I really tried to get into Ableton. I found a Push 2 at a pawn shop and while I can say that the push 2 controller is pretty damn amazing and turns Ableton into a pretty cool device, I can't get the arrangement to feel natural to me. I am a long term linear sequencer user, and Logic is pretty much muscle memory to me now. However, Ive used FL studio since version 1.x and that also feels much easier to use than Ableton. I can create patterns super easily on Ableton but then turning that into a song is just clunky to me.
I came from CUBASE and it took me a couple attempts to get used to ableton
Frankly thinking of it as a sequencer is a limiting mental model.
Think of it as a instrument to jam with.
When I used cubase I spend about 20% of the time with jamming together a basic idea and then 80% with arranging.
Ableton flipped that for me...now I spend 80% of the time jamming (and loving it) and only all the way at the end I quickly create the arrangement once I am already super familiar with all the parts I created during jamming.
It’s had a really super positive on my creative quality!
Ive heard this from quite a few folks. I dont do a lot of ITB recording though, so that may be my problem. I mainly use my 2 SPs (SP-1200/Sp-16) for the jamming part along with keys/guitar/bass. By the time I fire up software the idea is already there, and I want to arrange it.
No- It seemed that when I would try to use arrangement view to string sessions together, they seemed disconnected from the session I was just editing. I basically just end up using Push to sample chop and then move what I find to other software or hardware.
I think the general workflow is session view for initial idea exploration to come up with a set of parts that you can ‘perform’. Then once you are happy you record that into arrangement and finish the track from there. Probably more applicable to loop based music where the arrangement is primarily automation and clip start/stop events though.
I use both Logic and Ableton. What about the arrangement is so difficult for you!? my complaints about Ableton are much more editing-centric. I also greatly miss take folders when I work in Ableton, and I prefer mixing with busses to grouping tracks in Ableton.
In the same boat.. I used trackers, then FL Studio, Cubase for a while, then Logic for years and I've always found Ableton Live really hard to get into.
