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[violgamba]

tldr - Thinking about buying a DAW.  When considered as a support for tracker work, are there any particular advantages to Ableton or FL Studio?

I'm an OpenMPT user with an interest in writing mod music for video games where I can toggle tracks for different moods.  I'm also a musician and have used Audacity for live recording for a while.  I'm considering getting either Ableton or FL Studio.  I'm wondering if either one provides superior support for tracker work in any way.  This would primarily be in regards to making new samples and instruments.

FYI, I'm interested in Ableton's time stretching and looping, but I've read that FL Studio has good sample editing.  Better than Ableton's?  Both have midi support with a piano roll.

Any insight into advantages of one over the other for tracker composing would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks!

[looper231]

Working on a DAW and a tracker are incomparable IMO. DAWs have a lot more to offer than any tracker out there (with the exception of Renoise of course).

I am an FL user who tried Ableton at some point and got lost in its UI. I think that both can do their work properly, it's just a matter of taste. You should get a demo version of both Ableton and FL to have a feel of their UI first and see which one is the most comfortable and then make a decision

[violgamba]

>> Working on a DAW and a tracker are incomparable IMO.

Right, thanks for your insight.  I'm specifically interested in how a DAW can help support working with a tracker.  It seems like it'd help with creating samples and instruments.  Perhaps it could help in less obvious ways?

Anyway, as a support for tracker work, my question is whether one DAW would be superior to another, specifically Ableton and FL Studio.  Also, if one is superior, then why?

[looper231]

Besides making samples, there isn't much it can do. Sorry for not understanding the question entirely.

I've never had a chance to use Ableton properly, due to reasons mentioned above, but I can attest that FL Studio's sampler is really good.

[violgamba]

Cool!  This is informative, thanks!

One last thing.  Your prior comment made it sound like sampling in FL Studio is more than just "record from microphone to file".  What are one or two ways that you find sampling with FL Studio really good, if you don't mind?

[looper231]

You can consolidate a track into a .wav. put a note into the playback, then consolidate it and then upload it into the sampler and then edit it to your liking

[violgamba]

Huh, ok.  So flexibility in manipulating the data.  That's nice.

[TalkOrBell]

Pardon my butting in but if you are an OpenMPT user why would you wanna break out cash to learn either of those big pigs ableton or FL? Surely there is a VSTi-VST solution to whatever you are trying to achieve that would work in OpenMPT I assume as I don't use OpenMPT (can't stand it) but others like it...

You soon would be trying to learn new garbage & probably get lost & not do anything with it... I tried ableton a number of times in the past not a good fit & most everything I was hearing from others sounded like they were using the stretching & other feature to obtain a 'happy accident', then loop that & apply tons of mind-numbing FX & call it music...

Or are you looking to stretch loops for backing tracks? Many ways to obtain such... Recently I wanted to do that in Skale Tracker as Skale sounds great with HiQ AKAI instruments (as good or better than renoise XRNI) So I thought acrobatics EGO Pad would be great but Skale won't run it so I ran it through the old Phrazor beta matching BPMs (Skale has no plugin tempo sync)... So then combined that with a power chord AKAI & simply drawing 3 different track FX in the track editor produced-

https://alonetone.com/TalkOrBell/tracks/skale-akai-phrazor-egopad

Probably not what you are looking for but most would not think what I did was possible in Skale I'm SURE there's much that can be done inside OpenMPT to boggle the mind...

[violgamba]

Hi @talkorbell.  If I was exclusively into making electronic music, then you are right: Ableton or Fl Studio is probably overkill.  Renoise: maybe.  However, I'm also an analog musician and do a fair bit of analog recording.  I have been chafing at the limits of Audacity for a while, and am trying to choose a DAW that best supports my various interests.  Making mod music is definitely an interest, thus this thread.  I figured it would be best to ask in case there was something I was overlooking.