Latest beta is fantastic!

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
Machinesworking
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Latest beta is fantastic!

Post by Machinesworking » Fri Dec 10, 2021 10:00 pm

Just a note to say I'm really happy with where Live is heading these days, the latest beta solves one of the major setbacks UX wise I've had with Live since the beginning.
Clip View can now be toggled to its maximum height using the keyboard shortcut CTRL+ALT+E (Win) / CMD+OPT+E (Mac) or the View menu entry “Expand Clip Detail View.”
Entries for switching between different Clip View panel properties have been added to the View menu, along with their corresponding keyboard shortcuts.
I'm a simple man, and this has been a thorn on my side using Live, now that it's implemented I'm just more excited than I probably should be about it! I know not everyone loves keyboard shortcuts, but for those of us who do, this is game changing in terms of speed and comfort when navigating the interface.

I had given up and accepted that Live would never do this after they didn't when dual screen support was implemented, but I'm happily wrong.
So after a search for an MPE DAW a couple years ago I'm back with Live and DP in the background as the dinosaur DAW, the end result is I have Launchpad Pro MK3 as well as Push 2.. :lol:

grrrz
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Re: Latest beta is fantastic!

Post by grrrz » Fri Dec 10, 2021 11:50 pm

so it's still in beta. ffs.
I was expecting a full release soon so I tought I could go without installing the beta and just be patient. Now it's been more than two months; I know these things take time; but not sure I won't go with the beta. plus most of my plugins are native now. Does somebody have an estimate of when a full release might happen? so not before January?
hope it's worth the wait (btw that's indeed an useful feature)

Tarekith
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Re: Latest beta is fantastic!

Post by Tarekith » Sat Dec 11, 2021 12:48 am

No release date has been announced or hinted at.
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Machinesworking
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Re: Latest beta is fantastic!

Post by Machinesworking » Sat Dec 11, 2021 3:21 am

Yeah two to four months is pretty normal for a beta, and they just added in the UX improvements to Clip View. So I think it's pretty safe to say it might be another three weeks or more.

The problem with us as end users is we have literally no idea of what it takes to maintain or add features to something as complex as Live. So we end up with unrealistic expectations. Betas can run into issues that set them back months, and I distinctly recall finding the beta for Live 8.0 to be really not very stable at all on my system, but unfortunately no one paid attention to my and a few others whinging on the beta forums about it, and months later after release people were dogging on Live releasing it too early etc. Ableton would do themselves no favors releasing this right after they added in UX changes IMO, but the beta is stable enough here to where I don't feel unsafe using it.

jestermgee
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Re: Latest beta is fantastic!

Post by jestermgee » Sat Dec 11, 2021 3:22 am

grrrz wrote:
Fri Dec 10, 2021 11:50 pm
Does somebody have an estimate of when a full release might happen? so not before January?
May 2022

grrrz
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Re: Latest beta is fantastic!

Post by grrrz » Sat Dec 11, 2021 4:14 pm

Machinesworking wrote:
Sat Dec 11, 2021 3:21 am
Yeah two to four months is pretty normal for a beta, and they just added in the UX improvements to Clip View. So I think it's pretty safe to say it might be another three weeks or more.

The problem with us as end users is we have literally no idea of what it takes to maintain or add features to something as complex as Live. So we end up with unrealistic expectations. Betas can run into issues that set them back months, and I distinctly recall finding the beta for Live 8.0 to be really not very stable at all on my system, but unfortunately no one paid attention to my and a few others whinging on the beta forums about it, and months later after release people were dogging on Live releasing it too early etc. Ableton would do themselves no favors releasing this right after they added in UX changes IMO, but the beta is stable enough here to where I don't feel unsafe using it.
you're right; and usually I don't really want to get the beta because I don't want to deal with the potential problems and also couldn't care less about new features (I still don't know or use most of live 11 features). But what's different this time is this beta add native support for M1 users; which is a huge deal; because it probably means a rather substantial performance boost and stability for those. But apparently it's on top of a lot of new features also. I mean I based my purchase of a M1 mac on the release of this beta version; and live is probably the latest DAW to get native support so I want to cut them some slack; but also it's getting long overdue. My experience with the rosetta version has been ok so far; but I have the occasional CPU spike (like for 4 seconds once in a while); and it also crashes a lot; but mostly when I close the program. The RAM usage is quite bigger than on my previous machine; not sure it's linked to rosetta though.

ark
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Re: Latest beta is fantastic!

