Likelihood to Recommend Ableton Live is a perfect fit for loop-based music like electronic music of all varieties. It is especially suited to minimal techno and IDM, but is really suitable for any style of music that relies extensively on loops and samples. Ableton Live is also well-suited for sequencing out loop-based music through its Live view, while the Composer view allows for enough arranging features that you can take a song from concept to completion fairly easily. Ableton Live is less well-suited for fully recorded music that has no sample-based or looping components. It is less well-suited for non-electronic genres, although it is perfectly fine, but many of the features would not be useful or necessary in these cases.
Read full review Transcription of internal presentations and web conferences. It's great for capturing and transcribing the audio from presentations, demos, etc. which can then be used to develop training materials, blog posts, etc. Podcasts. Makes it really easy to record, edit, and publish video or audio podcasts. Promotional videos. Streamlines and accelerates the process for developing videos. Read full review Pros Session View: This is the biggest advantage of Ableton. It provides you this view in which you can create different tracks for the same part of the song. For example:- If you are making the chorus of the song, you can save one thread. Now if you want to try and listen to a different drum set in a new thread, you can simply do that and listen to the new track while preserving the older one. Once you are satisfied with what you're listening, simple record the same in arrangement view and you are done. You can switch to the arrangement view and listen to the final song. Pre-installed instruments and loops:- Ableton's library which is included with the software itself while you purchase it is amazing. I bet you will ever need third-party plugins for it. It comes loaded with hundreds of loops and number of instruments which are completely professional and free to use. Amazing Graphical User Interface:- Even if you're a beginner in this field, Ableton can be learned within a few hours. The basic functionality of this software is very easy to understand and use. Of course, advanced stuff comes with practice but the basic functioning can be learned and within a few hours you are producing your own music. Read full review I like the sidebar - breaking my scripts up into different "chapters" makes it easier to create quickly. I like that it auto-corrects punctuation, capitalization, etc. as I polish the scripts. It's easy for my team and my collaborators to read/listen, remark, and create useable transcripts. Read full review Cons Version 10 chews up all my CPU but prior versions didn't Midi channel automation isn't intuitive, have to make an instrument group New version install should overwrite older versions Read full review When editing a transcript it can get a little cumbersome, as a double click doesn't always do what you think it will Some features aren't that intuitive (what is resize word gap) for beginners A tutorial/wizard as soon as you sign up would be very useful Read full review Support Rating I haven't had to reach out to support yet, but they're great at keeping me abreast with updates, compatibility issues, new features, and tons of videos on how to use the software. I feel like they're helping me success by giving me tools I can use in my daily work.
Read full review Alternatives Considered I cannot say that the other programs listed aren't capable. They surely are. But for what I do and my workflow environment, Ableton suits my needs better. I know a lot of people that use
Pro Tools and Logic Pro. They are both very powerful programs. I have knowledge of how to use them all. Going into different studios and collaborating with people, you need to know at least the basics of them all. But for me and my studio, we will continue to primarily use Ableton for the foreseeable future.
Eric Fox producer/engineer/mastering engineer
Read full review Descript is by far superior to the other editing software you can get on Apple computers. It's able to do a lot more and really save us tons of time. Other Adobe apps are great, but take a while to learn. Descript is very user-friendly, making it easy to start from day one with very little training.
Read full review Return on Investment Ableton Live allows me to rapidly sequence multitrack music as needed, without getting stuck at any step of the process. Ableton Live also allows me to quickly export or upload to SoundCloud for easy sharing. This is a big time-saver. The only negative ROI I can think of is the cost. There are competitors like Reaper that are much more affordable and have many of the same features. Read full review I can get video completed much more quickly and cheaply We can produce more video content because of the speed with which we can have a finished product We can have shorter timelines for example I record on Monday and we publish on Tuesday which wouldn't be otherwise possible with other methods I've used Brecht Palombo Founder - REO, Non Performing Loans, and Bank Contact Data Services
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