well with all that manual cramming.. how could you not be.. ?
and pretty much everyone engages in said "crap talking," so give me my props back too..

but seriously everyone ask Cav if they have an Ableton question....
now hows that for an endorsement?

oh and I say again.. go with Ableton.. it would be my # 2 go to...but I need to read the manual

 

My man...

 

Holy fuck! That is incredible! Is there someway to make reaper piano roll mimic fl studios?

 

Ever since the 9.7 release it has been rock solid for me, and noticeably better cpu handling

 

No DAW is perfect.
Before recommending any alternative, I'd like to understand what exact issue you have with FL Studio, and what you liked most about it.

 

what do u miss from Reaper, checking the feature list from https://www.image-line.com/support/FLHelp/html/pianoroll.htm

drawing can be click, erasing can be mouse-drag based so its' working from the same mouse button (faster than FL) play selected/scrub is working (given track can be soloed, can use independent timeline than the main window), note brush, splitting/joining, zoom to selection, ghost notes, quick chords/scales/arp , selection stretch, note muting, note proprieties are working in Reaper too

longer version:

 

However,one point which can make you to reflect : the price.
Ableton live 9 suite is very expensive,635€ !!! Presonus studio one professional is half price,299€....
Yes like said by someone here,maybe the best solution is to try to resolve your bug and keep your loved Image Line FL12...

 

I would go for Live, is the one I use for production, try to make one song in each one and you will see which one "is for you"

 

i know this has already been beaten to death, but it is really up to you. i've had a bit of a weird succession, going from Nuendo (Cubase's big brother) to FL for several years, and after some college classes showing me how to properly use live, made the switch. Ableton seems simple at times, as it's meant to, but has some serious functionality under the hood that isn't easily seen at first glance, or even first year for some. not to mention that when you incorporate Max for Live, it starts to get crazy expressive. there isn't a single thing i haven't been able to do in Live that the other daws offer, besides offline processing; usually remedied by freezing tracks. i don't like committing to something like offline processing anyway, most of the time. i like freezing the entire track, freeing up cpu, then unfreeze as necessary if i find i need to change things around, but that's just me. workflow per person varies because of their own internal dialogue and personal logic (no daw pun intended). but as someone who spent a few years in FL, i really enjoyed switching to Ableton. of course i miss certain things about FL, but what i've gained out of Ableton supersedes it almost entirely. there are certain things that can be done in Ableton that no other daw offers. S1 is cool; i have it, but i can't get off the Ableton train. those warping modes, group layouts, freezing capabilities, dynamic eqs, complex side-chaining of both types, and my favorites, rack recall-ability and racks within racks, are worth so much to my workflow. ultimately what's important though, within my explanation, is that if your instinct tells you to go with it, go with it. i believe there's something to be said for comfort in your workflow. if it seems logical to you after a few weeks of diving through and learning some of its capabilities, go with it. if you don't vibe with it, don't use it. many amazing songs have been made far before the advent of the modern daw, for which each one now embodies the essentials of the original daws, and with much more capability. do what feels right. do what seems logical to you, but above all, experiment.

 

Thank you guys for all your great replies. Was a lot of helpful stuff.

As some mentioned, I should resolve the bug caused by FL Studio, it's actually not possible for me to do that. Basically whats happening is, whenever I open up FL Studio, after 20 seconds or so, my PC's fans go 100% or even 120% all the time, which will not stop unless I shut down my PC. I know that this behaviour is caused due to cross-talking. It's somewhat related to FL Studios code. I also read that this is also happening on a few ASUS Laptops. Anyways, it's not cool if the fans are on ful power all the time, while the CPU is 30 degree. Thats the reason why I can't work with FL atm on my main machine. Hopefully there will be a solution for this one day.

So, I spent the last days watching Live tutorials and simultaniously clicking my way through it, testing stuff out and I have to say I'm blown away by it's ease of use, yet massive functionality under the hood. The switch to Live is clear now. You know, I always loved FL and I still do, but for me there is one thing which is just so much better than FL and thats the way it's structured. I'm a really tidy person when it comes to projects. I wanna open my project file 3 years from now and still be able to find everything fast. While I could do that in FL, it needed a lot of effort and routing and stuff. Thats way easier and faster in Live as far as I'm concerned. Also the Racks are really cool. While I have to admit that I'm not fully understanding the way they work, from what I know it's just so great. Definitely will look more into them.

Another thing has to be clearly the automation. While FL's is great to, I like Abletons system of handling them more. It's just a personal preference I guess.

Also there are so many minor things which I absolutely adore, like for example if I wanna color something in ableton it's only a right click and a left click to do so, which is like 4-5 clicks in FL.

As for the mixer I don't know so far. It's definitely not bad, but one thing I miss at first glance is the opportunity to do very complex bus routing. Also a little bit sad that you can't have a group in a group in a group. But I think for these things there will be possible workarounds.

