I feel like the simplistic plugin interfaces and relative simplicity of their function is largely due to Ableton Live being designed around live performance. That insanely fast audio quantization you came across, you can set up Live to automatically quantize loops during a live performance, so even if its a little off during recording when it loops back it will magically be in time. Also while probably not suited for your writing style session view is one of the best features of Live due to its ability to prototype arrangements (and perform) - you can basically sketch up a bunch of song segments, test out a bunch of song structure and layering and then record from session view into arrangement view and then fine tune your track in there. The thing that really pulled me to Live 3 years ago in the first place was Push 2, because the integration between Push and Live is insanely seamless - i've never came across any piece of hardware that integrates so nicely with a DAW. You can make entire tracks without even looking at the computer, but you have all the power of Ableton Live in the hardware. Prior to Live I used Logic for around 10 years and while I still use Logic for some stuff, Live is where I write 99% of my stuff now. Awesome video dude!
I used to have a Cubase setup but my mom got terminally ill and I had to take care of her 24/7 for almost 6 years which cost me almost all of my savings and belongings. Now I want to get back into music production and I have been torn between FL and Ableton. I have been searching for answers for quite a while and I did not get much wiser....untill now. I thank you for "making the skies clearer"....and taking away a lot of "the clouds". Thank you for the information, and I wish everybody a healthy, happy, and wonderful life 🙏
Benn, this was a very fun video to watch. I cut my teeth on music software with both Opcode Vision and Fruity Loops in 1998, but for the last 17 years I've been a hardcore Ableton Live user.... starting the world's first Ableton Live User Group in 2005, working the 2006 Ableton booth at NAMM, and working as the technical editor for the book "Live 4 Power!" Your warnings for "Ableton users and fans" made me laugh and put me a little on guard, but still, it was a joy to watch you figure out Live and come to your own conclusions. I especially liked seeing the various unique interface features and quirks through your fresh perspective. Stuff that's beyond second nature to me now was once a thing I also had to figure out, and so watching you figure it out took me back. This was unexpected. Thanks for taking the time to make and share this. Your remarks about modulation and the piano roll made me realize that the clip envelope pane is something I just go to all the time without even thinking about, and because of it, doesn't even feel like it is separate from the piano roll, but a layer on top of it that I use for parameter locking. Your perspective definitely made me think about a lot of things I do in Live without thinking about.
I started on the Atari with Edit Track and SMPTE Track then onto Cubase on the Atari... then Cubase on Windoze... and LIVE on Windoze which was really hard to get my head wrapped around. I didn't even look at Fruity Loops. I kept up on Cubase and then focused more on LIVE and moved to OSX and eventually dropped using Cubase - even though I still have it installed. I never piano roll anything and have zero interest in drawing notes. LIVE works well my only issue is the poor sysex support and I really wish I could label my audio ports
I know you can't read all these comments, but I was so impressed by your musicianship, and prowess as a composer. You are really schooled, and good. I'm glad you let the DAW speak for itself.
Been using FLS for 3 years. Tried Ableton 2 days ago... As a house producer I can't describe you the relief I felt about arranging the track, and much more.... Ableton is awesome!!!!
FL's Piano Roll is perhaps its strongest feature (a thing of beauty) but the overall workflow is maddening along with Midi routing (Mulab is the easiest I've seen in that dept).
FL's Piano Roll is the best Piano Roll amongst all DAWs, period. Well, that's all about it honestly. It's lacking workflow and efficient functionality all the way from creating a simple fade out on an audio clip to more complex techniques like side chaining or M-S EQing. Cpu efficiency is still shit compared to other DAWs (just try adding a Fruity Balance on 20 mixer channels and watch your cpu rising to 10-15%). And I swear to god I'm sure the consolidation/bouncing function is both too complicated compared to the one-click-function in other DAWs and also not accurate at all. Probably I'm not selecting the right settings but that just proves my opinion of FL's functionality and workflow being stupidly complicated and non sense in most cases.
@@1on1z3d I got a ryzen 2700 cpu and I did what you said about rising CPU from 10-15% it only did 3% on mine. what kind of 4$$ crap CPU you are using there lol... also FL Studio is modular not linear like most DAW out there the way it handles multi core is not the same as your conventional DAW... here is something to educate your brain how it actually works, so you have 1 track but you want to route it to track 2 and 3 that has both delay and reverb EQ etc... so if you route that track to those 2 tracks do you think it will function like it will compute it in multicore? yes or no? if yes then you are just stupid and doesnt even understand what Computer Science is. if no then you sure know what you are doing. because what it actually does is it only compute within 1 core (or lets just say 1 thread) from track 1 to both track 2 and 3 where you route 1 track at... because it's physics, a cpu thread must wait for track 1 to compute so it can compute the next FX chain VST you have, it's not possible to compute it in parallel thread or cores. thats why every routing you made in FL Studio has consequence of being CPU hog because you are not doing it right, if you does the same thing like link only 1 synth per track (linear way) then it should do pretty much the same as performance as other daw. ALSO before I drop the mic, 3rd party VST plays a role on how it performs in DAW, not all will perform equally because some VST programmers are just lazy to test it out on other DAW.
@@1on1z3d Difficult to side-chain in FLS? Throw a fruity limiter on thw target, route the source, adjust the knobs. Really? M-S EQ, 2 minutes in patcher (but I would prefer it built into Parametric EQ 2) or use Maximus if you don't need detailed tweaks. Simple audio editing could be better though, agreed.
FL Studio is great, Ableton is great. Both are great. It doesn't matter at all which one you're using. Every single genre has producers who use either one of those. I've just both and I felt that I could be more creative with the Session view in Ableton (which is totally undiscussed when he talked about Ableton's ''lineair workflow"'). But I liked FL studio too
honestly i pirated fruity loops back in the day when it was new. i liked it, and when i had money to spend on these things i bought it. and i wasnt disappointed. its my main daw.
I have Been there and I actually learn to adopt new things like using all other DAW because music is in me, it's stupid to run discuss about which DAW is better when we all know that it is about user and Art in every one of us and don't forget if you are like guy in video he actually represents him self almost as of topic narcissis talking about he unable to think with basic logic and just do what you want it's that easy in Ableton because of best screen view and usage of space it is very easy... everything is in front of you...that modular behind is so expensive that you have to ask yourself a question is he want to say something else but he hides behind been a honest and difference between..FL could not run Audio track no vst from other 3party until they get big help from Steinberg and they pay as all others do. If you what to use VST in Logic without any trouble try to find Nektarine it comes with Nectar T series and keyboard is one among the best if not best in quality build aftertouch is so amazing that I discovered a new dimensions of sound and I used a lot of " great keyboards" midi and sinth's midi and nothing can compare, Nektarine can mapped every music software and it already have maps so for example I have not kontroll over Kontakt and Reaktor than from NI hardware, encoders and Faders are build to last for a long and you can twist them and still after 5 years p1 become a legend midi device while on the other side I used M audio ,Alessis , NI and novation and nothing even stands to Nektar and Nektarine is a couple mb in size comparison with AKAI solution or NI Wich is a big potential but luck of quality build make me sad so I use it with gentle care and in past with fear of jumpy encoders ect but I remember Arturia making top quality products but they to made a cheap solution without thinking about users having stupid problems like keybeds fel apart or anoyng jumping encoders and my point is that we have to really think what we buying and what brand to choose, NI gives a plenty of sounds but eventually it will break just buy using is . My experience show me Nektar and Nektarine and you can control literally everything you want from T series on Maschine you can just buy using it come to unbelievable results but you have to handle hardware with a lot of care almost TLC
dude i've been using ableton for ages and it's crazy how much you learn watching someone go through the basics of the daw. you forget all the important stuff after a while trying to learn all the neat/novel features of the daw. this was insanely informative, thanks for the vid
Both programs are god tier. It's like comparing a Green Beret to a Navy SEAL. One excels in a specific field than the other. Ableton was made to perform electronic music live on a laptop and produce music at the same time. Because back in the day, it was so expensive to perform electronic music, and you had so many limitations. FL studio's brilliance was in the fact that you can have a work flow that works for you instead of something restrictive and also how easy it was to make music because of it's sequencing abilities. So both are as Ben said "anti DAWs." Same thing with Reason as well, the rack and the graphics made the change from hardware to digital easier because the software looked more like a studio rather than a DAW. But the real question is: what DAW should I use? What are you trying to do in your career? If you are a wedding DJ that hates the same boring shit day after day, Abeleton is god. If you want to perform a actual song using synths without breaking the bank, Ableton is your pal. If you are broke asf and you want a daw you can jump right into, FL studio is your homie. Both DAWs allow you to go as deep as the universe will allow. I've heard some people actually have gotten their Phd in music using Ableton, it goes that deep apparently. But yeah. Don't get stuff if it hinders your dream. Like, if going DAWless stops you from achieving your vision, you need to compromise or find a good work around. These are tools, they are made to help you get to point A to point B as fast as possible. Anyways, that's my point of view.
This is really interesting for me as an ableton user, I never considered FL studio, but as a pianist my work has always been piano roll based rather than sampling based (which is where Ableton really excels). So, thanks
"Piano roll based is where Ableton really excels?" ... You don't know what you're missing, mate - See at: 58:18. Even fans of other DAWs cencede that FL Studio has the best Piano roll of any DAW ... by a country mile!
@@Music-tg5isI having been using FL since Fruity Loops 5. Throughout the years I have tried all kinds of different DAWs. I did have a lot of fun and was inspired by Reason and it's workflow and stock instruments. In the long run I ended up just using it as basically a VSTi pack via Re-Wire... FL has always just felt more free and sandboxy, not just piano roll but also the project sequencer
I love how this thing started just as I felt confortable on ableton. I used FL for 5 years but now I'm using maschine and ableton and man, it was a trip. Now I can sit back, enjoy your suffering and scream shortcuts at the screen lol
2021 and my university shamed us FL Studio users into buying Ableton :^) I like both, but the stigma is really outdated and unnecessary in a timeline where GarageBand might be many people's first introduction to digitally making music
I would use what the hell I want and dare anyone to open their stupid mouth about it.First of all,if I buy it or if it''s free,it's my computers,my time,my energy,and my own workflow that matters.I'm really big on being outside of the box and experimentation,along with simplicity.Maybe that is because I have an actual background with hardware,and instruments,instead of just jumping to a computer first.I think comparisons,like MAc or PC is so stupid,and I use both,and other platforms.
@@Ms-pr7fe NO i studied instruments,performed,and learned about gear from us not having roadies.I am school trained in computers and yes,I have my own project studio setup..
Same here, a lot of classmates shamed me (and still do) for using FL, it's nothing that gets to me because when you use something for a long time you're obviously going to think something else isn't as good (and it's just humour between us to make fun of anything we do). What shocked me the most was that a lot of the tutors at my college were also shaming me for using FL when I could blatently tell they had no idea what it had transformed into. These tutors still thought FL was in its beta drum roll stage and I was surprised that people who were supposed to be guiding me through music hadn't actually been updated on a major DAW. It even got to the point where one of my tutors actually had to ask me what DAW I was using while he was watching me compose some tracks, really put it into perspective that they had no idea what DAW they were talking about when they shamed me for using FL.
Damn bro I can’t imagine having to buy Ableton as a uni student. As I am a music hobbyist I bought FL because of price n what if offers for that price. I’m a uni student that is scraping by. Hope you got your money’s worth 🙏
I think some of the things in Ableton you considered cons, like the compact nature of the UI for different patches and effects, are pros for me. I very highly value information density and my screen space, and I like for everything I'm working with to be on the same screen as much as possible. I don't like working in a window that covers up a large chunk of my screen any time I am editing a parameter of an effect or instrument. I think the biggest consideration for use of any modern DAW software is speed of workflow for YOU. Whether it's because of the UI, or routing, or workflow, or maybe simply because you learned one software first, it really doesn't matter. Like "if it sounds good, it IS good" but for DAWs. Whatever works best for you... is best for you. Kind of solipsistic, and that's fine. Imagine trying to determine "what is the best guitar" in any objective manner. I think it's the same here. I will say I like the functionality of fades and crossfades and automation thereof in Ableton. It's a small thing, but it "makes sense" to me and I can get things the way I want them to sound intuitively and quickly.
I never understood the hate for FL Studio. I remember getting a cracked copy of it back around 2007 and loving it. Sure the work flow was different than traditional linear DAWs back then but once you got your head around it it was really well designed and encouraged a lot of experimentation and creativity.
Personally, I really enjoy using a myriad of DAWs. I feel as though it helps me maintain a fresh approach to music production, in addition to being able to leverage the different strengths of each DAW. FL, Ableton, Bitwig, and Reaper are my favorites. You can also use Rewire to route the audio of one DAW into another! I do this often in Ableton when I need the sound design flexibility that FL studio has over Ableton (automation). I tend to favor the arrangement workflow in Ableton over FL, so it works well.
For years I've used FL, time to time tried Ableton, but after my SSD died last year, I've chose to get something different, and ended up with Reason. The DAW has it's strict limitations, but I think it's what makes it helps you to focus on the project. It's especially fun tool if you're into hardware synthesizers, but cannot afford none. Entire UI is basically 2d simulation of 90s synth hardware studio, where you can even manually change the audio and CV routing.
dude same exact thing happened to me !!!!! I been using FL for years almost 10 years maybe then I got into more experimental things and more electronic stuff Tried to learn ablton 2 of my dope friends and workers showed me reason and I bought Reason late 2019, Im loving it hard , but I dont like its piano roll and a few clunky stuff but rack itself and devices which is Rack Extensions ( Instruments and Effects and utlities ) are amazing and the modular enviroment , but Im trying to use it as a plugin now cause I think I can benefit better daw enviroment with my legendary Reason Racks , so its gonna be FL , Ableton , and Bitwig ! probably all three but mostly Bitwig then Ableton and then FL Studio lol
Useful tip: Automation has recently become very powerful in edit mode. Not pencil mode! So if you want constant values, curves and ramps, even perfect sinewaves and a simple ADSR shape, all with precise timing, press B, drop the pencil and have a look at the 10.1 release notes. You can even attenuate, ramp in and out, and time-scale whole sections of automation pretty easily, so the lack of fancy curve types doesn't matter when you can edit thousands of automation points at once. Honestly, as an ex-FL user, I miss the whole "automation as clips" concept, being able to move any parameter freely and attenuating automation clips with other automation clips was a big plus for complex evolving sounds. I've been thinking of recreating that type of timeline in Max, probably just for automation, it would be a great addition to Ableton.