Post by ark » Sat Dec 11, 2021 5:07 pm

grrrz wrote:
Fri Dec 10, 2021 11:50 pm
so it's still in beta. ffs.
I was expecting a full release soon so I tought I could go without installing the beta and just be patient. Now it's been more than two months; I know these things take time; but not sure I won't go with the beta. plus most of my plugins are native now. Does somebody have an estimate of when a full release might happen? so not before January?
hope it's worth the wait (btw that's indeed an useful feature)
The latest couple of betas have included documentation changes. My experience with software-development shops in general is that they tend to do the documentation last, because that way they have to rewrite it only once.

Machinesworking
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Re: Latest beta is fantastic!

Post by Machinesworking » Sat Dec 11, 2021 7:22 pm

grrrz wrote:
Sat Dec 11, 2021 4:14 pm
you're right; and usually I don't really want to get the beta because I don't want to deal with the potential problems and also couldn't care less about new features (I still don't know or use most of live 11 features). But what's different this time is this beta add native support for M1 users; which is a huge deal; because it probably means a rather substantial performance boost and stability for those. But apparently it's on top of a lot of new features also. I mean I based my purchase of a M1 mac on the release of this beta version; and live is probably the latest DAW to get native support so I want to cut them some slack; but also it's getting long overdue.
I feel for you, but you're being unrealistic. It's not long overdue, betas can go on for months, and like I mentioned you really don't want something released early, typically if that happens it will take forever to release a bug fix for the problems they didn't catch, because obviously they do not want to get it wrong a second time and they go overboard a bit.

So without trying to be mean for no reason I would say you're basing your impatience on your desire to use the M1 Macs, not on the typical time it takes to roll out a new version or a typical beta time frame.
My experience with the rosetta version has been ok so far; but I have the occasional CPU spike (like for 4 seconds once in a while); and it also crashes a lot; but mostly when I close the program. The RAM usage is quite bigger than on my previous machine; not sure it's linked to rosetta though.
I bought the M1 MacBook Air a while ago and it's pretty cool, I've been super modest with Rosetta plug ins, only using Amplitube 5 and the Vienna Ensemble Pro plug in really. NI are a PITA with this sort of transition, so I haven't bothered. I love Kontakt, Reaktor etc. but they're terrible this way, if you were around for the PPC to x86 transition they flatly lied about being blindsided by Apple when Apple warned everyone for months. Personally I never even considered running Live as a Rosetta app, that completely kills most of the advantage of the M1, and I'm wary of completely having to replace every plug in in a song with native versions when they roll out.

In general M1 is bleeding edge, buying it means using products that are updated for it or dealing with spikes and other anomalies that a new architecture emulating an old one will bring.

Mark Williams
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Re: Latest beta is fantastic!

Post by Mark Williams » Sat Dec 11, 2021 8:15 pm

I only had my first Mac M1 for a little while months or so, never had mac before, but its been rock solid no crashes at all, & I have spent past few months gradually moving all my presets over to AU versions, so I will be ready for when Ableton is M1. Most of my plugins are M1 ready anyway, with exception of NI.
Live 11, M1 Mac Mini, Push 2, Scarlett 18i20 & ADA8200, Softube Console 1 Mk2, Deepmind12, Hydrasynth, Cobalt 8M, Moog Subsequent 25, IK Uno Synth Pro, Plethora X3, Nord Drum 3P

grrrz
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Re: Latest beta is fantastic!

Post by grrrz » Sat Dec 11, 2021 9:50 pm

Machinesworking wrote:
Sat Dec 11, 2021 7:22 pm
It's not long overdue, betas can go on for months
not talking about the beta in particular but the M1 support. I mean there are a few other that are still late in the game (Izotope; NI); but they're among the last. I didn't know a beta cycle could be four months; but this I can understand. I was pretty careful about going with the M1; I checked everything (in particular hardware support); so I didn't blindly go in. In october I thought "ok; just one or two months that shouldn't be a problem"; didn't know it was gonna be almost like for a major release. I remember when the M1 was released people were saying "everything will be native in 3 months maximum" and I didn't believe them (and I was right)
Maybe this is nothing and M1 support won't really be a game changer. But since I have it I've been using more CPU intensive VSTs and tried to push the machine quite a bit (things I couldn't do with my previous mac). The issues I have are minor; but I'm curious to see if the little problems I have will disappear with the new version (and also if intel support for plugins won't be a total pain).

grrrz
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Re: Latest beta is fantastic!

