Features you would like to see in Ableton 9?

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
purple_descent
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Re: Features you would like to see in Ableton 9?

Post by purple_descent » Sat Dec 19, 2009 10:46 am

I'm quite new to ableton. It's not meant to be a full out DAW in the studio but the following features I think should be standard! Ignore if I list anything that L8 can already do, I'm still learning the ways of Live..

1. Better audio editing (cross fading, comping etc)
2. Recording audio clips with some kind of timecode stamp, so that you can easily put a audio region back to its original place in the arrangement view.
3. Midi! Has to improve in all areas. More in depth, better controller data editing, recording midi automation, and a glitch free midi department!

All simple stuff, nothing revolutionary. Perhaps focus less on new big features and plugins and more on ironing out creases with the next version.

Although Live had its original intentions, it has grown to be more and more popular in the studio but a few missing basic features are lacking for it to compete with rivals.

bodhi71
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Re: Features you would like to see in Ableton 9?

Post by bodhi71 » Sat Dec 19, 2009 1:53 pm

purple_descent wrote:I'm quite new to ableton. It's not meant to be a full out DAW in the studio but the following features I think should be standard! Ignore if I list anything that L8 can already do, I'm still learning the ways of Live..

1. Better audio editing (cross fading, comping etc)
2. Recording audio clips with some kind of timecode stamp, so that you can easily put a audio region back to its original place in the arrangement view.
3. Midi! Has to improve in all areas. More in depth, better controller data editing, recording midi automation, and a glitch free midi department!

All simple stuff, nothing revolutionary. Perhaps focus less on new big features and plugins and more on ironing out creases with the next version.

Although Live had its original intentions, it has grown to be more and more popular in the studio but a few missing basic features are lacking for it to compete with rivals.
+1
Stability too...

supamonsta
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Re: Features you would like to see in Ableton 9?

Post by supamonsta » Sat Dec 19, 2009 2:04 pm

3. Midi! Has to improve in all areas. More in depth, better controller data editing, recording midi automation, and a glitch free midi department!
Better MIDI edition is the only thing that I really miss in Live besides a more open-minded screen environemnt (dual screen, consolidated window but with ability to move individual windows around at will), like great graphic tools to draw controller curves, multiple CC curves views... and the ability to see and edit midi stuff from different clips, perhap's like the hypereditor of Logic or the midi edition windows of Digital performer...

I don't really see what you mean about "glitch free midi department", midi is rock stable for me in live, I had problems with the virus TI in the past, but it was the virus' fault...

cheers

ark
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Re: Features you would like to see in Ableton 9?

Post by ark » Sat Dec 19, 2009 2:41 pm

This may sound weird, but the most useful addition to Live 9 for me would be for clips to honor their start and end points even when they are looped, and for clips to start at a time that lines the clip's grid up with the quantization interval rather than lining up the clip's start time.

(If you don't like this second feature, you can always shift the clip so that its start point lines up with 1.1.1)

photonal
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Re: Features you would like to see in Ableton 9?

Post by photonal » Sat Dec 19, 2009 3:56 pm

I) Display of MIDI control data when expanding a track in arrange view (currently you have to select the clip of track to see the control data at the bottom of the screen)

II) MIDI message converter plugin; maps midi data to midi control data and vice versa, e.g. Map pitch to a midi control number

III) Video Clips to supplement the current midi and audio clips; video clips should also have warping, loop, reverse, speed features and the ability to output video to a dedicated video port for display of real-time music driven video clips.

iV) And to go with the video clips, various video effect plugins with automation capabilities and a video plugin which supports Quartz Composer compositions.

snowtires
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Re: Features you would like to see in Ableton 9?

Post by snowtires » Sat Dec 19, 2009 4:36 pm

I would like to see Live split into two programs, Ableton Live and Ableton Live Studio. 'Live' would be what session view is now and deal with the performance aspect of what Live 1-8 have had, and 'Live Studio' would be what arrangement view is now, focusing on the 'recording studio' aspect of that portion of Live. Along with that, there would be a team of programmers assigned to each program, and their sole focus would be on making their assigned aspect of Live to be better than it currently is. Make the programs work as a plugin within the other OR finally give the dual monitor people what they want and allow both programs to do a sort of rewire to each other, so you could have them both open and on separate screens.

I know a lot of people here only use the session view portion of Live, where I only use arrangement mode. There are a lot of people who use both, but it seems like most are primarily one or the other. When Live gets updated and a lot of stuff goes into session mode, I just get bummed, because I would rather the Abes focus on the arrangement section of Live. I know there are a lot of people who feel the exact opposite way, so maybe splitting the program into two would be a viable option. Instead of paying $200 (I think that's what it usually costs to upgrade, right?) to upgrade from Live 8 to Live 9, offer current users the option of upgrading to just one branch - Live or Live Studio - for $125. If current users want to upgrade and get both programs, charge them a little less, like $225, so the customer saves $25, but you've got an extra $25 per order to hopefully justify hiring a couple more programmers and create the two diverging programs. This could also bring down the cost of each program, so you would have new customers coming into the fold (thanks to the lowered retail price of the now-separated Live and Live Studio), who could ALSO potentially purchase the upgrade to Live and Live Studio and give you guys even more money. All of this goes to support two groups of programmers who only have to focus on one aspect of the two main aspects of Live (in its current state), as opposed to spreading a single group thin, trying to work on it all, which ends up leading to a release so buggy that it's still being beta tested over a year later. I doubt this will happen, but it sure would be sweet.

bosonHavoc
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Re: Features you would like to see in Ableton 9?

