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Comment by breakfastduck | Hacker News Reader

They did it. They finally added comping.

I would be buying the upgrade if that was the only feature but there's so many!

Seriously. That alone has been one of the big things keeping me firmly in Logic Pro's camp.

I'm also glad they're starting to add more instruments to the default package (notably, finally; a proper 'Upright Piano') - as the value proposition of Ableton Standard at $400 vs Logic Pro at $200 has been extremely one-sided in Logic's favour for many, many years now.

I do understand, of course; I'm strictly speaking as a Mac user. I honestly have no idea about the DAW landscape for PC's. I am extremely reliant on exporting songs from GarageBand on my iPhone as I create beats on the go quite often - and opening those .garageband files in Logic Pro to seriously hone in on the sounds, keeping the original instruments and MIDI intact. It's an irreplaceable ecosystem for me.

It looks like a good update, but I'm starting to give up hope on seeing ARA2 as a feature... :-(

Something that wasn't a problem for $200 Logic Pro or even $60 Reaper (with their two-person dev team).

What is ARA2?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_Random_Access

Following on from the link of the other poster, the Random Access part allows plugins like Melodyne to "see" all the audio data that's on the track all at once, without you having to transfer it inside the plugin manually. You just start working with it seamlessly in an edit window. It's a neat idea.

I am consistently pleasantly surprised by the way Apple consistently updates Logic with only more and more layers of impressive features. ARA2 support was fantastic - so was their buyout of Camel's Alchemy.

Alchemy alone added a ton of value to Logic, and it came as a .x upgrade. Fantastic.

EDIT: One of the only selling points of an iPad I can think of is using it on a stand with Logic Remote as an actual digital mixing window. The experience is unparalleled.

Hard to compare price, Logic is crazy underpriced because it’s existence brings in so many Mac users. It undercuts other daws by a mile because of that.

However, what you get with ableton live suite is well worth the money. It’s good value.

But I’d still always run any DAW on a Mac. No audio drivers on windows beat CoreAudio on macOS.

> No audio drivers on windows beat CoreAudio on macOS.

It's true that generally speaking CoreAudio drivers are better, but then you have RME drivers on Windows which are just as rock solid.

Speaking of instruments, after purchasing the Native Instruments Kontakt piano plugins: The Giant, The Maverick, The Grandeur, The Gentleman and Una Corda - I can never go back to the instruments provided with the DAW. The NI instruments mentioned above are just so head and shoulder above the rest, imo.

My favorite is The Giant using either the "emotional" or "intimate" preset. Feel free to tweak those presets if you want, but good luck sounding better, it's already amazing.

The Giant emotional preset is fantastic.

Really is miles ahead of any piano sounds included in any DAW I’ve tried.

I agree. The Giant is messed up. So phenomenal. :)

For someone like me who uses Logic, is there a reason to use Ableton? Logic is only one $200 lifetime fee

I’ve used both for many years and enjoy both. They’re largely equivalent in function, but they have very different feels. Ableton is more “hands on” and almost modeless. It assumes that you’re always manipulating and reworking things. Logic is more structured and “modeful”. Examples: Ableton defaults to time-stretching and transient slicing for audio; you have to turn it on in Logic. Ableton’s always in what Logic calls “marquee” mode, so you can grab pieces of audio and move them around. Ableton always shows you all the controls of all the (built-in) plugins; Logic makes you open them one by one. Routing in Ableton is dynamic; Logic has fixed “busses” you have to allocate manually.

Other than style, one killer difference is that Ableton has Push hardware, which is really an extension of the UI into physical reality. It’s a fantastic control surface that has no equivalent in Logic-world.

And of course, with all those features you can create amazing live setups with Ableton—thus the name “Live”! Logic’s comfort zone is very much as a studio tool.

Edit: I forgot to mention the higher versions of Live come with Max for Live, which is an amazing construction set for making audio/MIDI software. No Logic equivalent for that.

I converted to Ableton from Logic (pre logic x) a long time ago, but I still use logic sometimes.

There’s lots of small differences, and obviously you can make any type of music successfully on either, but generally my advice would be:

If you prefer recording traditional instruments & band tracks stay with logic,

If you prefer experimenting with sound design & electronic music in general, try ableton out. Also if you’re a programmer because you’ll enjoy max for live and the max MSP ecosystem.

Seems right. Although I chose Ableton because it's cross platform even if I do guitar primarily.

But then you would have to use Mac, which breaks third party plugins every 1 year or so. Most the stuff I invested in when I got started hasn't worked since Lion. All other things that survived were dead with Catalina. Windows you can install stuff from 2003 and run no issue. Work on ARM lol. Most DAWS don't even support 4k monitors. Reason, MPC, Maschine. Not to mention the countless popular plugins that are the size of rain drop on the screen (Ominisphere)

I dunno if there is one. I get a lot of work done in logic.

I ended up with an octatrack for doing what a lot of folks are using live for, tho, and that's been super fun for me.

You can stop using Apple hardware for no additional software cost if you use Ableton.

True but Apple makes it so cheap because they get their money back on hardware.

To me, Ableton is as much a performance tool as it is a production tool. I used to limit myself to production, then I bought a Push controller and it completely changed my workflow.

What is "comping"?

Multiple takes intermixed on a single track. https://www.ableton.com/en/live/#comping

Recording different takes, and then piece different parts of those takes and create one final "perfect" take.

It's short for "composite" recording. As in, mixing several takes together to form a single one with the best bits of all of them.

Strictly speaking you can already do this using multiple tracks, but having a dedicated workflow will make it much easier.

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