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 …
Ableton Live has just the right feature set for electronic music production. It offers more professional features than GarageBand, while not featuring the level of hardware integration or other high end features that you find in Avid Pro Tools. However, I prefer Ableton Live …
We use several different audio editors, the main reason for this is to have software available to cover most staff experience.
However, we find that a good portion of new staff were familiar with Logic Pro X, meaning that there was reduced training time involved by having the …
Logic Pro X is in that sweet spot between amateur Digital Audio Workstations like GarageBand and high end DAWs like Avid Pro Tools. Logic Pro X is good enough to be used on high end productions for film, TV, commercials and such, while remaining inexpensive and accessible, with …
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.
Logic Pro X has been particularly well-suited for recording, mixing, and mastering our full-band audio content. We have used it to capture several songs each year and have mixed and mastered them to professional levels for posting to streaming services. We have been able to use it with our current digital console as a great DAW, seamlessly connecting for the 'live' recording of several services. It is also well-suited for the mixing and editing of podcast and sermon content. Logic Pro X is not the best for mixing livestream audio, in a live environment, even with the added plug-ins and effects available. There is just enough lag that it was not the best option for this usage
Highly recommended for voice over recording and editing. Great for splicing together several different recorded files to create a final track. Our voice over talent typically sends us their unedited recordings with multiple recordings of the script. Then we can listen to the different versions to select the best fit for our client. We just select the sections we like and copy them into a new file, then continue to add the sections until we have the final voice over. It is easy to tighten up or stretch out the recording to better fit our timeline.
We have not used WavePad for recording live music so not sure how well it is suited for that. If you need multi-track editing you will need another product. MixPad makes a nice companion.
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.
WavePad only works with a single audio track. NCH does offer MixPad for multi-track editing. We also use MixPad occasionally to mix background music with voice.
Like every DAW, it takes some time and getting used to, but Logic's tools and interface just make sense to anyone who is familiar with Apple products and music tools.
Easily handles basic audio recording and editing. Advanced editing features are there but if you don't already understand audio editing you will need to watch some of the provided videos to learn how to use the tools.
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.
The user community of Logic Pro X is vibrant, responsive, and lively. There are many great forums out there where you can solve any problem you encounter, whether it's sound card latency, a certain plugin not working, audio routing, multitrack issues, or virtually anything else you run into. The community is so helpful that I'm giving Logic Pro X a 10 in this department, despite having never contacted their official support department. I've never had to, since there is such a great user community.
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.
We use several different audio editors, the main reason for this is to have software available to cover most staff experience.
However, we find that a good portion of new staff were familiar with Logic Pro X, meaning that there was reduced training time involved by having the software available. This was perhaps the main reason we made the purchase decision and this fact is testament to how prolific Logic Pro X is in the audio community, you'd be silly not to have it available in any business where content creation is important.
We ran across WavePad years ago and used it for some simple music file edits. Cutting out some parts to make it fit better into the time slot. Audacity was recommended by a friend and we installed it and give it a brief try. We didn't find anything bad about it but came back to WavePad.
We are able to work with local voice-over talent and amateurs and that allows us to keep our cost low to our clients.
WavePad is so inexpensive that is pays for itself on the first project. The Master's edition is less than $100 and the standard edition is less than $50.
