What am I missing about ableton? (Page 2 of 3)

I'm not that much into it yet, but what helped me was to get renoise connected to it via rewire so I had my usual tracking environment combined with the live stuff. Then I hooked up lsdj to it and voila - best live sound environment yet

It took me a while to "shift my thinking" having grown up with Cubase (from it's Atari ST days). I would never go back now though. I always considered Live to be just that - for live work/manipulation - which it does like nothing else in existence. But it's also capable of doing so much more and I don't think I'd ever even more than glanced at the arrangement view until I worked through some of Tom Cosm's tutorials. I remember one pivotal point in my thinking when I went through his tutorial on how to create a 16-step sequencer by chaining the audio path of 16 tracks together and you end up with this crazy feedback machine. I think I lost about 5 hours of my life playing with that

It's all about live (session) view. You can put a combine a bunch of audio samples and midi instruments on different "tracks" (the vertical bars) and then play them together, and add audio effects to each one or to the master track, or even on send channels. You can then experiments with lots of different sounds without having to arrange or track anything. Then you can record your actions live and the results will be places on the arrangement view without any destructive changes whatsoever. That's the beauty of Live for me. When it comes time to lay out the song, I already have a good idea of what each part will be like, because I've already experimented with everything beforehand.

Ableton Live is one of the most powerful DAW's on the market at this point in time (If not the most Imho, for non tracker based composing, I swear by it, I've been using it since it came out), It comes with its own set of lessons in the HELP tab that will literally teach you the program from scratch (complete with its own audio samples / templetes / instructional presentation).

Sound Design, Multi Track Recordings, FM Synthesis, sampling, VST/VSTi full support, Rewire Support, Numerous Midi Controller support onboard (let alone being able to use just about anything on the market or self built that communicates with midi in general), Re sampling of its own output into another channel, Live Loop Triggering, Grid style Session Sequencer, the ability to use it as a Live Instrument  & Live Performance Suite as well as a recording suite....

What ISN"T there to like about ableton live?

Agreed... If I ever drag my software crap out out the studio (seldom, but happens on occasion...), I bring a 4u rack pc. xD

I have spent a couple of very educational sessions on Ableton live with a couple of very knowledgeable chaps. I am slowly getting my head around the software and I am warming to it as a tool. I am not so much thinking about what it does in as much detail as nkogliaz but more in terms of how it would help me solve the problems I have with performing

I like making music on all sorts of hardware and software which I haven't been able to think of using in a performance setting without either taking a shopping cart of gear or compromising what I like to make music with. Large complex set ups also seem worrying fragile and Ableton seems like it will let me compose in more or less what I want, sample clips of it into Live and be able to play it with a backpack size set up of a Lappy, soundcard and a couple of controllers while being fairly robust. Also has the added bonus of making hassle at immigration less likely.

Getting quite into this idea.

i've been using ableton for 6 years and i barely understand what you're talking about.

but it seems like it can be boiled down to 'i like using ableton as a sequencer, and i also like using automation'