Frankly, I don’t care about synths or plugins in Ableton. It’s so much better than Logic to integrate external gear, modulate almost anything you want and work in a non linear way. At first I wasn’t comfortable with the session view and those little bricks, but my mind adapted (evolution I guess) and I find now it’s a great way to find inspiration. If I want anything Ableton doesn’t offer as a creamy synth, I fire up Diva and I’m done. Now what I’d like to find in Live as in any DAW is real AI stuff to mix and master. A mixing assistant should be the core of a modern DAW, with dynamic monitoring of any audio path in the system.
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I’m trying to go stock Ableton and a bit of M4L, I’m trying to put together a live set of some sort and I feel like maybe that stuff is more reliable than 3rd party plugins? Not that I ever get crashes day to day but you know…
It’s pretty cool actually to get a deeper appreciation for how good some of the Live stuff is, and focus a bit more on “what primitives do I need to use to achieve what I want” vs. using presets etc… and I do prefer the native UI over loads of floating windows.
If you’re interested in techno, the tutorials I linked here do some great sound design with mostly just Live devices, I found it quite inspiring to see what he could craft from them.
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From what I’ve seen on the Elektron boards is that most people here are more interested in achieving results with specific setups and are also fast to move on when things don’t work well for them.
I find that very refreshing as you can openly problem solve or reach conclusions early on about limitations.
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This is disappointing to hear as I’m considering buying Push 3 Standalone. I’ve always thought the built-in synths and effects in Reason 10 sounded great and I assumed that the Ableton 11 equivalents would sound just as good if not better. The general consensus here makes me wonder if it’ll be a downgrade. 
Anyone here who can compare the two? E.g. Wavetable vs Europa? The Ableton reverbs vs RV7000? (I better get a Suite trial going to compare for myself but curious to hear if anyone has already compared.)
Yeah get a trial going. As others have mentioned here, the workflow with ableton is using it like a modular, so the synths in my opinion on their own aren’t really that impressive, but meant to be combined with the stock effects. Maybe you’ll like it!
Also theres a bunch of max for live synths that are really good that should work on the push, check for example chiral from fors, that one is cool and i know works on the push. there’s many others i think
reverb wise, the stock reverb is not very good and not in a league with RV7000, but Ableton has an excellent Echo effect that can also do a nicer reverb, as well as convolution options.
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Hybrid reverb is stock and better than the old one. It combines convolution with algorithmic reverb. It’s actually very nice
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the nice part is also that since you can use max for live on push3, you’re not limited to the stock stuff if you don’t like it. Some of it doesn’t work, but they are working on it and have already increased compatibility. most max reverbs should already work on push. “box” also from fors is pretty nice
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To be completely clear, I really like most of the Ableton effects. There are a few things I supplement (Valhalla reverbs and delay) but the convolution and hybrid reverb plugins are great. I use Redux, saturator, Eq8 glue compressor and Echo in like every project. Filter delay is cool. It’s specifically the synths that I don’t like (though I’m slowly warming up to Wavetable).
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This is very true. I love Hybrid Reverb. It’s my second choice always after Valhalla Vintage - but the fact you can switch between Convolution and Algorithm, while also having 5 different algos in there including shimmer is just… Yeah it’s one of the biggest adverts for Ableton’s newer directions, and as a result you kinda won’t need any other verbs.
Yeah I mean, this is one of the absolute upsides. There is a moment where you load up maybe Kontakt or a heavy Diva patch and even a decent machine starts to be pushed by those. As you say though, you load up an Ableton synth and that’s it. It looks the same, sounds the same and does the same as it ever did. And more or less whatever you throw at it, the CPU is hardly touched.
I will also say that trajectory plays a role in my thinking (and it sounds like yours too.) Ableton is coming out with some very nice new devices, and many of the most recent releases (Hybrid Reverb, Echo, Channel EQ) are just plain great in their own right.
