Notation in Live 9?

[twistedblues]

got it sort of working

[crumhorn]

Traditional music notation is not rich enough for electronically produced music.

I didn't read the rest of this thread, so sorry if this has already been said - but I can't disagree with this statement more. No offense, but what does it even mean? Electronic music is generally VERY simple harmonically, much simpler than even the most basic Classical or Baroque piece. So, if traditional notation is "rich" enough for harmonically and rhythmically complex music, why is it not "rich" enough for relatively simple and elementary "compositions?"

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for simplicity. I strongly believe in the concept of the power of a simple, catchy hook over some nice chords, it's minimalism at its finest. But electronic music, in general, is not hard to compose. In fact, the simple melodies common in dance music would actually be much easier for the novice to compose with traditional notation (most people who don't do it don't realize it, but diatonic composition is SO much easier this way, especially for the beginner as they don't need to worry about scales or anything if they don't want to). Really, the only way that "piano roll" style composition is more flexible is when working with very short notes (64th notes and on).

As for notation in Ableton, I still do vote no, at least not for now. While it could be a useful thing, particularly for more traditionally (or Jazz) trained musicians and composers, I don't think it should be high on the priority list, especially since Live is aimed towards EDM producers who typically can't read traditional notation anyways.

Not all electronic music is dance music and I don't agree that Live is exclusively the domain of EDM producers. I use Live exclusively and nobody would describe what I do as Dance Music. But that's besides the point.

A lot of electronic music may be melodically and harmonically simple but there is far more to electronic composition than just the notes to be played. Electronic music is as all about sound. Sometimes using sounds that have no definite pitch at all.

The exact setting of each parameter and the way it varies through time are just as important if not more so than the notes being played.

So when I said it was not rich enough I meant it was not rich enough for composing electronic music; as an editor.

But since I wrote that I saw The Bays and The Heritage Orchestra doing this --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HY54PDPEvvc <-- and now I'm totally converted to the idea of including "Score Clips" in live. These would work like normal clips with looping and launch quantise etc but instead of making a sound they would send a snippet of musical score to a display to be played by a human player.

[andydes]

Traditional music notation is not rich enough for electronically produced music.

I didn't read the rest of this thread, so sorry if this has already been said - but I can't disagree with this statement more. No offense, but what does it even mean? Electronic music is generally VERY simple harmonically, much simpler than even the most basic Classical or Baroque piece. So, if traditional notation is "rich" enough for harmonically and rhythmically complex music, why is it not "rich" enough for relatively simple and elementary "compositions?"

I think the point is that score is open to interpretation by the player. The precise groove, velocity, note length etc. is very important in electronic music party because the melody is often stupidly simple. Indicating your volume automation with < and > is a bit limited considering half the people here complain about not having bezier curves.

[oddstep]

unless I've missed something, notation is weak on timbre... stuff like filter sweeps, variable rate time stretching, bit depth reduction, degree of atonality due to fm modulation and so on. playing timbre with electronics is why I don't just play acoustic guitar and hand drums. so... notation is weak on what electronic music is good at. Stockhausen's scores for his microphone pieces didn't use standard notation - it wasn't up to the task; that was true in the last century and its even more true now, sampling, live looping, generative sequencers... all are really poorly addressed by conventional notation.
On the other hand, it would be really handy if midi clips or arrangements could be exported as crude notation.. so ideas workshopped in live could be translated into pianist/cellist friendly notation.

[stringtapper]

But since I wrote that I saw The Bays and The Heritage Orchestra doing this --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HY54PDPEvvc <-- and now I'm totally converted to the idea of including "Score Clips" in live. These would work like normal clips with looping and launch quantise etc but instead of making a sound they would send a snippet of musical score to a display to be played by a human player.

Sounds like a job for JItter in M4L.

[formicFabricant]

Sorry to dredge this from the relative depths, but since musical notation is a keen point of my studies, I thought I'd share my opinion.