Ableton does have true stereo panning, you just have to right click the “pan” pot and select “split stereo panning.” It’s not well known that Ableton uses “balance” as the default, and it’s even less well known that it actually does have a genuine panning parameter! Lots of confusion around this.
When I started out in Ableton, a good friend of mine had been using it for years already, this was the single tip he gave me and even though I didn't even know how to use panning properly at the time it stuck with me :D
I think you should make an updated video consider Live 11 was released. They made MASSIVE improvements to the piano roll, plus I think Ableton's piano roll has much more of a learning curve than FL's. The "focus" function, the pencil tool, and automation envelopes are all baked into the piano roll in addition to the new humanization functionality.
This was insanely painful to watch but still interesting. One of Ableton's biggest strengths and indeed what set it apart from every other music production tool from the beginning is its Session view, so it was pretty tough to watch someone completely ignore that almost immediately while simultaneously zeroing in on its weakest points (linear arrangement). Session view allows an asynchronous approach to production and there are other features that build on that like modulation panes - everything you can see on any device has its own modulation pane per clip, and these can be in any meter - separate from the clip. This style of working is more like a modular synth than a DAW and was designed for **Live** (hehe) performance of electronic music where you want to bring parts in and out on a whim, but is also a more efficient way of recording an arrangement. A scene of clips is equivalent to a "pattern" in your FL workflow, I think? Anyway. This video has inspired me to look more into FL, as I've heard great things about its MIDI editing before and also perhaps the built in synths are stronger... (not a fan of needing VSTs and don't love Albeton's synths).
Yeah I think if you use Ableton, you have to use it as Ableton, as a pattern based thing. I use Ableton half the time If I want to do something in a pattern based way, and Studio One if I want to go linear. There are definately some reasonable critiques made here. Abletons piano roll IS terrible. I mean how many years have we been waiting for *propper* transposing.The idea you just highlight and drag only really works if your going up and down an octave. And yeah the expensive updates hurt. But I can't make heads and tails out of fruity loops. Which is a shame, it does sound powerful. I just get bamboozled when tying to use it.
What makes me laugh is the people who are hardcore ableton users and don't even use the session view. Same people who lay their drums out manually as audio clips
As an ableton user for ~10 years I feel like you really hit all my main gripes with the software. I too like to use a lot of LFOs and envelopes on the synths because I usually want more control than ableton offers. But I've had a bit of a deal-breaker with using the M4L devices; every now and then, with no warning or way to undo it, all of the parameters on the M4L devices jump back to zero or default positions. This pretty much ruins tracks and has caused really big issues when performing live, to the point that now I pretty much only use native (non MAX) devices or samples because the reliability isn't there. My other big gripe is that they really haven't pushed any kind of documentation or tutorials on how to make M4L devices. I have so many ideas for things I'd like to do, but I don't know how to do them. I think if they're going to keep relying on M4L to fill in the gaps they need to make MAX more accessible via tutorials or documentation. Great video!
I used to teach MaxMSP/Jitter and it has decades of incredible documentation built in (and if you search the Cycling '74 forum or general MaxMSP groups)! I think things turn up blank when searched specifically for M4L instead of MaxMSP as a programming environment since most discussions aren't on M4L specific forums
@@RneubauerBmore I guess that's where I've been getting stuck is not really knowing how to target various things within ableton. But the community and documents around Max/msp itself are really great!
What are you on about? There is extensive documentation on both live and M4L. Lives documentation is not just the best in class, it's some of the best of any software. The Max documentation literally has code examples for every single node type. The live documentation is so good that I frequently tell people who are new to production to read it even if they dont use Live.
@@sacredgeometry I guess my comment on M4L is that Abelton often references it, but doesn't actually make tutorials or videos about getting more use out of it. Mostly you're just referred to Cycling 74's site, which is fine, but it feels 2nd class to me. Fully agree that Live's documentation is amazing, I've read the manual front to back and it was so useful! Basically I was just hoping that they would extend that into the M4L area more since I think they could do a great job introducing people to it and then if you wanted some more to dive into Max full on. With more direct support I think it could be way more valuable to everyone. These are just my thoughts, you're welcome to have your own view
Please make "Advanced FL Studio techniques for IDM production" video or even a whole series if people like it. I would really like to see how an "FL Studio power user" (no offence :) ) makes an IDM/Drill & Bass/Breakcore type of track with it. I've been using FL Studio for 4 years and most of idm production techniques i learned from others were imported from Ableton tutorials, because FL Studio community really lacks comprehensive tutorials for it.
I would check out the TH-cam channel InTheMix , they have tons of very clear and deep tutorials on how to use FL studio. It has completely changed my use of the software and I've been using it for ~8 years. Highly recommend
If you have'nt tried, try FL Granular synthisizer. Im using fl for 6 years and I just got to know about it a year ago. you can use it for anything. Its cool.
@@maxine2798 Art is theft. "Good artists borrow; great artists steal." (Obviously not to the point of plagiarism, we're talking ideas, techniques, etc.) On top of that, seeing exactly how a pro does something is a great way to learn.
Used Live for years, and it was my first ~real~ DAW - I've made maybe 6-8 dozen full tracks in it, recorded, mixed, mastered etc, and I gave it up after a long time because I found myself getting increasingly stymied by some limits it has. The panning is one of them, as is the sandboxing, but overall i felt that the basic audio recording and editing workflow didn't have enough to offer me when trying to track myself or my band, and the 12 return track limit become stifling in larger projects. Ultimately, while I still own Live and do love it for actually playing live, I moved to a combination of Bitwig and Studio One, which meet my needs for both extensive experimental environments and traditional audio-based workflows in a better way than Live was ever able to.
I tried the trial for Ableton and FL Studio but ended up finding Ableton more intuitive. I have no musical background, i just thought it would be fun to try mess around and make sounds, but i found it really comforting during your first stream that a pro like yourself ran into many of the same issues I did. Great video and review overall! From my experience so far all your criticisms ring true. I especially appreciate that you didn't make this into a polarising 10minute video but actually dove really deep into every knook and cranny and shared your honest opinion.
I tried Ableton after 13 years of FL and I fell in love. It's infinitely better for people that like a streamlined, organized workflow and getting stuff done fast.
@@johnnyt5054 thats cool man, to be fair to fl studio i tried ableton for one day and fl the next day so i might have found it more confusing because i had just started getting used to ableton.
I've been an Ableton user for about 8 years. I want to get back into FL, and seeing how you at times struggled with Live is almost as instructive as Mr. Bill's point of view. Understanding what you miss is inspiring, in a way. I wholeheartedly agree with one of your points: the DAW influence how you sound - it's an instrument, and learning other DAWs help you evolve as a producer. My first real DAW after trackers was Cakewalk, and I've been using Cubase extensively, as well as Acid and FruityLoops/FL Studio quite a bit as well. I think I carry something with me from all of them.
I've never used Ableton, but as a long time Reaper user, when I started using FL Studio, I definitely experienced a bit of the 'too much power' or, in other words, choice paralysis.
As a software engineer with zero experience in music production this video will be extremely helpful in facilitating my transition from VS Code to Neovim.
Definitely subscribing to this channel. I used to produce in FL Studio and stopped about a decade ago. Not with FL but producing ... life happened. And now i'm kinda getting back into it on a therapurtic/hobbyist level I think the last FL I used was maybe 11? But it was probably before that even, so i'm learning it all over again because 20 is so different. I was also considering learning another DAW like Abelton or Studio One. I've really enjoyed playing with Maschine as that was the tool the made me kinda curious again. That ramble is all to say that the phase i'm in with music this was VERY entertaining and inciteful to watch. I look forward to exploring more of your content and learning quite a bit. Thanks for doing this it made Abelton way less intimidating. I still dont know it's for me especially at the pricepoint (FL Gang is definitely spoiled on free updates hahaha) but I find myself with way less hangups about it after watching this ... for what it's worth.
I wanted to learn a new DAW and I was between FL Studio and Live. I am soooo glad I went with FL Studio. I had already tried both and hated them, but after seeing this I am sure I would have suffered more with Live this time around. FL is weird but I'm getting used to it.
Very fair! The piano roll is the reason why bitwig split from ableton. I remember when everyone tried to get into the bitwig beta.... It was nearly impossible. Hence why very few people know of bitwig
19:17 your reaction to quantize is priceless. Half quantize is also cool to keep a bit of the vibe. I wish i could play the bass..... and that ableton had pitch correction! I use vocalsynth 2 for pitch correction.
It’s primarily stufff like this that means it’s ableton or nothin, in terms of not having to stop writing or composing to deal with the flailing minutiae of 2 personally escorting two notes to where they need to be. Trying to not kill a jam with workflow issues inherent in all daws is the only reason I can’t toss or ignore the prospect of ableton
So glad to have a professional talking, it’s hard getting into the music industry with out a lick of knowledge and watching a TH-camr who only has 6 months of knowledge. Thanks for the video!
Around 1:03:30 mark you mentioned ableton uses circular panning. You can right click the panning knob and "Select Split Stereo Pan Mode" to adjust left/right input channels position in stereo field separately.
I now realize I used slightly the wrong term. It's technically constant power panning with sinusoidal gain curves. Ableton's solution is to either split the channels (as you recommended) or go extreme on the panning and then lower the width with a utility device. Honestly, both of these are not acceptable solutions. That being said, I think if I were to use Ableton I'd probably get used to it after the initial gripes.
I'm also a first user of Ableton in 2020. Mad FL user for 20 years amongst others you were mentioning at the begin. On the topic at time stamp 32:00 - Apparently every recording needs to be done in the second view window when pressing "TAB" Not the one you're in at the time stamp. From what I understand learning Ableton, an audio/midi strip in the second view window acts as a "Pattern" in FL Studio. So I'm using it as such and record everything into the 1st window. It's works at it should, haven't ran into problems since. I'm still learning Ableton hard to work on collabs with clients. All thanks to the lockdown forcing my hand in doing so.
I use both DAW's for silly bedroom stuff, nothing professional so maybe my opinion doesn't count but; I feel the con given regarding instruments is not entirely fair. Ableton has a strength in that it is very modular. Where everything is packed in one VST with FL Studio (instrument, fx etc.) you can build this yourself leaving out the bits you don't need in Ableton by combining the large amount of Audio Effects with you instrument of choice. This is, in my opinion, more of a strength than a drawback. I love both DAW's and they are quite different in terms of workflow but I would not say I'd favor one over the other.
It’s surprisingly good as a free DAW. I have tried Ableton 10, FL and LMMS, and I can comfortably say that LMMS is great. Though has a slightly complicated layout
So far after using it for half a year I like LMMS a lot (don't have much to compare it to though). My overall thoughts: *The Animation Editor* I really enjoy being able to animate every single little thing, but I don't want it to take up so much space in the sequencer. *Quantization* I feel like if I was not limited to being only able to put in notes with a gap of only a 1/192 of a beat I part I would feel much less limited *Time signature* Maybe I have not found it yet, but I think the time signature is 4/4 and that's it and nonnegotiable. *Plugins* They all seem very cool however I can always never find the one I want or there are way too many of the same exact thing. So I only end up using Reverb SC, Bitcrush, and maybe occasionally a delay or a filter. *Overall* You can do lots of stuff that you want to do but in the end is quite limited in features that would be cool but not used in everything you make. (It basically has everything that is needed in at least 40% or more songs, but nothing that would be used less than that) But being open source and free I will accept whatever down sides it has.
@@qu765 You can change the time signature anywhere from 4/4 to 32/32 (but some of the odd time signatures can be a little difficult to work with), just double click either the top or bottom number. Also make sure to look for outside plugins or vsts, there are good free ones out there
I use Ableton and I really like the non-linear workflow of the "session view". You can use place MIDI or audio into clips as one shots or loops to see how they sound together before committing to them in the arrangement. also, you can use them in live performances if you choose. This makes me want to experiment more and it also reduces the need of cutting, pasting and shifting in the arrangement. Many producers, which are used to work in DAWs without a "session view", naturally gravitate to do everything in the "arrangement view" and ignore the "session view" more or less. I can't blame them, because the "arrangement view" is what they are familiar with. However, the "session view" workflow is one of the biggest selling points of Ableton. By the way, Max for Live (M4L) comes only with Ableton Suite. It is not not part of Intro or Standard. You can set proper panning in Ableton 10 and up by right clicking on the pan knob and choosing "select split stereo pan mode". I guess they did not set is as default in order to maintain compatibility with projects saved in older versions. I agree that Operator and Analog (btw. you show Analog while talking about Operator) have very small interfaces. Especially Operator would benefit from a lager interface. Ableton Suite's Wavetable synth, introduced with 10, offers an extended interface.
Ableton + FL Studio as a VST. Most powerful combination I have been using for a few years ever since the FL VST option was available. They really compliment each other including cross audio routing, complex midi patching, and cpu management (FL deals with VST differently and some better than others) . All options are available.
Cons of FL from an FL user: 1. You can't do anything in Playlist/Arrangement without getting channel rack in between. Record anything in Playlist and it gets stored in Channel Rack. This adds too much clutter in your project. Imagine recording 70 vocal takes, all getting stored by a random name. And when you delete it from the playlist, it doesn't get deleted from the Channel Rack and then you have a very good time clearing up your project. It just kills the fun process of recording and makes me concern about the clutter. 2. Audio recording and editing is the most weak part of FL studio. There is no option to fade in fade out in playlist. Getting recording in your desired track number is tedious. When you edit your sound in Newtime or Newtone, you can't make a permanent changes to the original file, you need to drag a copy of the edited file. It also adds more and more clutter in Channel Rack. 3. Every FL Stock plugins looks beautiful but the UX sucks. Harmor is the coolest looking synth I've ever seen but when it comes to learning that, it takes hours and it is not easy on the eyes. Tons of buttons are all over the place. Whereas learning Serum is way more easier, why? because the UX is very carefully designed. 4. There is few clicks here and there in every task. When you make a good piece of music, you need to route it to the mixer then open the mixer and navigate to the track and only then you can add FX. Whereas in Ableton, you just press Ctrl F and find the effect and straight up drag and drop. 5. The shortcuts of FL are weird and not much usable. i.e. F9 is mixer, it is out of my left hand reach unless I lift it.
