what is your opinion on the new envelope curves>

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
snakedogman
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Re: what is your opinion on the new envelope curves>

Post by snakedogman » Sun Mar 17, 2013 2:41 pm

no it's not the same, look at the image I posted with the existing "fade" and new curved automation. Apart from the handle not being there and the x-axis constraint, the difference is also that the fade curve has a smooth start and a smooth end, while the new curves have only one smooth end (and even that is not really fully smooth). So even if they release the x-axis contraint it's not the same.
Now I won't claim that any one curve is the "correct" curve, but personally I would say of these two curve types the existing fade curve looks more useful. But it would be best to leave that decision to the user and give a few options.

Angstrom
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Re: what is your opinion on the new envelope curves>

Post by Angstrom » Sun Mar 17, 2013 2:57 pm

Yes, my point was that they could have implemented the released x constraint as in fade curves with little problem.
All talk of the CPU use is nonsensical, the curves are being calculated whichever way - it's a GUI issue, a choice. They simply chose to do it this way.

Here is some content from the beta forum relating to the issues of curves

Image

Image
Matthias Juengel (Official Rep) 5 months ago
Hi Angstrom,

Thank you for your automation curves feedback. Indeed, there is an X-constraint when dragging curves. This means that only a subset of all thinkable curve shapes can be achieved with the drag interface. When splitting, we don't apply these constraints to the resulting curves to not destroy what was there before the split. That's why, as you've described, more variations of curves can be created this way.

To better understand your suggestion of two-dimensional curve editing, I'd like to see some examples of concrete curve shapes that you want to achieve and which vertical and horizontal mouse movement, you think, should create them. Would it be possible to provide this?

Is there any tool you have in mind which gives you more freedom when it comes to curve editing?

Thank you again for sharing your findings and wishes!

Matthias
Is there any tool you have in mind which gives you more freedom when it comes to curve editing?


I've been trying to remember which app has a great curve control just like this but without the X constraint. It finally came to me today ... it's ...
Ableton Live (the crossfade curves) Doh!

The crossfade curves in Live work exactly like this, but without the X-constraint.

fx23
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Re: what is your opinion on the new envelope curves>

Post by fx23 » Sun Mar 17, 2013 2:58 pm

personally i find its a smart decision, as we instant acces to log in or out, and with just adding a point (by single clic, no more double), we can get in ouf fade with all possible curves, so in a worfklow speed it's a good compromise for MOST cases, wich are not only crossfades but also fades in/out ect.

Angstrom
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Re: what is your opinion on the new envelope curves>

Post by Angstrom » Sun Mar 17, 2013 3:03 pm

fx23 wrote:personally i find its a smart decision, as we instant acces to log in or out, and with just adding a point (by single clic, no more double), we can get in ouf fade with all possible curves, so in a worfklow speed it's a good compromise for MOST cases, wich are not only crossfades but also fades in/out ect.
Nope
Image


Also note that the other image shows that ... Even with breaking the curve into chunks "all possible curves" are actually NOT possible.

fx23
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Re: what is your opinion on the new envelope curves>

Post by fx23 » Sun Mar 17, 2013 3:11 pm

mmm i must admit i didn't deeply tested yet, i tought those were possible but beleive ya

mr.ergonomics
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Re: what is your opinion on the new envelope curves>

Post by mr.ergonomics » Sun Mar 17, 2013 4:40 pm

angstrom said it.. it was a topic in the live 9 beta, but nothing has changed since then.

to be honest without any disrespect to ableton - for me it's absolutely useless the way it is (angstrom said why). It's not an effective solution. furthermore I'm afraid that the topic curves will not be touched for a long time because one can say that ableton has curves now.

