Ableton headquartered in Berlin offers Ableton Live, the company's flagship digital audio workstation and audio editing suite.
$79
OBS Studio
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
OBS Studio is free and open source software for video recording and live streaming, featuring real time video/audio capturing and mixing. Users can create scenes made up of multiple sources including window captures, images, text, browser windows, webcams, and capture cards.
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.
From simple streaming to bigger events, OBS has been able to handle all of it with full confidence from us. Have never questioned if it was going to be unreliable in a specific situation, even with minimal training. Software identified the external input source easily and had no issues setting that up (Blackmagic Mini Recorder), and great for pulling in separate audio from the computer input.
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.
Scene Composition and Switching + source control which allows for creators and our customers to move between different types of content they might have (different video feeds, slides etc)
Audio mixer and audio control - noise gating, a/v syncing, audio source control
Very usable because it is free and has had a lot of people helping to suggest improvements and sponsors have allowed the product to grow in sophistication and suitability across a variety of situations and use needs. It is very logical to use once you get started, although the dashboard can seem intimidating at first.
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.
For a free product, a range of support is available. There are plenty of ways to find out answers to questions, because there are probably thousands of people using the product who are willing to share what they have learned. It usually works as designed, so needs for support are limited.
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.
I have also used TinyTake by Mango Apps and I prefer OBS studio because the video quality results are better and OBS allows you to record an unlimited length of the video. OBS also lets you record an entire screen instead of manually having to draw your parameters, which can create oddly sizes videos if you miss by a few pixels.
