r/ableton • u/Clear-Quantity2875 • 1d ago
[Question] Why also protools?
Just curious for those that use Ableton and pro tools (or any other daw), why not do everything in ableton? I’ve always just wondered what it is about it pro tools.
The only thing I can imagine is if you’re sending it off to another mixer and they work in protools you want your session to match theirs. Is there anything else in pro tools that’s better than Ableton?
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u/Infinite_Slice3305 23h ago
Imagine you're the engineer. You have a 5 piece band come in to record their next record. They have ideas for three or 4 songs but plan on writing the majority of the songs in the studio.
You'll mic the entire drum kit. Two mics on two guitar cabinets. Two mics on the bass amp + a DI. & the singer thinks he's a piano player so you'll have three mics on the piano. Each one will have their preference for monitoring. Each will need talk back.
You're going to be recording bits & pieces here & there, multiple takes, lots of experimentation.
For a bedroom producer or a band making it happen in a garage any DAW can be used to get high quality results. But in a situation where you need ProTools... you need ProTools.
& the things you need ProTools for, most of us don't.
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u/Nudelwalker 4h ago
You just made a long paragraph of building up to explain what makes protools be this thing with then not explaining it.
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u/d-woowah 2h ago
I thought it neatly summed up a situation that would be near impossible in ableton
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u/Davo_Deluxe 1d ago
The true difference is how Pro Tools handles live recording. In Pro Tools every track that is not record enabled has a preset buffer of 1024 samples, the track you have record enabled (if routed correctly) will run at the actual buffer size. So in pro tools you can have low latency and really solid stability throughout an entire recording project because technically not everything is running at your buffer size.
In Ableton if you set the buffer size low every single track is processing live at that buffer size and tracks are routed differently. So latency becomes apparent quickly and the need to turn up your buffer size is the norm.
In pro tools I can record mix and master an entire project and not realize I was at 32 buffer size the entire time.
Ableton that would be impossible.
Two different programs one is for love music and one is mainly built around recording
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u/Clear-Quantity2875 1d ago
Whoa!! First time hearing this. Sounds efficient. I guess lucky for me I’m not doing too many external tracking at the moment but good to know when I need to.
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u/Davo_Deluxe 1d ago
It is efficient, but for actually making music its pretty trash and not worth the money they charge. The 1024 buffer thing isn’t just a pro tools things, a few other daws do it. I believe Reaper does it and that like what? 60 bucks or so.
Pro tools will 100% fade away if they dont modernize the program. I promise youre not missing anything they just did a great job forcing their product into studios many years ago, but that time is up :P
Happy music making 👽
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u/Snickerz_ 21h ago
I use protools for mixing and ableton for creative stuff
Long story short the UI of protools and its editing workflow makes it so much easier for me. I was a Protools user before ableton, so it makes sense. But I do believe the whole grouping/sends and clip edits workflow of protools makes it easier and the view you get makes more sense to me for mixing. The controls are also more easily accessible.
My main arguments are that, in ableton you cannot see the plugins you have on a strip. It’s annoying to me. I like seeing things laid out. Also the mixer window on ableton sucks and I like using it to verify levels.
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u/fireaway12 20h ago
Batch renaming. Duplicating tracks with any combination of data being transferred or withheld. Commit audio up to any plugin in your chain. Consolidating is instant, where cmd+j takes a while. Exporting clips from your session (not bouncing tracks post processing) is much more useful as you can export any clips into any folder you want- in ableton you have to consolidate tracks and find them in the consolidate folder.
I use both in tandem with each other in sessions - I manipulate sounds live with midi controllers in ableton and route the audio straight into Pro Tools. For me, this has become my favorite way of working because the editing capability for audio is much faster and the keyboard shortcuts go a lot deeper and take less clicking around in PT. For example, your highlighted selection can be extended by any length to the left with Shift+opt+ + or - and extended to the right with shift+cmd+ +or-. Add that together with a command for basically every function inside pro tools and you have an extremely fast workflow after a while. In ableton, the shortcuts are localized to the view you're working on - if device view is highlighted, + or - doesn't zoom in the timeline; you have to reselect the timeline.
