Hey guys,

I really need your advice with this one.

I'm currently an FL Studio user for over 4 years and I would like to learn another DAW, better said, I also need to change to another DAW because of FL causing issues with my current PC, due to bad coding.

Anyways, I consider myself as an advanced user, know pretty much the ins and outs of FL, there is nothing I can't do in FL that I wanna do, if you know what I mean.

I looked around the the two candidates are either Live or Studio One, but I'm not sure which one would be the better option for me. So I have a few things that users of these DAW's could help me out with.

Style I produce: Mainly Drum & Bass (Is there one that suits common things needed for DnB better?)

I do a lot of resampling and automation, which in FL sometimes is not as great to be honest. I also want better capabilities when it comes to bouncing audio inside the DAW. I use a fair amount of 3rd Party Plugins also. Operating System is Windows 10 64 bit.

I focus a lot on chopping breaks up and stuff, which works nice in FL, but probably not as good as these two.

So any advice you can give me is much appreciated. What is the better choice when you come from FL? And what about Abletons Plugin Delay Compensation issues? I read a lot about these. Are they fixed with version 9.6?

Also, which of these two would have the steeper learning curve? And what about CPU usage?

Greetings Seb

 

Last edited: Aug 5, 2016

umm , i myself hafe used s1 for 5 years and really love it but as i can see you love to work with samples then you should go with live , live supports best audio editing so far. but why not to try both? i know there is fully functsional s1 demo not sure about live

 

for you, Ableton Live would be a better choice for sure. Plug In Delay Compensation is no longer an issue. they fixed it all in 9.5.

I use a mix of Ableton and Cubase Pro 8.5. I like the power features, arrangement and mixing aspects of Cubase but you cant beat live for getting things down fast and easy.

 

Hmmm, I see. Well, I use samples yea, but also a lot of live plugins, better said I don't like to bounce everything that I have. Is sample working so bad in S1? And what is bout mixing and mastering? I know it can be done very well in S1, but what about ableton?

 

btw , there also is Bitwig (kinda live ), if you come from fl then bitwig should work for you even better than live.

 

what FL has to do with bitwig ? this is absurd
bitwig is 99% copy past of ableton

 

ui look ;)

 

Well, I don't care about gui or look a lot anyways. I'm adaptive when it come to that. But what about the mixer in ableton? Is it any good or let's say practical and capable of doing a mastering session?

 

Two thoughts here: as a frequent user of both: Studio One's automation is far superior to ableton's. Live doesn't have snapping, shapes, or y-axis lock like S1 does. It does have x-axis lock by holding control, though this also forces you to adjust in finer resolution.

However, I prefer Live to S1 10 to 1 when it comes to bouncing/freezing inside the DAW. I just find S1's to be less quick and practical.

Both have a pretty nice system for selecting parameters to automate. In S1 you click a parameter and click the little A in the info view in the upper left (probably not the correct name for it). You can assign a shortcut to that function, as I have. In Live you just right click a parameter and click show automation, or (my favorite) show automation in new lane.

Just a couple things to consider.

TBH though, I'm not sure what your beef with automation in FL is. IMO the way Image Line handles drawing envelopes and automation clips is superior to any DAW I've tried.

Most of the complaints I've heard with FL is lack of real-time stretching, but evidently that was just fixed. Live's warping is famous. IMO studio one's is not bad, either but I don't use that feature much in either DAW except to correct errant syllables in vocals.

 

Apologies for the double post but... there's no reason it can't do the same things as any other DAW

What features/properties are you specifically looking for. Its routing is just as flexible, if not more, than most other DAWs. It doesn't have a dedicated mixer, but rather the session view doubles as a mixer, but it's easy to show and hide parts of the UI by using keyboard shortcuts. You can turn it into a mixer, more or less.

IMO one of Live's best features for mixing workflow is that you can access plugin parameters without opening the plugin windows. However, studio one offers the option to open and hide each track's plugins with a keyboard shortcut, which is a feature I sorely miss when in Live. Studio One's ability to do folders within folders and also hide tracks from the mixer that are in unopened folders is a real boon for someone like me who doesn't like to look at a bunch of shit that's not in use.