Allow me to use as the premise of my argument a few statements of original purpose:

1. "Modern" notation was first designed for humans, not machines.
2. Live was first designed for live performance, not composition.
3. MIDI has two primary purposes within Live: recording and synthesis.

From (1), we can deduce that the applicability of a notation system has little to do with precision or timbre, since those are under the jurisdiction of performers and their ability to interpret imprecise cues. Adding to this (2) and (3), it can be argued that such notation would be incongruous with Live's usage of MIDI. In fact, if it were to be added at all, it should be used only as a prompt to the musicians, as suggested by the recently "converted" crumhorn. Even then I would be skeptical of its benefits over external editors,* since many can be easily synchronized with an actual sequencer such as Live. It would also preclude the opportunity for Live to support alternate tuning systems,** or else make the job immensely more complex.

*Disclaimer: I am of the philosophy that applications should rather perform one task well than seventeen poorly. They may, however, have more than one useful application (ho ho).

**including my personal favorite, 19-TET, which could be supported just by changing the size of a half-step and recoloring the keys on the piano roll.

[stringtapper]

we can deduce that the applicability of a notation system has little to do with precision or timbre

This is an old issue at this point. At least 50 years old. It's the entire reason that composers like Stockhausen started using electronics in the first place: it became virtually impossible to notate certain musical parameters related to what the composers wanted and human musicians probably couldn't play some things even if they could notate them. Look at the scores for some of Stockhausen's electronic music from his days at the WDR in Cologne. Or the score to Gottfried Michael König's Essay (also composed at the WDR), which is nothing more than a manual with instructions for reproducing the piece in a studio.

So I would agree with crumhorn's initial statement (even if he now apparently doesn't[?]).

WARNING: Musicology detour coming.

In music theory circles we call this the problem of representation. Because the score has been such a mainstay of musicological study for so long there is now an big question as to how we represent electronic music that has no score. The ethnomusicologists have had similar issues with things like folk song but the solution for that is transcription and there's a whole world of issues with representation there too. But with electronic music transcription can only get us so far for the exact reasons mentioned above. How does one notate something like the change of state of a filter or an LFO? If a piece can be "performed" through a Max patch is the Max patch the score? Questions like these will have to be answered by electronic music composers and music theorists interested in electronic music (of which there seem to be few).

[/detour]

tl;dr Traditional notation does indeed have trouble representing elements and procedures common to electronic music.

[formicFabricant]

How does one notate something like the change of state of a filter or an LFO?

I was not suggesting using traditional notation for this purpose. When such effects are to be applied by the performer in real-time, when and to what degree are usually under his own discretion. (Consider the use of foot-pedals and whammy bars.) However, if cues to the "performer" (mixer / sound engineer) are necessary, they could, as scu said, be provided through augmentations of the notation or even separately. For this purpose specifically, inventing a new notation could be worthwhile.

I almost suggested tracker notation for the composition side (not for viewing by a performer), which is how many highly capable sequencer/DAWs handle this (see SunVox for a very comprehensible, hands-on example), but decided against it since the notation is dependent on the level of quantization. Once again, I posit that piano roll notation is most appropriate for Live's composition and recording facilities. The purpose of adding an actual musical score should be to inform performers, not to simply program a sequence of digital knob-twists. In fact, I think that is the very concept that crumhorn was trying to convey through his fancy music videos.

If a piece can be "performed" through a Max patch is the Max patch the score?

No, but the patch would be part of the instrumentation, just as a score is dependent on a specific collection of instruments and players. The idea of writing a piece as an instruction manual is novel, but does not reflect the crucial difference between preparing a symphony and conducting one.

I realize that even these boundaries (between instrument and score) can be blurred, but the vast majority of electronic music can be logically separated in this way, and usually must be when considering live performance (discounting improv and on-the-fly patch changes).

