Ableton Forum

Does this mean that Ableton really has no competition anymore?

Is there anything out there that can give you what Ableton can?

1 For me YES!

2 No

Ableton is far different from all other seq's
It's the far most THE fastest working horse there is.

And super inspirational.

Been working with a lot of seq's over the years, and none of them are such a fun to work with as ableton.
+ super support.

I think with version 8 Ableton has really done the smart thing - instead of trying to surpass all the other DAW's by being better than they at what they do, they´ve added so many features to the original concept that made Live so popular - realtime control and freestyle composition.

So they may not have surpassed things like Pro Tools or Logic in the traditional sense, but moved laterally in a far more fresh, exciting direction.

And I don't think any of the competition is going to be able to chase them in that direction TBH....

Smart thinking by Ableton. Why compete with experienced giants when you can basically corner a whole new market which is partially your own creation?

Its just a tool. So, it depends on what you want to achieve musically. People used rotating tape playback heads in the fifties of the last millennium to do pitch shifting, cut tape slices for sampling and pitched recordings of sounds in real rooms for reverb. Live 8 + x might make things easier, but if you have an artistic vision, you will most likely find your way to a realization with pretty much any tool.
But indeed, I see myself creating things with MfL that I would not even think of doing in Live 7 with MAX alone, simply because I can see that the effort becomes small enough to try it out even without knowing beforehand if it will be what I want.
In this regard Live was unbeatable from Version 1 and this is what we, despite of the attempts to provide you with a DAW of sorts, really want to create: a tool that makes things easy. Not because making music should be easy, but because the user should spend the time with creative decissions and not with writing-MAX-patches-compiling-Pluggo-open-in-Live-find-problem-change-MAX-patch-do-all-again. MAX for Live makes using MAX simpler in a wider context. And in this regard the combination of the two applications plus hardware is indeed unique and quite unbeatable.

I understand where you are coming from. That's why I asked the question the way that I did.

Live is unique, and I really don't see anything that gives you what Live and MFL will.

it is awesome. just plain awesome.

Since MFL seems to be able to control live fully, I guess something like a beat detector could allow live to follow a drummer for example.

I wonder what new features they will find to add to Live 9 Yeah, there will be some enhancements or upgrades to existing elements within Live, but what new can be added? What do you guys think? I don't mean additions like Session View Automation, etc.

Robert Henke wrote:Its just a tool.

yeah, and MDMA is just an after dinner mint.


I always thought that another DAW could add session view and compete with Live. well, now they added max/msp to the mix. I guess a DAW could whore up with Reaktor but Ableton definitely widened the margin.

then there's the whole online sharing thing which downloads demo versions to people, very sneaky!! spread the seeds!

Live 9 - Ableton needs to take a good look at the other DAWs and prioritize the key features that the others have over Live and pick them off. and FFS automation recording into session view.

lola wrote: Ableton is far different from all other seq's
It's the far most THE fastest working horse there is.

And super inspirational.

Been working with a lot of seq's over the years, and none of them are such a fun to work with as ableton.

I've been thinking about this a LOT lately in comparison with the features of other music-writing software. With each release of Live, Ableton distances itself ever further from traditional DAW development, and that's primarily why I stick with it. Version 8 looks to be one of the most extreme examples of this, and I'm very happy about it.

I guess it depends on the producer, but Live encourages me to look at the software as a stream-of-consciousness sketchpad rather than a purely linear experience, and it's done this since Version 1. It hasn't gotten old for me yet!

Korhan wrote:I wonder what new features they will find to add to Live 9 Yeah, there will be some enhancements or upgrades to existing elements within Live, but what new can be added? What do you guys think? I don't mean additions like Session View Automation, etc.

they could sell it with that one thing....

session automation!!!

I believe session automation can be partly achieved with Maxforlive. You can easily draw automation curves in Max and then use them to control a MFL parameter or even a Live parameter (this requires sending the automation curve as MIDI from Max over an soft MIDI cable (midi yoke IAC etc.) back to Live.

Nick the Zombie wrote:

I guess it depends on the producer, but Live encourages me to look at the software as a stream-of-consciousness sketchpad rather than a purely linear experience, and it's done this since Version 1. It hasn't gotten old for me yet!

It's just such a fun to make sketches and edit them in arrange.
I remember the days with cubase and logic, this was not possible, resulting in hours and hours of matching and cutting and stressing

Live.....is a healthy daw
Eases the pressure.
Brings back the fun in producing.

Been running live for 5 years now , and every day it inspires, and discover new things.
Also because of this community and sites like the COVOPS.

Am a Ableton hippy.

PEACE!

Revolutionary! First Live blurred the lines between producing performing and DJing - now it throws programming into the equation. This is going to be sooooooo excellent! Max is going to get so many more users too and there are going to be so many great outlandish effects flying around for free. I think i am using the word "so" a lot !!!! This is the ultimate geek plug-in!

Tone Deft wrote: Live 9 - Ableton needs to take a good look at the other DAWs and prioritize the key features that the others have over Live and pick them off.

Huh? Such as what? I really can't think of anything I can't do, or want. OK score/notation, well I think that's not really where Live's at (could one write a Max patch to do it?) Me, I don't read music although I was thinking of picking it up again.

I'm rather a bit worried about having to learn all this stuff - bewildered! But I like reading manuals so it'l be OK