Post by bosonHavoc » Sat Dec 19, 2009 5:14 pm

the external instrument needs some midi functionality lovin..
it is so close to being perfect..
it just needs to be able to send program changes and control data to the
external device.. then we could rack it up, map it, and macro it
and when ever i need to interact with say.. the triton le i just load the plug
and go because i would have had done all the mapping and macro work..

the external effect too.. because some external effects will take midi input.

knotkranky
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Re: Features you would like to see in Ableton 9?

Post by knotkranky » Sat Dec 19, 2009 5:55 pm

Image
Advertisement and Klugey the stability bug is sponsored by the "stability before features association"

leedsquietman
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Re: Features you would like to see in Ableton 9?

Post by leedsquietman » Sat Dec 19, 2009 6:13 pm

the problem with a live studio and live (session) view is that live studio clientele will keep using other DAWS which have better arrangement and more audio and MIDI tools, surround, some scoring (and scoring to video) and a pile of other small stuff such as OMF, broadcast wav/sdII and other file formats in those fields.

I see where you're coming from, but I feel that you have to accept Live for what it is - that is a conglomeration of most of the fundamental features you need for Live/performance/studio composition, together with the basic functionality of a linear DAW. As Live has grown and added DAWcentric features, so the audience has changed. Up to about Live 4, Ableton weren't trying to sell Live as a DAW option, just a live performance/compositional tool, with plugin support and the clientele were mostly DJs (who were happy to mix/warp/use clip envelopes to mangle sounds etc) or people looking for a creative inspirational tool, which they had every intention of rewiring, or exporting into a more traditional DAW. Now we have converged and I'm not sure a divorce of these different factions using Live will be a good thing.

I do, however, think they need to take a year off collabing with controller manufacturers and other software companies and focus solely on ABLETON LIVE. Now we have Max4Live, get it working properly within L8 (and definately in L9) but leave it at that for a while, finish the Serato thing, and then put all their energies into getting Live as stable and rock solid as they can to re-establish their reputation either to rebuild the product from the ground up, or find a way to get back to the innovative and creative ideas which made Live popular to begin with. And a price cut of around 50 dollars on Live and 100 dollars on Live Suite wouldn't go amiss either in these harsh economic times. Ableton have lost some kudos as a customer service, friendly orientated company in the past year, which is a pity. They are still among the best though, for those who think the grass is greener elsewhere.
http://soundcloud.com/umbriel-rising http://www.myspace.com/leedsquietmandemos Live 7.0.18 SUITE, Cubase 5.5.2], Soundforge 9, Dell XPS M1530, 2.2 Ghz C2D, 4GB, Vista Ult SP2, legit plugins a plenty, Alesis IO14.

heavensdaw
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Re: Features you would like to see in Ableton 9?

Post by heavensdaw » Sat Dec 19, 2009 6:30 pm

leedsquietman wrote:the problem with a live studio and live (session) view is that live studio clientele will keep using other DAWS which have better arrangement and more audio and MIDI tools, surround, some scoring (and scoring to video) and a pile of other small stuff such as OMF, broadcast wav/sdII and other file formats in those fields.

I see where you're coming from, but I feel that you have to accept Live for what it is - that is a conglomeration of most of the fundamental features you need for Live/performance/studio composition, together with the basic functionality of a linear DAW. As Live has grown and added DAWcentric features, so the audience has changed. Up to about Live 4, Ableton weren't trying to sell Live as a DAW option, just a live performance/compositional tool, with plugin support and the clientele were mostly DJs (who were happy to mix/warp/use clip envelopes to mangle sounds etc) or people looking for a creative inspirational tool, which they had every intention of rewiring, or exporting into a more traditional DAW. Now we have converged and I'm not sure a divorce of these different factions using Live will be a good thing.

I do, however, think they need to take a year off collabing with controller manufacturers and other software companies and focus solely on ABLETON LIVE. Now we have Max4Live, get it working properly within L8 (and definately in L9) but leave it at that for a while, finish the Serato thing, and then put all their energies into getting Live as stable and rock solid as they can to re-establish their reputation either to rebuild the product from the ground up, or find a way to get back to the innovative and creative ideas which made Live popular to begin with. And a price cut of around 50 dollars on Live and 100 dollars on Live Suite wouldn't go amiss either in these harsh economic times. Ableton have lost some kudos as a customer service, friendly orientated company in the past year, which is a pity. They are still among the best though, for those who think the grass is greener elsewhere.
+1

Hd

snowtires
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Re: Features you would like to see in Ableton 9?