@Mike Parmar There's something like 'route to channel rack after recording' box or something like that you can check/uncheck. About shortcuts: I feel comfortable about them in FL, like old Korean players in Starcraft are used to defaults, before release of Remastered version of the game few years ago, which enable to customize them. Hopefully, Image Line will implement this feature of setting YOU OWN shortcuts in next releases ;)
I don't mind the shortcuts actually. I guess after using the same shortcut for so many years it just feels normal. However i wish FL Studio's pitch shifting didn't sound like shit, would be nice to have Complex, Complex pro modes from Ableton and more options when manipulating audio. Most of the options in the sampler are useless for me, i only use normalize when i need to make something louder lol and different stretching methods can sometimes make it sound even more shitty, so i usually stick with "resample". For me Decklicking mode is ok for very short fade, but usally i use IN and OUT in the sampler for this. It would be nice to have skins for FL20, like Ableton has, because working in the same Dark Grey UI can get uninspiring after some time.
To number 1: you can delete audio on the Playlist it's very simple and even deleted from the channel rack... You can see every audio track on the left side of the Playlist... Same with patterns and automations... If you don't see it, maybe it shows the pattern or automations... There is a button to switch between above it, called picker button ... Or just click the audio track, then it's highlighted on the left side... There you right click and delete... No channel rack is needed and it's just also deleted there... To number 2: you can easily make fade ins and out on audio clips in the Playlist... It does not work on midi pattern i guess, can't find the option... But with an audio clip just click the item on the left side of the audio clip to open the menu.... Go to automate and the choose volume or panning... There is an automation clip now right on the audio clip and you can make fade in and out or even pannings... It's just a different way than in other daws... But it's awesome for when you use impacts or reverses bc'z you can also pan them or just make volume automations in between and everything is in place
A really strong scotch, like Laphroig, and shredded wheat is quite the thing. Give it a try, let me know what you think. You use the Scotch like a dipping sauce. Never done it myself, but sounds good.
Fan of yours and Ableton user here. I watched the first two streams and this one, really liked all of it. I think I still don't want to buy another DAW, even though your enthusiasm for FL studio is really intriguing. This would be insane for my hobbyist approach :-D When it comes to panning in your next Ableton track, you should consider right clicking the panning knob and split the stereo channels, maybe this is what you are looking for? Anyway I learned things about you, your music and even some Ableton stuff from it. thanks for that, I enjoyed it! :-)
Ignus Vermaak v hey :-) for whatever reason I think I was notified about it here on TH-cam, watched a bit, but later had a hard time to find it again to resume watching, since the video was unlisted. I found it then, but l’m out of luck right now. So unfortunately I can’t give you a satisfying answer I‘m afraid...
Used FL studio for a few years, made the switch to Ableton about 8 months ago when I wanted to do live looping and integrate hardware in a more interactive way. I still use FL studio occasionally, but the workflow in Ableton works better for me. That doesn't mean it's better or worse, it just suits my workflow better. Particularly when you throw in ClyphX and TouchOSC. The only thing I really miss is patcher. The first month using Ableton was hard work, but once I got the hang of it I much prefer it, Max for live is absolutely brilliant as well. There are some very useful things that are just plug and play and function like a native plugin.
I think the thing with ableton workflow, atleast for me, is that you should sketch your sound on the clip view, arrange them into to scenes (intro, verse, etc) and record it Live (like the name Ableton Live) by triggering the clips or scenes. When im done with the backbone of my song that is when i go to arrangement view and record solos or other melodic stuff. Then master the whole things.
I love this. Very cathartic for me. I started music in fruity loops 3 back in 2000 when I was 13 or 14. I became a crazy power user over a year or so. I learned most of the advanced stuff by reverse engineering the demo songs. I also hid the fact that I used FL. I had also used pro tools and cubase for mixing and mastering anything with live instruments. I eventually got talked into switching to ableton by my big brother after a hiatus from music for a couple years. Even after using ableton for many years and learning all of its tricks I still despise its piano roll interface and how the transport controls behave. It violently gets in the way of my creativity. Switching back to FL was like a fish returning back to the ocean.
Honestly, the audio world needs a development model where creative individuals are flown in for a collective project, where the developers are in-house working alongside them, listening for feedback on how to improve UX or even full feature requests. Something similar to the Blender Institute, where they are able to operate on donations, merchandise, software-training, where the software is open source and available for everyone.
I found out about Fruity Loops when i had the chance to visit the home studio of Rick James in 2002. That was the primary software he was using to create tracks before he died.
man... I know the difficulties! Taetro made a video that shows how to use Ableton and it's about the same age as your demo of Ableton. Taetro really explains everything and a lot of the issues you are experiencing are fully explained. I moved from Audacity for recording vocals into a DAW and I choose Ableton. I haven't recorded with it yet, and I've owned it for about 2 weeks now... lol it's a hobby of mine and this weekend I am hoping to record. I know vocally... Ableton is 100 times better than Audacity lol I'm old... I'm analog and reel-to-reel old... lol
This is one of the best vids I've ever watched. I went form FLS (7 years) to Ableton this summer and went through all these frustrations, with a LOT of headaches and a lot of Google used. It's so funny being on the other side of this mad learning curve...
I'm a 'medium'-time lover of FL Studio. I still use it for sound design and sound design-related music, but I started using Cubase for film composing. Here comes my unsollicited rant : FL has awesome features, it's a must-have DAW for sound design, quick producing and experimentation. But in a big ambitious project (media composing etc), to me it cannot be trusted to be more than an auxiliary tool in complement to Cubase. That's sad because it could actually be a serious competitor. I'm so mad at Image-Line. They don't care about making a "professional" DAW. Instead they went full casual, reveling themselves in what they had be wrongly accused of in the past. Their latest updates consist mostly in shiny, flashy gimmicks to appeal to beginners and casual users. But they show no intention of improving the most fundamental elements. They fixed some stuff and added some interesting details here and there. But they seem afraid of dealing with the hard stuff. Who cares about a new video editor ? I haven't seen anybody actually using ZGameEditor Visualizer, ever. If I want to make videos I'll rent After Effects. An in-DAW video maker just smells like gear acquisition syndrome, how is that an actual selling point ? Why are they so obsessed with it ? VFX Enveloppe ? Why not, but meh. I'll be impressed with Patcher the day they improve its UI, or go full modular by allowing feedback loops and conversion between audio and parameters. Flex ? Not very sound design-friendly. Mostly a cash-grab that doesn't offer much more than the insane amount of third party sample librairies already available. It's mostly marketed toward beatmakers, and lazy/beginner/in a hurry producers. FL Studio Mobile is a toy. Meanwhile, essential points still need to be redone : -Audio Clips are the worst. Having to clone the channel each time you want a specific clip to have different timestrech/effect parameters is annoying. Having to create an automation clip for every audio fade is painful. Advanced processing (time-warping, pitch correction etc) has to be done in an offline plugin and exported back as a static sample, when most daws allow for much more flexibility. - Realtime-only tempo automation is a mess, it doesn't anticipate the tempo curve and makes it very tedious to work with audio clips. Also no TimeCode ruler. - Patterns have some benefits, but tend to encourage repetition. I wish you could bypass it and make it work like in more traditionnal DAWs, by being able to split, clone (independently), and combine pieces of midi without having to click in sub-menus or cluttering your project with dozens of temporary patterns. Also you can't edit multiple patterns at once, or even different instruments at once in the piano roll. Working on orchestral music or any non repetitive genre with many tracks is so tedious because of that. - Midi events are weird. I don't know why, editing them feels so wrong compared to Cubase. - Automation is flawed. You can't select, move, copy and paste muliple points. It's way too hard to use FL's automation in the traditionnal "one-lane" way, and I don't like having to slice my automation, losing track of what cut is from where in the original automation, and risking to unknowingly mess everything up every time I move a point in "slide" mode. It would be helpful to be able to merge automations like you can merge patterns, to copy parts while making them independant in a non cluttering way. - Midi CC (as traditionnaly used by VSTs) has to be linked manually and is not supported by default if you don't have a "supported" keyboard. I think it can be solved with the new midi scripting but I'm not sure, and it's a terrible way to adress the issue. All of this can be a real workflow killer, and Image-Line completely ignores it. But I can't ditch Fl Studio because I love so much about it : - the step sequencer is the most efficient way to write drum patterns. - the piano roll is excellent, on par with Cubase. Both would greatly benefit from borrowing a bit to the other though. A fusion between the two would make the perfect piano roll. - the mixer is great, and the routing is so easy and fast (and for once requires less menuing than in other daws) - some of the native plugins are so creative and unique (but some other essential effects don't sound very good and have not been updated in ages) - automation and parameter routing are really powerful. The many differents types of ramps, and the decimate/smoothing/etc functions are very welcome. - the browser is compelling (very similar to Ableton, but better than Cubase). I just wish they reworked the research function. I might be forgetting some points, but I don't think FL Studio is the most powerful DAW. It sure has the potential though. All of the others DAWs are pretty much settled and only need minor improvements to achieve more conventionnal goals. But FL has something more, a spark of madness that is tragically held back by Image-Line's laziness and lack of confidence. The most ridiculous thing in the last update is that they "changed the default template to 'Basic 808 with limiter' " FL users will get my point : why are they ashamed of the classic "basic" samples ? Everyone has used these crappy but iconic drums at least once when discovering FL Studio. They were practically part of the DAW's identity. What is the point of switching to the 808 kit right now, it if not to confirm that they just see FL Studio as "the kid-friendly beatmaking DAW", with a few weird toys in it ? They're having an oddly specific marketing target and I don't like where it's going . I'm not hating on beatmakers, but they usually don't need to dig as deep in DAWs than producers of other genres. Most of the time they only need the most superficial features and work on quick and simple projects, and I feel like Image Line is capitalizing on that. But at the same time they spend time and money on gadgets that only advanced sound designer will use, but they don't fix the workflow problems that would make these gadgets more easily usable in a complex songmaking context... They're really pushing the "see what sticks" strategy to a whole new level. I get it, the updates are free, but I'd rather pay for updates that fix major flaws instead of trying to divert attention with minor stuff no one asked for. Mostly I'm mad because I love both Cubase and FL Studio, but they both have a lot of nonsensical issues and I wish I could use both as a massive superDAW, but reWire doesn't work. And although I don't use Ableton Live, I know how it works and I know it won't solve my problems but add more...
They should improve the inbuilt plugins like Parametric EQ 2 maybe a new version and then a mastering rack like Ozone 9 but something that's easy on the cpu
Definetely agree on the tedious audio clips, that's one of my main gripes with fl studio. Make unique, make unique as sample, it's just adding unnecessary complexity. I always look at Ableton users mouthwatering when it comes to audio clip manipulation, really hope they fix that. Aside from that, like FL a lot. Tried using ableton a few times, but it didnt click, mainly due to the horrible piano roll and lack of step sequencer. It's those 2 things that keep fl so intuïtive for me
"Who cares about a new video editor ? I haven't seen anybody actually using ZGameEditor Visualizer, ever. If I want to make videos I'll rent After Effects. An in-DAW video maker just smells like gear acquisition syndrome, how is that an actual selling point ? Why are they so obsessed with it ?" I use ZGameEditor Visualizer. Mainly because its a video editor that came bundled with FL Studio and I don't have to buy/rent a different one. I love that it can mimic the popular effects that musicians would look for in After Effects without the system strain, too. Its simple to use as well. Just drag, drop some images, add some effects, adjust some sliders, and you have a video in less than 5 minutes. I love it to bits.
I had fl 11 fruity and cubase pro 8 in the past. cubase worked decently with using it's VST's, and was superior to FL for the bouncing of audio and editing of actual audio files. However, it had some enormous flaws, starting with automation bugs such as editing automation points, and if an automation point is recognized when the cursor runs over them. glitches with LFO sync, piano roll, occasional crashes, and the god forsaken elicenser which broke on exposure to air, led me to selling cubase and upgrading to FL producer. FL studio definitely has it's own workflow and isn't very nice for recording or editing audio, but is by far the best and most reliable pc solution for automation, vst synthesizers, and piano roll work.
I was a longtime reason use in early 2000s. Then about ten years ago switched to Ableton and while it was enjoyable my music was worse than before. Indeed up just tweaking loops. Now for the last year I have been using FL studio and focusing more on composition than effects, automation or production tricks. I don’t know if I would willingly go back to Ableton. I tried to make a song in reason last month and it kind of sucked. Cubase is the only daw I own that I would consider in addition to FL at the moment. I own live, reaper, reason, Ableton, logic, and tried cakewalk and DP this spring.
I just want to say, props to you for sticking it out. I would like to add that the time I have spent learing ableton in and out like the back of my hand has shown me that I can now open any DAW and go straight to it but my first time before ableton using FL I found it cluttered, navigating through the oddly shapped tabs seemed like I was using a childs toy. Now, don't get me wrong, FL is fantastic and I always recomend to friends to try three or four different interfaces before deciding which is best for them personally. Coming from a musical background I just never felt FL stood out as an interface that looked and felt the way I personally needed it to. People get frustrated when starting any DAW but the point is to be and if you are dedicated and love making music then you put the time in to learn all the ins and outs. This proves to an artist wether or not they have what it takes. It should never be simple and not frustrating at times, you will never learn from easy. With that being said thanks for a video that's not wah wah wah this is better than that bullshit. Everything that's different will present challenges. My advice (as mentioned earlier), get all the free trials for all the different DAW's and find which flows best for your brain. Remember it's your brain and creative mind that drives the DAW not the other way around.
I went to school for audio engineering/beat making. I was taught by a handful of well-known professional producers how to make beats and mix and master. I didn't get the hint when we NEVER used Ableton that FL was the way to go. Before going to school I had always used my pirated version of Ableton, so when that version stopped opening on my computer after a year of neglecting my musical interest, I naturally BOUGHT Ableton for $750. I've been watching videos on everything to refresh my memory and stumbled upon a YTer that uses FL Studio who made a video about the plugins that come with the DAW. I started comparing FL to Ableton... this is when I found your video. I'm not halfway through this video, 6 shots of rum, and I feel like I'm going to have a dent in my forehead by the end of this. THE SIGNATURE VERSION OF FL STUDIO IS $450 CHEAPER THAN ABLETON LIVE AND COMES WITH BETTER PLUGINS THAN THE ONES I HAVE BOUGHT TO COMPENSATE FOR THE LACK OF EFFECTS PROVIDED BY ABLETON. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself. I hate myself.
