FILM COMPOSER Feature Requests

Share what you’d like to see added to Ableton Live.
RoyJeeBiv
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Nov 14, 2011 5:29 pm

Re: FILM COMPOSER Feature Requests

Post by RoyJeeBiv » Tue Dec 20, 2016 1:20 am

EXPRESSION MAPS (a la Cubase).

it is fascinating how no other DAW has implemented a similar feature. so simple, yet incredibly useful.

topaz
Posts: 133
Joined: Sat Aug 09, 2008 9:52 am

Re: FILM COMPOSER Feature Requests

Post by topaz » Sat Jun 02, 2018 9:24 am

This historic thread clearly shows Ableton have no intention of ever making a Live that has any of these features. So flogging a dead horse springs to mind.

Cubase is the ultimate DAW for creating large templates that can basically load your entire library of synths, sample libraries etc and disable and hide them with a single click.

I think the chances of seeing these in live is about as likely as the super rich being forced to actually pay their taxes.
Complete Cycle, Contemporary Music for Film, TV, Media & Games.
http://www.completecycle.bandcamp.com

Bdumaguina
Posts: 113
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Location: Manila, Philippines

Re: FILM COMPOSER Feature Requests

Post by Bdumaguina » Sat Jul 14, 2018 3:09 pm

topaz wrote:This historic thread clearly shows Ableton have no intention of ever making a Live that has any of these features. So flogging a dead horse springs to mind.

Cubase is the ultimate DAW for creating large templates that can basically load your entire library of synths, sample libraries etc and disable and hide them with a single click.

I think the chances of seeing these in live is about as likely as the super rich being forced to actually pay their taxes.
Still keeping my fingers crossed. In the meantime, my large templates are going to Studio One 3 - but my sound design stays in Live 9. Can't justify Live 10 upgrade without much support for video, timecode, etc.

nonchai
Posts: 61
Joined: Tue Dec 14, 2010 5:25 pm

Re: FILM COMPOSER Feature Requests

Post by nonchai » Tue Aug 31, 2021 5:38 pm

Its now 2021 and some of the suggestions here have actually been implemented now.

However- here is *MY*. personal minimal list if feature enhancements to at least keep me ( us? ) in Ableton for longer before having to export work into a scoring app or Cubase etc.. :

Ive already been forced to use Cubase and am exploring Studio One for orchestra related projects. But always end up missing good ole Ableton!.

1 ) Support multiple MIDI ports on hosted plugins
=================================================
For Vienna Ensemble Pro users this allows us to require less VEP instances. Currently we are forced to use many instances each with a max of only 16 MIDI channels. If Ableton supported more than one MIDI port per plugin ( Like Cubase and Studio One do for example ) we could have 16 X 10 instruments in a single instance. And the less instances one uses in VEP the lighter the load on the server computer.

2 ) Support for articulation maps
=========================

No brainer. For orchestral stuff but also other libraries and plugins this makes articulation switching much less of a pain.

Cubase, Logic, Studio One and Performer all have articulation maps.


3 ) Better exporting support for exporting to scoring or notation apps or DAWS that support movie/media work more comprehensively
==================================================================

I don't see any need ( or market ) for building in any kind of score editing. That would be wasted resource of developer time for an app whose main user base is not orchestral focused. BUT.......... instead just give us enough export tools to easily move our MIDI into a notation app ( or DAW that supports notation scoring ) so we can do any final score printouts and refinements at the end of our composition process..

So export formats such as OMF etc would allow us to stay in Ableton longer but then when needed move our work to a more suitable tool for orchestration.

Failing this - at the very least give us better bulk MIDI export tools!!!


4) DISABLE MIDI TRACK feature - like Cubase/S1 etc
===========================================

For better support of large templates, other DAWS allow us to load projects where DISABLED tracks load their plugin save state info but don't actually launch the plugin itself. This dramatically reduces the time it takes to load big templates and also reduces the CPU load since plugins are only instantiated when absolutely needed.

