How Instant is your search function? + How to fix it

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.

Do you find Abletons search function usefull?

No it's too slow
30
60%
Yes, it works instantly as described in manual
6
12%
Sometimes slow but I use it all the time
10
20%
Ableton has a search function?
4
8%
 
Total votes: 50

ikeaboy
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How Instant is your search function? + How to fix it

Post by ikeaboy » Fri Jul 03, 2009 12:46 pm

Just did a browser search in the device section and its taking ages. I was trying to find a way to escape it without restarting and ESC didn't work so I hit the manual.
Live Manual page 30 wrote:Live maintains an index of the hard disk so it can deliver search results instantly
Never worked instantly for me and I know I'd use it all the time if it did work instantly, like I imagine NI Kore operates.

How to fix it
All credit to Jekblad for this


I'm under the impresssion that during a search, with automatic rescan turned on, Live build an index of everything no matter what you enter into the search field. To get the impressively near instant search results turn off automatic rescan but only after you've seen one search out to its fullest conclusion with all your external drives turned on. I became impatient at one point and cancelled a search because I wanted to work, this seemed to create a partial index which was useless (entering 'delay' yielded zero results 8O ) so the index used will only be as complete as the last search performed with rescan activated. Be aware this may take some time if your running a lot of external drives but it will most likely be worth it.
Last edited by ikeaboy on Mon Jul 06, 2009 4:46 pm, edited 3 times in total.

p8guitar
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Re: How Instant is your search function?

Post by p8guitar » Fri Jul 03, 2009 3:18 pm

Using it just now for the second time in about 5 years (cannot remember since when I use Ableton Live). I was fooled by the samplification tutorial which tells you "use this link to show all samplification pack content" and starts a search with the ableton browser. Now I have a lot of time to post in forums.

oops - it's finished. No search results... :roll:

edit:
deinstalled and installed samplification again, now it is found. found quite quickly, I must agree...

Jekblad
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Re: How Instant is your search function?

Post by Jekblad » Fri Jul 03, 2009 6:47 pm

i use search for everything i load. i put my vsts in racks and save them in the library so i can search them and load them.

"cmd shift f" search "Del" (the first few letters of "delay")

choose my delay with a few down arrows, hit enter. done.

i'll race you with your mouse.

run a couple of searches when your not busy, allow it to make an index. IDK if it needs a dif index for dif searches.

right click and turn OFF "build index every time" because then every time you search it's trying to do that crap all over again. Now your stuff should pop up hot.

just rebuild your index when you add a ton of new FX or a new pack etc.
i encourage it's use! I've grown to love it.

One thing that pisses me off is the hot key toggles search, where as i believe it should make search ACTIVE no matter what. So every other search you have to hit the hot key twice. I made a little script with iKey to move the mouse to the search field and click, so i just leave search open all the time and use that. it's awesome.
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shai
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Re: How Instant is your search function?

Post by shai » Fri Jul 03, 2009 11:05 pm

i use search all the time. it became slow with 8. and now faster again with 8.0.4
sometimes it used to give strange results and i had to refresh the alphabetical order to get i.e Reverb at the top of the list when searching "Rev.."
but this got fixed again.

glitchrock-buddha
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Re: How Instant is your search function?

Post by glitchrock-buddha » Fri Jul 03, 2009 11:42 pm

Way too slow. Don't care for it. Tried to use it today to search for samplification. It was taking too long so I tried to stop it using the commands it indicated, but that didn't stop it. Neither did clicking on the place where it said "Click here to stop the search". It didn't return any results anyways. I guess the search doesn't include live packs.
Professional Shark Jumper.

Jekblad
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Re: How Instant is your search function?

Post by Jekblad » Sat Jul 04, 2009 2:21 am

Jekblad wrote:
run a couple of searches when your not busy, allow it to make an index.
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MathematiK I
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Re: How Instant is your search function?

Post by MathematiK I » Sat Jul 04, 2009 2:44 am

the whole 'file management' section is also a big fail...
the artist formerly known as 3dot...

McQ714
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Re: How Instant is your search function?

