How to make ableton sound good

[venuq]

If you don't 'Dither' when you export your track, and then open the file up in something like Waveburner and bounce from there I think it can give better results.

Not really true, however a lot of people choose to master in waveburner because its really easy to burn copies of cd's off of and its generally more geared towards that sorta thing. In my experience though mastering in my daw, logic, gives the exact same results

The dithering algorithms in Logic/Waveburner/Waves etc... imo sound better than Ableton's, thats all I'm sayin.

[subfect]

Where can I get a spectral analyzer? I will admit that i am ignorant of its function

And you can hear the difference in the thickness of the drums and bass and really just everything.

Spectrum in Ableton live.

Honestly though - you might think you've done exactly the same things, but you haven't. For starters - the synths in both programs are different (unless you're using bassline samples.etc., in which case - stop doing it. lol).

If you're referring to ableton's EQ8.etc. - these are known as being rather "soft" EQs and so provide a more subtle effect than stock EQs in other DAWs (such as logic).

[xbubbax]

I just switched from fl studio to ableton a couple days ago. made a track overnight, ableton is extremely efficient and the tools are cool and all that jazz. but my track sounds weak! in FL studio, the only thing i ever did to my tracks was good gain structuring and an elephant on the master track. my tracks always turned out fat, good enough to go against professional tracks when mixing. i did the same thing with my track in ableton and like i said, it sounds weak. what do i need to do to my track to make it boom?

Hey mangg,

In ableton, there is alot more headroom for mixing and mastering.....so the result your getting of your tracks not sounding as"fat" as they did on Fl studio is a result of you needing to beef up your mix using abletons built in tools or using 3rd party VST. ( izotope collection

this allows alot more headroom in your mixing, allowing beefier mixes.....and not an "out of the box" sound that you dont have control of, and end up using limiters, which closes your mixing / mastering headroom.

[DrSpliff]

You just don't know what your doing, no offense. How can you say ableton sounds worse than fl when you have to ask on the internet where to get a spectrum analyser....... Nowadays all daws have pristine sound. If it sounds shit, it's because you don't know what's cutting. I used to use ableton and there's nothing wrong with it.

[skwiggo]

A lot of people say bad stuff about ableton's audio engine, there was a massive fuss when ricardo villalobos trashed the audio engine a few years ago and said it 'colours' the sound compared to logic or cubase. I think the jury is still out on it, but there's a big section in the manual about how settings can affect audio quality so you should check that out in case the settings are making your tunes sound shit.

If your mixing is at a decent standard and your stuff still sounds bad, check the warping settings. Ableton warps all your samples by default, sometimes even one shot samples too! Warping causes artifacts that can affect the sound quality of your mixes. Unless your warping a drum loop (which you should probably use repitch mode anyway) to your tracks tempo, I think you should make sure warping is turned off for all your sample

[ricoLA]

The person who uses Ableton is the one who makes it sound good...and it's not about what you use, but how you use it. Works with many different aspects in life too

[babylonjunkies]

whilst i do agree with people saying its your mix and whatnot, but having used logic and ableton, there is a difference. turn off all the warping if you don't need it. you get an option of how ableton warps things, its between beats, tones, complex, complex pro. find out which one you need to use for each sample, makes a huge difference. if you don;t get this part right no amount of processing will make a difference. when using the tones setting, make sure its all the way to 100, as opposed to the default 30. when using reverb choose high quality, instead of eco. or just use the fabfilter eq's, compressors and your favourite reverb. those changes will make the sound quality as good as anything.

[hxczach]

Click the high quality button on built in plugins.

[wayoftheworld]

if it hasn't been said already, make sure to set your velocity to around 70 or so when using drum racks.

[sketchyderek]

I've noticed some weird things happening with certain Ableton effects, and it's caused me to doubt their quality. Once I was trying something with Autofilter and when I put it on there were these weird artifacts that it brought into it. Or when you put on an eq, cut certain frequencies, and then the output is higher than before... what's going on there?

On another note, what would putting your velocity to 70 do differently?

[Volatile Psycle]

Or when you put on an eq, cut certain frequencies, and then the output is higher than before... what's going on there?

Sometimes cutting on eq's can do this. It all depends on the steepness of the cuts and the quality of the eq/filters.
This can be especially bad when cutting low frequencies or those around the said sounds fundamental

[-AudioSoma-]

Looking back on this makes me laugh!

Its all in the mixdown!

[nowaysj]

In the same boat. My mixes in live aren't as good as those in fl. In live, I've got my faders all over the place, in fl, my faders are straight across pretty much. There is just different ways to carry out effective gainstaging between the apps, and I'm still a little unsure doing this in live, and it shows in the mix. It is what it is. It is my problem and Im working on it.

Nor Reason... I've never been able to get a really clean punchy full/phat sound out of reason. Always kind of dark muffled, obscured. Again maybe me, but the discrepancy is huge. Live I'm like 90% there, in reason, I was 30% there.

[Disco Nutter]

@nowaysj Use the Utility plugin instead of the faders!

[Perej]

Yeah, my tunes always sound gash in Ableton, it's annoying because I much prefer it to fruity

[hutyluty]

i tried ableton t'other day and was amazed how good it sounded tbh- the presets on the synths and stock samples are all really good- i would switch but i love reason 4 too much

[nowaysj]

@nowaysj Use the Utility plugin instead of the faders!

I'm on it

[pesky]

@nowaysj Use the Utility plugin instead of the faders!

what are the advantages of that may i ask?

[Disco Nutter]

A few:

• you can record gain automation with the utility plugin and you can freely move your channel fader (which you won't be able to do if you have it automated)
• your channel faders are left untouched, near 0, which means that when you make final adjustments to the mix, you'll have higher resolution (Ableton's channel faders have higher resolution near unity, meaning that the increments you can make are smaller and more easily controllable, doesn't have anything to do with sound)

I always record gain automation using utility plugins, seems more convenient. I rarely leave the channel faders untouched though.