5 ) TRACK VISIBILITY FEATURES
===========================

For large templates - being able to hide one or more tracks from view can greatly reduce clutter and help focus the mind and eye on the instruments being worked on. Cubase and S1 has this. One feature which neither Cubase or Studio One has - which I think would make such visibility features more useful than even Cubase - would be if we were able to give tracks TAGS. So one could tag by instrument type and thus easily be able to filter tracks to show just violins, synth tracks etc.

The way Cubase allows one to save visibility configurations is terrible for reasons I won't go into here - and being able to control visibility based on filtering on one or more TAGS would get around the defect (bad design ) of how Cubase does things.


For me - that's it...

yes it would of course be nice to have much more MIDI editing facility in the piano roll. And really cool if Ableton add a macro facility like Cubase and S1 have.

But there you are.

MallorcaMalle
Posts: 104
Joined: Fri Oct 16, 2020 10:35 am

Re: FILM COMPOSER Feature Requests

Post by MallorcaMalle » Tue Aug 31, 2021 6:53 pm

I have a serious question regarding all these feature request. These are all valid, I'm really just curious... because I also posted features from Cubase I wished in Live in another thread but thinking it over it will not happen because Live and Cubase, S1, Logic, etc. just are so different. On an Ableton dev conference Friedemann Schautz made the point that Ableton is about REDUCING OPTIONS, and I think that is one core property what makes it so strong and accessible for beginners. I like this ease of use and extremely fast handling of things in Live - and the racks-system.

My question (just curious):
Why are you using Ableton Live for film composing where you can have maaany of these requested features all together in other daws? What is it that you prefer in contrast to the other daws like Cubase, etc with more build-in functionality?

Bdumaguina
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Location: Manila, Philippines

Re: FILM COMPOSER Feature Requests

Post by Bdumaguina » Tue Aug 31, 2021 10:06 pm

MallorcaMalle wrote:
Tue Aug 31, 2021 6:53 pm
My question (just curious):
Why are you using Ableton Live for film composing where you can have maaany of these requested features all together in other daws? What is it that you prefer in contrast to the other daws like Cubase, etc with more build-in functionality?
Joining the conversation again. Made me think too... do you like vanilla or chocolate? Why? Subjective question yes?

That's how I felt about your question, there are days when I look at Ableton and I feel inspired. Inspiration comes in many different forms yeah? Maybe it's the clip slots in session view? Or the way Instrument Racks are designed? The ease of sound design? Controller support? Ableton Warping algorithm is topnotch, so it's easy to mark temp tracks' tempo? So yeah. I've grown used to using DAWs as tools for what they are best at. That said I haven't composed for film in a while - only a few ads here and there. So just short pieces of music to picture. And Ableton performs well in that regard. It's in long format videos where the features mentioned in this thread could be a great help.

nonchai
Posts: 61
Joined: Tue Dec 14, 2010 5:25 pm

Re: FILM COMPOSER Feature Requests

Post by nonchai » Tue Aug 31, 2021 11:44 pm

MallorcaMalle wrote:
Tue Aug 31, 2021 6:53 pm
I have a serious question regarding all these feature request. These are all valid, I'm really just curious... because I also posted features from Cubase I wished in Live in another thread but thinking it over it will not happen because Live and Cubase, S1, Logic, etc. just are so different. On an Ableton dev conference Friedemann Schautz made the point that Ableton is about REDUCING OPTIONS, and I think that is one core property what makes it so strong and accessible for beginners. I like this ease of use and extremely fast handling of things in Live - and the racks-system.

My question (just curious):
Why are you using Ableton Live for film composing where you can have maaany of these requested features all together in other daws? What is it that you prefer in contrast to the other daws like Cubase, etc with more build-in functionality?

I totally agree that Ableton's "minimalism" AKA REDUCING OPTIONS - is a huge strength of LIVE and what keeps me with it. So any feature added needs to be considered carefully. Cubase is the everything AND the kitchen sink by comparison.

<What is it that you prefer in contrast to the other daws like Cubase, etc with more build-in functionality?>

Well its the above and in particular just how the piano roll editor works exactly as I would expect. Gapless recording is another.