Post by snowtires » Sat Dec 19, 2009 7:25 pm

leedsquietman wrote:the problem with a live studio and live (session) view is that live studio clientele will keep using other DAWS which have better arrangement and more audio and MIDI tools, surround, some scoring (and scoring to video) and a pile of other small stuff such as OMF, broadcast wav/sdII and other file formats in those fields.

I see where you're coming from, but I feel that you have to accept Live for what it is - that is a conglomeration of most of the fundamental features you need for Live/performance/studio composition, together with the basic functionality of a linear DAW. As Live has grown and added DAWcentric features, so the audience has changed. Up to about Live 4, Ableton weren't trying to sell Live as a DAW option, just a live performance/compositional tool, with plugin support and the clientele were mostly DJs (who were happy to mix/warp/use clip envelopes to mangle sounds etc) or people looking for a creative inspirational tool, which they had every intention of rewiring, or exporting into a more traditional DAW. Now we have converged and I'm not sure a divorce of these different factions using Live will be a good thing.

I do, however, think they need to take a year off collabing with controller manufacturers and other software companies and focus solely on ABLETON LIVE. Now we have Max4Live, get it working properly within L8 (and definately in L9) but leave it at that for a while, finish the Serato thing, and then put all their energies into getting Live as stable and rock solid as they can to re-establish their reputation either to rebuild the product from the ground up, or find a way to get back to the innovative and creative ideas which made Live popular to begin with. And a price cut of around 50 dollars on Live and 100 dollars on Live Suite wouldn't go amiss either in these harsh economic times. Ableton have lost some kudos as a customer service, friendly orientated company in the past year, which is a pity. They are still among the best though, for those who think the grass is greener elsewhere.
I absolutely know what you're talking about. It's just frustrating that Live, for as much as I would rather use it than any other DAW, should have been kept strictly as a live performance tool. I bought Live right around when Live 5 was released, because I was looking for a DAW that was better to write with than Protools or Logic. I've stuck with Live for a while, because it's such a great compositional program and I was hoping it would eventually blow everything else away, but the DAW portion of Live hasn't progressed very much since Live 5, so now I'm legitimately thinking about switching to another DAW and not using Live. While Live's DAW section is good for some things, mixing really isn't one of them, which makes Live a sort of half-assed DAW. I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt that they can make it a viable option to compete with the big name DAWs, but I'm not really holding out hope. I'm a big fan of the, "If you're going to do something, do it right,' work ethic, I really feel like Live hasn't lived up to that with their DAW. I mean, why add that functionality if it's going to take you years and years to get it right? What customer wants to sit through that?
Last edited by snowtires on Sat Dec 19, 2009 7:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

d-track
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Re: Features you would like to see in Ableton 9?

Post by d-track » Sat Dec 19, 2009 7:39 pm

logic for live?
*-*

leedsquietman
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Re: Features you would like to see in Ableton 9?

Post by leedsquietman » Sat Dec 19, 2009 7:45 pm

It`s a fair point Snowtires and your view will be shared by a decent amount of users of Live.

However, it is what it is and now Ableton are finding that they have to include a whole bunch of features to suit 2 different markets, and as a small company, fit this into a yearly economic model to stay profitable and I think that they will learn a lesson from this and be more focused on Live rather than fun `side-projects` involving other `cool` companies.

I really believe that Ableton are at a major crossroads in the product`s development and are faced with some difficult choices moving forward. I just hope they choose the right path(s) going forward to get back some of that mojo and inspiration and deliver a really great update in Live 9, or by Live 10 at the latest, otherwise the company could go into decline. A lot of people in the core user groups are no longer feeling Live is an innovative and leading product, and some are even cheering on other software to give Live a `kick in the pants`. When I first got involved with Live, at Live 6, almost everyone who owned Live was a real advocate, almost evangelical about the product and the first rate support. That has definately diminished in the past year or so.
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synnack
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Re: Features you would like to see in Ableton 9?

Post by synnack » Sat Dec 19, 2009 8:14 pm

snowtires wrote: I know a lot of people here only use the session view portion of Live, where I only use arrangement mode.
I don't think it is true that ANYONE just uses session view. I think what you mean to say is that there are people who only use sesssion view for writing but even those people (like me) record their performances on to arragnement view for final tweaks as an actual arrantement before exporting.

You really can't have a session view without an arrangement view if you want to not only write but finish a song in Live.

There is also still no way to chop up clips and consolidate them without arrangement view.
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D K
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Re: Features you would like to see in Ableton 9?

Post by D K » Sat Dec 19, 2009 8:32 pm

i'd like to see stability in live 9.
real, honest stability for performance.
i don't ask much of live these days load-wise, average tune runs at 12% cpu,
with 3 fx sends, 8 tracks and native only plugs.
my system is clean and runs clean.
it still fucks up a lot.
stability for performance, please.

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