Ableton and Mastering? Options and Recommendations?
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  1. #1
    Newbie MICHAEL ANGELO's Avatar
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    Default Ableton and Mastering? Options and Recommendations?

    Hi DJTT Family!

    So here I am as a brand new Daddy of a Maschine MK2 and also a Yamaha Motif XF and I am caught between a rock and a hard place. Here's what I am wanting to do with the two.

    1) Create tracks with the both of them and make an album so I will need mastering capabilities.

    2) Eventually perform LIVE as there is a growing demand for live keyboard Electronic Producers as well as being a part of LIVE ELECTRONIC BANDS like Native Instrument's "Mostly Robot" (Electronic Band ft. Jeremy Ellis and others).

    My question is this...
    Can I use Ableton as my all-in-one studio/ live performance package? In other words, can I use Ableton as a Mastering DAW? I know that it's absolutely perfect for "on-the-go" music ideas and creations as well as for live performances but I am hearing that there are plug-ins people can use for Mastering Songs/ Tracks via Ableton. Even people said that they have used Logic Pro's Mastering Plug-ins in Ableton Live. I am looking for the ability to perform live and produce albums as a Mobile Music Producer.

    And if so, which Ableton Live is the most current and the which one would you HIGHLY RECOMMEND?

    Thanks so much everyone! Any help will help.

    Your Brother in Music.

  2. #2
    Tech Guru deevey's Avatar
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    Download the Ableton Demo, Read the manual and the information on their site and see if it fits your requirements

    As regards mastering for an album you'd be well advised to send the track to someone who does it for a living. There are a ton of plugins you can master with.

    Alot of people use a combination of live and logic.

  3. #3
    Tech Mentor Mr_Moo's Avatar
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    Ableton has a mastering suite, built in, which you can drag on to the master channel of your project and manipulate.

    While its not going to sit perfectly alongside a professional masters attempt, its good enough to use this, if you are playing our your own re-edits/tracks/samples, etc.

    I guess it also depends how well you can use it.

  4. #4
    Newbie MICHAEL ANGELO's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by deevey View Post
    Download the Ableton Demo, Read the manual and the information on their site and see if it fits your requirements

    As regards mastering for an album you'd be well advised to send the track to someone who does it for a living. There are a ton of plugins you can master with.

    Alot of people use a combination of live and logic.

    That's where I'm leading to. Since I had posted this last night I had visited a friend's Studio who is inspiring me more and more to venture into Electronic Music and he demoed to me how he uses Ableton Live for EVERYTHING from creation to live performance and then finalizing and mastering in Logic Pro. I wanted to see if I can utilize just one of the two due to convenience. Thanks for the reply Bro!

  5. #5
    Newbie MICHAEL ANGELO's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mr_Moo View Post
    Ableton has a mastering suite, built in, which you can drag on to the master channel of your project and manipulate.

    While its not going to sit perfectly alongside a professional masters attempt, its good enough to use this, if you are playing our your own re-edits/tracks/samples, etc.

    I guess it also depends how well you can use it.

    I didn't make myself clear. Thanks for acknowledging that really I'm not trying to take the place of a professional Master but yes I would love to at least get as close as I can to making my tracks sound good. I'm already having such a hard time with playback of my tracks sounding so darn low in iTunes and in my iPod. During track production it sounds so good through both the monitors and headphones but when I save and export the tracks they sound irritably low. I mean really low. Unfortunately GarageBand has basics which don't really help at all even to adjust the gain to it's highest. That's here I'm hoping Ableton can be my one-stop shop.

  6. #6
    Tech Wizard
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    Ableton by itself cannot master to a professional's standards. You will most definetely need to have some mastering plugins (OZONE, WAVES L2, PSP VINTAGE WARMER, FABFILTER). There are some free mastering plugins on pluginboutique.com , but like with most things, you get what you pay for. Have fun with this rabbit-hole of mastering.
    13" Macbook_Kontrol S2_MF Classic_Ableton Live8_Akai Synthstation 25_Akai APC40

  7. #7
    Tech Guru Patch's Avatar
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    The answer is yes.

    Ableton by itself cannot master to a professional's standards. You will most definetely need to have some mastering plugins (OZONE, WAVES L2, PSP VINTAGE WARMER, FABFILTER). There are some free mastering plugins on pluginboutique.com , but like with most things, you get what you pay for.
    Depends who's doing the mastering...

    Have fun with this rabbit-hole of mastering.
    You said it. It's worth paying someone to do it for you. Tarekith will be along soon - his prices are extremely reasonable.
    DJ'ing: 2x1200MK2, DJM 850, Dicers, F1, Zomo MC-1000, Sony MDR-v700, i7 Win 10 HP Envy
    Production: Ableton Live 8 and a mouse, Sennheiser HD400, Sony VAIO

    Click HERE to D/L Free Tracks from Soundcloud!!!
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