Switched to Ableton about a week ago. Made my best song yet in the first 5 days on it. It really doesn't take long to learn if you have worked with FL studio. The grouping feature is amazing for routing, parallel compression, and just more control over effects on different sections. You can do the same in FL studio, but without groups, it's way more tedious. Such as, you wanna have your kick with one set of effects, and your snare with another and then have them both processed together afterwards, grouping makes this kind of thing so much easier, and makes you less reluctant to do some really crazy processing/routing tricks that go beyond that (I know this example isn't that hard in FL studio but you throw in your side chain channel, side chain trigger channel, parallel compresion, and sends/returns it can get messy). Also, mastering seems to be easier on Ableton, get to -8 LUFs easy on some EDM stuff without much fine tuning at all. My master chain in FL studio would be like -11 LUFs after tons of fine tuning to try to push the sound louder. That could just be a problem with my mixing techniques on FL studio though. Oh also, resampling and pitch shifting/transposing audio is way easier on ableton and you get a bunch of different options for changing the tone (texture, complex, complex pro, transient, etc..). I think I'm an Ableton guy now, but I've heard amazing songs on both.
This was painfully scary for me to watch lol. I bought fl studio a month ago and still learning. But just like you I tried Ableton live last year and I was just lost. Fl studio feels more natural although I’m still learning. But I’ve just purchased Ableton suite as I now have an Ableton push and I have to learn Ableton now. So this was both like painfully scary and yet encouraging at the same time. Thanks for sharing this!
When I use FL studio I have the impression of playing having fun when I use Ableton I have the impression of working doing office work of working on Excell it gives me a headache
For me, it's the other way around actually. Ableton in session view is the ultimate jam monster. Especially when you hook up dedicated hardware like the Push 2 the fun factor goes through the roof.
ok - so you got me with "this shits hard". Nice to hear that from someone with skills. I can really appreciate how easy people can make creating music in a DAW look.
I've had that issue a couple times, but it turns out it was related to the hard drive the samples were stored on because it never happened again after I upgraded drives.
After watching this, I think you would really like Digital Performers workflow. I’ve found it’s MIDI capabilities to be one of the best for composing non loop based work. I’ve always hated the whole clip based workflow, my MIDI tracks are all one clip. Also being able to have any selection of MIDI tracks viewable in the piano roll. Drawing in sine, triangle, square wave with modifier keys. Etc.
They're actually adding a pitch correction plugin 12.1! I just bought 12 so I'm looking forward to it. They also allowed editing multiple midi clips at a time, which can show you the ghost notes, which solves the problem you were having with the complex chords.
i was always wondering if switching to ableton would somehow magically make my music better, but i think this video made me realize that i should stick with FL just because it's not missing any important features and because I am really comfortable with FL. Also im rly excited to see what Mr. Bill makes with FL!
The differences between DAWS lead to new ideas. Grab a pirated copy of Ableton, and have some fun. It’s not my favorite, but it does what it does, and that can be fun. I make loops in Reaper, import them into Ableton’s clip launcher thingy, and rock out. Sounds like shit, but it’s a good time. Maybe you have some talent, so you could have fun and sound good.
There's nothing like different DAWs have different capabilities They broadly share the same features and the main difference between various DAWs would be different User Interfaces with different ways of yielding the same output... I have been using Ableton for quite some time and I have downloaded the FL Studio trial as well... the difference between the 2 would be, FL Studio looks better, has better stock plugins value (depends on which plugins you buy for FL) as you can use FL plugins with other DAWs as well which is honestly cool and its a very loop oriented program... I feel that FL has an extremely natural workflow when I'm creating music with melodies which I repeat, or beats which get repeated, etc... Ableton has a cleaner interface and it may be hard to learn at first but once you get used to it, its highly productive... in Ableton you don't need to spend time browsing through tonnes of different windows which is kinda helpful... Ableton is a lot more productive for me when I'm arranging and mastering my tracks so therefore I naturally use Ableton as the master and FL Studio as the slave (Check out ReWire)
I think once you fully understand your daw you should just stick to it, because learning a new daw is just a waste of time and a new daw won't improve the musical part of your music. And most of the time we use third party plugins anyways, so I don't think the albeton stock plugins would be a big upgrade. In my opinion the daw is just a shell in which you make your music, it is not the defining factor wether your music is good or bad
You can do true panning in Ableton. Right click on the tracks balance/pan control box. Click on "Select Split Stereo Pan Mode". You now have control over both left and right channels independently.
not gonna change the fact that the best piano roll still gona be FLs . but eventhough Im a long time FL user I Started learning Reason , Ableton and Bitwig , So Im deciding between Bitwig and Ableton as my main daw and gonna use Reason Rack Plugin in there ,,,,
Having a lot of fun watching this. As a Live user and instructor it helps a lot seeing where the program might not be intuitive for a brand new user. At 47:42, it might be easier to edit the automation with Draw Mode off. This would let you make a time selection, and by placing the mouse below the automation line, it will highlight blue. That way you can pull that segment of the line to the desired value and it will create the automation points necessary at the edge of the selection. Also, pressing the + button at the bottom right of the Automation Parameter selection space will send the currently selected Automation lane to its own lane, allowing you to show more than 1 Automation lane for each track.
Looking back, I started in FL but then went to conservatory for electronic music, and they required us to work on Pro Tools because that was the industry standard back then and 'how else would you get a job'. But that required an Mbox, which required a macbook, which didn't run FL studio. So I switched to Logic, and eventually Ableton. But looking back, I can see it drastically influenced my workflow and, to be frank, made my music worse. I was a young impressionable musician who wanted to impress his teachers so of course I tried my best to learn the new programs and develop a new style. All the 'pros' didn't use FL studio, so if I switched to 'real' DAWS my music will become a lot better, so I thought. But I think I it destroyed some good momentum I had build up with FL studio.
Thanks, that was a very interesting watch. I've never been able to wrap my head around Ableton. It's UI just doesn't gel for me. When I first used FL Studio, back when it was Fruity Loops, it was immediately exactly what I was looking for. I've been a Linux user for the last 10 years, and have switched to Bitwig, which is also a great DAW. Maybe not FL Studio great, but it's powerful, quick and easy to use and has a decent piano roll. I do miss being able to ghost another track behind the one I'm editing, but I get by. I also love that Bitwig has support for working with outboard modular gear.
i’ve used Ableton, FL Studio and Logic. I love all three. i’m currently trying to master Logic because I want to record bands. And I’m testing it out. I miss both Ableton and FL Studio. but I have to persevere and it’s feeling a lot better lately
Personally Ableton was the most logically laid out DAW I’ve ever used in my life. One reason I went to school for it was because when I messed with it on my own, I actually was able to get some stuff done. Learning it doesn’t take much time. I was actually learning my way around, it’s very intuitive. It made music production a realistic goal for me
When i was first starting out i was tryimg some different daws and i tried out fl studio, didnt like it so i tried ableton. It really clicked instantly for me, the interface just made so much more sense and is so nicely organized. Been using it since 2014
Lil too late but here's my take. I got into prod with FL and it was a really really fun and easy time. However, as soon as I got my very first MIDI controller, it blew open the competition for Ableton. That being said, I still use FL for arrangement cuz Ableton arrangement sucks ass and the piano roll is abysmal. But if I want to go real crazy and deep into just playing music with lots of controllers, I can spend hours with Ableton. Short answer, Ableton is good when I want to have fun, be inspired, or just do something crazy, but when it's time to man up and finish a song, FL is my go to
@@ianedmonds9191 Why was it a pain in the ass arranging in ableton? I use ableton, I started on FL when I was a teenager but it never made sense to me, I was only at it a couple of weeks and quit. I don't have problems arranging in ableton but because it's all I'm familiar with maybe I'm just ignorant to a better way of doing it... how is fl or other software better at that?
Ableton with Push2 is a whole different beast. Try improvising song arrangements with all tracks in real-time (as the song plays) in FL. With this combo, arranging is insanely fast and flexible. ;)
fantastic video! I make plunderphonics music so Ableton is pretty much a big sampler for me. Inspirational how you get so deep into detailed programming of variations and velocities.
46:00 Instead of using Draw Mode with the pencil/brush for such automation adjustments I tend to disable Draw Mode, highlight the region to be adjusted and simply drag the whole line for that region up or down. Honestly, I barely use Draw Mode at all. :-D
a major difficulty for even started is how to even start with figuring out what DAW to buy or what would work best (since they cost a lot). mostly as someone who cares more about the tactile feel and am more focused on drums (and bad at melody and chords) i would consider either one of these as i love the grid based setup of FL studio for example as its easy for me to comprehend even though I'm neurodivergent.. something that really goes "here is a basic template... try out something and see what sounds fun to you"
The thing about Ableton is, it's got a very steep learning curve. Once you hit a certain point, though, you'll find that the workflow is way faster than in other DAWs. The flipside is that if you start making music with Ableton, every other DAW you encounter will feel entirely foreign to you.
Honestly, that's just how it works with any DAW. One you learn a certain workflow in any DAW, any other workflow in any other DAW will feel absolutely alien for at least a few days until you can start deciphering the workflow of that DAW.
Great video, thank you for taking the time to make this. Recently picked up Ableton to mess around with making electronic music, appreciate reviews like this.
A while back Ablenton convinced educational institutions that it was the next wave of making music. They also promoted to the DJ's and the electronic musicians and gave away free versions of their software to all the kids. Now those kids are all grown up and their teaching, DJ'ing and are part of their church music programs. Kudos to Ableton for their success. I still use protools, reason and studio one.
Important for those new to electronic music to know is that you don't need any DAW to make great electronic music. In may on fact hinder you. Find what environment works best for your brain to be creative and allows you to enjoy the process. For me DAWs are the opposite of Zen. Lots of meticulous work for an end goal. I press record, I create, I edit it down a little bit. Done.
The only thing I love about ableton is that you can trigger your clips with your keyboard. I haven't found a feature like that in any daws. You can arrange your whole song based on feel and not clicking and looking at the screen like most daws. That is a far better work flow in my opinion. The sequencer in fl also very good. I like making my beats in Fl. Bouncing everything. Then triggering clips and arranging in ableton. Superb combo
![Megan Thee Stallion - Neva Play (feat. RM) [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/TpYTyAaTRts/mqdefault.jpg)
The most important lesson to learn is regardless if you use FL Studio or Ableton underground rappers are still going to ask for free beats.
Everybody will still be asking for free beats, music, sounds...! 🤣🤣🤣
collab with them!!
Someone PLEASE Pin this post 😆 this summed it ALL up haha
Amen!
@@fiirasmusic5366 honestly. People are confused about how much their beats are worth. Just send em out and build relationships with people.
I feel like the simplistic plugin interfaces and relative simplicity of their function is largely due to Ableton Live being designed around live performance. That insanely fast audio quantization you came across, you can set up Live to automatically quantize loops during a live performance, so even if its a little off during recording when it loops back it will magically be in time. Also while probably not suited for your writing style session view is one of the best features of Live due to its ability to prototype arrangements (and perform) - you can basically sketch up a bunch of song segments, test out a bunch of song structure and layering and then record from session view into arrangement view and then fine tune your track in there.
The thing that really pulled me to Live 3 years ago in the first place was Push 2, because the integration between Push and Live is insanely seamless - i've never came across any piece of hardware that integrates so nicely with a DAW. You can make entire tracks without even looking at the computer, but you have all the power of Ableton Live in the hardware. Prior to Live I used Logic for around 10 years and while I still use Logic for some stuff, Live is where I write 99% of my stuff now. Awesome video dude!
I used to have a Cubase setup but my mom got terminally ill and I had to take care of her 24/7 for almost 6 years which cost me almost all of my savings and belongings. Now I want to get back into music production and I have been torn between FL and Ableton. I have been searching for answers for quite a while and I did not get much wiser....untill now. I thank you for "making the skies clearer"....and taking away a lot of "the clouds". Thank you for the information, and I wish everybody a healthy, happy, and wonderful life 🙏
you use fruity loops and your girlfriend reviews cereal seems suspicious
Very
Valid point
Soulmates
Fruit loops, FL Studio goes ✋ to ✋
*wife
Benn, this was a very fun video to watch. I cut my teeth on music software with both Opcode Vision and Fruity Loops in 1998, but for the last 17 years I've been a hardcore Ableton Live user.... starting the world's first Ableton Live User Group in 2005, working the 2006 Ableton booth at NAMM, and working as the technical editor for the book "Live 4 Power!"
Your warnings for "Ableton users and fans" made me laugh and put me a little on guard, but still, it was a joy to watch you figure out Live and come to your own conclusions. I especially liked seeing the various unique interface features and quirks through your fresh perspective. Stuff that's beyond second nature to me now was once a thing I also had to figure out, and so watching you figure it out took me back. This was unexpected. Thanks for taking the time to make and share this.
Your remarks about modulation and the piano roll made me realize that the clip envelope pane is something I just go to all the time without even thinking about, and because of it, doesn't even feel like it is separate from the piano roll, but a layer on top of it that I use for parameter locking. Your perspective definitely made me think about a lot of things I do in Live without thinking about.
I started on the Atari with Edit Track and SMPTE Track then onto Cubase on the Atari... then Cubase on Windoze... and LIVE on Windoze which was really hard to get my head wrapped around. I didn't even look at Fruity Loops. I kept up on Cubase and then focused more on LIVE and moved to OSX and eventually dropped using Cubase - even though I still have it installed. I never piano roll anything and have zero interest in drawing notes. LIVE works well my only issue is the poor sysex support and I really wish I could label my audio ports
I know you can't read all these comments, but I was so impressed by your musicianship, and prowess as a composer. You are really schooled, and good. I'm glad you let the DAW speak for itself.
