MP3 export

[Blurr]

I wish you could point LIVE to an external compressor of our choice, say LAME.  Then you could Compress Clips with Right mouse Click and of course from the render options.

[estevan carlos benson]

dumb question: will that make it more expensive if Ableton needs to buy the technology license and then pass the cost on to us? If so, I'd rather just convert to mp3 with my own tools. I may be way off though.

why would it be expensive when free audio editors, players, DAWS, use LAME to add export to mp3 functionality to their software.

Licensing. That's what I'm asking but again it may be a dumb question. I know it was a factor in the early 2000s with the original MP3 compression method and that's why other compression algorithms were created like from LAME. Again though, that may not be the issue in this case.

[roby]

Another topic that needs to be addressed.

To be honest I'm not sure about licensing. But let's look at a company like Cockos and their product REAPER. REAPER support mp3 import and export, although for exporting, you need to find a copy of LAME and place it in your Windows' system folder, or the REAPER installation folder. Once you do that, you're good to go. I don't know how or what kind of licensing is being employed in a scheme like that, but I naively think none. Ableton could adopt something like this.

dumb question: will that make it more expensive if Ableton needs to buy the technology license and then pass the cost on to us? If so, I'd rather just convert to mp3 with my own tools. I may be way off though.

why would it be expensive when free audio editors, players, DAWS, use LAME to add export to mp3 functionality to their software.

Licensing. That's what I'm asking but again it may be a dumb question. I know it was a factor in the early 2000s with the original MP3 compression method and that's why other compression algorithms were created like from LAME. Again though, that may not be the issue in this case.

[Der_Makrophag]

I do not need it. The sharing arguments should rather apply to the share feature that was once announced! MP3 export would be the workaround.

See here (unfortunately I cannot find the bigger, older threads concerning this):
http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php? ... ilit=share
http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php? ... ilit=share

[mattverzola]

Share is a very cool feature, but it has nothing to do with mp3 export. You might not do this, but some of us send our music to other people on the internet through email, ichat, yousendit, etc. Currently to share a song you have to bounce it, then convert the wav or aif to mp3 in a separate program. Other DAWs have the ability to give you a range of audio file formats when you bounce or export from within their software. Ableton does not.

[roby]

right, "share" is great but it is its own function.

Share is a very cool feature, but it has nothing to do with mp3 export. You might not do this, but some of us send our music to other people on the internet through email, ichat, yousendit, etc. Currently to share a song you have to bounce it, then convert the wav or aif to mp3 in a separate program. Other DAWs have the ability to give you a range of audio file formats when you bounce or export from within their software. Ableton does not.

[NF]

To catch the main thread theme:

In my opinion implemented mp3-export is unneccesary, because of:
- cost intesive in the way to hire programmers
- licenses have to be payed- at least by us users
- unprofessional, because in a professional process the song is never produced, mixed and mastered by the same person <-> DAW!

same with cloud stuff.

this does not even reflect the way to make music. a good song needs time to think about it.

making music, get oneself into trance by headbanging all the time and say
"that shit is hot and should go out now, now I'm exporting to mp3 and out into the cloud!"
is not cool!

my 2 cents

[mattverzola]

So you think Ableton can't afford to add mp3 export because it's such a complex feature request that they'd have to hire more programmers and users would have to pay more in return. I think that's underestimating Ableton just a little bit.

As for the unprofessional part, let me just say that aside from employing a mastering engineer who uses proprietary software in a tuned room, the plugins that are used in DAWs like Pro Tools, Logic, etc. run just as easily in Live, so there's no reason to bounce out your mix into another DAW unless you're working with someone who can't open or work with your Live session.

I've been making some professional tracks lately that you can find on facebook.com/2Beeps and they took a lot of care and time to make, which included mixing and mastering with other professionals, and when I was finally ready to publish the tracks I had to take an additional step to convert by bounced wav files to an mp3 in a separate program. That simple stupid additional step is all I'm talking about.

Every other major DAW has this feature included with it. So should Live.

[dcocharro]

vote +1

MP3 export, please. Not fun having to bounce a wav and then convert with another program. Thanks!

[Paladino]

+1

[DJSK]

dumb question: will that make it more expensive if Ableton needs to buy the technology license and then pass the cost on to us? If so, I'd rather just convert to mp3 with my own tools. I may be way off though.

Well for Mac it shouldn't be a problem because I'm pretty sure they could just use quicktime to do the conversion.

[kanuck]

i think people are saying they'd rather have other features implemented instead of something that only helps in "convenience"

for myself the 2 things I'd really like to see are:
bezier curves
proper plugin delay compensation...

that's it.. live is perfect for myself otherwise.

[mattverzola]

kanuck, couldn't agree more. automation delay is the biggest hurdle in my ableton workflow right now.

mp3 export SHOULD NOT be the first priority. But it is convenient, and I think it would be extremely easy to implement.