INTERACTIVE MUSIC CREATION ONLINE WITH MANY USERS

[MARTINLB]

hey ABLERS AND FABLERS, I want to ask if anyone has successively used this web site for interactive composition in the last 6 months. I am a student at CORK SCHOOL OF MUSIC working on a thesis, and this could be a useful part of the project, any ideas or experiences are welcome, thanks and have a great summer, tis very cold here, MB

[savyurrecords]

Good luck. It is not as easy as one thinks. First you need to find a central spot to store files that all users can access. Then you need to make sure everyone stays at the same version of Live for the duration of the collaboration.

[Klauser]

I started a project trying to do this about 2 months ago, been too busy to get anywhere with it recently though, might start it up again though if people are interested in it.

The first basic system is a simple drop box, that uploads the live file and any samples within the folders, and stores this online with an incremental based system, allowing details, update info etc... about the project file to be added and stored as well. Then you or anyone with the password to the project can open the drop box, select a version of the project and then open it easily, edit it, save it and then upload it again to the server. For any programmers, basically its GIT hub for ableton live.

I got quite far with this project and am using it with my mate, as we like to dabble with projects together.


Then....... I got the idea to of making something more interactive, and started working on a new system which allows people to work on sets together, in realtime. Using a system to constantly sync files between the server and any computers working on the project. It also has a live stream of each of the computers working on the project, allowing you to let others here ideas on the project, A/B sounds, settings etc... and a chat system for communication between projects. But, we are just using a microphone and using the live streaming system for chat.

This all got a bit messy. Keeping the files synced worked up to a point, but it was really 'hacky' and crashed sooooooooooooooo many times at first. I will look into loading live into a Virtual Machine if I get a chance to get back on this.

I think this might be something to live share, but we are still using Live 6 and havent really seen anything like a share feature. So thought I would give it a shot, maybe wasting my time if this has been implemented in newer versions of live. Has it? Anyway, I dont think version compatibilty will be too much of issue. Obviously unless there are backwards compatabilty issues between live 6 and 7 or whatever. But just last night we had a succesful four hour collaboration, throwing sounds and ideas back and forth. Was great fun.

But should I start working on this project again? Would anyone be interested in this? I have a load of bandwidth, processing power and space on my server, which is one of the reasons I started the project.

Sorry if that was a long post

k

[Schmidi]

Check out OHM Studio too: http://www.ohmstudio.com/ Hopefully it will make online collaboration more of a reality. Ableton 8 was supposed to have a share function but it never happened.

[Klauser]

For anyone who cares, heres a screenshot from my project I was talking about in my post above. It is pretty basic and needs way more development, but its ok. I might start a new thread about this to see if there is much interest but will post it here for now. Please ignore the comments and things we were making, or dont ignore them and have a chuckle. And I have called the project ChimeSync for now, not really sure about that though.





The software uses Adobe Air for the interface, organizing projects, uploading etc... and a small c++ program for syncing files and doing some of the house keeping.

And because I take personal projects quite seriously I have been messing around logos etc... for the project. If I get the chance I am going to create a website which allows people to join projects, hear previews, comment on the track and things. But time, as ever is my formidable enemy.

Anyway, any feedback, interest or anything on this project? Gona make a new thread if there is.

[Tone Deft]

sweet!

you're making a monkey out of Ableton. they had Share going during the beta of Live 8, it worked, kinda. then at the Live 8 release they shut it down and haven't said a peep about it since. there was an uproar from users, anything from "that sucks I could've used that" to "f--k you I paid for Live 8 just for that feature!!" there's a definite need to be fulfilled and money to be made.

DEW EEEET! AFAIK you're onto something and if you can get this rolling before others then you just might have some nice side income.

the UI looks very cool. versioning is so very key too, props for that. on the fly updates would also be very cool.

[Klauser]

sweet!

you're making a monkey out of Ableton. they had Share going during the beta of Live 8, it worked, kinda. then at the Live 8 release they shut it down and haven't said a peep about it since. there was an uproar from users, anything from "that sucks I could've used that" to "f--k you I paid for Live 8 just for that feature!!" there's a definite need to be fulfilled and money to be made.

DEW EEEET! AFAIK you're onto something and if you can get this rolling before others then you just might have some nice side income.

the UI looks very cool. versioning is so very key too, props for that. on the fly updates would also be very cool.

Haha, didnt mean to make a monkey out of ableton. Lol, I should start MissingAbletonFeatures.com. I am a self taught developer so I take that as huge compliment, merci.

Yea I dont have the time to really push this and finish it quickly. Working on another project at the moment that has my full attention, but I am going to finish this. Got some new ideas for it now. I should have the software finished within a month or two, and another month for the website for storing, managing and merging projects.

And I just got it sort of working with reaper as well. Yay DAW project managing for everyone . Gona try this with cubase and FL soon. Does anyone know if there is a way to save any sort of file from a demo version of these DAWs? Just to see if it works? Dont particulary want to buy these (Love Live 6) and dont want pirate them either.

I didnt know ableton had tried to implement this already. I thought it was just in the pipeline for future releases. Yea removing functionality as good as that from Live is a crazy thing for ableton to do. I'm sure they could've done a stellar job of it.

Yea I thought versioning was one of the most important features here. Almost every other piece of software I use has a great library for versioning, managing etc... live was one of the first that doesnt really. Plus its imperative when multiple people are working on the same project, no matter what kind of project.