Ableton Forum

kayhel wrote:At live8 times I got written confirmation from ableton that audio engine will be rewritten in the next major release to solve this. So I kept the product. Nowadays they say that they are aware but cannot promise the solution anymore.
Thatswhy i keep on complaining.

Why did you decide to keep old product for future release? That seems to be your fault. You just had to return it and wait 9 but you chose to keep using it and get benefit/enjoyment from using the software untill now.

pencilrocket wrote:

kayhel wrote:At live8 times I got written confirmation from ableton that audio engine will be rewritten in the next major release to solve this. So I kept the product. Nowadays they say that they are aware but cannot promise the solution anymore.
Thatswhy i keep on complaining.

Why did you decide to keep old product for future release? That seems to be your fault. You just had to return it and wait 9 but you chose to keep using it and get benefit/enjoyment from using the software untill now.

I know - I did it wrong - with good hope.

The bad thing about the PDC issue is that you don't realize the impact in the beginning. And claiming refund 6 months later - well maybe it would have worked.
Actually until end of 2011 I still used live from time to time for creating ideas / lines and copied the rendered tracks over to S1. Didn't know it would take so long to be fixed - if ever.
Also I have some unfinished songs that I would be able to finalize (so I need to keep the program to have the ability to open them).

Again - I thought ableton would solve that. I can't understand that a proper working Audio Engine is not highly prioritized in DAW development... At least it isn't my fault, that the product still doesn't have proper PDC, right
The more people are claiming, the higher the priority in the product development. So I keep up argueing and hope many others do. And when it's done, I'm a happy customer...

Looking at the market it is still difficult to get a similar workflow like in live, my personal feature beside the clip launcher (which seems to spread out in other DAWs now as well) is the integrated devicenesting and seamless drag'n'drop - a pain in many other DAWs.

So I'm in waiting mode - and when I found a DAW satisfying my requirements, all others will get kicked out. Not sure if there's hope for Live.

kayhel wrote:

leisuremuffin wrote:I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that automation not being compensated would cause muddy sound, either. It will mean that change in parameters will be delayed, not that the actual output of the plugin will be delayed. You may be slightly confused.

if instrument volume adjustments are not in time (i.e. lower instrument volume on vocals start and the other way around etc.), the maximizer plugins in the master will maximize more loud instruments - which will cause muddy sound.

kayhel wrote: Be aware that not all musicians have the same demands on soundquality - personally I don't wanna sound like in the early 90s, I like to have every single instrument on it's dedicated position. No muddy stuff but still a lot of foreground and loudness. This requires _heavy_ use of 3rd party plugins (i.e. ozone per channel...) and a lot of automation, sidechained compressors etc.

You're just going to be mad at me, but in my opinion, these preconceptions are your enemy. You don't need to have a crazy chain of plugins on your master to make good sounding mixes. In fact, most electronic musicians i've talked to would recommend not to do that. You don't need to heavily use plugins on every channel. These are things you can do, but shouldn't just do by default and without a good reason. You may be falling into the trap of doing way too much.


But regardless, yes, I understand that you want ableton to add delay compensation for automation. But you may want to ask yourself if that will really solve all of your problems.


I can promise everyone reading this forum, that the moment that ableton adds delay compensation for automation, there will be another horrible problem with the software that will be keeping people from making good material. There will be post after post after post explaining how it is impossible to make good material because of it. This is just how it goes. Nothing is perfect, no one is ever satisfied. And this is how products get horrible feature bloat and go from being excellent scalpels to ugly swiss army knives.

leisuremuffin wrote:

kayhel wrote: Be aware that not all musicians have the same demands on soundquality - personally I don't wanna sound like in the early 90s, I like to have every single instrument on it's dedicated position. No muddy stuff but still a lot of foreground and loudness. This requires _heavy_ use of 3rd party plugins (i.e. ozone per channel...) and a lot of automation, sidechained compressors etc.

You're just going to be mad at me, but in my opinion, these preconceptions are your enemy. You don't need to have a crazy chain of plugins on your master to make good sounding mixes. In fact, most electronic musicians i've talked to would recommend not to do that. You don't need to heavily use plugins on every channel. These are things you can do, but shouldn't just do by default and without a good reason. You may be falling into the trap of doing way too much.

.

So true.

I've never even understood the kind of layering upon layering of tracks that I hear some people talk about.

If you're doing orchestral mockups that's one thing.

Making dance music though? Nah.

It sounds like people think stacking shit on top of shit is going to turn it into gold when the melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic ideas are really what determine the musical quality.

Of course when dancing is the prime directive I guess musical quality doesn't necessarily mean much.

