Ableton Bug

[Chris J]

OK.
Started reporting this bug in the last days of the beta phase of live 7 last year, yes december 2007 ! reported it here, was ignored, emailed support, a guy called Michael eventually answered, couldn't reproduce, I sent a file, he could reproduce, will be fixed next update. That was March 08.
Since then updates come out, I email the guy, sometimes he answers very politely that he's pushing the developers.
Now it's been a year, I think the guy is taking the piss.

Wouldn't matter much if I didn't suffer from this bug every time I drop in on a midi track, which is all the time, that's the way I work (please no" use the IN & OUT, I work fast like this)

I told him last month or more I was gonna drop a word here as maybe getting more people would make it more important, Michael said it wouldn't change as they know about it.

7.0.12 still has the bug. If anyone wants to join in to help getting this muther fixed, or just check here's the file, it's an .als 48kb file, there's no music, just some midi notes, you drop in and you can see the cursor erasing or diminishing the length of the previously recorded notes, instead of leaving them intact, as OVERDUB is supposed to be, as it was in all previous versions of live, as are all other midi sequencers I've ever seen :

http://www.mediafire.com/?mwad144tvkn

I'm tired with this.

ABLETON, why ?

[8O]

yup, can reproduce it here with your file using 7.0.12 on MBP/10.5.5... Very strange, eh?

Edit: but when I try to test the same thing on a file I create myself, then it doesn't happen. Only happens with your file. Even stranger...

[hoffman2k]

Confirmed on osx 10.5.5.
And I can reproduce it in a new set, you probably didn't enable record on the track itself, 8O.

[jok]

Hi Chris,

first of all: I can totally understand your disappointment about the bug not yet being fixed - it´s an annoying one for sure. BTW: we´re (of course) able to reproduce it.

But you can also be sure that Michael´s or any other Support Team member´s intention is definitely not to be "taking the piss" - the thing is, we don´t fix the bugs (cause we´re dealing with you, folks ) and sometimes it´s not the easiest thing to communicate when there´s no good news to communicate.
To quote my team leader Dom from another thread:

You and me have to live with the priority decisions the development comes up with - and even if we both are really disappointed by some decisions - there's always a reason, they don't just do it because they want to annoy us.

So be assured that 1) our developers are busy as usual making Live a better program and 2) there´s a good cause for the problem not yet being taken care of. Even bugs with seemingly trivial symptoms (not talking about this one) may be linked to fundamental changes required under the hood sometimes. I hope we can fix the problem soon.

Best,
Jörg

[Crash]

So be assured that 1) our developers are extremely busy as usual

They are busy coding Live 8 because Marketing and Management makes them prioritize creating a new version once per year over fixing the old to produce more (necessary) income. Judging from your patheticly short changelists you are fixing only a handful of bugs (if at all) with each update release even when several months passed in between. It's phoney and cynical to tell customers who are waiting nearly a year for a fix of a fundamental bug that your developers are too busy while the next major release is likely short to knocking on our doors.

and 2) there´s a cause for the problem not yet being taken care of. Even bugs with seemingly trivial symptoms (not talking about this one) may be linked to fundamental changes required under the hood sometimes.

If Midi OVERDUB does not work in a Midi Sequencer then absolutely yes there need to be done some fundamental changes and you better work your *ss off to get them done as soon as possible. It's a shame and nearly laughable that such a basic function of any sequencer does not work even while the product is closing in to the end of its life-cycle.

And if you lack resources to service your paying customer Chris J with a working update then at least learn to communicate these shortcomings in a way that he is able and willing to accept. Don't tell him "it's coming in the next update", but be frank about your lack of resources or lacking care to put priorization on this issue and tell him about it.

[8O]

Confirmed on osx 10.5.5.
And I can reproduce it in a new set, you probably didn't enable record on the track itself, .

I messed around with it a bit more and found some dependency on the second midi clip. If I just had the first midi track and hit record, the note length would be preserved, but if I repeated it with that second midi clip waiting a few 10s of bars later then the bug would be reproduced. Very interesting....
Edit: try it on the supplied .als, if you remove that second clip "30 22-MIDI" then the bug doesn't occur.
Edit2: and if I replace 30-22 MIDI clip with an empty one of my own, then the bug still happens. In fact any length clip afterwards seems to have this effect. But if I then extend 11-22 MIDI by some length, then the bug disappears. There's some weird dependency going on here, but can't figure it out in my hungover state...
And....edit3: so two bugs I see here: if you hit record with OVR on during a midi note, then that midi note length will be destroyed. And secondly, the midi note length is destroyed towards the end of a clip (just in the last measure, maybe), but only if there is another clip somewhere later in the arrangement.

All very bizarre and wrong.

[Chris J]

yes 80, these are behaviours I also informed Ableton of, imagine in 360 days I've had time to find angles to try to catch interest, but obviously failed, also tried to find ways around.

I'm certainly not convinced by Jorg's answer. This bug, if it is depending on the structure of the program would have been there in previous versions of live, as I doubt you've re-written the whole thing for live 7.

Also I'm not talking about one or 2 or 3 months of not fixing this, I'm talking about ONE YEAR. Ableton's had time to work on this.
I informed Ableton while still in the BETA phase.
So if Michael is not taking the piss, other people at Ableton obviously are.

