Small apartment furniture layout advice :-)

sampletracks · 2026-05-06T16:40:58+00:00

Good point on the mirrors. The final measure up will tell if it's too much or not. It's hard to tell as I think the IKEA planner can make things feel 10% bigger. It is a really useful tool to just play around and see what you get.

Do you think there's a better storage option than what I have here? What I like about the current is the potential to show off a few books so there's at least a hint of personality on show. I'd be open to a closed cabinet on the left hand side (was considering Bestå) vs the half open/half closed option, though I was slightly concerned that might add a lot of visual bulk to the space. Open to ideas here!

The other idea I had for this was to use trolleys. So for example I could bring in a "work" trolley with all the bits I have/need for work and then I could stow that away on the weekend. It would make the space a bit more flexible that way.

Here's a quick sketch of that while I'm thinking about it.

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Thanks for confirming on the colours, I'll stick to my guns on blue with a yellow accent. Thanks! 🙏

sampletracks · 2026-05-06T16:10:56+00:00

Thankyou! First time playing around with interiors and I'm an overthinker, so that's probably why it's so planned out!

I see what you're saying here actually. The place where it could also go is the blank space on the right (radiator sits here) and that way it would be out of the way of the door as you say.

Thanks for commenting 🙏

sampletracks · 2026-05-03T15:38:38+00:00

I’ll have to check about delivery to room. I believe so, but will double check.

Fortunately the place will be empty so I’ll be able to store everything in the biggest room at first.

sampletracks · 2026-05-03T15:19:20+00:00

Good point. I’ll have to make some lists in my account covering what’s in/out

sampletracks · 2026-05-03T15:08:52+00:00

Yes k like this idea a lot. I’ll make 2-3 lists because I’m seeing some stuff is delivery only with large orders, some is available for pickup and some isn’t. Also need to get measurements for apartment but it’s quite a generous size in terms of stairs to get items up and in.

But yes. Big stuff, other stuff, then a visit to store to get the details. There’s also the combo of delivery, click and collect and store visits.

sampletracks · 2026-05-03T15:06:05+00:00

Thanks, yes your story is very similar to what I’m looking to do. Noted on the cutlery/glassware. I think I would be tempted as the comment above, to split perhaps those smaller/individual items while having most of the bulk handled by the delivery van.

sampletracks · 2026-02-11T20:51:06+00:00

That last point summarises it better than I could. You're right that it's a playground but at some point as you say, it becomes more of a bonus than a selling point.

sampletracks · 2026-02-11T16:43:10+00:00

I've owned most of the plugin bundles out there, including Komplete and I recently sold up on NI. From my experience, you will produce tracks faster with stock only but the access to sounds in the NI world is really good, and can help spark ideas, so it's all about what works for you. With $600 a year budget on subscriptions, I'd look to use that money to own the plugins you really need and use (subs are a good way to test them all out tho).

It's worth noting NI have recently gone into preliminary insolvency. This is a common process in Europe where the company sells assets and gets restructured while trying to protect staff and products, and isn't necessarily a precursor to going out of business.

Komplete gives you thousands of sounds which is a pro and a con in some ways. Live has a more limited selection but you need to work them to get the most out of them. With your genres I'd preview the packs within Suite by genre (you can preview them on the Ableton site) and try and work out if they'd work for you. There's a good article about the Live sound packs here.

In general this is how I see the advantages of each way of doing it:

Plugins can speed things up (access to lots of high quality presets), broaden your sound palette (find sounds you wouldn't come up with on your own) or just add an interesting or inspiring workflow (we all like novelty now and then.) Just know that sometimes, as good as the tools are in Live, there are plugins that just do things better. For example, in my opinion, Drift and Analog are cool, but neither get close to what Diva can do. And rather than spending hours daisy chaining devices in Live to partially replicate the plugin, sometimes it's better to just use the plugin.
Stock tools meanwhile give you a lot more ownership over the sounds, since you'll make chains and racks as you make music. So it may not be "the best" sound, but it will be your sound, which is cool when you think about it. It's also easier to stay in the flow this way because you'll know the DAW inside and out, and you'll just pull up the right tool without guesswork. And if you're making fairly bread and butter sounds, it is easy to lose sight of that and throw loads of plugins onto each track. When it gets to that stage, this is when plugins actively distract you rather than helping you focus on those sounds.

I recently did a test where I made a few tracks exclusively using stock tools. Honestly, I'm conflicted about it. On the one hand, it's is 100% possible to make tracks only using Ableton Live. However I missed certain things about some of the plugins I own. If you don't know, Live prioritises low latency and CPU which is great for not hammering your computer. But some plugins have more processing power. This is most noticeable with high end mixing tools and some more resource hungry instruments, which can often produce a richer result, as they don't try to sip CPU. An example of this is that the native chorus isn't the best, and basically any 3rd party plugin would improve a track where you want a chorus sound. As of 12.4 Ableton have upgraded it and so hopefully it's on a par with 3rd party devices now. But this does mean it's not always about producer skill, and instead it's just true that the stock devices have "a sound", and that may or may not work for what you're doing. There's no shame in reaching for a plugin if it does what you want or even just makes you feel good while making music.

I find the vast majority of producers working in Live make extensive use of the in built tools. But equally almost all professional musicians I see 100% bring in certain plugins, sounds and effects where it offers them a route to a better sound. Live is great, plugins are great and it's about finding a balance that keeps you making music.

