My thoughts on LIVE! Is cheaper better to express yourself?

alien factory · Post by **alien factory** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 1:35 am

Hi to all music lovers,

as kind of introduction I would like to ask all those who complaint about the price of LIVE the last days since Logic 8 was released, if a cheaper version of LIVE would make their music better or more touching for their listeners? Is it about that they would spent the saved money on other tools or plug-ins, of which they hope to get their outstanding piece of music?

To get my opinion right, I would like to introduce myself a bit:

Please believe me that I'm of course not the holy wisdom keeper, but the following is my experience and my personal conclusion.

I am in professional music business for 14 years now and made my first record in 1991. I had about 90 releases, including 20 major releases and was a famous Techno Live-Act in Germany from 1994 to 1998. I produced in my own studio and also in big film dubbing facilities with high end equipment. So I know about all kinds of producing music and sound with many DAWs, Plug-Ins and analog outboard.

After all these years I came to only one definite conclusion:

It is not depending on your equipment if you are able to produce or write music that inspires and touches your audience! If you can't reach the soul of a listener with a minimal equipped setup, you won't reach it with all Plug-Ins and DAWs you can buy...

I sold my studio and reduced everything to my Laptop, Ableton LIVE, a Remote SL37, a Firewire audio interface and Ozone3 for mastering and I am feeling more able to recollect myself to the essence of making music than before (with Logic, ProTools HD3, D-Control, Komplete 4, Sony Oxford, URS and nearly all available plug-ins.) Don't think the more Plug-ins and DAWs you have will result in better tracks. If you can't make a electronic hit with LIVE6 you won't make it with LIVE 14 either. Develop your personality and your knowledge instead of your plug-In library, get inspired and learn from others...

Unfortunately every single note has been played, every chord has been heard and every audible frequency has been oscillated. Creating new styles, new music, new sounds is quite a hard task and perhaps this personal claim is too high for me, but it is at least the motivation that drives me since we experienced the development of a new style at the end of the 80's and beginning of the 90's. Some of you will perhaps think, that this old grandpa writing here should go home and cry into his cushion, but those have propably never experienced standing in a club and hearing sounds and rhythms, put together into music you never heard before... Sorry for you...

So what is it all about? What will it take to take musical history to the next level? "Brain to sound" would be lovely...

Regarding the last 50 years of musical development, the main directions respectively styles were generated and made possible by technical efforts. The electric guitar, synthesizers, samplers, pitchable direct driven turntables and of course computers that democratized the production of music to everyone. Rock, Pop, Hiphop and electronic music styles as main directions were developments out of new technical possibilities.

The last years I was too occupied as an employed sound engineer with producing "traditional" music and sounds to take care of the fast development in the creative section. I heard of LIVE of course, but never had the time to test it and was to busy with earning money in my job. But this summer I thought about how I could get a new approach into making music and I discovered LIVE. I dropped Logic and ProTools and started with LIVE and msut say today, after 3 months that this software is the first step into the right development. I know about all the lacks it has in comparison to Logic and ProTools (see my post: http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 779#512779 ) concerning "normal" DAW functions, but as I am just preparing my live set and after re-thinking I have to admit. Do we really need a second Logic or ProTools or do we need something different.

Of course something different and with Session View and all the assignable buttons LIVE is already unique and the reason we all use it. But also within the "Live" section there are still some lacks and sometimes I feel more like a programmer than a musician. And here's the point. This one goes out to the programmers @ Ableton:

Let musicians be musicians, free them from dealing with programming and thinking about with which work around they could get fast access to their music in a live situation.

"Live situation" in this case does not only mean playing in a club (and spending days before to prepare it...), it means also and even more important to achieve the goal of creating something new in the situation in the studio, when a musician wants to express himself directly without beeing disturbed by technical or programming issues. Without having to program "Midi-Stroke" or "Control Aid" to get access to all parameters or designing plug-ins in Max/Msp for example...

In my opinion the next step is to design a real instrument out of the possibilities we have today, it is time to overcome the last two decades of overrated Vinyl DJs and let people doing music without having to become a computer expert and sometimes nerd, sitting years in the dark... I worked with so many DJs the last years and all of them had good ideas and inspired me, but also all of them were overstrained and / or too lazy to get into the matter of how they could produce music on their own. And what do we have as a result: Still the most famous DJs are those of the early years, those who breaked through are those who have a mostly unknown nerd by their side dealing with the technical issues and in every club most of the time a DJ is playing instead of live electronic musicians. (It's so much easier to play music from others and get even more respect and money than making own music...sorry from wandering a bit from the subject).