Post by grrrz » Sat Dec 11, 2021 9:57 pm

ark wrote:
Sat Dec 11, 2021 5:07 pm
grrrz wrote:
Fri Dec 10, 2021 11:50 pm
so it's still in beta. ffs.
I was expecting a full release soon so I tought I could go without installing the beta and just be patient. Now it's been more than two months; I know these things take time; but not sure I won't go with the beta. plus most of my plugins are native now. Does somebody have an estimate of when a full release might happen? so not before January?
hope it's worth the wait (btw that's indeed an useful feature)
The latest couple of betas have included documentation changes. My experience with software-development shops in general is that they tend to do the documentation last, because that way they have to rewrite it only once.
Yeah that's what I thought; I saw the b7 included translations; so I was kind of expecting it to be the last (hence my disappointment). I'm still betting on something like mid-january; but we'll see. Anyway I'm still waiting for arturia fx collection; izotope and kontakt player to become native; hope they'll play nice as intel plug ins with the native live version.

Machinesworking
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Re: Latest beta is fantastic!

Post by Machinesworking » Sat Dec 11, 2021 10:14 pm

grrrz wrote:
Sat Dec 11, 2021 9:50 pm
Machinesworking wrote:
Sat Dec 11, 2021 7:22 pm
It's not long overdue, betas can go on for months
not talking about the beta in particular but the M1 support. I mean there are a few other that are still late in the game (Izotope; NI); but they're among the last. I didn't know a beta cycle could be four months; but this I can understand. I was pretty careful about going with the M1; I checked everything (in particular hardware support); so I didn't blindly go in. In october I thought "ok; just one or two months that shouldn't be a problem"; didn't know it was gonna be almost like for a major release. I remember when the M1 was released people were saying "everything will be native in 3 months maximum" and I didn't believe them (and I was right)
Maybe this is nothing and M1 support won't really be a game changer. But since I have it I've been using more CPU intensive VSTs and tried to push the machine quite a bit (things I couldn't do with my previous mac). The issues I have are minor; but I'm curious to see if the little problems I have will disappear with the new version (and also if intel support for plugins won't be a total pain).
I'm a little confused. Are you not using the beta therefore running Live in Rosetta?

NI are terrible at support, expect them to be last. Apparently they used multiple GUI frameworks and most are 10-15 years old. They did the same thing back in the day with the move from PPC to x86 chips, took forever and attempted to blame Apple on it. Arturia are done or will be done soon, and personally considering the GUI is the most critical thing for M1 support I was surprised that iZotope are lagging so badly since their GUIs at least look like modern code...

Maybe because the beta is older I dunno, but it's pretty stable here. Admittedly I'm just getting back into using Live daily, spent some time with Bitwig before MPE was implemented in Live, and I always use a dinosaur DAW in the background for silly things like SysEx, Articulation managers, advanced editing etc. So I don't worry about a few bugs if all the features are there.

Machinesworking
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Re: Latest beta is fantastic!

Post by Machinesworking » Sat Dec 11, 2021 10:17 pm

In terms of native support, I've got a few dozen other plug ins to worry about as well, PluginAllience various, all Sound Toys, Audio Ease, PSP are working on it, Xils Labs, IK, etc.

Mark Williams
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Re: Latest beta is fantastic!

Post by Mark Williams » Sat Dec 11, 2021 11:32 pm

grrrz wrote:
Sat Dec 11, 2021 9:57 pm


Anyway I'm still waiting for arturia fx collection;
They were updated last week or so.
Live 11, M1 Mac Mini, Push 2, Scarlett 18i20 & ADA8200, Softube Console 1 Mk2, Deepmind12, Hydrasynth, Cobalt 8M, Moog Subsequent 25, IK Uno Synth Pro, Plethora X3, Nord Drum 3P

Machinesworking
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Re: Latest beta is fantastic!

Post by Machinesworking » Sat Dec 11, 2021 11:38 pm

Mark Williams wrote:
Sat Dec 11, 2021 11:32 pm
grrrz wrote:
Sat Dec 11, 2021 9:57 pm


Anyway I'm still waiting for arturia fx collection;
They were updated last week or so.
They're not native yet though, just Rosetta compatible. I got fooled by it too.

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