

You could quickly switch the software around completely both in the studio and on stage.

It was a hands-on approach that immediately won over producers who needed a DAW to perform live. Needless to say, the design caught on quickly in the electronic world. The Arrange view holds a much more traditional horizontal timeline, allowing you to put together arrangements from all the midi clips. You have a mixer and a grid-based representation of all audio clips, quickly being able to switch between different samples and loops. The first is Session view, the main portion of the live instrument setting. Mainly, this came in the form of two main views the DAW could take on. It was a studio tool, sure, but it was the first DAW to take the power from the studio and apply it in a live setting. It came on the scene much later than the most popular DAWs today but rose to popularity due to a unique approach. Live first arrived in 2001, the first product from the Belgian developer, Ableton. However, it quickly evolved into a complete digital audio workstation, fit with MIDI sequencing and VST hosting (VST plugins). Initially, it was a simple loop arrangement tool, meant to combine elements and create loops from them. The important thing to know is that it’s a performance-based software, meaning it shines the most when put into a live situation. However, FL Studio includes far more in the initial package, and at a lower price point.Ībletone, or Ableton Live as it’s officially known, is a performance-based DAW that allows complex sequencing and sampling in real-time. Both serve their purpose well, but knowing which is right for you comes down with to what you intend to do.īottom Line Up Front Summary: Ableton is far better suited for a live setting, with the Session view offering a look at the DAW that no other piece of software matches. We’ll run down a bit of the backstory and basic features of both FL Studio and Ableton, as well as the pros and cons of each. While on the surface these pieces of software seem quite similar, the purposes each serve it quite differently. Of course, some amount of circumstance plays into the best choice for you. We took each of the DAWs for a test run to see which is the better choice. Two such pieces are Ableton and FL Studio, DAWs that have firmly cemented themselves as the top choices for electronic producers. Partly due to more producers moving towards the genre, and partly due to the availability of inexpensive software. Electronic music has seen quite a rise in recent years.