[jok]

Hi Chris,

I'm certainly not convinced by Jorg's answer. This bug, if it is depending on the structure of the program would have been there in previous versions of live, as I doubt you've re-written the whole thing for live 7

That was general speaking like I wrote, not necessarily the case for this bug. My purpose was rather to give you a quick feedback & acknowledgment of the problem here. Man, it was Friday close to midnight when I replied (actually left work hours ago), so there was not much I could find out then (it´s also hard to do so during the weekend). Please give me a break, I´ll see what I can find out on this problem on monday - now, I am off to the studio making music myself.
Best,
Jörg

[leedsquietman]

A year is nothing in terms of software bugs that are not high priority.

Some Cubase users have been waiting for about 7 years for things that went missing in the vst 5 to SX changeover to be reintroduced and what's more, in the forums they would call you a troll and lock you and ban you.

I have confidence in Ableton that if they say they are working on it that they are, and they are still giving you the freedom to voice your opinion on here, even though you used insulting language towards them. If you were a Digidesign or Steinberg customer, you would be gone by now (at least under that username). So let's keep things in balance here. You have workarounds to your problem, even if they are not conducive to your workflow.

Major stuff like TRACK FREEZING is still not working in Cubase properly and they just wheel out the 'workarounds' angle or 'it's not a priority' angle as they have done since SX2 in 2005. And stuff like the RENDER ALL feature, a very basic command, to export multiple .wav/aif files, has been denied to Cubase users for 10 years. In Cubase, you want to render tracks to import in another sequencer, *which doesn't have .omf support* you have to export every track INDIVIDUALLY. Or buy a a 3rd party plugin.

[Chris J]

I hear you but this is not a feature that has disappeared, it's a bug,

[Crash]

A year is nothing in terms of software bugs that are not high priority.

Broken Overdub in a Midi Sequencer sounds like high priority in every respect. It's one of the most basic functions that any Midi Sequencer has to offer since ages.

[leedsquietman]

I didn't say this was a LOW priority bug Crash !

I just said expect a low priority bug to take a long time to be fixed.

Hopefully Chris, given your attention to this, the bug will be fixed soon. I haven't seen too many others mention it, which indicates to me that some of us are handling how we record MIDI and overdubs differently. Ableton have at least acknowledged it and hopefully will rectify it soon.

[Crash]

I didn't say this was a LOW priority bug Crash !

Then why do you mix statements about low priority fixes easily taking a year with Chris' specific case? This is unnecessary puzzling and makes misunderstandings happen easily.

If someone says "Hey, my issues is not being fixed for a year already" and you answer "Low priority fixes can take a year" the most logical conclusion is that either you think that Ableton marked it as low priority (which is what I was talking about) or you think so yourself (which is your good right).

[Chris J]

leedsquietman, I may handle Overdub differently from everybody else, although I think the only way to overdub is recording over something that has been previously recorded without affecting it.

If you don't think so, give me your definition of midi Overdub.

"Ableton have at least acknowledged it and hopefully will rectify it soon. "
how do you know leedsquietman ?

they've been telling me the exact same thing for 300 days !!
why do you feel the need to defend them and give me arguments that are based on pure speculation from your part ?

Ableton through Michael has also tried to make me see "overdub" as something I shouldn't use if it doesn't work.

Fuck it, that's the way I work, I've been making music professionally for 22 years, if Ableton doesn't want users to overdub MIDI, just remove the fucking button and stop pretending they're working on it.

They're not. Ableton haven't told me they're working on it, they've told me for a year they were GOING to.

[Chris J]

Leedsman, I think Ableton can defend themselves very well, without users help.
Look at Jorg, he's asking me to give him a break, he's gone making music.
Does he give a shit that if I'm here posting it's because I can't make music like I should?
Does he care that I've been given same lousy answers as his for a year ? no he wants a break from his job, a job that exists because suckers like me have been buying live for several years.

At this very moment I'd like to tell him to give me break and let me do my music, but I can't because I'm in a position of weakness and he's in a position of strength, he knows it and plays with it. (although I don't think he realizes it)

So you see they can handle this themselves in a total tranquillity, no need for your input which don't help me at all.

Jorg, you seem like a nice guy, but one of the major problem in today's companies is that you can never reach the people responsable for your troubles, nice people are hired to communicate, they're full of good will, but what happens in the back is different.
In this example I've been communicating with Michael for a year through emails, the guy didn't know much about dropping in and out, about overdubbing, was willing to help, but was not.
Once he managed to reproduce the bug, he stopped telling me how I should do things.

Now a year later, Jorg you come in, full of good will, and want to acknowledge the bug.
But jorg, the bug has been acknowledged almost a year ago. So all you have to do is keep quiet and make things happen, as the things you say don't help and irritate me as it feels like the long time I've spent with Michael has been totally useless.

What I want is some programmer telling me personnally why they haven't fixed it in one year, why it's not a priority, why they have an OVERDUB button if it doesn't work.
Basically assume their commercial politics without sending some nice guy who gets susceptible when people complain against the company that hired him knowing he would have to deal with customers suffering from the company's politics.

I used to think that Ableton was better than the others in that department, but facts speak for themselves.
I used to push Ableton whenever I could in interviews, well not anymore. The time I lose with that bug make me curse a lot when I'm working, and I'm making efforts not to write them down here.