I'm afraid that this will be another example from a half baked feature that doesn't really solve problems. As always...I would really prefer to wait until live 10 for a mature effective solution than to have the current curve implementation.

mr.ergonomics
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Re: what is your opinion on the new envelope curves>

Post by mr.ergonomics » Tue Mar 19, 2013 11:49 pm

I have to add... I am very eager to understand what's the reason for this restriction, I guess there have to be a technical reason why the ignored it even when a lot of people complained in the beta. That said, implementing a bézier curve is not too complicated, there must be some restrictions from the existing code or something. I can only thing why to lock the x coordinate I can imagine is that they had problems to limit the control points in a way to prevent the curve to have more than one y value for the same x value (like a circles have for example). But even that should not be a really big problem.

Tarekith
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Re: what is your opinion on the new envelope curves>

Post by Tarekith » Wed Mar 20, 2013 2:56 am

Personally, if they're not going to give us a ton of curve options like say Cubase, then I'm fine with the one curve shape they did implement. That sort of logarithmic (or is it exponential?) curve is the one I choose 90% of the time anyway. Sure it's not as ideal as being able to freely use whatever curve you want, but it's not exactly a huge workflow issue for me either.
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snakedogman
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Re: what is your opinion on the new envelope curves>

Post by snakedogman » Wed Mar 20, 2013 9:49 am

mr.ergonomics wrote:I have to add... I am very eager to understand what's the reason for this restriction, I guess there have to be a technical reason why the ignored it even when a lot of people complained in the beta. That said, implementing a bézier curve is not too complicated, there must be some restrictions from the existing code or something. I can only thing why to lock the x coordinate I can imagine is that they had problems to limit the control points in a way to prevent the curve to have more than one y value for the same x value (like a circles have for example). But even that should not be a really big problem.
I think they just didn't want to bother because they were too busy playing with their fancy new controller. Either that or it was a conscious (though IMO misguided) design choice inspired by their fixation on simplicity (which for the most part I applaud in Live's design, but sometimes leads to unnecesary limitations).

ian_halsall
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Re: what is your opinion on the new envelope curves>

Post by ian_halsall » Wed Mar 20, 2013 10:13 am

I've said it before - it's rubbish.

They didn't change it at all during the beta despite huge amounts of noise about how people thought it wasn't great.

Why they don't have sine, exponential, log, triangle, saw is beyond me.

[art]
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Re: what is your opinion on the new envelope curves>

Post by [art] » Wed Mar 20, 2013 11:00 am

ian_halsall wrote:I've said it before - it's rubbish.

They didn't change it at all during the beta despite huge amounts of noise about how people thought it wasn't great.

Why they don't have sine, exponential, log, triangle, saw is beyond me.
i rekn they'll fix it.

ian_halsall
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Re: what is your opinion on the new envelope curves>

Post by ian_halsall » Wed Mar 20, 2013 11:04 am

I think they will but in its current form it's kind of - er - rubbish!

It would be nice to make it like Massive (I am bored with saying this) with a palette of curves which you can drop right into your tracks.

But to take it a step further and allow the user to define their own custom shapes (maybe from combinations of the other curves shapes) and then add them to a user palette is a game changer - nobody does this afaik - yet....

fx23
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Re: what is your opinion on the new envelope curves>

Post by fx23 » Wed Mar 20, 2013 11:08 am

ive been rude with them several time, but cmon, evn if not the perfect solution it's not/ far to be USELESS, there have been big improvments over the double clic non curved previous version.. they will probably improve in futur, was too short to mess L9. imo stuff like PDC now we got cool automs and curves is far more important..

panten
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Re: what is your opinion on the new envelope curves>

Post by panten » Wed Mar 20, 2013 11:17 am

ian_halsall wrote:I've said it before - it's rubbish.
:lol:

K1D1M35N
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Re: what is your opinion on the new envelope curves>

Post by K1D1M35N » Wed Mar 20, 2013 12:00 pm

snakedogman wrote:Just to illustrate: Live's "fades" (that they already had) and New Feature: curved automation.

Image
You wouldn't hear a difference anyway, so why bother? Just for the smoother looks?

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