Ableton Live vs Reaper

[Sacred Synthesis]

A DR-40 case can be made. The price difference between the DR-40 and DR-05 isn't ridiculous, and you might prefer the DR-40 for its pair of stereo XLR and 1/4" inputs. The DR-05 just has a single 1/8" stereo input, which is fine for eurorack. The DR-40's mic pattern is also adjustable, which you might welcome for stereo field recording.

Good point.  I hadn't been considering this at all for recording the synthesizers, but perhaps I should give it a try.

[chysn]

Personally I’d rather pay a flat fee as opposed to a monthly subscription.

The "flat fee" is pretty deceptive. For Pro Tools, it used to be $600 up front, but you'd need to upgrade at least every couple years to keep up with whatever OS you use, and keep the features up to date. With the subscription model, you pay $25 per month, and always stay up-to-date. For the price of a few beers a month, you get one of the industry-leading products.

If Ableton did this with Live Suite, I'd totally get on board. My experience with Creative Cloud has convinced me that it's the way to go for high-end software.

[Paul Dither]

I just want to be able to hit record or add a new track and have it happen as opposed to loads of menus. Like as if I'm recording to a reel to reel recorder or something just BAM, done.

There's probably something like this, but Ableton isn't really it. The idea of a DAW is to take advantage of the capabilities of a computer. Ableton's interface is designed very well, and it doesn't get in your way. Integration of control surfaces is easy, too, to make it a more "hands-on" experience. But it's not necessarily a start-to-finish recording process (although it can be).

You could use a MIDI controller like one of these Korg nanoKONTROLs to control the most basic commands you'd need in Ableton. I'm really just thinking of 'record', 'play', or triggering clips if you should ever like to embed previously recorded material in your recordings like a rhythm loop and variations thereof or a whatever you've got lying around. You could also use a MIDI foot controller for that to keep your hands free. Something like the Guitar Rig controller from Native Instruments. MIDI mapping in Ableton is just a matter of seconds and it helps in focussing on the sheer performance aspect of a recording situation.

Another advantage of Ableton: it doesn't have lots of menus, only 2 ways of looking at things. There are no overlapping windows or anything like that and the whole graphic interface is rather neutral.

[LoboLives]

I just want to be able to hit record or add a new track and have it happen as opposed to loads of menus. Like as if I'm recording to a reel to reel recorder or something just BAM, done.

There's probably something like this, but Ableton isn't really it. The idea of a DAW is to take advantage of the capabilities of a computer. Ableton's interface is designed very well, and it doesn't get in your way. Integration of control surfaces is easy, too, to make it a more "hands-on" experience. But it's not necessarily a start-to-finish recording process (although it can be).

You could use a MIDI controller like one of these Korg nanoKONTROLs to control the most basic commands you'd need in Ableton. I'm really just thinking of 'record', 'play', or triggering clips if you should ever like to embed previously recorded material in your recordings like a rhythm loop and variations thereof or a whatever you've got lying around. You could also use a MIDI foot controller for that to keep your hands free. Something like the Guitar Rig controller from Native Instruments. MIDI mapping in Ableton is just a matter of seconds and it helps in focussing on the sheer performance aspect of a recording situation.

Another advantage of Ableton: it doesn't have lots of menus, only 2 ways of looking at things. There are no overlapping windows or anything like that and the whole graphic interface is rather neutral.

I was about to say Ableton’s layout reminds me of an early DAW from the 80s like Audioframe’s Waveframe or even early versions of Mark Of The Unicorn’s Performer. It seems rather simple and more based on functionality than style. I dig that.

What’s everyone’s opinion of MOTU’s Digital Performer 9?

[AdamPloof]

As far as intuitive interfaces go, Ableton Live is hard to beat. If you what you're looking for is to quickly set up tracks for recording and start making music easily then I feel confident in saying that you'd be very happy with Live. As a composition tool it's excellent and, as I said above, I've found it plenty robust for doing full productions.

As for the subscription model, Ableton's approach has been to release major upgrades fairly far apart -- once every couple/few years and provide minor upgrades for free in between versions. Comparing Ableton's approach to Pro Tools seems a little apples to oranges since I seem to recall that a complaint about Pro Tools before they went to the subscription model was that they were releasing major (costly) version updates at much faster pace than what Ableton has done so far.

[Paul Dither]

Comparing Ableton's approach to Pro Tools seems a little apples to oranges since I seem to recall that a complaint about Pro Tools before they went to the subscription model was that they were releasing major (costly) version updates at much faster pace than what Ableton has done so far.

DigiDesign and Avid also used to charge you for minor updates - at least by comparison to what happens at Ableton. That was one of the reasons I gave up on Pro Tools and ultimately switched to Live.