I don't know about all that. I mean, there are some incredible pieces of music out there that are all about sound design and very little to do with traditional harmony/melody/rhythm. But I think really good sound design doesn't require a million instances of plug ins or a ton of layered tracks. It requires patience, listening, and the artful use of what you have.

leisuremuffin wrote:I don't know about all that. I mean, there are some incredible pieces of music out there that are all about sound design and very little to do with traditional harmony/melody/rhythm. But I think really good sound design doesn't require a million instances of plug ins or a ton of layered tracks. It requires patience, listening, and the artful use of what you have.

Of course I agree, but I was specifically talking about dance music, which from most of what I've ever heard still relies heavily on traditional musical elements of pitch and rhythm even while exploiting timbral transformations.

I wouldn't be so quick to define the parameters of something as broad as "dance music." I mean, I suppose by design it's going to have to have rhythm, but I've heard plenty of tracks destroy a dance floor that didn't rely on traditional use of pitch relationships at all. Just like all other art forms, there is a ton of absolute shit dance music to dig through to find the real gems. And unfortunately, being shit does not preclude something from being really huge. Most of the dance music audience barely gives a shit about music, it's just wallpaper for their bullshit club experience. But you will find that there are some that do really care, and that would rather be in a dark room dancing to really amazing stuff than in some huge over designed club with lasers and bottle service getting coked to the gills while the latest shit anthem plays.


It's just like everything else man. You have to care to find the real shit.

I think you're conflating the subject of musical quality (i.e. quality of techniques) with the subject of musical content (i.e description of techniques).

Also, are we talking about "dance music" or "music one could dance to"? I was talking about the former, which I would say is a much narrower category than the latter.

I doubt those people are dancing to the "sound design" even in a track with no discernible melody or harmony.

Although I suppose certain sound design techniques blur the line between strict composition of note-based rhythms and sound sculpture. Food for thought.

ok, here's two examples:

perc and fractal, up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4vHzotdJ4g

T++ space pong:
http://vimeo.com/11720803


I've seen both of those tracks destroy a dance floor.

edit- here's another good example ---> Emmanuel Top Asteroid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3qTZ6PWMmI


i mean, i could go on for a bit, there's quite a lot of stuff like this.

Yep, in both cases the sound design is creating rhythmic counterpoint to the repetition of the beat. A traditional musical parameter borne of sound design techniques.

Also, at least in the first one, the pitch trajectory of that main sound creates forward motion and a build-up of tension. It's a continuous trajectory (no discrete tones), but pitch-based nonetheless.

in terms of the number of asses moved to dance... do those electronic styles hope to compete with tried and true styles such as this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVnfVUWiBTU

@ stringtapper Yeah, well I think you are conflating the concept of frequency as a sound design parameter with the concept of pitch as it pertains to melody or harmony. . You have to admit that none of my example tracks contain much in the way of melody or harmony, they are pretty much just rhythm and sound design. Just putting that stuff out there as a response to what seemed like a pretty dismissive and possibly ignorant statement on your part. No offense intended by that, just my opinions.


But anyway, we are way off topic now, it's interesting, but nothing to do with how impossible it is to make music without delay compensation of automation and a thousand plug ins on every track.

H20nly wrote:in terms of the number of asses moved to dance... do those electronic styles hope to compete with tried and true styles such as this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVnfVUWiBTU

Come on, dude, the polka dance is gone. But the polka dot lives on...............
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G62rN_mFfFw
(make sure you give this clip a chance, the acid kicks in at around 2:45 or so)

leisuremuffin wrote:@ stringtapper Yeah, well I think you are conflating the concept of frequency as a sound design parameter with the concept of pitch as it pertains to melody or harmony. . You have to admit that none of my example tracks contain much in the way of melody or harmony, they are pretty much just rhythm and sound design. Just putting that stuff out there as a response to what seemed like a pretty dismissive and possibly ignorant statement on your part. No offense intended by that, just my opinions.


But anyway, we are way off topic now, it's interesting, but nothing to do with how impossible it is to make music without delay compensation of automation and a thousand plug ins on every track.

You'll note that I already agreed that my use of those terms was broad. Not sure why any of it kept going after that.

stringtapper wrote:

leisuremuffin wrote:I don't know about all that. I mean, there are some incredible pieces of music out there that are all about sound design and very little to do with traditional harmony/melody/rhythm. But I think really good sound design doesn't require a million instances of plug ins or a ton of layered tracks. It requires patience, listening, and the artful use of what you have.

Of course I agree, but I was specifically talking about dance music, which from most of what I've ever heard still relies heavily on traditional musical elements of pitch and rhythm even while exploiting timbral transformations.

That last part in bold being consistent with my assessment of your examples.