Been using FLS for 3 years. Tried Ableton 2 days ago... As a house producer I can't describe you the relief I felt about arranging the track, and much more.... Ableton is awesome!!!!
house producer, nuff said ;p
I make trap,fl is for kids,they all download the same mixer presets and all sound the same
Frame Data let’s collaborate
@@Scars_on_my_nose sure if you want post your SC
@@dystopia-0616 i blame neither,its up to the user to decide how far they want to advance
1:03:15 yes it does, you need to right click the pan parameters and click "Select Split Stereo Pan Mode"
Is that a remembered global setting?
FL's Piano Roll is perhaps its strongest feature (a thing of beauty) but the overall workflow is maddening along with Midi routing (Mulab is the easiest I've seen in that dept).
Used mulab for 3 years as my first daw and I really enjoyed it
FL's Piano Roll is the best Piano Roll amongst all DAWs, period.
Well, that's all about it honestly. It's lacking workflow and efficient functionality all the way from creating a simple fade out on an audio clip to more complex techniques like side chaining or M-S EQing. Cpu efficiency is still shit compared to other DAWs (just try adding a Fruity Balance on 20 mixer channels and watch your cpu rising to 10-15%). And I swear to god I'm sure the consolidation/bouncing function is both too complicated compared to the one-click-function in other DAWs and also not accurate at all. Probably I'm not selecting the right settings but that just proves my opinion of FL's functionality and workflow being stupidly complicated and non sense in most cases.
@@1on1z3d I got a ryzen 2700 cpu and I did what you said about rising CPU from 10-15% it only did 3% on mine. what kind of 4$$ crap CPU you are using there lol... also FL Studio is modular not linear like most DAW out there the way it handles multi core is not the same as your conventional DAW... here is something to educate your brain how it actually works, so you have 1 track but you want to route it to track 2 and 3 that has both delay and reverb EQ etc... so if you route that track to those 2 tracks do you think it will function like it will compute it in multicore? yes or no?
if yes then you are just stupid and doesnt even understand what Computer Science is.
if no then you sure know what you are doing.
because what it actually does is it only compute within 1 core (or lets just say 1 thread) from track 1 to both track 2 and 3 where you route 1 track at... because it's physics, a cpu thread must wait for track 1 to compute so it can compute the next FX chain VST you have, it's not possible to compute it in parallel thread or cores. thats why every routing you made in FL Studio has consequence of being CPU hog because you are not doing it right, if you does the same thing like link only 1 synth per track (linear way) then it should do pretty much the same as performance as other daw. ALSO before I drop the mic, 3rd party VST plays a role on how it performs in DAW, not all will perform equally because some VST programmers are just lazy to test it out on other DAW.
@@1on1z3d Difficult to side-chain in FLS? Throw a fruity limiter on thw target, route the source, adjust the knobs. Really? M-S EQ, 2 minutes in patcher (but I would prefer it built into Parametric EQ 2) or use Maximus if you don't need detailed tweaks. Simple audio editing could be better though, agreed.
@@svensvensson8102 i think we should talk about routing and groups not sidechain haha
no link to the cereal channel in the description.
!!!
need
So
I can’t find it
it's a pun i think in case you missed it ;) fruity loops
I am an ableton and pro tools user but the new FL21 is insanely dope. I'm going to use it way more now.
FL Studio is great, Ableton is great. Both are great. It doesn't matter at all which one you're using. Every single genre has producers who use either one of those. I've just both and I felt that I could be more creative with the Session view in Ableton (which is totally undiscussed when he talked about Ableton's ''lineair workflow"'). But I liked FL studio too
honestly i pirated fruity loops back in the day when it was new. i liked it, and when i had money to spend on these things i bought it. and i wasnt disappointed. its my main daw.
Same story here 😎👌
I did the same thing!
I have Been there and I actually learn to adopt new things like using all other DAW because music is in me, it's stupid to run discuss about which DAW is better when we all know that it is about user and Art in every one of us and don't forget if you are like guy in video he actually represents him self almost as of topic narcissis talking about he unable to think with basic logic and just do what you want it's that easy in Ableton because of best screen view and usage of space it is very easy... everything is in front of you...that modular behind is so expensive that you have to ask yourself a question is he want to say something else but he hides behind been a honest and difference between..FL could not run Audio track no vst from other 3party until they get big help from Steinberg and they pay as all others do. If you what to use VST in Logic without any trouble try to find Nektarine it comes with Nectar T series and keyboard is one among the best if not best in quality build aftertouch is so amazing that I discovered a new dimensions of sound and I used a lot of " great keyboards" midi and sinth's midi and nothing can compare, Nektarine can mapped every music software and it already have maps so for example I have not kontroll over Kontakt and Reaktor than from NI hardware, encoders and Faders are build to last for a long and you can twist them and still after 5 years p1 become a legend midi device while on the other side I used M audio ,Alessis , NI and novation and nothing even stands to Nektar and Nektarine is a couple mb in size comparison with AKAI solution or NI Wich is a big potential but luck of quality build make me sad so I use it with gentle care and in past with fear of jumpy encoders ect but I remember Arturia making top quality products but they to made a cheap solution without thinking about users having stupid problems like keybeds fel apart or anoyng jumping encoders and my point is that we have to really think what we buying and what brand to choose, NI gives a plenty of sounds but eventually it will break just buy using is . My experience show me Nektar and Nektarine and you can control literally everything you want from T series on Maschine you can just buy using it come to unbelievable results but you have to handle hardware with a lot of care almost TLC
IT WON THIS YEAR PIANO ROLL DAW OF 2020 PLUS OTHER STUFF !!! I use my fl studio most days
Yep. Weird how piracy can actually make the company money if the product is good. Same with movies etc. You want the real deal.
dude i've been using ableton for ages and it's crazy how much you learn watching someone go through the basics of the daw. you forget all the important stuff after a while trying to learn all the neat/novel features of the daw. this was insanely informative, thanks for the vid
Both programs are god tier. It's like comparing a Green Beret to a Navy SEAL. One excels in a specific field than the other. Ableton was made to perform electronic music live on a laptop and produce music at the same time. Because back in the day, it was so expensive to perform electronic music, and you had so many limitations. FL studio's brilliance was in the fact that you can have a work flow that works for you instead of something restrictive and also how easy it was to make music because of it's sequencing abilities. So both are as Ben said "anti DAWs." Same thing with Reason as well, the rack and the graphics made the change from hardware to digital easier because the software looked more like a studio rather than a DAW. But the real question is: what DAW should I use? What are you trying to do in your career? If you are a wedding DJ that hates the same boring shit day after day, Abeleton is god. If you want to perform a actual song using synths without breaking the bank, Ableton is your pal. If you are broke asf and you want a daw you can jump right into, FL studio is your homie. Both DAWs allow you to go as deep as the universe will allow. I've heard some people actually have gotten their Phd in music using Ableton, it goes that deep apparently. But yeah. Don't get stuff if it hinders your dream. Like, if going DAWless stops you from achieving your vision, you need to compromise or find a good work around. These are tools, they are made to help you get to point A to point B as fast as possible. Anyways, that's my point of view.
This is really interesting for me as an ableton user, I never considered FL studio, but as a pianist my work has always been piano roll based rather than sampling based (which is where Ableton really excels). So, thanks
FL piano roll is decades beyond any other daw tho
"Piano roll based is where Ableton really excels?" ... You don't know what you're missing, mate - See at: 58:18. Even fans of other DAWs cencede that FL Studio has the best Piano roll of any DAW ... by a country mile!
@@Music-tg5isI having been using FL since Fruity Loops 5. Throughout the years I have tried all kinds of different DAWs. I did have a lot of fun and was inspired by Reason and it's workflow and stock instruments. In the long run I ended up just using it as basically a VSTi pack via Re-Wire...
FL has always just felt more free and sandboxy, not just piano roll but also the project sequencer
@@Music-tg5is They said Ableton excels at sample based editing not piano roll / midi events.
@@MaxUgly 100% agree, Do you use FL in Reason or do you use Reason Rack in FL?
I love how this thing started just as I felt confortable on ableton. I used FL for 5 years but now I'm using maschine and ableton and man, it was a trip. Now I can sit back, enjoy your suffering and scream shortcuts at the screen lol
2021 and my university shamed us FL Studio users into buying Ableton :^)
I like both, but the stigma is really outdated and unnecessary in a timeline where GarageBand might be many people's first introduction to digitally making music
I would use what the hell I want and dare anyone to open their stupid mouth about it.First of all,if I buy it or if it''s free,it's my computers,my time,my energy,and my own workflow that matters.I'm really big on being outside of the box and experimentation,along with simplicity.Maybe that is because I have an actual background with hardware,and instruments,instead of just jumping to a computer first.I think comparisons,like MAc or PC is so stupid,and I use both,and other platforms.
did you go to university for music ?
@@Ms-pr7fe NO i studied instruments,performed,and learned about gear from us not having roadies.I am school trained in computers and yes,I have my own project studio setup..
Same here, a lot of classmates shamed me (and still do) for using FL, it's nothing that gets to me because when you use something for a long time you're obviously going to think something else isn't as good (and it's just humour between us to make fun of anything we do). What shocked me the most was that a lot of the tutors at my college were also shaming me for using FL when I could blatently tell they had no idea what it had transformed into. These tutors still thought FL was in its beta drum roll stage and I was surprised that people who were supposed to be guiding me through music hadn't actually been updated on a major DAW. It even got to the point where one of my tutors actually had to ask me what DAW I was using while he was watching me compose some tracks, really put it into perspective that they had no idea what DAW they were talking about when they shamed me for using FL.
Damn bro I can’t imagine having to buy Ableton as a uni student. As I am a music hobbyist I bought FL because of price n what if offers for that price. I’m a uni student that is scraping by. Hope you got your money’s worth 🙏
I think some of the things in Ableton you considered cons, like the compact nature of the UI for different patches and effects, are pros for me. I very highly value information density and my screen space, and I like for everything I'm working with to be on the same screen as much as possible. I don't like working in a window that covers up a large chunk of my screen any time I am editing a parameter of an effect or instrument.
I think the biggest consideration for use of any modern DAW software is speed of workflow for YOU. Whether it's because of the UI, or routing, or workflow, or maybe simply because you learned one software first, it really doesn't matter. Like "if it sounds good, it IS good" but for DAWs. Whatever works best for you... is best for you. Kind of solipsistic, and that's fine.
Imagine trying to determine "what is the best guitar" in any objective manner. I think it's the same here.
I will say I like the functionality of fades and crossfades and automation thereof in Ableton. It's a small thing, but it "makes sense" to me and I can get things the way I want them to sound intuitively and quickly.
I never understood the hate for FL Studio. I remember getting a cracked copy of it back around 2007 and loving it. Sure the work flow was different than traditional linear DAWs back then but once you got your head around it it was really well designed and encouraged a lot of experimentation and creativity.
You just said it yourself - it’s associated with newbies pirating it
Personally, I really enjoy using a myriad of DAWs. I feel as though it helps me maintain a fresh approach to music production, in addition to being able to leverage the different strengths of each DAW. FL, Ableton, Bitwig, and Reaper are my favorites. You can also use Rewire to route the audio of one DAW into another! I do this often in Ableton when I need the sound design flexibility that FL studio has over Ableton (automation). I tend to favor the arrangement workflow in Ableton over FL, so it works well.
For years I've used FL, time to time tried Ableton, but after my SSD died last year, I've chose to get something different, and ended up with Reason. The DAW has it's strict limitations, but I think it's what makes it helps you to focus on the project. It's especially fun tool if you're into hardware synthesizers, but cannot afford none. Entire UI is basically 2d simulation of 90s synth hardware studio, where you can even manually change the audio and CV routing.
dude same exact thing happened to me !!!!! I been using FL for years almost 10 years maybe then I got into more experimental things and more electronic stuff Tried to learn ablton 2 of my dope friends and workers showed me reason and I bought Reason late 2019, Im loving it hard , but I dont like its piano roll and a few clunky stuff but rack itself and devices which is Rack Extensions ( Instruments and Effects and utlities ) are amazing and the modular enviroment , but Im trying to use it as a plugin now cause I think I can benefit better daw enviroment with my legendary Reason Racks , so its gonna be FL , Ableton , and Bitwig ! probably all three but mostly Bitwig then Ableton and then FL Studio lol
7:37 Hey! FL-Chan was NOT a bad idea!
OOOH dissed ma waifu! Burrn, you, Benn!
that problem you were having with the non 4/4 bars was weird. I track and mix my prog band in Ableton and it's always fine with odd meters
That’s weird indeed. I now tried to reproduce this behavior deliberately for about half an hour to no success. :-D
Disk error, look at the overload icon on the top right. Defo some weird stuff but it was disk related
Thank god, I was quite scared of it being a general Ableton thing bc I have to switch to Ableton from FLS
Useful tip: Automation has recently become very powerful in edit mode. Not pencil mode! So if you want constant values, curves and ramps, even perfect sinewaves and a simple ADSR shape, all with precise timing, press B, drop the pencil and have a look at the 10.1 release notes. You can even attenuate, ramp in and out, and time-scale whole sections of automation pretty easily, so the lack of fancy curve types doesn't matter when you can edit thousands of automation points at once.
Honestly, as an ex-FL user, I miss the whole "automation as clips" concept, being able to move any parameter freely and attenuating automation clips with other automation clips was a big plus for complex evolving sounds. I've been thinking of recreating that type of timeline in Max, probably just for automation, it would be a great addition to Ableton.
Ableton does have true stereo panning, you just have to right click the “pan” pot and select “split stereo panning.”
It’s not well known that Ableton uses “balance” as the default, and it’s even less well known that it actually does have a genuine panning parameter! Lots of confusion around this.
When I started out in Ableton, a good friend of mine had been using it for years already, this was the single tip he gave me and even though I didn't even know how to use panning properly at the time it stuck with me :D
Aww that's too much to do.. fl better
This was only added in live 10, but yeah good to know.
I think you should make an updated video consider Live 11 was released. They made MASSIVE improvements to the piano roll, plus I think Ableton's piano roll has much more of a learning curve than FL's. The "focus" function, the pencil tool, and automation envelopes are all baked into the piano roll in addition to the new humanization functionality.
