livefr0g

I spent countless hours reading the manual, reverse engineering presets and making my own sounds from init. From using Massive I learned all the basics of subtractive synthesis, got more curious about FM, and started figuring out what the f*ck wavetables are and how they work (try making some simple PPG/Waldorf-type sounds as an exercise, it's fun ;)

What else is there to say? Serum is king. It's squeaky clean. Filters are f*cking great. The Hyper-Dimension and Distortion FX are great, although I sort of hate the reverb ... it sounds really metallic to me. Maybe I haven't figured out how to use it best yet. I still use Massive for my sub and 808 patches because I love that sin/square table, but I use Serum for most other stuff now. I could spend countless hours resampling sh*t and making new wavetables.

I rarely use FM8 on its own. However, I love to experiment with modulating and automating with my DAW (instead of using the envelopes) lots of little things to get those dirty digital growls. Then I'll process and resample, throw it into Serum and make a wavetable.

I mainly use Ableton's built-in reverb on individual sounds, but I use VintageVerb on a return as a sort of "glue" verb that I route tons of stuff to, saturate & filter and then sidechain compress the living sh*t out of. The algorithms all have very distinct sounds and the GUI is so rad.

But they sound warm and delicious. I use these a lot for the writing and composition phase of things, and when I don't give a f*ck who sees me using them.

Excellent bass, extending way down past the audible spectrum. I trust these to hear what's happening with my sub bass. Crisp high end. Fairly flat and revealing. I can't live without these.

Former Logic user. Made the jump to Ableton 2 years ago and haven't looked back. I own the Standard version and coupled with a few choice soft synths, it's everything I need and more. The built-in FX are fan-fucking-tastic once you master what they're capable of (especially Saturator, the Glue, EQ8, the reverb and Simple Delay) and put together a template and some racks and defaults you use frequently. Learning curve is a bit steep, but that's part of Live's charm and I wouldn't trade that for anything ... it's made me a better musician, producer and engineer. Workflow is ace.