Freezing Tracks is also massive. I love it. And just overall, I feel way more free in Live than in FL, just by looking at it's slick and minimalistic interface. I guess great times are around the corner.

So I will work my through all the functions from now and will pretty soon start my first track in it. I guess if there are questions, there should be plenty of peeps which could help me out.

Greetings from Germany
Seb

 

Good choice. Live is ridiculously easy to use. You really couldn't have gone wrong with either one though.

Racks are the coolest DAW feature in existence in my opinion. (S1 has them now too) They can get very complex. Just click your way around and you'll pick it up little by little. They can have parallel chains switchable by the chain selector, internal sends and returns, layered instruments, nested drum racks, etc etc etc.

have a look at this article: http://sonicbloom.net/en/10-hidden-features-in-ableton-live-with-options-txt/
In my opinion, if you're working in drum racks EnableCopytoSiblings is indispensible. Map to siblings is super nifty too. It might be a little over your head at the moment but you'll be happy for it later.

Yeah. That's a feature request with 300-some votes and counting on the Beta forum. Ableton is not exactly the speediest with rolling out requested features, but eventually they get around to the stuff everyone collectively asks for.


BTW - there's a lot of great stuff in the context menus. When you're feeling curious, check out all the crap you can do with right clicking. Clips, tracks, parameters, etc.

 

Hey thanks for that link. I actually tried it out, but I encountered something weired. The "EnableMapToSiblings=1" works, but I can't get "ShowDeviceSlots" to work. Has anyone an idea? I'm on windows if thats important.

 

try both and then decide.

 

Okay I got it. It was not working because I named the txt file "Options.txt", but Windows automatically adds the "txt" so it was actually called "Options.txt.txt". :D

 

these are (the) real drawbacks of ableton - you nailed it exactly and in a very short time. sadly there is not much complex routing and group stuff available - and there aren't great workarounds for these problems. you have to get used to mix "like this/less complex". but in the end you'll rarely miss it.

 

Well, I think I found a good solution for me, that does what I want. Say I have a lot of Drum Tracks, maybe a group of HiHats, a group of Kicks and other samples, maybe even more groups. To get them all stacked to one channel I would send all these tracks & groups to a send channel ONLY. Problem solved. Then I can control all these tracks at once with this one send channel, compress them or whatever. You could even send that send channel to another send channel only which then may go to the master. Anyone correct me if I am wrong, but I think this should work.

To give you my impressions after making the change: I'm absolutely happy that I made it. There is no way I'm ever going back to FL Studio now that I tasted the Live Cake. :D

Seriously, I'm blown away by how easy live is. There is nothing so far that I can't do in it. Also all of the "hidden" features are not that hidden if you ask me. The sampling is incredible good and versatile, the racks are just pure dope and enable me to finally do the type of sounddesign I always wanted to do, without setting up complicated chains and what not in FL. It's just so superior and only a few clicks to set up ridiculous chains. As far as organization is concerned, Live is so tidy which makes me smile

Setting up 3rd Party Plugins was as easy as FL, though for some I needed Jbridge to make them work. I also installed Max for Live, which I still need to look into, but the essentials contain some really nice stuff like the multimap and LFO's. Also the convolution Verb is nice.

Swapping between Session & Arrangement View is great and it's good to have both options. Nice way to jam and get ideas.

For the stock effects I have to say that I really like them over FL ones. There are some which FL is missing and their interface and usabilty is really good. Only thing is, that the stock instruments are not as great as some of FL's stuff, but I use 3rd Party synths anyway and I also have Image Line's Harmor, which would have been a bummer to not have that. Otherwise I really don't miss anything so far.

I consider my change to live as the best thing ever and I'm sure my music will greatly benefit from that.

 

You might want to try S1 - it's all-new code, with stuff like hi-res support and multithreading, rock solid stuff there. I'm a FL + Pro Tools guy so I couldn't get around to try a 3rd DAW, but lots of people say S1 is great!

 

they are both ace progs. at the moment i would say i have done more full tunes in Live as opposed to FL which is still the best for generating ideas and loops etc.. also, i have more 'FUN' with FL than any other daw. it's just a great playground. live suites me for working on structures and melodies, and it's bespoke plugins are amazing.
can't say i would be able to pick between them but if forced i wouldsay live, but only by a gnat's cock.
i may change my mind tomorrow, who knows in the wacky and zany world of pc DAWs?

 

i dont understand the "complex routing" problem
each channel in live can "Send -audio / midi - TO" --&-- "GET - Audio / Midi - FROM" (wich not all daws can)
there are no dedicated busses in live because every channel can be a Audio(midi) BUS
with that they practicly killed Sends, but sends are still there and can be mixed with each other
maybe i dont understand what is the issue

 

can someone post this txt file for me?
i can not longer login to the sonic bloom site.
thanks