Just trying to give a balanced view here. Both are phenomenal DAWs. People do say S1 has CPU management problems. I can't say for sure, but it certainly seems an awful lot like my CPU meter goes higher faster than in Live, wherein I tend to run more VSTi's

 

What limitations are you reaching for DNB in FL? You making neuro dnb? FL has some of the best in house vsts for making crazy basses/sounds. Im not sure what wall you stumbling upon that another tool would magically solve.

 

Sounds to me as if you better change your current PC. Or take some time to sort out the issues instead of learning a new DAW.
Except you wanted to try something new anyway.

 

It doesn't matter really.

The biggest time investment you make in a DAW is actually getting to know it and use it properly, after that you find out pretty quickly they are all very similar. I don't even understand how people switch so often and all, the cost and the time involved makes any switch a very serious matter that is often put off regardless of much greener the grass is on the other side.

 

Dude, i don't think the problem is the DAW, for the style you mention is just perfect.

Automation? The easiest out there is from FL.
Just go to the source you want to, move it, and then go to Tool-> Last Tweaked -> create auto clip. voila ready...
Anything you want is there for this parameter.

About track rendering is only 3 clicks away.. ok could be one like samplitude, i agree, but still...
Arm it, render, ready!

I am using FL since version two, 15 years now every fucking day, since i make music professionally, and i still learn things.

No offence but when i see "Fl studio is not enough for me" then the answer most of the times is that you think you know it, you actually dont.
Been there also, is not something bad.

If you were making music with external stuff that would be another case, i would recommend sequoia.
But no need to, for your needs.

All the best.

 

S1 never crashes,the most reliable I have ever used since I make music,since 16 years.More reliable than Reason,Protools,Cubase,or what you want!!! S1 is a very good choice! But GUI is so ugly,for myself.I prefer the sequencer of S1 too,it's a copy of Cubase if you know it.
Live crashes a lot on the other hand...Every day...But I use more Live than S1 because GUI is so far more beautiful,and once you know this DAW, your work is efficient too. I don't like in live routing options for example too,to do a track compressed by sidechain with a third party plugin is so complicate! Live plugins are good too,better than S1 plugins in my opinion.
Live is really not as professional as Cubase or Protools,functions in Live are very simplified,you can't customize your DAW as well as Cubase.You can't do offline audio processing for example,like in Cubase,once again.
If I had enough money my future choice would be Cubase pro 8.5 for sure!!!

 

i had a heart attack at title: Live for 1$ ...read it wrong

 

Wow, thanks for all the great replies. Much, much appreciated.

Well to answer some points:

1. I love FL Studio, a lot to be honest. I have no real problem with FL Studio. Like said FL causes issues on my current machine, which is unfortunate, but the reason is clearly FL and I already had a conversation with Image Line about that. They were able to replicate it, but don't know whats causing it. So, the fix of that problem will not arrive anytime soon. It's a bummer really. But besides that, I always was curious about how I would work in an other environment. FL's workflow is very free, but also weired at the same time. Because of all that freedom I sometimes lose focus and thus not work very efficient.

2. Regarding Automation, I absolutely like FL's Automation, but sometimes you can lose track if you have a lot going on in your playlist. But besides that it's definitely flawless.

3. I don't wanna go to another DAW because I think it will have something magical to make me a better producer or whatever. I never understood people that were thinking like that. Regarding the workflow, it can make a big difference and after 4 years in FL it's about time for me to look over the fence. I learned A LOT, I mean A LOT about music production and mastering inside FL Studio and it always served me well, but we all know that each DAW excells in a certain area, where another has its weaknesses. If this bug gets fixed anyday, I will definitely will work with FL again and tbh I still have another PC which can run FL, but my new one is way more powerful and I wanna use that power.

So let me ask a few more questions.

I talked about more CPU. Something I noticed is that FL and my projects don't feel very different when it come to CPU consumption, though my new processor is an i7 instead of an i5 in my older machine. And there are also like 5 years in between these processors. FL shows me like 85% CPU usage, while in reality the CPU isn't even using 20%. :/ Is FL not optimized for modern CPU's? Also RAM is now 24GB instead of 6GB before, still no big differences.

Is that different with other DAW's? What are your experiences?

 

What does that mean? I work offline most the times.

 

Live is better for creative production. Live is simple.
Studio One is better for mixing. Studio one is complex.