So we need a real instrument and LIVE is the best tool at the moment for having nearly an instrument depending of how good you made your setup. The next step in my opinion should be to give the musicians in the LIVE community faster and easier access to their ideas, less programming, less thinking. Let the DAW functions as they are and take care of the musical functions. The DAW functions are good enough to get the mix done and nearly no Hit was a Hit because of its sound quality but rather because of the music. Another necessary step would be the development of a specific Ableton hardware controller... I personally can't wait to test the Yamaha Tenori-On, and please be also insipred by the monome...

This post gets too long, I guess. I will make another one in the feature wishlist section as soon as I got my Live setup done and can make specific suggestions for what I am missing... One last sentence:

Give us a real instrument, free the musicians from thinking and thanks for inspiring me!

cheers to all, feedback appreciated,

stefan

Timur · Post by **Timur** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 8:01 am

*thumbs up*

headquest · Post by **headquest** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 8:11 am

Excellent OP, and as I've not seen you before, welcome to the forum

3dot... · Post by **3dot...** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 8:47 am

... Totally agree with you...

alien factory · Post by **alien factory** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 11:43 am

thanks guys,

quite some views by now, but no disagreement by now, perhaps I should post the bold lines in the feature wishlist section....

anyone experienced the same that it gets harder and even restricts your musical ideas if you got too much software, plug-ins, equipment?

Opening a plug-In list should never exceed the window size...

additions and refutations welcome...

cheers,

stefan

Jaan · Post by **Jaan** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 12:10 pm

Yeah, if only the devs would read this.

I completely agree: sometimes I feel like a programmer too. I just wanna have fun!

However if Live was that simple then everyone would be making music, not just the geeks

. I don't know whether that will be a good thing or a bad thing.

All those requirements are nice but believe me they will take a while. So chill and work with what you got, and please post the link to your thread in the feature wishlist section.

Cheers.

Oh yeah, can you send me a link to some of your music?

Timur · Post by **Timur** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 12:32 pm

headquest wrote:Excellent OP, and as I've not seen you before, welcome to the forum

Hey, he joined months before me and no one said welcome to me!

With the wishlist one has to keep in mind that there will always be specialized software/devices that can do things better than other more general oriented ones. As with Live I am not very much impressed by it's drum repertoire when it comes to less electronica and more rock-like drumsets. So I am using Battery for that, especially given it's far better articulation features and formidable multi-layer/velocity sample-library. That's ok for me because I don't expect Live to come as a full featured drum-sampler. But I do expect Live to integrate my full featured drum-sampler as good as possible and that's where it's lacking.
Another example is the lost "Edit" button that many people seem to be missing.

So if integration of third-party devices and controls would become better in Live then there would be less need for a full-feature-bloated Live at all, beside the understandable strive of consumers to get as much as possible for as little price as possible, which atm leads them to Logic. But Logic has a whole different customer scenario, namely that of people needing to buy an Apple computer to run Logic and Apple trying to crush the competition on Macs so that they can dictate the market later (they're well aware that many musicians/media creatives are prefering Macs already).

headquest · Post by **headquest** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 12:41 pm

Welcome, Timur

alien factory · Post by **alien factory** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 12:42 pm

Hi Jaan,

However if Live was that simple then everyone would be making music, not just the geeks . I don't know whether that will be a good thing or a bad thing.

I am not talking of making it unnecessary to "learn" an instrument, but of achieving a new instrument. I remember when I learned saxophone and finally got on stage. The feeling playing an instrument live really differs from playing "live" with a laptop. I would like to get the same feeling with my laptop. That is what it's all about...

The link to my feature wishlist thread is http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 779#512779

Please consider that I changed my mind about the need to implement these features right away. It was more like a natural reaction of a Logic/ProTools User comparing those DAWs to LIVE. It's more important to follow the ideas in this post.

for some music in low quality visit:

http://www.toolbox-music.de

It's the homepage of my old studio that I closed last year, so the music is not actual but gives you an idea where I come from and what styles I produced...

have fun

stefan

chrysalis33rpm · Post by **chrysalis33rpm** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 12:45 pm

I agree highly with the sentiment of the OP...let Live become more and more of an instrument.

If I want Logic, I'll buy and use Logic. That will never prevent me from using Live.

The less I have to touch the mouse to make the music, the better.

