Skilled DJ looking for guidance in house music production

[ImNotDedYet]

Good post.

What are Ableton's downfalls? I've recently started using it, and I must say it's brilliant. I find it fairly straightforward too.

true PDC and I personally find it not as intuitive or fast to mix as other DAWs. Not much though. Live is a great DAW.

[Chris Macom]

Ableton is great. I feel that other traditional DAWs like Logic, Cubase, Reaper, etc are better for post-production. Ableton's arrangement view just isn't my cup of tea. When I was using it, I couldn't get curves on automation but believe that has been updated. Love the session view, hate the arrangement view. Also the look in that view always seems jumbled to me, like bad Feng Shui or something.

[Jamzhouse]

Ableton will be quicker to master than Maschine
Maschine does have a bit of a higher learning curve than Ableton
There's also more tutorials out there on how to make techno tech house deep house on Ableton
You can also use ableton to make quality studio DJ mixes with
So you can mix your tunes in Ableton too

But doing this on your own and trying to self teach yourself is possible but very time consuming
You should choose a DAW and maybe find a local production school to help push you along quicker
And also continue to ask questions here coz you will eventually need more gear and VSTs wen u begin producing

[daviedavedave]

Ableton is great. I feel that other traditional DAWs like Logic, Cubase, Reaper, etc are better for post-production.

A lot of people say this. I use Live but have found it ok for post production, without anything to compare it against though.

Purely out of interest what makes the others better for the post production stage?

[Jamzhouse]

Other DAWs apparently have a better 'sound'
I honestly think that is taken care of in Live 9

If you wanna learn from scratch the more 'traditional' way, then maybe look into FL Studio
Then when you think its time for a change, then try Ableton

[Kwal]

That whole DAW battle is bullshit if you know what sound you want to achieve you can do it any of the programs. It all comes down to your sound selection, the mixdown and the master. You aren't going to hear a song in the club and go "Ahh, this sounds like it was done in Logic!"

No

[ImNotDedYet]

A lot of people say this. I use Live but have found it ok for post production, without anything to compare it against though.

Purely out of interest what makes the others better for the post production stage?

I prefer mixing w/ S1. It just feels more natural, quick and intuitive for me. It's also got a Mastering page/project separate from the song which is kinda nice.

And I agree w/ Kwal, to some extent. Other DAWs don't process 1's and 0's any better than Live and vice versa. However, you could potentially hear minor differences based on pan laws, etc. However, as Kwal said...if you know what you're looking for sound-wise, you'll be able to accomplish it in any DAW.

[johnnypepp]

My first steps into production were made buying a maschine. while everyone hails it as the best thing since sliced bread, I find it got me stuck in this kind of loop based mentality. I never seemed to be able to work out more than a few bars. buying ableton and consequently a push (couldn't pass up on that big discount a few months back) have helped me step out of that mentality. I kept my maschine with the idea of integrating it into my setup as I learned the ropes in ableton, but that just didn't seem to happen and I honestly couldn't be bothered going back into it. Ableton does everything maschine does, and it does it better and more clearly imo. In the end I swapped a maschine with 10 sound packs for a TR8 with the 707 kit and haven't looked back since. In the end all those gigabytes of samples didn't made me any more creative.

[Shakxxx]

My advice to you if your looking to find out more about ableton live is to sign up for the coursera intro to ableton live. It's a free course and it will teach you the basics about ableton, it's a very good course and teaches you a lot of things to get you going. After you've signed up ableton offers a free 30 day trial with no limitations. After the course and the 30 days I'm sure you will be purchasing ableton live lol lol. Ableton is the DAW for me and does everything plus more. Hope this helps.

[supermixer]

Ableton will be quicker to master than Maschine
Maschine does have a bit of a higher learning curve than Ableton
There's also more tutorials out there on how to make techno tech house deep house on Ableton
You can also use ableton to make quality studio DJ mixes with
So you can mix your tunes in Ableton too

But doing this on your own and trying to self teach yourself is possible but very time consuming
You should choose a DAW and maybe find a local production school to help push you along quicker
And also continue to ask questions here coz you will eventually need more gear and VSTs wen u begin producing

I've been using ableton for a few years now (since 2011). It's a phenomenal program and I make all my DJ mixes for various mixshows that I do as well as remix edits for a remix company I work for. The arrangement view actually is quite simple to use once you have it nailed down. (I don't use session view) I can tell you that starting out in ableton was VERY time consuming and took me several months to really understand it and use it after watching a ton of tutorials on the program.

Within the last year i bought Maschine studio which is another beast and yes I agree, it has a higher learning curve. Sometimes it can be overwhelming but each time you play around with it (or ableton) you learn a little more and before you know it, you're creating, editing, and mixing tracks.