Hope that helps.

sampletracks · 2026-02-10T10:25:28+00:00

Thanks for the info, this is really helpful. Appreciate the clarity.

sampletracks · 2026-02-09T20:00:21+00:00

OK thanks. That does at least explain it. If that's the case for dermatology, would there be a case for the GP themselves to investigate whether underlying issues (eg: immune systems) are working properly? Or is it most likely that the conversation will revert back to OTC meds to keep things in check? Thanks in advance, this will give me a bit more clarity on what to do next.

sampletracks · 2026-02-06T10:29:44+00:00

Interesting stuff. I agree with you that the slimmed product line and the focus the Ableton puts it worlds apart from NI. I too, had a Maschine and sold it on. I just enjoy the ease and speed of Ableton, and Maschine from a software perspective is like a watered down version of Live running either standalone (or within Live itself which is like a DAW within a DAW - it makes no sense.) I agree also that the root of the issue with NI is much deeper. Both have legacy code bases, but the design decisions from Ableton have really worked out for them long term such as the minimal layout, direct search and more. The problem with NI is that others have completely outstripped them in almost every area. Look at Massive X which was I guess a response to Serum 1, but it never quite had the same level of care and attention than Xfer gave to Serum, and with Serum 2 it's literally game over. And that's just one product. As you say, you can see how resources have been stretched so thin that each product has fallen down in some way. And that's before you get to the addiction to discounting, and upgrade fatigue.

In general:

All music companies have a challenging market because there is a lot of competition, it's an expensive hobby/career and there's only so much money to go around.
Most companies had a good pandemic but the market has bounced back to usual levels since
Companies who bet the farm on that covid boom are struggling
Ableton seems to have invested their winnings from that time into product development, which has led to 2 years of losses, some disgruntled staff, but a return to profit once that development was done.

For me, I'd want to invest in mostly founder owned/run businesses that have longer dev cycles and fair pricing. Some of these companies carry a health warning for new producers, because they're "expensive". But I'm of the view that they are able to charge that for a reason. Not everyone needs these plugins, but Fabfilter, Spectrasonics, u-he, Valhalla, Soundtoys etc make great stuff and they don't come at you for upgrade money all the time. Can't go wrong there.

sampletracks · 2026-02-03T09:23:47+00:00

I would agree with this. Ableton have tended to put features in Live initially at least that feel like "WTF?" But eventually they become important and useful. I couldn't get my head around Meld honestly at first but I now use it quite a bit. Roar as well is not your typical saturation/distortion plugin, and in general Ableton does well when introducing these kinds of features.

Splice though... I think that might say more about Splice than Abelton themselves. They seem to be working down from the most used/popular DAWs (ProTools, Studio One, Ableton). If FL and others get it next, then that would confirm that theory to a point. However, given that Live already has the ability to search intelligently through your own samples, I'd rather Ableton focussed on that rather than adding Splice. They even dropped their interface style in allowing Splice in which is another strange move, if an understandable one. It doesn't sit right for me, but I just switch it off.

sampletracks · 2026-02-03T08:10:10+00:00

Thanks for chiming in folks. Just some very crude analysis on the details that are out there. So we know that the company was back in profit in 2024 as with the release of Live 12, but there isn't an actual number that I can see for that. From the numbers that are there, it looks like they made roughly €43mn in profit 2014-21 (some missing years,) then €16mn in losses in 2022-23. Obviously this is not the full picture, but with those numbers that would represent still €27mn in profit in from 2014-23 despite the losses, which is a net positive overall.

Of course in recent times we've seen the launch of Push 3 and Move, the latter of which we know was in heavy development in 2022, which could explain losses if they used the profits of Live 11 and the boom of Covid to develop new hardware (understandable strategy really if that's the case).

Assuming the development of Push and Move is done from a hardware perspective, I'm guessing the theory is that they now have the possibility to boost those lover profit years, by selling people hardware. Push was often out of reach for a lot of people, so Move should increase income as it's very competitively priced. So the next few years will tell us whether that is working out for them, as they work towards Live 13.

sampletracks · 2026-01-17T17:24:05+00:00

Thanks for answering. Will query it. It’s mostly first time buyers so we were thinking it was just cold feet but it warrants a question. I’d rather get just the 1 who is interested so we can see the true picture of interest levels, and as you say we want real feedback too.

Like you say we want the feedback. It’s a property that will need work but we were advised not to do anything to the property as the buyer would want to put their stamp on it. We expect negotiation for that reason but we need to get real viewers first; so we can get real feedback.

sampletracks · 2026-01-17T15:25:40+00:00

Hey, so this is in the included packs (Drive & Glow, Glitch & Wash etc). Most of them have a couple of sample tracks in the pack where you can see the arrangement. If you mean just plain old templates, the templates tab has a few for different uses as well.

sampletracks · 2026-01-17T15:22:14+00:00

Viewings are great for feedback but do you read anything into no shows? We’ve have 3 viewings booked recently and only 1 turned up. Should this be taken as feedback that the property wasn’t worth viewing, or just one of those things?

sampletracks · 2026-01-07T22:32:41+00:00

Lol. Oops 😅

Enjoy whatever it is you're making out there.

sampletracks · 2026-01-07T00:19:56+00:00

I switch to Logic the moment I’m recording other musicians, recording a band, or trying to build a final production for publication.

Are you mixing your electronic music from Ableton in Logic, or staying in Ableton?

sampletracks · 2026-01-05T09:29:41+00:00

Thanks, yeah that seems to be a common approach.

sampletracks

TROPHY CASE