Dominik · Post by **Dominik** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 1:11 pm

i'm a musician since many years and i never got in touch with a techno scene or something like this here in munich.
mostly techno is cheap produced music.
...but i also now and like very good produced techno,otherwise.
you don't need to be a musician to produce some good sound but musicians they solved the technical/physical computer problems and make good music are rare.

however,what's missing?

it's simply missing that musicians have to go go back to stage.
yeah, live give this possibility.
but is there any changing?
nope, you can sit at home and try to produce a
cd or vinyl, to get success.
after a successful process, you are maybe allowed to go on a real stage.
the old producing community is at it's end in germany, but we will see if the structure is changing.
i don't believe.
internet is great but it will not replace a live-concert.
if there is a question, it is not how good live is...it is a great tool, many people know this,but how to get in contact to make a fucking gig.NOT with techno or house or hiphop.
in this sence.
people should do make the effort in music and not try to knot relations all the time.
this is called WORK.
this is a interesting thread.

alien factory · Post by **alien factory** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 1:50 pm

you got some interesting points, dominik, which lead me tosome other but relating aspects...

you're right, techno and modern electronic music sounds often "cheap" as you define it, I would rather call it "self-repeating". And that is indeed what I am talking about...

It does not only belong to this style of music, as "techno" just became one style of popular music. Within the last ten years nothing really changed respectively no revolution in music took place and my post is the try to think about what Ableton as kind of technical provider for creative minds can do about it. I often meet DJs that play good working and sometimes (not often) records that are indeed mind-blowing. But when I tell them that I heard this kind of music or a similar piece 1995 they won't believe me. Of course the productions sound better today, but it's more about the feeling you get when you hear a tune...

Concerning you're thoughts on playing "live", I can't say too much about the actual "live" scene because I was too much locked up in studios the last years. But one aspect I truly believe in is that playing "live" in front of an audience is the only way to get access to the souls of your audience. You learn and communicate with them, taking back the energy into the studio and making something mind-blowing. Thats how you can achieve this today. Now my vision is to be able to generate music by improvisation directly on stage, like doing a solo as a musician in a band or like jamming with others. The day this is possible without being bound and restricted to much to preparing setups we'll have a true instrument...

One way to achieve this is not to think about how many sounds you could have in your setup, but thinking about having e.g. two sounds and beeing able to play them individually. Compare it to a guitar or a piano where you only have "one" basic sound, but it depends on the player how the sound changes and reaches your ears...

Would love to discuss with you and the others. Especially I would be interested how "playing live with a laptop" is developed and widespread in other countries and how they deal with the given restrictions...

cheers

stefan

Timur · Post by **Timur** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 2:04 pm

To learn playing live with a Laptop you need to: play live with a Laptop!

As stupid as this may sound it's coming from my own experience. I am a live musician with experience in live gigs and especially with experience in playing with other people. Now I'm collaborating with an electronic musician who's solely experienced in programming his Laptop for ambient/industrial kind of music. He never had to play together with other people and so he is really hampered whenever we do rehearsals with musicians who lack experience with electronics. They expect him to play his Laptop like an instrument and while he really got a bit better into it it's still lacking alot. It's like trying to compensate a real drummer with a drum-sequencer instead of a drum-sampler that you can play live via pads. The sequencer is inherently static, while the sampler allows you do improvise.

My own aim for making the computer an instrument (hopefuly by the help of Live) is to use it mainly as a sound- and effect machine and as such as an instrument. I'm gonna sing, play guitar, play pads, keys and whatever through it, while tapdancing on foot-controllers and twisting knobs. By time I will surely incorporate to trigger sequences, but that's not where I start at, it's just one more possibility that the all-in-one-box offers me. But all that will only work out if the software (like Live) allows me to use controllers on everything I want to control without needing to reach for the mouse. You can't expect me to play guitar and do singing in front of an audience while I'm trying to mouseclick on some tiny software knobs!

stinky · Post by **stinky** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 2:22 pm

um, Bome?

http://www.bome.com/midi/translator/

alien factory · Post by **alien factory** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 2:42 pm

Hi Stinky,

thanks for delivering the proof that LIVE is still missing essential features...

That's part of what I am talking about. We all know about Bome and Midistroke (for Mac), but this means again programming and not just doing music.

I also use Midistroke to get better access to all parameters that allow me to get a more intuitive way of making music, but LIVE should implement all this ready for use...

Any suggestions on my thought concerning a specific Ableton Hardware Controller???

thanks to all participiants of this thread.

stefan

My thoughts on LIVE! Is cheaper better to express yourself?

My thoughts on LIVE! Is cheaper better to express yourself?

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