is the browser 'sound menu' too restrictive or bad organised

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
Shokol8
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is the browser 'sound menu' too restrictive or bad organised

Post by Shokol8 » Thu May 31, 2018 11:36 pm

hello, is it only me, or is it quite difficult/hard to categorise new instrument you have downloaded from tiers?

for example, I got some instruments referred as chords, but they neither resembled strings or pads, where should I put them?
it seems to me there is a conflict between old producers and young one, in how synth should be categorised. is it the same problem for some coming from music Theory? do they categorise new synth instrument by what seems the more resembling one?

I mean I understand ableton do not want us to customise ourselves the sound menu in browser, because it could be a bit confusing, especially if we got no music theory behind us and can't distinguish what family of instrument is one, and that we certainly risk to put it in the wrong folder, and as time goes along, and more we learn about music theory, we realise all this time we have put instruments in the wrong family folder.

Should ableton, not be a bit educational about it, and tell us why they organise file this way?
maybe by highlighting on the sound folder, you should have a explanatory on the help windows what should belong there.
because, for example in 'sound menu' there is a 'synth key' folder and a 'piano and key' folder. would it not be easier to do one unique piano folder, and one unique 'key' folder
I know there is a difference between a synth key and rom-sampler key synth, but it just make things more complicating to make a distinction between them, I wonder how film music producer organise their own set, tho mostly they use tiers philharmonic library, where everything is already organised, but what if they decide to add synth that are not categorised, from their own creation? will they categorise them from what they sound, or for the purpose they use it ( for example they could use it for stabs or strings, but it would not sound like it)

I like the addition of the sound menu, but it has always bothered me the time you can lose trying to find the right folder to fit, because you can't custom it yourself, and your own knowledge blocks you from knowing which folder it should be put to.
Shokol8
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Angstrom
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Re: is the browser 'sound menu' too restrictive or bad organised

Post by Angstrom » Fri Jun 01, 2018 12:02 am

I find it totally useless and thankfully in L10 we can hide the whole "Sounds" thing. Hover over the categories label, choose edit, hide "sounds".

I name my presets with tags in the names like "ang-bass-fat-moogish-stereo-v3" and I just use the search for those.
The whole Sounds concept is ... not good.

Tarekith
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Re: is the browser 'sound menu' too restrictive or bad organised

Post by Tarekith » Fri Jun 01, 2018 12:14 am

I personally ONLY use the Sounds menu when browsing via Push, but I'd have to agree that better organization (cough tagging cough) would be most welcome. There's some killer sounds in the Live 10 library and packs, but it only takes me 5 minutes with Maschine to remember just how much easier it is to find sounds on Maschine.
Tarekith
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Angstrom
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Re: is the browser 'sound menu' too restrictive or bad organised

Post by Angstrom » Fri Jun 01, 2018 1:15 am

I assume Sounds was created for Push. That sort of pre-determined hierarchic tree probably makes more sense on a hardware device. Though if I had one I still wouldn't be satisfied with those weird arbitrary and illogical categorisations. The strange insistence that resources have a single descriptive property. Sometimes.

EG: Ableton factory sound "All alone pad" is found in Sounds: Ambient and Evolving ... but it is not found in pads!
Meanwhile Bass Trombone Solo Legato can be found in both Brass and in Orchestral. So is this a mutually exclusive taxonomic system, or not? Where is the consistency?

We know that a synth bass can also be evolving or rhythmic, where might we find that now that we know it may/may not be in multiple categories? How about orchestral stuff which is rhythmic but not synth? We cannot be sure where this might be found.

Why is there even a section called Effects in Sounds? What exactly differentiates Synth Misc from Effects? What does that objectively mean? Or subjectively to you, me, or somebody else?

It's absurd.

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Re: is the browser 'sound menu' too restrictive or bad organised

Post by Tarekith » Fri Jun 01, 2018 1:44 am

Your concerns on this topic have not gone unnoticed.
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Angstrom
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Re: is the browser 'sound menu' too restrictive or bad organised

Post by Angstrom » Fri Jun 01, 2018 1:54 am

Tarekith wrote:Your concerns on this topic have not gone unnoticed.
:lol:

Translation: "A photo of you is pinned to the dartboard in the breakroom labelled 'this fuckin guy!' "

Yeah, I know. :wink:

Image

Tarekith
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Re: is the browser 'sound menu' too restrictive or bad organised

Post by Tarekith » Fri Jun 01, 2018 4:00 am

Hey now, we fixed pack versions at least. :)

FWIW browser improvements are always at the top of my list when asked too. I have access to ALL of the Ableton Packs, but it's a nightmare trying to find a snare when you have 1300 installed in one category, I know that pain well.
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Angstrom
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Re: is the browser 'sound menu' too restrictive or bad organised

Post by Angstrom » Fri Jun 01, 2018 2:08 pm

I enjoy the concept of the pack versioning but currently, I don't trust it to show me correct info.

EG: I have a few packs installed :
Orchestral Strings. I open up the metadata

Code: Select all

Ableton#04I
FolderConfigData
{
  String PackUniqueID = "www.ableton.com/5";
  String PackDisplayName = "Orchestral Strings";
  String PackVendor = "Ableton";
  Int PackMinorVersion = 0;
  Int PackMajorVersion = 9;
  Int PackRevision = 29311;
  Int ProductId = 129;
  Int MinSoftwareProductId = 4;
}
Pertinent bit - V9, rev 29311;

Now, the one on the Ableton cloud is OrchestralStrings-r46423-V9.0.alp
29311 isn't the same as 46423

There's a discrepancy.
Those two numbers ought to match, or if there's a version mismatch the Versioning interface ought to show in the App, neither of which is the case.
I don't think it's working - and there's no interface, no button to press in-app such as [check versions], or even a commit message/ id

I'm not convinced.