This was insanely painful to watch but still interesting. One of Ableton's biggest strengths and indeed what set it apart from every other music production tool from the beginning is its Session view, so it was pretty tough to watch someone completely ignore that almost immediately while simultaneously zeroing in on its weakest points (linear arrangement). Session view allows an asynchronous approach to production and there are other features that build on that like modulation panes - everything you can see on any device has its own modulation pane per clip, and these can be in any meter - separate from the clip. This style of working is more like a modular synth than a DAW and was designed for **Live** (hehe) performance of electronic music where you want to bring parts in and out on a whim, but is also a more efficient way of recording an arrangement. A scene of clips is equivalent to a "pattern" in your FL workflow, I think? Anyway. This video has inspired me to look more into FL, as I've heard great things about its MIDI editing before and also perhaps the built in synths are stronger... (not a fan of needing VSTs and don't love Albeton's synths).
Bitwig also has session view...
Yeah I think if you use Ableton, you have to use it as Ableton, as a pattern based thing. I use Ableton half the time If I want to do something in a pattern based way, and Studio One if I want to go linear.
There are definately some reasonable critiques made here. Abletons piano roll IS terrible. I mean how many years have we been waiting for *propper* transposing.The idea you just highlight and drag only really works if your going up and down an octave. And yeah the expensive updates hurt.
But I can't make heads and tails out of fruity loops. Which is a shame, it does sound powerful. I just get bamboozled when tying to use it.
What makes me laugh is the people who are hardcore ableton users and don't even use the session view. Same people who lay their drums out manually as audio clips
Ableton < FL Studio 😂
It also depens on the music genre you want to make.
EVERYONE SHOULD CHECK OUT THE DARK THEME IN THE PREFERENCES IF YOU HAVE PROBLEMS READING THE INTERFACE.
As an ableton user for ~10 years I feel like you really hit all my main gripes with the software. I too like to use a lot of LFOs and envelopes on the synths because I usually want more control than ableton offers. But I've had a bit of a deal-breaker with using the M4L devices; every now and then, with no warning or way to undo it, all of the parameters on the M4L devices jump back to zero or default positions. This pretty much ruins tracks and has caused really big issues when performing live, to the point that now I pretty much only use native (non MAX) devices or samples because the reliability isn't there.
My other big gripe is that they really haven't pushed any kind of documentation or tutorials on how to make M4L devices. I have so many ideas for things I'd like to do, but I don't know how to do them. I think if they're going to keep relying on M4L to fill in the gaps they need to make MAX more accessible via tutorials or documentation.
Great video!
I used to teach MaxMSP/Jitter and it has decades of incredible documentation built in (and if you search the Cycling '74 forum or general MaxMSP groups)! I think things turn up blank when searched specifically for M4L instead of MaxMSP as a programming environment since most discussions aren't on M4L specific forums
@@RneubauerBmore I guess that's where I've been getting stuck is not really knowing how to target various things within ableton. But the community and documents around Max/msp itself are really great!
What are you on about? There is extensive documentation on both live and M4L. Lives documentation is not just the best in class, it's some of the best of any software.
The Max documentation literally has code examples for every single node type.
The live documentation is so good that I frequently tell people who are new to production to read it even if they dont use Live.
@@sacredgeometry I guess my comment on M4L is that Abelton often references it, but doesn't actually make tutorials or videos about getting more use out of it. Mostly you're just referred to Cycling 74's site, which is fine, but it feels 2nd class to me. Fully agree that Live's documentation is amazing, I've read the manual front to back and it was so useful! Basically I was just hoping that they would extend that into the M4L area more since I think they could do a great job introducing people to it and then if you wanted some more to dive into Max full on. With more direct support I think it could be way more valuable to everyone. These are just my thoughts, you're welcome to have your own view
also excited to see you delve into wavetable. by far the most complex Ableton synth
Yea that'll be cool. Also Hi Pipe Guy 👋
ayyy it's the pipe guy o7
Only if it had a noise generator. :(
Please make "Advanced FL Studio techniques for IDM production" video or even a whole series if people like it. I would really like to see how an "FL Studio power user" (no offence :) ) makes an IDM/Drill & Bass/Breakcore type of track with it. I've been using FL Studio for 4 years and most of idm production techniques i learned from others were imported from Ableton tutorials, because FL Studio community really lacks comprehensive tutorials for it.
I would check out the TH-cam channel InTheMix , they have tons of very clear and deep tutorials on how to use FL studio. It has completely changed my use of the software and I've been using it for ~8 years. Highly recommend
If you have'nt tried, try FL Granular synthisizer. Im using fl for 6 years and I just got to know about it a year ago. you can use it for anything. Its cool.
See how or copy? Do it your way and you might do something original. Just a suggestion
@@maxine2798 I do it my way and it's pretty original, but it never hurts to see how it's approached by a professional.
@@maxine2798 Art is theft. "Good artists borrow; great artists steal." (Obviously not to the point of plagiarism, we're talking ideas, techniques, etc.) On top of that, seeing exactly how a pro does something is a great way to learn.
Used Live for years, and it was my first ~real~ DAW - I've made maybe 6-8 dozen full tracks in it, recorded, mixed, mastered etc, and I gave it up after a long time because I found myself getting increasingly stymied by some limits it has. The panning is one of them, as is the sandboxing, but overall i felt that the basic audio recording and editing workflow didn't have enough to offer me when trying to track myself or my band, and the 12 return track limit become stifling in larger projects. Ultimately, while I still own Live and do love it for actually playing live, I moved to a combination of Bitwig and Studio One, which meet my needs for both extensive experimental environments and traditional audio-based workflows in a better way than Live was ever able to.
I tried the trial for Ableton and FL Studio but ended up finding Ableton more intuitive. I have no musical background, i just thought it would be fun to try mess around and make sounds, but i found it really comforting during your first stream that a pro like yourself ran into many of the same issues I did. Great video and review overall! From my experience so far all your criticisms ring true. I especially appreciate that you didn't make this into a polarising 10minute video but actually dove really deep into every knook and cranny and shared your honest opinion.
I tried Ableton after 13 years of FL and I fell in love. It's infinitely better for people that like a streamlined, organized workflow and getting stuff done fast.
I have to disagree 100%
Exact same thing for me with picking a daw.
@@johnnyt5054 it's ok to have an opinion.
@@johnnyt5054 thats cool man, to be fair to fl studio i tried ableton for one day and fl the next day so i might have found it more confusing because i had just started getting used to ableton.
I've been an Ableton user for about 8 years. I want to get back into FL, and seeing how you at times struggled with Live is almost as instructive as Mr. Bill's point of view. Understanding what you miss is inspiring, in a way. I wholeheartedly agree with one of your points: the DAW influence how you sound - it's an instrument, and learning other DAWs help you evolve as a producer. My first real DAW after trackers was Cakewalk, and I've been using Cubase extensively, as well as Acid and FruityLoops/FL Studio quite a bit as well. I think I carry something with me from all of them.
I've never used Ableton, but as a long time Reaper user, when I started using FL Studio, I definitely experienced a bit of the 'too much power' or, in other words, choice paralysis.
As a Ableton Live user for 10 years, I 100% agree with your pros and cons about the DAW!
As a software engineer with zero experience in music production this video will be extremely helpful in facilitating my transition from VS Code to Neovim.
Definitely subscribing to this channel. I used to produce in FL Studio and stopped about a decade ago. Not with FL but producing ... life happened. And now i'm kinda getting back into it on a therapurtic/hobbyist level I think the last FL I used was maybe 11? But it was probably before that even, so i'm learning it all over again because 20 is so different. I was also considering learning another DAW like Abelton or Studio One. I've really enjoyed playing with Maschine as that was the tool the made me kinda curious again. That ramble is all to say that the phase i'm in with music this was VERY entertaining and inciteful to watch. I look forward to exploring more of your content and learning quite a bit. Thanks for doing this it made Abelton way less intimidating. I still dont know it's for me especially at the pricepoint (FL Gang is definitely spoiled on free updates hahaha) but I find myself with way less hangups about it after watching this ... for what it's worth.
I wanted to learn a new DAW and I was between FL Studio and Live.
I am soooo glad I went with FL Studio.
I had already tried both and hated them, but after seeing this I am sure I would have suffered more with Live this time around.
FL is weird but I'm getting used to it.
Very fair! The piano roll is the reason why bitwig split from ableton. I remember when everyone tried to get into the bitwig beta.... It was nearly impossible. Hence why very few people know of bitwig
I thought bitwig was good, you don't like piano
40:15 If with ‘ghost notes’ you mean seeing the notes of two (or more) clips overlayed you can do so by CTRL-clicking additional clips.
19:17 your reaction to quantize is priceless. Half quantize is also cool to keep a bit of the vibe. I wish i could play the bass..... and that ableton had pitch correction! I use vocalsynth 2 for pitch correction.
It’s primarily stufff like this that means it’s ableton or nothin, in terms of not having to stop writing or composing to deal with the flailing minutiae of 2 personally escorting two notes to where they need to be. Trying to not kill a jam with workflow issues inherent in all daws is the only reason I can’t toss or ignore the prospect of ableton
So glad to have a professional talking, it’s hard getting into the music industry with out a lick of knowledge and watching a TH-camr who only has 6 months of knowledge. Thanks for the video!
Around 1:03:30 mark you mentioned ableton uses circular panning. You can right click the panning knob and "Select Split Stereo Pan Mode" to adjust left/right input channels position in stereo field separately.
I now realize I used slightly the wrong term. It's technically constant power panning with sinusoidal gain curves. Ableton's solution is to either split the channels (as you recommended) or go extreme on the panning and then lower the width with a utility device. Honestly, both of these are not acceptable solutions. That being said, I think if I were to use Ableton I'd probably get used to it after the initial gripes.
I'm also a first user of Ableton in 2020. Mad FL user for 20 years amongst others you were mentioning at the begin.
On the topic at time stamp 32:00 - Apparently every recording needs to be done in the second view window when pressing "TAB" Not the one you're in at the time stamp. From what I understand learning Ableton, an audio/midi strip in the second view window acts as a "Pattern" in FL Studio. So I'm using it as such and record everything into the 1st window. It's works at it should, haven't ran into problems since. I'm still learning Ableton hard to work on collabs with clients. All thanks to the lockdown forcing my hand in doing so.
I use both DAW's for silly bedroom stuff, nothing professional so maybe my opinion doesn't count but; I feel the con given regarding instruments is not entirely fair. Ableton has a strength in that it is very modular. Where everything is packed in one VST with FL Studio (instrument, fx etc.) you can build this yourself leaving out the bits you don't need in Ableton by combining the large amount of Audio Effects with you instrument of choice. This is, in my opinion, more of a strength than a drawback. I love both DAW's and they are quite different in terms of workflow but I would not say I'd favor one over the other.
That's a bit of a nothing burger mate as you can do that in all DAW's
It's impressive that you picked it up so quickly. No one should be expected to ever jump into an unfamiliar DAW without some sort of guide.
I'm just trying to get really good at using LMMS
It’s surprisingly good as a free DAW. I have tried Ableton 10, FL and LMMS, and I can comfortably say that LMMS is great. Though has a slightly complicated layout
lmms is basically fl studio lite
@@GoibniuNihiliste fl for linux lol
So far after using it for half a year I like LMMS a lot (don't have much to compare it to though).
My overall thoughts:
*The Animation Editor* I really enjoy being able to animate every single little thing, but I don't want it to take up so much space in the sequencer.
*Quantization* I feel like if I was not limited to being only able to put in notes with a gap of only a 1/192 of a beat I part I would feel much less limited
*Time signature* Maybe I have not found it yet, but I think the time signature is 4/4 and that's it and nonnegotiable.
*Plugins* They all seem very cool however I can always never find the one I want or there are way too many of the same exact thing. So I only end up using Reverb SC, Bitcrush, and maybe occasionally a delay or a filter.
*Overall* You can do lots of stuff that you want to do but in the end is quite limited in features that would be cool but not used in everything you make. (It basically has everything that is needed in at least 40% or more songs, but nothing that would be used less than that) But being open source and free I will accept whatever down sides it has.
@@qu765 You can change the time signature anywhere from 4/4 to 32/32 (but some of the odd time signatures can be a little difficult to work with), just double click either the top or bottom number. Also make sure to look for outside plugins or vsts, there are good free ones out there
I use Ableton and I really like the non-linear workflow of the "session view". You can use place MIDI or audio into clips as one shots or loops to see how they sound together before committing to them in the arrangement. also, you can use them in live performances if you choose. This makes me want to experiment more and it also reduces the need of cutting, pasting and shifting in the arrangement.
Many producers, which are used to work in DAWs without a "session view", naturally gravitate to do everything in the "arrangement view" and ignore the "session view" more or less. I can't blame them, because the "arrangement view" is what they are familiar with. However, the "session view" workflow is one of the biggest selling points of Ableton.
By the way, Max for Live (M4L) comes only with Ableton Suite. It is not not part of Intro or Standard.
You can set proper panning in Ableton 10 and up by right clicking on the pan knob and choosing "select split stereo pan mode". I guess they did not set is as default in order to maintain compatibility with projects saved in older versions.
I agree that Operator and Analog (btw. you show Analog while talking about Operator) have very small interfaces. Especially Operator would benefit from a lager interface. Ableton Suite's Wavetable synth, introduced with 10, offers an extended interface.
fl studio is mad crowded for a single monitor imho.
I found that until I got a single ultra wide where you can really make use of the layout of fl studio
@@stefanslater8342 ah cool yeah i bet.
I had a habit of using it on two or more monitors. Then again I had a workflow where I was using the short cuts or enter key on certain windows.
idk, i'm fine using it on 1380 x 768 laptop, except some 3rd party huge VSTs.
You can detach any fl studio window and then drag it onto any other monitor with a button in a dropdown menu!
Ableton + FL Studio as a VST. Most powerful combination I have been using for a few years ever since the FL VST option was available. They really compliment each other including cross audio routing, complex midi patching, and cpu management (FL deals with VST differently and some better than others) . All options are available.
Cons of FL from an FL user:
1. You can't do anything in Playlist/Arrangement without getting channel rack in between. Record anything in Playlist and it gets stored in Channel Rack. This adds too much clutter in your project. Imagine recording 70 vocal takes, all getting stored by a random name. And when you delete it from the playlist, it doesn't get deleted from the Channel Rack and then you have a very good time clearing up your project. It just kills the fun process of recording and makes me concern about the clutter.
