.1Khz even if your interface support higher samplerates. The samplerate-conversion is mad shitty in older versions of ableton(do you see a pattern here).
No warping? Urghh. That makes a lot of things... easier (creating loops from funk records that are on beat for instance). I guess I could un-warp everything, and chop the shit out of clips and stuff, but that could really slow things down.
My sound blaster looks like this (although possible blue if memory serves correct)
yes & (*ahem* *cough* yes *cough*)
Version 7 already was a big upgrade and 8 is even better.
Oh...
pm'd.
Neil, can you recommend a good sound card? Doesn't have to be top-of-the-line as I'm not DJing with it, does need to be USB/laptop rather than a, uhmm, the other type... ideally something I might be able to pick up second-hand or something.
something like this (although this appears to be firewire rather than usb): http://www.dv247.com/computer-hardware/m...nterface--57220
essentially you should look for something that has good digital converters. apogee cards have a very good reputation but they are either very expensive or mac only.
Something like this then?
http://www.dv247.com/computer-hardware/cakewalk-ua-25ex--69236
Eh? You can record into Abelton? Didn't know that, or is this later versions?
A friend said he can give me a copy of Abelton 7, and said that personally he thought they made too many (unecessary) changes to version 8, but if you can record with 7 I'll give that a go.
Project turntable? Is this a brand, or a type of turntable?
Im having the same problem with the Live engine, but I do all my work in Live now. Just too many advantages that would make it stupid to produce in any other platform for me. I chop all my breaks and sounds to the samplers. Leaving all sounds unaltered by the live "engine". Using it more like a classic sequencer. But with the benefit of the other functions for sample selection etc. I have stepped up my game so many levels this year thanks to Live. Dont think I could have developed as fast as a songwriter, arranger, mixer and whatnot on any other platform.
Dumb questions: how do you do this? Are you talking about using a different program to chop and arrange samples, and then import the loops/arrangements into Abelton?
I agree that it's a great program, so would be keen to deal with any annoying sound issues rather than switch to, say, cubase or reason.
its a powerful program, i guess all these things are about what works for you.
OK, will check that out.
RE: Sound cards - Professional Audio Interface E-Mu 0404 Usb
any good for ?100 secondhand?
wrd.. and when in arrangement view you can just record samples, select parts you want a sample of, and drag it to the sampler. leaving out the need for wavelab, sound forge or similiar applications.
Also when doing Ableton style editing and everything live on the fly it helps when the card is able to operate smoothly at low latency.
This means that when you trigger drums or vsti via midi your soundcard will play it within a "few" ms.
Good for productions are values at and below 256 ms
I used to tell people to look at the m-audio stuff for budget. I havn't been looking at the market in years though. Not sure if I'm still up to the times
Check for compability too.
Sometimes it helps to comb the net for users that are running a stable system and are happy with it.
Confident is the grown man buying way
Ableton + NI Maschine is the truth and with the new versions it is finally working full steam for me just as I get ready to move.
The problems arise when people try to mix and master in Ableton which is just misguided.
The m-audio driver windows are a bit strange but I know several people doing great music with their cards for years. Again, there might be much better stuff out there I'm not too familiar with as I went steep on a RME solution which has been probably the best computer related studio product I have ever bought. I havn't had to buy a new soundcard in over 6 years now apart from maybe a new pciE to keep up to date.
But this is if youre ready to spend some stacks. I'm not telling you these two are the way to go, its just both systems that I see working on a daily basis instead of something I read online.
Yeah, it works out quite nicely. Add the Serato Bridge and it becomes pretty phenomenal.
As for soundcards the Apogee duet is the way to go for 2-in/2-out.
I know Im late with it, but version 8 is crazy
Had a stab at recording into Ableton, couldn't get anything nice from that. Worth a go though!