Post by McQ714 » Sat Jul 04, 2009 4:32 am

how do i change my vote?

never really thought about it having to make an index before so i tried what jekblad said and let it scan all the drives and it's come up with results instantly. i particularly like that if you search for certain types of effects in Live's library, i.e. delay, reverb, etc., it will actually find not only those effects but also effects chains that have those devices incorporated. you can type out the full term or just part of it. as i did some searching to test it out after the scan, i typed things like "del" and it found all instances of delays but also all files that included those letters in the name. "blue" came up with files along with Rob Papen's Blue synth and dBlue glitch plugins. when i searched "rob papen", it showed all of the plugins of his that i own, but those don't even have the name rob papen in the plugin's name... only the folder in which they are kept. it seems the search engine is pretty intuitive and speedy once it's indexed.

ikeaboy
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Re: How Instant is your search function?

Post by ikeaboy » Sat Jul 04, 2009 12:13 pm

Jekblad wrote: run a couple of searches when your not busy, allow it to make an index. IDK if it needs a dif index for dif searches.

right click and turn OFF "build index every time" because then every time you search it's trying to do that crap all over again. Now your stuff should pop up hot.

just rebuild your index when you add a ton of new FX or a new pack etc.
i encourage it's use! I've grown to love it.
I'm trying this, by 'turn OFF "build index every time"' do you mean turn off "Automatic rescan on each search" when you right click the search area?
Also what do you mean by IDK?
Lastly does it build a complete index of everything when I search for say 'Delay' or will that only build a fast index of results for 'delay' searches?
Thanks for your time, this could improve my workflow immensely!

Jekblad
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Re: How Instant is your search function?

Post by Jekblad » Sat Jul 04, 2009 2:13 pm

Yes to turning off auto re-scan.

Idk means "I don't know"

I mentioned that idk if it needs a scan for each search, but there might be a selection in ur pref pane to build an index. Maybe that will build it for the whole thing.

Angstrom? Hoffman2k? Dom? HENKE?!?!? ANYBODY?!?!??
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Tarekith
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Re: How Instant is your search function?

Post by Tarekith » Sat Jul 04, 2009 2:52 pm

It's always been super slow for me, almost like it's reindexing (rescanning) each time I use it. Never had it be anything close to instant here, so I pretty much ignore it.

+1 for the Manage Files section needing work too.
Tarekith
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Jekblad
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Re: How Instant is your search function?

Post by Jekblad » Sat Jul 04, 2009 3:15 pm

Tarekith have u tried right clicking and turning off auto rescan?
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ThomasHelzle
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Re: How Instant is your search function?

Post by ThomasHelzle » Sat Jul 04, 2009 5:05 pm

Yeah, Samplification (Big thanks to Ableton for that, but still trying to find things here...) shows that problem once more that came up with almost every new pack and reduces usefulness, happiness and thankfulness for those basically fantastic packs a LOT. :-(

Nowadays you're pretty used to searches being instant, be it mail in Opera, nodes in Softimage XSI, spotlight on the mac etc.
Only then a search is something you will use all the time as a replacement for going through the tree by hand.

So I would also vote for a rework of the whole file section.

When installing a new live pack, the index could be automatically updated with the files installed - shouldn't add too much time to the process since the installer knows the location anyway.
Each time you save something into the library, it could automatically be added to the index as well.
Now only external modifications of the library would be left, which could maybe be handled with a quick differential scan?
IMO, this should all happen in the background.

I would love to quickly after installing a pack be able to see a tree with just the files from the pack.
But not one flat list of hundreds of files in a row!

So far for me, finding all the good stuff in my 70GB Library is almost impossible or just takes too long to be fun.

Cheers,

Thomas (running a search for index building in the background for half an hour now...) Helzle

Jekblad
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Re: How Instant is your search function?

Post by Jekblad » Sat Jul 04, 2009 5:27 pm

any improvements to the browser would be so awesome.

i wonder if m4l can improve the browser?
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Forge.
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Re: How Instant is your search function?

Post by Forge. » Sun Jul 05, 2009 1:33 pm

we could really do with an "index now" function

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