2. Audio recording and editing is the most weak part of FL studio. There is no option to fade in fade out in playlist. Getting recording in your desired track number is tedious. When you edit your sound in Newtime or Newtone, you can't make a permanent changes to the original file, you need to drag a copy of the edited file. It also adds more and more clutter in Channel Rack.
3. Every FL Stock plugins looks beautiful but the UX sucks. Harmor is the coolest looking synth I've ever seen but when it comes to learning that, it takes hours and it is not easy on the eyes. Tons of buttons are all over the place. Whereas learning Serum is way more easier, why? because the UX is very carefully designed.
4. There is few clicks here and there in every task. When you make a good piece of music, you need to route it to the mixer then open the mixer and navigate to the track and only then you can add FX. Whereas in Ableton, you just press Ctrl F and find the effect and straight up drag and drop.
5. The shortcuts of FL are weird and not much usable. i.e. F9 is mixer, it is out of my left hand reach unless I lift it.
@Mike Parmar
There's something like 'route to channel rack after recording' box or something like that you can check/uncheck.
About shortcuts:
I feel comfortable about them in FL, like old Korean players in Starcraft are used to defaults, before release of Remastered version of the game few years ago, which enable to customize them. Hopefully, Image Line will implement this feature of setting YOU OWN shortcuts in next releases ;)
I don't mind the shortcuts actually. I guess after using the same shortcut for so many years it just feels normal. However i wish FL Studio's pitch shifting didn't sound like shit, would be nice to have Complex, Complex pro modes from Ableton and more options when manipulating audio. Most of the options in the sampler are useless for me, i only use normalize when i need to make something louder lol and different stretching methods can sometimes make it sound even more shitty, so i usually stick with "resample". For me Decklicking mode is ok for very short fade, but usally i use IN and OUT in the sampler for this. It would be nice to have skins for FL20, like Ableton has, because working in the same Dark Grey UI can get uninspiring after some time.
Use Tools>Macros>purge unused audio clips to clear the channel rack 🤙🏻
@@piotrmunnich5240 That would be really cool. I would by a mouse with macros just for that.
To number 1: you can delete audio on the Playlist it's very simple and even deleted from the channel rack... You can see every audio track on the left side of the Playlist... Same with patterns and automations... If you don't see it, maybe it shows the pattern or automations... There is a button to switch between above it, called picker button ... Or just click the audio track, then it's highlighted on the left side... There you right click and delete... No channel rack is needed and it's just also deleted there...
To number 2: you can easily make fade ins and out on audio clips in the Playlist... It does not work on midi pattern i guess, can't find the option... But with an audio clip just click the item on the left side of the audio clip to open the menu.... Go to automate and the choose volume or panning... There is an automation clip now right on the audio clip and you can make fade in and out or even pannings... It's just a different way than in other daws... But it's awesome for when you use impacts or reverses bc'z you can also pan them or just make volume automations in between and everything is in place
Okay, I must know: does the whiskey go good with the cereal ?
A really strong scotch, like Laphroig, and shredded wheat is quite the thing.
Give it a try, let me know what you think.
You use the Scotch like a dipping sauce.
Never done it myself, but sounds good.
I love how this is the first comment I see in this comprehensive guide lmao.
So unrelated
Whiskey IS cereal!
Fan of yours and Ableton user here. I watched the first two streams and this one, really liked all of it. I think I still don't want to buy another DAW, even though your enthusiasm for FL studio is really intriguing. This would be insane for my hobbyist approach :-D
When it comes to panning in your next Ableton track, you should consider right clicking the panning knob and split the stereo channels, maybe this is what you are looking for? Anyway I learned things about you, your music and even some Ableton stuff from it. thanks for that, I enjoyed it! :-)
Hey, where does Ben stream, would love to watch those.
Ignus Vermaak v hey :-) for whatever reason I think I was notified about it here on TH-cam, watched a bit, but later had a hard time to find it again to resume watching, since the video was unlisted. I found it then, but l’m out of luck right now. So unfortunately I can’t give you a satisfying answer I‘m afraid...
Used FL studio for a few years, made the switch to Ableton about 8 months ago when I wanted to do live looping and integrate hardware in a more interactive way. I still use FL studio occasionally, but the workflow in Ableton works better for me. That doesn't mean it's better or worse, it just suits my workflow better. Particularly when you throw in ClyphX and TouchOSC. The only thing I really miss is patcher. The first month using Ableton was hard work, but once I got the hang of it I much prefer it, Max for live is absolutely brilliant as well. There are some very useful things that are just plug and play and function like a native plugin.
I think the thing with ableton workflow, atleast for me, is that you should sketch your sound on the clip view, arrange them into to scenes (intro, verse, etc) and record it Live (like the name Ableton Live) by triggering the clips or scenes. When im done with the backbone of my song that is when i go to arrangement view and record solos or other melodic stuff. Then master the whole things.
I love this. Very cathartic for me. I started music in fruity loops 3 back in 2000 when I was 13 or 14. I became a crazy power user over a year or so. I learned most of the advanced stuff by reverse engineering the demo songs. I also hid the fact that I used FL. I had also used pro tools and cubase for mixing and mastering anything with live instruments. I eventually got talked into switching to ableton by my big brother after a hiatus from music for a couple years. Even after using ableton for many years and learning all of its tricks I still despise its piano roll interface and how the transport controls behave. It violently gets in the way of my creativity. Switching back to FL was like a fish returning back to the ocean.
Honestly, the audio world needs a development model where creative individuals are flown in for a collective project, where the developers are in-house working alongside them, listening for feedback on how to improve UX or even full feature requests. Something similar to the Blender Institute, where they are able to operate on donations, merchandise, software-training, where the software is open source and available for everyone.
That would be cool, kind of like the linux of music software
I found out about Fruity Loops when i had the chance to visit the home studio of Rick James in 2002. That was the primary software he was using to create tracks before he died.
man... I know the difficulties! Taetro made a video that shows how to use Ableton and it's about the same age as your demo of Ableton. Taetro really explains everything and a lot of the issues you are experiencing are fully explained. I moved from Audacity for recording vocals into a DAW and I choose Ableton. I haven't recorded with it yet, and I've owned it for about 2 weeks now... lol it's a hobby of mine and this weekend I am hoping to record. I know vocally... Ableton is 100 times better than Audacity lol I'm old... I'm analog and reel-to-reel old... lol
This is one of the best vids I've ever watched.
I went form FLS (7 years) to Ableton this summer and went through all these frustrations, with a LOT of headaches and a lot of Google used.
It's so funny being on the other side of this mad learning curve...
I'm a 'medium'-time lover of FL Studio. I still use it for sound design and sound design-related music, but I started using Cubase for film composing. Here comes my unsollicited rant :
FL has awesome features, it's a must-have DAW for sound design, quick producing and experimentation. But in a big ambitious project (media composing etc), to me it cannot be trusted to be more than an auxiliary tool in complement to Cubase. That's sad because it could actually be a serious competitor.
I'm so mad at Image-Line. They don't care about making a "professional" DAW. Instead they went full casual, reveling themselves in what they had be wrongly accused of in the past. Their latest updates consist mostly in shiny, flashy gimmicks to appeal to beginners and casual users. But they show no intention of improving the most fundamental elements. They fixed some stuff and added some interesting details here and there. But they seem afraid of dealing with the hard stuff.
Who cares about a new video editor ? I haven't seen anybody actually using ZGameEditor Visualizer, ever. If I want to make videos I'll rent After Effects. An in-DAW video maker just smells like gear acquisition syndrome, how is that an actual selling point ? Why are they so obsessed with it ?
VFX Enveloppe ? Why not, but meh. I'll be impressed with Patcher the day they improve its UI, or go full modular by allowing feedback loops and conversion between audio and parameters.
Flex ? Not very sound design-friendly. Mostly a cash-grab that doesn't offer much more than the insane amount of third party sample librairies already available. It's mostly marketed toward beatmakers, and lazy/beginner/in a hurry producers.
FL Studio Mobile is a toy.
Meanwhile, essential points still need to be redone :
-Audio Clips are the worst. Having to clone the channel each time you want a specific clip to have different timestrech/effect parameters is annoying. Having to create an automation clip for every audio fade is painful. Advanced processing (time-warping, pitch correction etc) has to be done in an offline plugin and exported back as a static sample, when most daws allow for much more flexibility.
- Realtime-only tempo automation is a mess, it doesn't anticipate the tempo curve and makes it very tedious to work with audio clips. Also no TimeCode ruler.
- Patterns have some benefits, but tend to encourage repetition. I wish you could bypass it and make it work like in more traditionnal DAWs, by being able to split, clone (independently), and combine pieces of midi without having to click in sub-menus or cluttering your project with dozens of temporary patterns. Also you can't edit multiple patterns at once, or even different instruments at once in the piano roll. Working on orchestral music or any non repetitive genre with many tracks is so tedious because of that.
- Midi events are weird. I don't know why, editing them feels so wrong compared to Cubase.
- Automation is flawed. You can't select, move, copy and paste muliple points. It's way too hard to use FL's automation in the traditionnal "one-lane" way, and I don't like having to slice my automation, losing track of what cut is from where in the original automation, and risking to unknowingly mess everything up every time I move a point in "slide" mode. It would be helpful to be able to merge automations like you can merge patterns, to copy parts while making them independant in a non cluttering way.
- Midi CC (as traditionnaly used by VSTs) has to be linked manually and is not supported by default if you don't have a "supported" keyboard. I think it can be solved with the new midi scripting but I'm not sure, and it's a terrible way to adress the issue.
All of this can be a real workflow killer, and Image-Line completely ignores it.
But I can't ditch Fl Studio because I love so much about it :
- the step sequencer is the most efficient way to write drum patterns.
- the piano roll is excellent, on par with Cubase. Both would greatly benefit from borrowing a bit to the other though. A fusion between the two would make the perfect piano roll.
- the mixer is great, and the routing is so easy and fast (and for once requires less menuing than in other daws)
- some of the native plugins are so creative and unique (but some other essential effects don't sound very good and have not been updated in ages)
- automation and parameter routing are really powerful. The many differents types of ramps, and the decimate/smoothing/etc functions are very welcome.
- the browser is compelling (very similar to Ableton, but better than Cubase). I just wish they reworked the research function.
I might be forgetting some points, but I don't think FL Studio is the most powerful DAW. It sure has the potential though. All of the others DAWs are pretty much settled and only need minor improvements to achieve more conventionnal goals. But FL has something more, a spark of madness that is tragically held back by Image-Line's laziness and lack of confidence.
The most ridiculous thing in the last update is that they "changed the default template to 'Basic 808 with limiter' "
FL users will get my point : why are they ashamed of the classic "basic" samples ? Everyone has used these crappy but iconic drums at least once when discovering FL Studio. They were practically part of the DAW's identity.
What is the point of switching to the 808 kit right now, it if not to confirm that they just see FL Studio as "the kid-friendly beatmaking DAW", with a few weird toys in it ? They're having an oddly specific marketing target and I don't like where it's going . I'm not hating on beatmakers, but they usually don't need to dig as deep in DAWs than producers of other genres. Most of the time they only need the most superficial features and work on quick and simple projects, and I feel like Image Line is capitalizing on that. But at the same time they spend time and money on gadgets that only advanced sound designer will use, but they don't fix the workflow problems that would make these gadgets more easily usable in a complex songmaking context... They're really pushing the "see what sticks" strategy to a whole new level.
I get it, the updates are free, but I'd rather pay for updates that fix major flaws instead of trying to divert attention with minor stuff no one asked for.
Mostly I'm mad because I love both Cubase and FL Studio, but they both have a lot of nonsensical issues and I wish I could use both as a massive superDAW, but reWire doesn't work. And although I don't use Ableton Live, I know how it works and I know it won't solve my problems but add more...
i agree, FL user
They should improve the inbuilt plugins like Parametric EQ 2 maybe a new version and then a mastering rack like Ozone 9 but something that's easy on the cpu
Definetely agree on the tedious audio clips, that's one of my main gripes with fl studio. Make unique, make unique as sample, it's just adding unnecessary complexity. I always look at Ableton users mouthwatering when it comes to audio clip manipulation, really hope they fix that.
Aside from that, like FL a lot. Tried using ableton a few times, but it didnt click, mainly due to the horrible piano roll and lack of step sequencer. It's those 2 things that keep fl so intuïtive for me
"Who cares about a new video editor ? I haven't seen anybody actually using ZGameEditor Visualizer, ever. If I want to make videos I'll rent After Effects. An in-DAW video maker just smells like gear acquisition syndrome, how is that an actual selling point ? Why are they so obsessed with it ?"
I use ZGameEditor Visualizer. Mainly because its a video editor that came bundled with FL Studio and I don't have to buy/rent a different one. I love that it can mimic the popular effects that musicians would look for in After Effects without the system strain, too. Its simple to use as well. Just drag, drop some images, add some effects, adjust some sliders, and you have a video in less than 5 minutes. I love it to bits.
I had fl 11 fruity and cubase pro 8 in the past. cubase worked decently with using it's VST's, and was superior to FL for the bouncing of audio and editing of actual audio files. However, it had some enormous flaws, starting with automation bugs such as editing automation points, and if an automation point is recognized when the cursor runs over them. glitches with LFO sync, piano roll, occasional crashes, and the god forsaken elicenser which broke on exposure to air, led me to selling cubase and upgrading to FL producer. FL studio definitely has it's own workflow and isn't very nice for recording or editing audio, but is by far the best and most reliable pc solution for automation, vst synthesizers, and piano roll work.
I was a longtime reason use in early 2000s. Then about ten years ago switched to Ableton and while it was enjoyable my music was worse than before. Indeed up just tweaking loops. Now for the last year I have been using FL studio and focusing more on composition than effects, automation or production tricks. I don’t know if I would willingly go back to Ableton. I tried to make a song in reason last month and it kind of sucked. Cubase is the only daw I own that I would consider in addition to FL at the moment. I own live, reaper, reason, Ableton, logic, and tried cakewalk and DP this spring.
Can't seem to find any media about the Mr Bill tries FL Studio thing. :(
I think he might be taking his time with it, as denoted by Jordan saying in the description "...and he's actually learning FL Studio at his own pace!"
Thanks for the clarification guys
I saw him using fl studio dude .