[kevantutor]

i like to use live with LIVE instruments.....the whole launching platform is perfect for on the spot jams and making music with instruments. a score would allow you to print up parts for the specific pieces you wanted live. this could achieve the perfect music. beautiful textures created on your laptop and acoustic instruments. boom.

this comes out of frustration because i guess im one of the "5 %" that can read a score. i have a music project where i am combining my electronic music and multiple people playing live. being able to print a score. super basic. would be helpful. it seems like it could be a plug in that translates the piano roll. its all in the roll. its all math. seems simple compared to the crazy sound engineering abilities that live has.

[oneummon]

Score feature will come in the future as rest of the 95% of Live users will soon begin to learn quartal jazz harmony with their PUSH...it's the new shit, right?

[hughwilson]

Count me as a vote for notation in Live.

It's a drag to have to keep Logic or something else just to print out a horn line, or lead sheet or piano chart or something else.

As for users suggesting Ableton doesn't need it, or isn't for electronic music, it's plainly bizarre. Lots of people do lots of different things with Ableton. It's a very versatile program. To summarily dismiss other user's needs based on your own workflow is really strange. What's with the fear? Were you all saying "no don't improve record audio functionality" back when Ableton was just a midi/loops program?

As Ableton's market share increases, so does the variety of user's needs. I personally would love to throw logic in the bin, and use the money I'll have to keep spending on updating it, on Ableton instruments. From what I'm reading there's a lot of us who'd do it.

[MPGK]

Another big problem is Live's inability to handle MIDI meta-data.

I recently had a project where I needed to send a Logic session over to another studio where they did some string overdubs. I composed and produced everything in Live.
Usually, this would be no problem. Make stems and drag them into a Logic session, that's it. But there was no chance of exporting the tempo automation of the song so I could have it in Logic... even tried recording Live's MIDI Output. Live just doesn't seem to output that stuff, probably no time signature changes etc. either. So the problem about notation seems to be rooted deep within Live's half-assed MIDI support, which I was hoping would get an overhaul with Live 9... anyway, I ended up spending two hours drawing the tempo automation by hand. Not an ideal solution.

[hughwilson]

Oh wow...

But to be fair, Ableton's vari-tempo seems to work very differently from Logic's. I wouldn't expect it to translate very well from one to the other. If logic had a line-draw tempo situation it'd have taken much less time obviously.

But that's a real drag man, so sorry to hear. A better solution might have been to just run Ableton in rewire inside logic perhaps? Although third party plugins are disabled when it's running in slave mode, so if you were running Kontakt or EastWest strings you'd have been screwed anyway.

Just one of those hiccups I think. Glad you found a solution though.

Another big problem is Live's inability to handle MIDI meta-data.

I recently had a project where I needed to send a Logic session over to another studio where they did some string overdubs. I composed and produced everything in Live.
Usually, this would be no problem. Make stems and drag them into a Logic session, that's it. But there was no chance of exporting the tempo automation of the song so I could have it in Logic... even tried recording Live's MIDI Output. Live just doesn't seem to output that stuff, probably no time signature changes etc. either. So the problem about notation seems to be rooted deep within Live's half-assed MIDI support, which I was hoping would get an overhaul with Live 9... anyway, I ended up spending two hours drawing the tempo automation by hand. Not an ideal solution.

[MPGK]

Well, import and export of MIDI data between Nuendo and Logic doesn't seem to be a problem.
And yes, I was using PLAY and Kontakt for the orchestral patches, but the whole point was to get a Logic project with all the tempo changes and the MIDI notation in it so the string performers could have a decent click on their ears in the other studio, and the other producer would be able to quickly work out the notation to clear out any confusion that might occur during recording.

Yes, anyways - I did find a solution and the recordings turned out just fine.
It was very time-consuming though, and this was on the last stretch to the deadline. In short, I will have to choose Logic over Live as a creative tool when I'm working with that studio again, and that's a bummer.

[kitekrazy]

The GUI for editing midi is nowhere in the league as Sonar, Cubase, FL and notation at this point would be putting lipstick on a pig. Plus this feature usually drives up the price of an app.