Little bit background. Ableton Live was my first DAW. Three or four years ago I moved to Cubase because I wanted to have MPE. Change was refreshing. I got new inspiration. Felt my music got better. Mainly because of all chord and scale assistant functions. I missed few things from Live but tried to make it work in Cubase. But after initial inspiration boost it wasn’t that motivating. Didn’t want to have two DAWs. I kept using Cubase because it had some functionality I really liked.
After setting proper studio space and learning joys of hands on control problems of Cubase became more and more obvious. I started to think what I could do if I used Live instead. There were more reasons than just MPE why I changed the DAW. Latest version of Live has fixed those. Cubase still has some advantages over Live but Live has now more advantages over Cubase. At least on how I use DAW and what I want from it.
Cubase is really bad with external gear. New studio setup is mostly external gear and few software synths. Cubase’s midi remote has helped with midi controllers but it isn’t anywhere near what Push can do. There is reason why midi keyboard demos show DAW connectivity with Live. Live’s interface allows controllers do much more than Cubase’s. Cubase’s DAW controls have been limited to quite basic functions. Midi remote helps with that but it still isn’t as good as Live’s.
Cubase lacks even some basic functionality when you want to control external synths. They have broken device panel system and you can’t rename CC controls. If you want to control hardware synths, best option is to buy plugin that controls the synth. Then you have to hope makers of plugins update plugins when synths get firmware updates. I had to leave synths from setup because there wasn’t controller plugins for them. Live has Max4Live. You get free Max4Live devices. You can make easily your own controller if there isn’t one available. You don’t have buy plugin controllers for your synths.
I don’t uninstall Cubase. It is still better if you want to make music for videos. It is better if you want to have lot of tracks. My music don’t have many tracks. I want to set tracks quickly. Live is better for that. In Cubase you have to spend lot of time to create templates you can use when you want to do something. After you have set the templates it is quicker but only if you do things those templates are made for. Live is better for quickly trying different ideas. Most importantly Live has Push which minimizes need of mouse and watching the screen.
Now it is time to learn to use Live again and set it up the way I wanted. I wasn’t thinking about the change but Live had Black Friday sale and so did Udemy. Udemy had Live tutorials. Couldn’t find similar tutorials for Cubase. Situation was almost like when I made change from Corel Painter to Clip Studio Paint. One program had online courses and one didn’t. Cubase’s situation isn’t as bad as Painters. Cubase has tutorials online. You can find how to do everything after you learn Cubase has that feature. Or you can follow few Youtube channels to learn about the features. Painter basically didn’t have anything like that. But it is better to have online course which teaches you everything- Music theory courses I have bought use Ableton Live. I bought them when I wasn’t planning to get back to Live. They aren’t Live specific but it is better if you use same software.