Help! Live Lite

[Zothar]

OK, so I did some research and determined that the Line 6 Tone Port Pro is what I needed. I am a bass player/keys and am trying to record some song ideas to send to my drummer and guitarist to work on stuff. So I have Live Lite (which reminds me of my first Fender P-Bass Lyte, but whatever), and I am beginning to explore the wonderful world of digital recording. I need to records a drum track, which I thought I could do in Live Lite, but it seems difficult. I tried importing a live Bass/Drum groove to loop, via a wave file, but when I put it in as a track, I can't see the waves to cut it up.

Anyway:
1) Am I stuck using my drum machine (yech) via a line in?
2) Should I upgrade to Ableton 5.2 to be able to do it?
3) If I am going to shell out those bucks for an upgrade should I consider another program (I am planning on EVENTUALLY working on entire songs, so I might need it in the future and want to pick wisely)
4) Is there a good, computer based drum program which uses samples, from which I can import into Live Lite?

I appreciate it, it seems the company's sales staff is less than helpful when I call, probably because I'm a newbie. Thanks for any help!

[jamesp]

Drums can be recorded and wavs can be edited (after a fashion) in Live Lite. You could always download the full 5.2 demo to see, but it sounds to me like you need to go thru all of the tutorials first.

edit to correct version# and to add:

1. Oops, sorry. No.
2. No. Or at least not yet.
3. Yes. Explore the whirled of options.
4. Yes

[triton76]

I have Live lite and I can record a MIDI drum loop and play it back with their Impulse program. my problem is the timing is all screwy because of latency. (Can you step record?)
Try recording midi and using the instruments provided. Simpler for bass and Impulse for Drums.
Do you have a midi keyboard connected to enter the notes?
You can enter drum notes from the computer keyboard.

[casper2]

Zothar,
I think to make things easier for you it would be best to set up your system where the drums and other instruments besides bass and vocals are run from the PC. What this means is you will trigger virtual software instruments (VSTi) like drums, synths, samplers... on the PC. To trigger this you need some kind of MIDIi keyboard or controler with velocity and if you can get it, after touch. You also need a MIDI interface to the PC. The only reason I mention the keyboard and midi interface is it is a real struggle to get results with out it under any digital audio recording situation. Getting the keyboard or controller used will save you $$. To connect the MIDI keyboard you also, need a MIDI interface adaptor either connected to the joystick port on the sound card or via USB port. These two items alone will give you added flexibility no matter which audio recording program you are using and make more use of all the features of your recording program. You can also download a multitude of VSTi's from www.kvraudio.com or other sites for free and integrate them into your audio recording program.

I havent tried it but, there is a freeware multitrack editor called "Reaper" at http://www.reaper.fm/. It looks pretty functional. If you are looking at purchasing other audio recording programs check out Tracktion 2 from Mackie. They have a demo online. The program can be had for $150 US. The Mackie audio interfaces already come bundled with Tracktion2. The program is easy to use and it can be installed on a PC or Mac. The good thing is it comes with some of the things you were mentioning like drums. It also, comes loaded with effects, synths, amp modeler, sampler, Mastering suite... The one feature that most attracted me was that all he functions were available from the main screen. You don't have to dig into a lot of menus to find stuff. Plugins work well and it should complement your Live setup.

Like it was stated in the other posts you should demo a few different programs to see what works for you. Just pay attention to the minimum hardware requirements to make sure your system can handle it.
Best Wishes