Ableton equipment

I don't think you need a device for creating beats, I always do everything in my sequencer. And i think creating beats with a pad aren't easy, it depends on what music you make offcourse.. Actually nothing of hardware is really necessairy but it does come in quite handy i think. Good luck with it ( ableton rules!! )

So how do you create your beats in your sequencers? have you bought some additional plug-ins or vst's?

the padkontrol doesnt have any sounds itself hé. you use it to trigger samples or synths in ableton. if it s useful depends on your drumming skills. my drummer friend is pro with pads but i m still trying to make good use of my m-audio triggerfinger.

btw, a keyboard works as well for programming beats. and there s keyboards that have pads too, like the akai one, so you get everything together.

De Padkontrol comes with software with sounds ;)

You don't need hardware and you certainly don't need ableton to improve your sound when you're working in cubase. What you need is a decent bunch of good vst's & vsti's.  There are some good ones for free but offcourse the best ones aren't for free.  But as for vst's, you can download tons of good eq's, compressors, delays, reverbs for free.  You can make good sounds using those.  So watch out before you go spending lots of €.  And if you go for hardware, go for a good soundcard, good monitors and indeed a midicontroller.

Im a Reason user and personaly i write all my beats as a partition, i go to the sequencer of the device and write it all, and i guess you can do the same in cubase, or at least with reason and rewire in cubase im sure you can do it...

Originally posted by : aphone

Im a Reason user and personaly i write all my beats as a partition, i go to the sequencer of the device and write it all.

yup, i do the same, but then in ableton with reason rewired to it. about making beats, i have almost 50 Gb of reason refills and to be honest, till now i still used the standard reason soundbank the most. imho the ableton instruments suck a bit. so if you wanna make good sound, you'll probably need vst's or rewire programs like reason (which is a self containing software, which means that u don't need vst's to make sound, unlike cubase or protools).

about controllers for ableton, i recommend a simple 61-key midi-keyboard and a midi-controller with MANY knobs (for example the behringer bcr2000). and you use your pc-keyboard to trigger samples, so you don't need a midi-controller with many buttons (i never use the buttons of my bcr2000 to trigger samples in ableton).

C'mon guys! You're giving the impression that the only way to make beats is reason or something with reason rewired!! far from the truth! You just need OR samples OR vsti's OR some other plugin (like the reasonplugins) to make beats. Just put the sounds/samples in the right rythmic order and put the right efx on them! It doesn't matter where you do this! Reason, cubase, protools, FL, sonar, ... anything goes! And as for quality: it's all in the mix ;)

sure you can make music with anything, but some things work better for someone than others. i for one couldn't cope with cubase and love to work with ableton. that s a personal matter. btw, maxime also mentioned live playing abilities as being an argument. can't deny that ableton beats the crap out of cubase in that respect hé.

about ableton's instruments, it comes with 2 samplers. 'impulse' which is most commonly used as a drum sampler similar to battery and 'simpler' which is a simple but effective traditional sampler (off course ableton itself is one big loop/phrase sampler that doesn't need a plugin to play 'm). there are indeed no other instrument plugs provided so if you need synths n stuff you ll need to get m elsewhere, unless you buy the the paying 'operator' (and 'sampler') plugin with ableton.

there s a whole range of fx plugs included though. i find them quite good. the only external plug that i use a lot is camelcrusher (and kontakt which i need for a sample library of mine).

Originally posted by : bandarlog

C'mon guys! You're giving the impression that the only way to make beats is reason or something with reason rewired!! far from the truth! You just need OR samples OR vsti's OR some other plugin (like the reasonplugins) to make beats. Just put the sounds/samples in the right rythmic order and put the right efx on them! It doesn't matter where you do this! Reason, cubase, protools, FL, sonar, ... anything goes! And as for quality: it's all in the mix ;)

so right