I just want to say, props to you for sticking it out. I would like to add that the time I have spent learing ableton in and out like the back of my hand has shown me that I can now open any DAW and go straight to it but my first time before ableton using FL I found it cluttered, navigating through the oddly shapped tabs seemed like I was using a childs toy. Now, don't get me wrong, FL is fantastic and I always recomend to friends to try three or four different interfaces before deciding which is best for them personally. Coming from a musical background I just never felt FL stood out as an interface that looked and felt the way I personally needed it to. People get frustrated when starting any DAW but the point is to be and if you are dedicated and love making music then you put the time in to learn all the ins and outs. This proves to an artist wether or not they have what it takes. It should never be simple and not frustrating at times, you will never learn from easy.
With that being said thanks for a video that's not wah wah wah this is better than that bullshit. Everything that's different will present challenges.
My advice (as mentioned earlier), get all the free trials for all the different DAW's and find which flows best for your brain. Remember it's your brain and creative mind that drives the DAW not the other way around.
I went to school for audio engineering/beat making. I was taught by a handful of well-known professional producers how to make beats and mix and master. I didn't get the hint when we NEVER used Ableton that FL was the way to go. Before going to school I had always used my pirated version of Ableton, so when that version stopped opening on my computer after a year of neglecting my musical interest, I naturally BOUGHT Ableton for $750. I've been watching videos on everything to refresh my memory and stumbled upon a YTer that uses FL Studio who made a video about the plugins that come with the DAW. I started comparing FL to Ableton... this is when I found your video. I'm not halfway through this video, 6 shots of rum, and I feel like I'm going to have a dent in my forehead by the end of this. THE SIGNATURE VERSION OF FL STUDIO IS $450 CHEAPER THAN ABLETON LIVE AND COMES WITH BETTER PLUGINS THAN THE ONES I HAVE BOUGHT TO COMPENSATE FOR THE LACK OF EFFECTS PROVIDED BY ABLETON.
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Someone please introduce this poor soul to the wonders of piracy
@@Leo9ine he legit said that he pirated ableton
@@Leo9ine he legit said that he pirated ableton
Switched to Ableton about a week ago. Made my best song yet in the first 5 days on it. It really doesn't take long to learn if you have worked with FL studio. The grouping feature is amazing for routing, parallel compression, and just more control over effects on different sections. You can do the same in FL studio, but without groups, it's way more tedious. Such as, you wanna have your kick with one set of effects, and your snare with another and then have them both processed together afterwards, grouping makes this kind of thing so much easier, and makes you less reluctant to do some really crazy processing/routing tricks that go beyond that (I know this example isn't that hard in FL studio but you throw in your side chain channel, side chain trigger channel, parallel compresion, and sends/returns it can get messy). Also, mastering seems to be easier on Ableton, get to -8 LUFs easy on some EDM stuff without much fine tuning at all. My master chain in FL studio would be like -11 LUFs after tons of fine tuning to try to push the sound louder. That could just be a problem with my mixing techniques on FL studio though. Oh also, resampling and pitch shifting/transposing audio is way easier on ableton and you get a bunch of different options for changing the tone (texture, complex, complex pro, transient, etc..). I think I'm an Ableton guy now, but I've heard amazing songs on both.
Can you explain how to make a group
This was painfully scary for me to watch lol. I bought fl studio a month ago and still learning. But just like you I tried Ableton live last year and I was just lost. Fl studio feels more natural although I’m still learning. But I’ve just purchased Ableton suite as I now have an Ableton push and I have to learn Ableton now. So this was both like painfully scary and yet encouraging at the same time. Thanks for sharing this!
I just did a remote collaboration with an FL Studio user (and me on Ableton). Both seem to have their strengths and weaknesses!
they are all the same they are DAW'S Software simple They ARE NOT A SSL 900 Studio Console with Neve etc etc When will people wake up !!!
When I use FL studio I have the impression of playing having fun when I use Ableton I have the impression of working doing office work of working on Excell it gives me a headache
For me, it's the other way around actually. Ableton in session view is the ultimate jam monster. Especially when you hook up dedicated hardware like the Push 2 the fun factor goes through the roof.
Exactly
@Tyler Durden I am an Ableton user and I agree with you.
Depends on user tbh
Factsss!
And Ableton can't even change values with the mousse wheel 🤦♂️
ok - so you got me with "this shits hard". Nice to hear that from someone with skills. I can really appreciate how easy people can make creating music in a DAW look.
ive been an ableton use for 12 years, never seen that issue with the second chunk of audio not starting its SO weird!
I’ve had a Similar issue since I’ve downloaded it. Maybe it’s a computer issue
I've had that issue a couple times, but it turns out it was related to the hard drive the samples were stored on because it never happened again after I upgraded drives.
After watching this, I think you would really like Digital Performers workflow. I’ve found it’s MIDI capabilities to be one of the best for composing non loop based work. I’ve always hated the whole clip based workflow, my MIDI tracks are all one clip. Also being able to have any selection of MIDI tracks viewable in the piano roll. Drawing in sine, triangle, square wave with modifier keys. Etc.
My opinion, when producer 9th wonder produced for Jay Z on the "Black Album", He solidified Fl Studio in the hip hop community.
FACTS
@Miles Prower I was guilty of that until they incorporated the compatibility of a midi controller. I was all in when that happened
They're actually adding a pitch correction plugin 12.1! I just bought 12 so I'm looking forward to it. They also allowed editing multiple midi clips at a time, which can show you the ghost notes, which solves the problem you were having with the complex chords.
i was always wondering if switching to ableton would somehow magically make my music better, but i think this video made me realize that i should stick with FL just because it's not missing any important features and because I am really comfortable with FL. Also im rly excited to see what Mr. Bill makes with FL!
When will mr Bill upload?]
The differences between DAWS lead to new ideas. Grab a pirated copy of Ableton, and have some fun. It’s not my favorite, but it does what it does, and that can be fun.
I make loops in Reaper, import them into Ableton’s clip launcher thingy, and rock out. Sounds like shit, but it’s a good time.
Maybe you have some talent, so you could have fun and sound good.
Hasnat Ali Oh no! Mr Bill!!!!!
There's nothing like different DAWs have different capabilities
They broadly share the same features and the main difference between various DAWs would be different User Interfaces with different ways of yielding the same output... I have been using Ableton for quite some time and I have downloaded the FL Studio trial as well... the difference between the 2 would be, FL Studio looks better, has better stock plugins value (depends on which plugins you buy for FL) as you can use FL plugins with other DAWs as well which is honestly cool and its a very loop oriented program... I feel that FL has an extremely natural workflow when I'm creating music with melodies which I repeat, or beats which get repeated, etc...
Ableton has a cleaner interface and it may be hard to learn at first but once you get used to it, its highly productive... in Ableton you don't need to spend time browsing through tonnes of different windows which is kinda helpful... Ableton is a lot more productive for me when I'm arranging and mastering my tracks so therefore I naturally use Ableton as the master and FL Studio as the slave (Check out ReWire)
I think once you fully understand your daw you should just stick to it, because learning a new daw is just a waste of time and a new daw won't improve the musical part of your music. And most of the time we use third party plugins anyways, so I don't think the albeton stock plugins would be a big upgrade. In my opinion the daw is just a shell in which you make your music, it is not the defining factor wether your music is good or bad
You can do true panning in Ableton. Right click on the tracks balance/pan control box. Click on "Select Split Stereo Pan Mode". You now have control over both left and right channels independently.
Coming from FL Studio almost every Piano Roll is going to seem completely useless
Wait until Ableton 11
@@RolyGuacamole lol
I actually prefer ableton's piano roll
exactly
not gonna change the fact that the best piano roll still gona be FLs . but eventhough Im a long time FL user I Started learning Reason , Ableton and Bitwig , So Im deciding between Bitwig and Ableton as my main daw and gonna use Reason Rack Plugin in there ,,,,
Having a lot of fun watching this. As a Live user and instructor it helps a lot seeing where the program might not be intuitive for a brand new user.
At 47:42, it might be easier to edit the automation with Draw Mode off. This would let you make a time selection, and by placing the mouse below the automation line, it will highlight blue. That way you can pull that segment of the line to the desired value and it will create the automation points necessary at the edge of the selection. Also, pressing the + button at the bottom right of the Automation Parameter selection space will send the currently selected Automation lane to its own lane, allowing you to show more than 1 Automation lane for each track.
15:39 yes slightly frustrating to shout “headphone logo” to a screen hahaha
Looking back, I started in FL but then went to conservatory for electronic music, and they required us to work on Pro Tools because that was the industry standard back then and 'how else would you get a job'. But that required an Mbox, which required a macbook, which didn't run FL studio. So I switched to Logic, and eventually Ableton. But looking back, I can see it drastically influenced my workflow and, to be frank, made my music worse. I was a young impressionable musician who wanted to impress his teachers so of course I tried my best to learn the new programs and develop a new style. All the 'pros' didn't use FL studio, so if I switched to 'real' DAWS my music will become a lot better, so I thought. But I think I it destroyed some good momentum I had build up with FL studio.
Thanks, that was a very interesting watch. I've never been able to wrap my head around Ableton. It's UI just doesn't gel for me. When I first used FL Studio, back when it was Fruity Loops, it was immediately exactly what I was looking for. I've been a Linux user for the last 10 years, and have switched to Bitwig, which is also a great DAW. Maybe not FL Studio great, but it's powerful, quick and easy to use and has a decent piano roll. I do miss being able to ghost another track behind the one I'm editing, but I get by. I also love that Bitwig has support for working with outboard modular gear.
i’ve used Ableton, FL Studio and Logic. I love all three. i’m currently trying to master Logic because I want to record bands. And I’m testing it out. I miss both Ableton and FL Studio. but I have to persevere and it’s feeling a lot better lately
Personally Ableton was the most logically laid out DAW I’ve ever used in my life. One reason I went to school for it was because when I messed with it on my own, I actually was able to get some stuff done. Learning it doesn’t take much time. I was actually learning my way around, it’s very intuitive. It made music production a realistic goal for me
Same. Tried to learn FL years back it felt so counter-intuitive compared to Ableton and decided to stick with that to this day.
When i was first starting out i was tryimg some different daws and i tried out fl studio, didnt like it so i tried ableton. It really clicked instantly for me, the interface just made so much more sense and is so nicely organized. Been using it since 2014
Lil too late but here's my take. I got into prod with FL and it was a really really fun and easy time. However, as soon as I got my very first MIDI controller, it blew open the competition for Ableton. That being said, I still use FL for arrangement cuz Ableton arrangement sucks ass and the piano roll is abysmal. But if I want to go real crazy and deep into just playing music with lots of controllers, I can spend hours with Ableton. Short answer, Ableton is good when I want to have fun, be inspired, or just do something crazy, but when it's time to man up and finish a song, FL is my go to
Same here FL is good DAW for me
Exactly my experience also. Ableton for a jam but arranging a song was always a pain in the ass.
I liked Cubase SX for that.
Luv and Peace.
I use it. I'm not professional but iys really good!
@@ianedmonds9191 Why was it a pain in the ass arranging in ableton? I use ableton, I started on FL when I was a teenager but it never made sense to me, I was only at it a couple of weeks and quit. I don't have problems arranging in ableton but because it's all I'm familiar with maybe I'm just ignorant to a better way of doing it... how is fl or other software better at that?
Ableton with Push2 is a whole different beast. Try improvising song arrangements with all tracks in real-time (as the song plays) in FL. With this combo, arranging is insanely fast and flexible. ;)
fantastic video!
I make plunderphonics music so Ableton is pretty much a big sampler for me.
Inspirational how you get so deep into detailed programming of variations and velocities.
46:00 Instead of using Draw Mode with the pencil/brush for such automation adjustments I tend to disable Draw Mode, highlight the region to be adjusted and simply drag the whole line for that region up or down. Honestly, I barely use Draw Mode at all. :-D
a major difficulty for even started is how to even start with figuring out what DAW to buy or what would work best (since they cost a lot). mostly as someone who cares more about the tactile feel and am more focused on drums (and bad at melody and chords) i would consider either one of these as i love the grid based setup of FL studio for example as its easy for me to comprehend even though I'm neurodivergent.. something that really goes "here is a basic template... try out something and see what sounds fun to you"
The thing about Ableton is, it's got a very steep learning curve. Once you hit a certain point, though, you'll find that the workflow is way faster than in other DAWs. The flipside is that if you start making music with Ableton, every other DAW you encounter will feel entirely foreign to you.
Honestly, that's just how it works with any DAW. One you learn a certain workflow in any DAW, any other workflow in any other DAW will feel absolutely alien for at least a few days until you can start deciphering the workflow of that DAW.
I found that Ableton is actually pretty simple compared to other DAWs
Great video, thank you for taking the time to make this. Recently picked up Ableton to mess around with making electronic music, appreciate reviews like this.
Coincidentally I found this on August 22nd, just thought I would note this.
A while back Ablenton convinced educational institutions that it was the next wave of making music. They also promoted to the DJ's and the electronic musicians and gave away free versions of their software to all the kids. Now those kids are all grown up and their teaching, DJ'ing and are part of their church music programs. Kudos to Ableton for their success. I still use protools, reason and studio one.
I've been using FL literally since it started. I tried using Ableton and didn't find it's workflow very easy. Wasn't for me.
Ngl, I am straight up vibeing with this channel rn fr fr. Thank you for your hardwork on these videos. They're great. Thanks
so, where do if find mr bills fl studio video ? cant find it : /
Important for those new to electronic music to know is that you don't need any DAW to make great electronic music. In may on fact hinder you. Find what environment works best for your brain to be creative and allows you to enjoy the process. For me DAWs are the opposite of Zen. Lots of meticulous work for an end goal. I press record, I create, I edit it down a little bit. Done.
Benn do bitwig next :)
2nded. I know you took a look at it a while back Benn, but I've been finding Bitwig feels like a redesigned version of Ableton Live to me.
Yes! Please do Bitwig next!
Or Studio One
@@MakeKasprzak maybe cause it's maybe by former ableton employees
The only thing I love about ableton is that you can trigger your clips with your keyboard. I haven't found a feature like that in any daws. You can arrange your whole song based on feel and not clicking and looking at the screen like most daws. That is a far better work flow in my opinion. The sequencer in fl also very good. I like making my beats in Fl. Bouncing everything. Then triggering clips and arranging in ableton. Superb combo