0715 t o n_a

0715 t o n_a

well this one didn't turn out very well, sound quality-wise and it's because of a combination of the following:

• I'm learning (re-learning and going beyond where I was years ago) Ableton Live Lite 12
• my experimenting with sending MIDI messages in time from an ableton MIDI track straight into Pure Data and having that make reactive visuals in real-time
• I have a secret desire to perform my stuff live at some point, and the first step is to do tons of proofs-of-concept and this is a big one
• this WORKED, to my surprise and delight.. kind of... there is a ~120ms latency issue when the signal arrives at Pure Data, which I corrected by moving the MIDI notes to the left by 120ms to compensate. it's more of a workaround than a solution, but there you go.
• I made all the sounds in Ableton, using Analog Lab and my own from-scratch sample drum sounds and performed the whole thing while capturing the sound and real-time images from Pd in OBS
• somewhere in the process, there were uninvited glitches, pops, etc. in the mixdown which I couldn't solve without starting over from scratch in Cubase (like i usually do) so I just mastered it with the pops and ugly shit in it and now its done. So I'm not doing it again.

It's science, right? Education? Experimentation is a tool to improve and boy did I experiment in this one. Some things worked great and some didn't.

I really appreciate the sound stability of Cubase more now and I'll definitely go back to creating all sound in Cubase.. I don't like ableton..yet.. I'll work on it more and maybe things will work out between us in the end.

I do think the live aspect of performance is where Ableton shines, and Cubase does not.. but who knows? If what I'm trying to do in Ableton actually can be done somehow with the gorgeous sound shaping capabilities native in Cubase, maybe I'll do that.

The experiments continue and so does my learning and skill progression.

Also, I had a blast this morning doing all that.

misc. notes for myself later:

• be careful with gaussian blur in OBS, if overused, it looks badly out-of-focus instead of just the right shade of soft. (today looks too out of focus and not very cool)
• don't build a system of live AV production that is so complex that it's flimsy and increases the likelihood of bad results to the point of shoddy. Simplify! And cut the Gordian knot when possible.
• Cubase is for composers.
• Ableton is for loop-head DJs
• is that what you're trying on? because it doesn't come in your size.