Yeah so, just for context, I was basically musing on Push and thinking if people start to gravitate towards Ableton only for ITB work once they get it. I agree with @m0ld that the effects see the most use my side, the synths and sound sources - less so. I’ve got a few plugins and I guess I wanted to pre-emptively avoid buyers remose on going down the Push route. Like; to spin a random example, once you have Serum (which I don’t), do you just end up using Wavetable if you have Push? Of course, I think sometimes once you have experience, you can maybe push past the VST and roll your own presets a bit more, and I’m very much at the preset end of that spectrum.
What this convo reveals (and again, thanks for the replies for pros and cons) is the mid-ground where Ableton is. Aside from the super creative and fast DAW itself, it’s a mixed bag like any other bundle. Some of the stock stuff is considered generally to have better VST alternatives (eg: the standard reverb vs Valhalla for one example.) Or how like I always want to like Analog, but when you have Diva, it’s just no contest, either from a GUI or a sound perspective. But then again some of the recent additions Drift, Wavetable and others are going the right way in terms of both sound and useability. The other thing is, Live as a DAW is a simple workflow, but building a chain to create an instrument and effect combo is not always straightforward and if you’re like me that can kill the spark of making a tune. Then, you might bust open Kontakt/Omnisphere/Insert other VST with mega presets here; and find the patch you need in like 30 seconds…
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yeah fully agree with your take there.
this whole convo is inspiring me though to reduce a couple VSTs. I for example never realized Hybrid Reverb has a shimmer option, ive mostly been using convolution reverb because somehow that has more IRs (you can just copy them over into the hybrid reverb IR folder tho which im gonna do now)
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Then again, I’m mostly in standalone Syntakt today and it’s not like that’s a super advanced synth at its core. Could something similar be built in Live and have it work on the Push? Meaning, given that it’s described as a modular approach, could I create a chain of Wavetable, a bit crusher effect, some saturator, a couple of assignable LFOs and maybe some unison/spread effect and put that in its own “Combinator” (as it’s called in Reason) and then assign the 8 knobs to control different parameters like amount of big crush etc? Is that modularity comparable to the “machine” paradigm of the Syntakt if you spend some time setting those “machines” (preset synth-and-effect chains) up in Live before using them on the Push in standalone? If so, I don’t think I’d be very disappointed. I find designing my own basic sounds to be fun, more fun than browsing through some pre-made presets.
You can do this, put all the bits you want in a instrument rack then map to the macro controls, upto 16 can be surfaced to that first panel.
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I imported some MIDI stuff and trim a part of it to get a loop. So far this loop equals a bit more than 6 beats although and the rhythm is in 4/4.
How can I tell Ableton I want this loop to be the new tempo for 1 bar?
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As a fellow Reason-to-Live user, I think the Combinator approach is actually the biggest commonality between the two environments. If you’ve enjoyed wiring up Combis in Reason, you’ll be right at home with Ableton’s Instrument Rack – the parts Ableton gives you to build with have a lot of the same deceptively-simple versatility that Reason’s devices do, and while you can’t go quite as wild with routing, the streamlined UI is in my view worth the trade off.
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Ableton Live folks who use Live live… 
… I’ve got some live shows coming up and I’m obsessing about getting everything frozen and printed to minimise potential hang ups.
I’ve also used the colour tags and created a ‘0ms’ folder of plugins that I’m feeling quite smug about. 
(I’ve got 2x live vox plus gtr/bass/keys coming into the mixer and routed through Ableton… the Master mix of Ableton is going to FoH.)
Anyway, question… does having automation in tracks increase the strain (and possibilities for fk ups!?) on the cpu live? Should I be bouncing in place all tracks that have EQ/Pan/Vol automation??
4 recommended M4L devices for saving time
co-op looks and sounds neat for only $10
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It sure would be great if Ableton had sandboxing like Bigwig… 
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I have zero idea what that is.
Kind Regards,
Ableton user. 
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Hehe, it’s a new thing for me as well! 
So a plugin crash in bitwig will be isolated in it’s own ”sandbox”, but in Ableton, a plugin crash will crash the entire application
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Someone was telling me recently that Audio Units run in their own process (which is why Intel ones can run through Rosetta on M1) so in theory they can crash and not bring down Ableton. Not sure I’ve ever had a chance to observe this though.