Ableton LIVE vs. Logic Pro

With a growing community of music recording technology, many artists are developing their own producing skills in the comfort of their own homes! Wanting to decide which digital audio workstation is suitable for your music abilities? Lets take a look at the advantages and disadvantage of Ableton and Logic to see which one fits best for optimal music creativity!

For hungry musicians such as myself, we are constantly wanting to create and produce new content. It’s like an infectious disease as music takes over our mind, body, and soul in a vicious way. It’s the way we, as artistic entities, express ourselves most optimally. When conversation and words are hard to express our inner emotions, the language of song and instrumentation expresses these notions in a much better way. With the advancement of technology over the years, musicians have been able create legendary music in the comfort of their own homes. With the sometimes stressful and nerve-inducing environment of recording studios, music artists have been able to create a similar environment of creativity through music software such as Ableton and Logic Pro without leaving their comfort zones. 

As a musician, I have use digital audio workstations throughout my artistic endeavors. I began my self-producing journey with Ableton in 2001. As attending an art middle school and high School in the California, GarageBand embedded in the Apple Mac Laptops provided me limitations with creating my own content. With the modern and updated induction of Ableton Live and Logic Pro, I find myself conflicted about which software to focus my creativity on. 

Knowing which music-producing software to buy can be overwhelming for many independent artists. From a standard perspective, once a musician decides on which digital audio workstation to use, they will most likely continue to purchase additional VST plugins as a form of soft synths and audio effects plugins to elevate their legendary musical creations. With the recent release of the digital audio workstation Bitwig Studio 4, music software implementations are known to push creative boundaries. Let’s take a look at the original and popular audio software implications, Ableton and Logic to see which one is more efficient for a musician’s optimal usage. 

 

Advantages of Ableton Live and Logic Pro

If you are a fan of EDM and varying techno implications, Ableton may be a sufficient workstation. According to Bassgorilla.com, many musicians who have used various platforms have stated Ableton Live as their favorite for arranging, composing, and sound design. Oftentimes, musicians would say that Ableton Live’s functionality is more productive as they become obsessed with their easy-to-use system. Additionally, musicians have moved to Ableton Live due to its integration of Launchpads and Push. Therefore, if techno is your creative musical calling, Ableton Live may be sufficient software for you! As more and more musicians switch to the music software of Ableton Live, the software creates a fluid and easier way of collaborating on various music projects with multiple artists. Additionally, it may be a great software to use as it avoids a few data conversions. 

Many musicians that use Logic Pro have expressed their extreme love for the music app as it gives them a sense of openness and musical clarity. Additionally, musicians embrace the quality of the audio engine along with having the best built-in plugins of any music audio workstation. With superb Compressors, EQs, and ES2 makes this music app is also good for EDM creators. Logic also embodies very powerful synths and Ultra beat. Logic is also known for having a better algorithm centering around summing, rendering, and mixing. In terms of mastering, many music professionals have expressed their love for Logic in terms of client mixing. Many professionals proclaim their love for Logic over Ableton as Logic is faster for mixing purposes, and has better automation functions, along with their admiration of the plug-in sounds. Logic has also been known to be better regarding transport and score. Applying midi functions to transform tempo changes and other functions is easier, as well as having more control in the type of data the creator wants to use. 

 

Disadvantages of Ableton Live and Logic Pro

Regarding Ableton Live in terms of disadvantages, many musicians believe that Ableton’s audio playback engine could present itself to be quite poor compared to Logic. Logic has been proven to be easier to mix for this particular reason. Musicians have also complained of problems with Ableton in terms of quality in exporting loops, as the sound presents a muffled or “closed in” effect, not resembling the sound and quality of the original loops. Regarding the topic of looping, loop manipulation has been known to have awesome implications, however, musicians have complained about missing MIDI editing implications such as smooth automation curves. 

Logic Pro presents many disadvantages. The main negative aspect centers around the timing and speed of completing tasks of music projects. Musicians have complained over the years, that Logic isn’t as intuitive or easy to us as Ableton Live. What takes 3-5 minutes on Ableton Live, takes 16-20 minutes on Logic.  Logic also only truly works well on a Mac computer.

 

So, both digital audio workstations present great advantages and disadvantages. No matter the research and dissecting of pros and cons for both Ableton and Logic, it is important that the artist develops their own opinion based on experience to truly decide what works best to fulfill their desires and needs. Overall, both workstations show great improvement in how music artists utilize their talents!

Picture: Shutterstock / 1963718113


Learn more about creating music at home.

6 Tips to Developing a Musical Style


 

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