I guess I ought to submit a bug report.

Shokol8
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Re: is the browser 'sound menu' too restrictive or bad organised

Post by Shokol8 » Sat Jun 02, 2018 2:33 am

Angstrom wrote: EG: Ableton factory sound "All alone pad" is found in Sounds: Ambient and Evolving ... but it is not found in pads!
Meanwhile Bass Trombone Solo Legato can be found in both Brass and in Orchestral. So is this a mutually exclusive taxonomic system, or not? Where is the consistency?

We know that a synth bass can also be evolving or rhythmic, where might we find that now that we know it may/may not be in multiple categories? How about orchestral stuff which is rhythmic but not synth? We cannot be sure where this might be found.

Why is there even a section called Effects in Sounds? What exactly differentiates Synth Misc from Effects? What does that objectively mean? Or subjectively to you, me, or somebody else?
.
Yeah you nailed it, I mean there a distinguished difference between rom sampler and synthesis, tho you can transform the original sound/preset to something else. But what’s why I don’t understand that we can’t label ourselves the category we want if there authority which is able to explain/ make a différenciation. It’s just very all confusing at the end. I mean native instrument as tarekith said got a much easier way to find what you are looking for, at least for a start.
Shokol8
Paris, Bristol
MBP i5 2.3Gh 8GB 500SSD, 1TB HDD
Sierra Suite 9.7 Edirol FA101
CME VX5, Irig Keys Pro
APC40/Push 1
Ipad Air, Alesis I/O dock, NI S4 & F1
http://soundcloud.com/dr_goldsylver-fastfinger

Shokol8
Posts: 155
Joined: Tue Sep 07, 2010 1:07 am

Re: is the browser 'sound menu' too restrictive or bad organised

Post by Shokol8 » Sat Jun 02, 2018 2:35 am

Angstrom wrote:
Tarekith wrote:Your concerns on this topic have not gone unnoticed.
:lol:

Translation: "A photo of you is pinned to the dartboard in the breakroom labelled 'this fuckin guy!' "

Yeah, I know. :wink:

Image
Hahahah nice lol
Shokol8
Paris, Bristol
MBP i5 2.3Gh 8GB 500SSD, 1TB HDD
Sierra Suite 9.7 Edirol FA101
CME VX5, Irig Keys Pro
APC40/Push 1
Ipad Air, Alesis I/O dock, NI S4 & F1
http://soundcloud.com/dr_goldsylver-fastfinger

Shokol8
Posts: 155
Joined: Tue Sep 07, 2010 1:07 am

Re: is the browser 'sound menu' too restrictive or bad organised

Post by Shokol8 » Sat Jun 02, 2018 2:44 am

Tarekith wrote:I personally ONLY use the Sounds menu when browsing via Push, but I'd have to agree that better organization (cough tagging cough) would be most welcome. There's some killer sounds in the Live 10 library and packs, but it only takes me 5 minutes with Maschine to remember just how much easier it is to find sounds on Maschine.
I agree native instrument got a very intuitive multi-tag browser, that make searching so easy. And ableton is just very chaotic in a way that you have always have to navigate between the menu browser, and your user browser, if you want thing categorised the way you want. I think the worst was,after I DLed a lot of interesting free M4L device, to look for one of them, there were no category at all, it’s like an all big giant mess folder, with more or less one side for audio device, one for midi device. If the name of the device isn’t a bit self explanatory, you have to through all of them to know what they do, again it’s where it lacks the fact you can’t custom folder the entry.
Shokol8
Paris, Bristol
MBP i5 2.3Gh 8GB 500SSD, 1TB HDD
Sierra Suite 9.7 Edirol FA101
CME VX5, Irig Keys Pro
APC40/Push 1
Ipad Air, Alesis I/O dock, NI S4 & F1
http://soundcloud.com/dr_goldsylver-fastfinger

2pauluzz2
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Re: is the browser 'sound menu' too restrictive or bad organised

Post by 2pauluzz2 » Wed Jun 06, 2018 11:34 am

I found myself overwhelmed and I've adopted a minimalist/ less-is-more(-creative) mindset. This is how I've organized my personal library. Each plugin (native/third party) needs to have has a good reason to be there. This is my way of "hiding" some of Abletons native options as well:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/a3yhxnq6rzyylbr/Browser.png

Stromkraft
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Re: is the browser 'sound menu' too restrictive or bad organised

Post by Stromkraft » Wed Jun 06, 2018 12:56 pm

Nice, inspirational one! Bringing some saneness to the chaos that is Live library structure.
Make some music!

login
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Re: is the browser 'sound menu' too restrictive or bad organised

Post by login » Wed Jun 06, 2018 7:49 pm

You think sounds is broken?

Let's talk about the drum rack category.

Horselover Fat
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Re: is the browser 'sound menu' too restrictive or bad organised

Post by Horselover Fat » Wed Jun 06, 2018 8:47 pm

2pauluzz2 wrote:I found myself overwhelmed and I've adopted a minimalist/ less-is-more(-creative) mindset. This is how I've organized my personal library. Each plugin (native/third party) needs to have has a good reason to be there. This is my way of "hiding" some of Abletons native options as well:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/a3yhxnq6rzyylbr/Browser.png
I like it a lot! But for this to work don't you have to put native and 3rd party instruments and FX into these folders? Are these Aliases/Links?

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