Meld: Ableton Live 12's most advanced synth?

Ableton Live 12 has a new synth called Meld. Is it any good? In this video I explore it with you, and in the process discover I actually vastly prefer Ableton's other synth: Drift 😂 But Meld is pretty cool too, especially for deeper sound design and weird leftfield stuff. Check it out!

Contents:
0:00 Meld 12 review
0:19 What's important to me?
1:16 Meld's oscillators are pretty wild
6:56 How to make a simple synth patch
8:33 The presets are frustrating
10:09 Can't get no instant gratification
12:36 I discover I actually love Drift
14:08 In conclusion, what's my advice?

[DaddaPsy]

They should include Instrument Racks with Meld inside of it to REALLY show what it can do.

[xlat]

It's really easy to slap a reverb and chorus after a synthesizer, but if your synth has reverb built in, no post processing will take it off. When you want a sound that sits in the mix, you don't want all those effects on it. It's often better done on a master bus where you can have some consistency.

I love your channel. Thank you so much!❤

[DOOG.mp]

Im a dubstep music producer and I cant begin to tell you how much Underdog has helped me. That say A LOT when techno seems to be the main genre on this channel. Thank you for being articulate and sharing your knowledge. Truly Priceless.

[Lqueen]

As a sound designer I am happy with wavetable. It's my main synth today. I'm really looking foward using Drift and Meld

[mrstarforge]

What I've learned since I've started fiddling around in Live, it's all about creating racks and building your own 'synth' with effects, it is a hard-to-learn DAW, but so damn powerful

UPD: Well yeah, Ableton team also created series of racks with Meld, which sound cool! Macros included too, for random and endless-ish possibilities :)

[billpayer]

I've always loved my UHE synths, with DIVA being an obvious stand out. But with DIVA I've always struggled to get it sitting in the mix properly.

With the native Ableton synths though, they might not sound quite as good in isolation, but they always sit in the mix really well.

[DoctorSoctopus]

on the one hand, I love meditating with my synths! on the other hand, that is the number one reason I end up not producing a track when I'm in the studio. oh well

[maykit]

I haven't "felt" Meld, but i also haven't felt Operator some 10- years and now it is my favourite soft synth. It doesn't sound special by itself at all, it's just so useful and convinient.

[turbochargedfilms]

11:59 "to me it feels like Wavetable++" well, except for the... yknow... wavetable... cant import any custom wavetables into Meld, and the oscillator types really do end up being more like full-on synthesis engines. It honestly reminds me more of Plaits.

[Hoihaufen]

I am so thankful for your channel. Now that I ordered the new Digitakt and need to make use of Ableton to produce my own stereo samples :D
The Elektron workflow is just amazing and it became even better with the Digitakt II. There are endless new possibilities and there is finally enough space on it!
Playing on it is so convenient that it gives you tons of new inspiration! As soon as I have created enough patterns I will come back to Ableton to polish and finally release songs :)
I spend the whole night in Ableton just sampling and putting effect chains on them. The sounds truly came alive but I needed my time with all those tiny buttons to click...
Ableton can do it all but the workflow on a Elektron machine is just superior and so much more fun! Keep up the good work, I can make good use of that right now! ♥

[marcosrotllan]

Meld/ drift and roar made live almost autonomous

[lecabinethermetique]

I totally agree with what you say about Ableton's default presets. And it happens not only with Wavetable, but it has always been the case with other instruments (Operator, Analog...). They all sound absolutely horrible. It's really frustrating, I think they should either include effects directly in the preset or remove the presets from the instrument and be able to choose options from Instrument Rack.

[hotsoupmouth]

Haha love the ending. Drift is so good as a basic workhorse.

[moodlesmodular]

Drift is great! Ive been using it a lot lately, especially for bass sounds.

I need to play with Meld more. One sound design question I'd like to see you explore is how to approach having two engines in Meld. What does a sound designer consider when combining two voices to make a single patch?

[johnsexton]

The best thing for me in Live 12, is screen reader support. Imagine trying to use a DAW without a mouse or display, now Live has screen reader support you can.

[budsticky]

Please tell me the thing behind you with the rectangles is an Ableton midi clip on your wall.

[remyvegamedia]

I'm hyped for the possibilities of Meld... but Drift is my favorite software synth in general. I prefer the simplicity of Ableton's design and don't have any interest in getting any third party VSTs. I like the ability to just create and craft an instrument rack and prepare for quick access later. Drift is perfect for me, when I'm not using my Prophet 08. I get why people like a lot of the other VSTs but I'm happy with what I have in Suite haha.

Thank you for your honest opinion about Meld. Especially without being judgemental.
My favourite synth is Ana2 from sonicacademy but I will also have a closer look at drift ;-)

[philhollis]

I have to agree with about some of the preset sounds in Ableton. If I just want a pluck sound as a placeholder, I write pluck in the browser and it comes up with all these whacked out sounds when all I wanted was a basic pluck. And don't get me started on some of the drum sounds.

[bornprojects]

Hi Oscar! Seeing this makes me wonder if we should wait for you to update your foundations tutorial to learn with Ableton 12 as opposed to the previous version? Are you looking to update this?