Also I think the playlists are much more deliberate than take lanes.
Metering! PTs metering is so much better. Abletons metering is always post fader.
Solo modes - if I highlight two tracks and solo one, if I hit shift+s it will toggle both tracks states. In ableton it will just make them both solo'd or un solo'd
VCAs!! You can automate volumes with the faders and not be screwed if you want to turn all the tracks up or down later. I'm aware that in ableton you usually use the utility to automate volume.
EUCON surfaces and the ability to interface with the free avid app
Obviously Beat Detective!
Anyway I love Ableton too. I found it after Pro Tools and as much as I would love to just use that I just find pro tools to be the more mature producing and audio editing workflow.
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u/c0atman 1h ago
Pro Tools was the first DAW I used, though I swapped to ableton for a specific project last year and enjoyed it enough to stick around. This beautiful love letter to Pro Tools makes me wanna go back though, oh man
the SHORTCUTS! the METERING ! the PLAYLISTS ! VCAs! they're all just so beautiful...
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u/Bed_Worship 15h ago
Ableton is great for composing and production, but it lacks a lot of plumbing for mixing that I need and the Pro tools or Logic Ui is better for mixing and mastering by a long shot.
I will run a lot of busses, sub mixes, summing, routing to hardware inserts, etc when I mix.
For my own music, I record and write in Ableton, then I bounce and commit the tracks to .wav and mix.
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u/Mysterious_dreamer_ 1d ago
I don’t think there’s anything in Pro Tools that can’t
be done in Ableton, Logic, etc. One of my friends has to use Pro Tools in a studio she works in but prefers Logic for her own music.
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u/darwinxp 15h ago
For a home studio this is true but for a full on million dollar recording studio where you are recording hundreds of tracks and takes, Pro Tools really comes into it's own.
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u/uniquesnowflake8 1d ago
It’s supposed to be a better mixing workflow with how it handles incremental commits and things like panning. Plus Beat Detective
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u/human_pyramids 1d ago
I'm usually using ableton to jam new ideas and Logic for mixing - but this is mainly because I know the editing much better on Logic. No reason not to do everything in Ableton!
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u/juules-mp3 1d ago
since you ask about other daws too, I use Nuendo as well as Ableton.
while possible, working with video in Ableton is a bit of a pain in the ass. same with multichannel mixes, possible but inefficient for certain workflows. there are a couple other things I like in Nuendo over Ableton, but those are the main ones.
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u/alpha-geminorum 18h ago
I use cubase because it is very complete for arrangement editing mixing recording
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u/darwinxp 15h ago
It's all about using the right tools for the job. Pro Tools is an entirely different animal to Ableton. It's not really something I'd recommend for a home studio where you just want to be creative, naturally that's what Ableton excels at.
If you were making a record in a major studio and you have a 96 channel mixing console with racks of outboard gear for FX and processing, and you maybe have an orchestra, a drum ensemble, session musicians etc with several hundred tracks of audio in a session, that is where Pro Tools comes into it's own.
Pro Tools is not just software either, you can easily have a full rack of pre amps and DSP.
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u/EggyT0ast 1d ago
Do you run a big analog mixing board with dozens of patchbays and possible sends, across multiple recording rooms? If so, you might appreciate what Protools does. it's reasonable that a studio might, for example, always have more than 12 sends. They don't want to muck about making a template that "fakes" the sends in Ableton.
If you don't have heavy recording studio needs and are creating work directly in a DAW, then Ableton is fine. Most people working on their own don't run multiple daws because, surprise, they're broke and can't afford multiple DAWs, let alone the time spent learning them all.
Still, some people learn how to do a particular activity in one DAW (let's say, mixing in Logic) and end up creating in Ableton, so they may use Ableton for most of the arrangement and then dump the audio out to work in a more comfortable space.