Hi

I have managed to get my hands on both Cubase SX & Ableton Live 4 ( a good friend was upgrading and he did me a good deal).

Decisions, decisions, decisions...

Which one would suit me best?

I have an emu audity 2000 which i would love to get cranked and would like to use audio samples too but at the moment dont have any way of heraring the two together. (but i do have an analogue mixer but unsure how to set it all up)

This is my first attempt at trying to make my music and although im a wiz when it comes to macs the music side of things kinda baffles me sometimes.

any ideas welcome?

cheers

Humphz

Logic audio man. Is the best.

If you compare Cubase which is a legacy common ground sequencer/DAW with Live which s a different beast altogether, it all depends on how you plan to work.

There is a learning curve with both of these. Live is not considered to be on par with certain sequencing programs like Cubase or Logic but, it is still pretty kick ass & pretty easy to get into. If you read interviews with the pros they all seem to use Logic, Cubase or Digital Performer (Pro Tools as well but, PT is not known for its MIDI capabilities). Lots of pros use Live as well - usually inside of some other program, like Pro Tools. Use both....you can use Live inside of Cubase via Rewire (I think) & you would be well on your way. Also, I hope to hell that you have (or get) a proper license to use these programs it is very uncool to use unlicensed software.

I guess you have a mac - since u are in this forum

I have run both cubase sx and ableton on a powerbook

with cubase i spent more time fixing problems and trying to make things
work than i ever did just jamming or making music - it looked quite pretty what with all the different collours and stuff - but nearly gave me a valium habit


ableton is ugly ...really really ugly...your friends will laugh at you when they see it

but it worked when i brought it home and installed it - it shook hands nicely with all my other software and hardware ....it is so friendly and
intuitive that it makes music creation an absolute joy......some people say its just for djing which i dont agree with

the high end users all seem to go with logic (which you aint got so lets forget that)

the tech users (engineers, pros et. al) from what I have read seem to think that cubase gives the more professional final sound...


last thought......look at the user forums fro each programme - that should
tell you all you need to know....cubase forum is full of posts that start with 'help!!!'

ableton forum is just covered with jizz

I just spoke to a mate who is a one man music factory - a highly respected
and succesful dance producer - (he said logic is best - yawn) and added that

'cubase is really for pcs though isnt it'

hmmmmm

I own both, the real story is about the optimization of both apps. SX has the highest hardware requirement of all the Mac DAWS. And because it shares a code base with the windows version, there is very little Mac specific optimization in the Mac version. So it does not perform well on anything less than a G5 class machine.

From my experience I can use 40%-60% more instances of effects and virtual instruments using Logic or Digital Performer when compared to SX. Good concept, just works 100% better on a PC. And that's where my copy will reside until something changes on the Mac side it's not worth my time.

Live is a different animal, when compared to othe DAWs. but again it suffers from poor Mac optimization. It dosen't support the Altivec instructions, and doesn't support dual processors. So even modest Windows machines smoke dual G5's when using Live. You can get work done but dense arrangements are out. Also the live sound engine is not the greatest, so most people ReWire their tracks to their favorite DAW or export the individual tracks into their DAW of choice.

So the answer is Logic closely followed by DP4, are the most effecient apps.

Use Logic by far....or at least Logic Express which is pretty cool too. Also Logic will rewire with Ableton as does cubase i suppose.....but

Dare i say 'tongue in cheek style'
Cubase is a bit like a PC, common and not many pro's are using it studio wise....certainly not what i've seen anyway,
and Logic is a bit like a MAC.........nuff said!....which do you prefer?

Live has been updated for MacIntel compatibility, and version 6 will support dual processors. should see a performance boost on the new Intel machines.