Live 2.01 Impressions, or "ableton listens, users rejoice" Options

[filarion]

Paid my 80 Euros to upgrade to Live 2.0 a couple of days ago. Awesome new features like different timestretch engines (acoustic guitar tracks actually can be used in Live now), ability to turn those engines off for individual samples, better automatization, etc.

Performance looks to be the same like 1.5 - which means that it still isn't Altivec optimized, and faster on PCs, but the Ableton guys are Mac users themselves and are promising to add this (requiring a bunch of rewrites) for the next upgrade. Anyways, especially with software like Live the performance is nowhere near as important as creativity.

[Levon River]

I understand (I think) how "quanticized" sound is different than the "real" thing. What is the way for someone like me to get around this?

First, it simply isn't true that in Reason "you end up with 'quantized' music that doesn't groove" unless, of course, you have all of your input notes snap to the selected beat value--whether input with a mouse or with a keyboard. But that's the same in any sequencer.

A "quantized" MIDI performance is one where the MIDI note-on events have been "snapped" to the nearest "grid line" for whatever note value you have selected in the sequencer to quantize to. E.g., if you have "quantize" (think of it as "snap to grid") on and set to an eighth note, then every MIDI note you enter with a mouse will snap to the nearest eighth note. You can also turn quantize on for recording MIDI, in which case even what you play on a MIDI keyboard will "quantize." You can also quantize selected notes *after* the fact of entry by selecting them and clicking the quantize icon. In Reason (and other sequencers, too), you can set the strength of that after-the-fact quantization on a percentage basis. E.g., if you have the strength set to 50%, Reason will only move the selected notes halfway toward the nearest eighth-note position.

Reason also, though, offers two or three "groove quantize" options in its drop-down where you select the quantizing factor, and also allows the user to create a "groove quantize." Read the manual for more on how to use this more randomizing form of "quantizing."

There are many ways in Reason to avoid "quantized" sounding music. One is, if entering with a mouse, not to have snap on at all. Set a moderate zoom level, and put the notes in at approximately the correct beat. See how it sounds. If it's too far off, select "All," and try quantizing 25% or 50%, or only do that with the most troublsome sections or notes. Another way to avoid quantized parts, obviously, is to just record a part using your MIDI input device--*without* "quantize record" turned on. If you can't play the part at speed, slow the tempo down as much as you need to record it, then put the tempo back up to speed and see how it sounds. Use judicious editing and quantizing as needed to get it how you want it.

Here's another very useful trick for those on a budget: get Band-In-A-Box, select an appropriate "style," generate your song (absolutely ignoring what it sounds like with Quicktime Musical Instruments or any other "built-in" sounds assigned to the part), then export as a standard MIDI file. Import it into Reason, set up four or five NN-XTs with good samples, assign the parts, and listen to an amazingly realistic rhythm section playing your song, ready for yer hot leads and vocals. (Tweaking the parts is recommended, but BIAB has many recent "styles" created by real musicians playing real MIDI-enabled instruments, and now can produce very realistic parts for many instruments with a great variety of groove and velocity variety.) This will, at the very least, give you a "groove" for various of the parts, which you can then edit to make into your own very personalized song.

In Reason, you are *not* locked into the Robots-On-Speed hyperquantized '80s beat-box electronic diarrhea so popular with those who can't make actual music--but which fad thankfully appears to be headed toward its inevitable and welcome demise. Reason certainly doesn't have the best and most flexible sequencer around, but with a little reading of the manual, a little experimentation, and a little patience, you can get completely convincing sequenced parts that can utterly fool seasoned producers into believing that a popular studio band laid down the tracks.

And that last statement is something I can *personally* guarantee you.