Ive been around a long time and came from owning Logic, Digital Performer AND Cubase up to around 2010 when I discovered LIVE. I was never anything close to as productive or inspired in the other DAWS before I discovered LIVE.

And whenever I try - as currently to switch to the other daws - there just annoyingly seems always to be something making me wish "why can't this be like Ableton??"

This is why I'd just be content for the bare minimal set of features that would let me do orchestral stuff in my favourite DAW - LIVE.

And as part of that would just be enough export facility to move my work to one of those "kitchen sinks" when I've done all I can * ie the most creative and inspiring bit" in LIVE - and need to finish the thing off or prepare scores and charts etc for musicians to play

jonljacobi
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Re: FILM COMPOSER Feature Requests

Post by jonljacobi » Wed Sep 08, 2021 8:19 pm

Aye, that's the rub. People move to Live for it's minimalism, then want to add a bunch of features that are of narrow interest. If everybody gets every feature they want, you wind up with a complex mess. Every feature seems to be very carefully implemented.

Not that there isn't room for improvement mind you... There are plenty of things that could be made more consistent and features that don't necessarily add complexity. I don't think any of the suggestions above would overburden the program. Hiding tracks would lead to more visual simplicity.

MallorcaMalle
Posts: 104
Joined: Fri Oct 16, 2020 10:35 am

Re: FILM COMPOSER Feature Requests

Post by MallorcaMalle » Sun Sep 12, 2021 7:38 am

Yeah think you're right, there are feature wishes that won't mess up the accessibility and will be an immediate plus and others need to be veeery carefully thought-out not to mess up what makes Live so popular, especially for electronic dance music production...

nonchai
Posts: 61
Joined: Tue Dec 14, 2010 5:25 pm

Re: FILM COMPOSER Feature Requests

Post by nonchai » Tue Feb 01, 2022 5:30 pm

Hi Again folks.

I made a small YouTube video summarising *my* particular list of missing features - as described in my earlier reply here.

Please like and share etc.. if you want to get something hopefully done about all this in - say - Live 12 ...

Its titled. 'Ableton: Whats missing for Orchestra/Media Composers?
5 Features and a minute of your time:'

https://youtu.be/UL_thHi6deA

Psychoactive_Music
Posts: 105
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Contact:

Re: FILM COMPOSER Feature Requests

Post by Psychoactive_Music » Wed Feb 02, 2022 12:09 pm

I’m working on a video project now and it pains me that I have to use Logic because it has SMPTE timecode and Ableton does not. I’ve been using Ableton for about 11 years but now I have to use Logic because of one missing feature.

The work arounds are not suitable imo.

Ableton would be the most fluid and creative place to score to picture and provide an alternative to Logic and Cubase but I fear the management do not have interest, which is disappointing.

I’d really like Ableton to come out and say they have no plans, because I always have hope and then become disappointed.

Including film scoring features would be a really forward looking and creative-friendly direction.

jonljacobi
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Re: FILM COMPOSER Feature Requests

Post by jonljacobi » Mon Feb 21, 2022 7:44 pm

I don't think it's out of the question. But seems to me it's a relatively small user base that's largely locked in on other DAWS.

Machinesworking
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Re: FILM COMPOSER Feature Requests

Post by Machinesworking » Mon Feb 21, 2022 9:33 pm

jonljacobi wrote:
Wed Sep 08, 2021 8:19 pm
Aye, that's the rub. People move to Live for it's minimalism, then want to add a bunch of features that are of narrow interest. If everybody gets every feature they want, you wind up with a complex mess. Every feature seems to be very carefully implemented.

Not that there isn't room for improvement mind you... There are plenty of things that could be made more consistent and features that don't necessarily add complexity. I don't think any of the suggestions above would overburden the program. Hiding tracks would lead to more visual simplicity.
This is probably out of the scope of this discussion, but I've always disagreed with this summery, it's not feature creep or bloatware that drives me into using Live, it's that the features that are implemented are done well. Basically all DAWs do this "keeping up with the Joneses" routine as far as adding features, but they rarely revisit that feature. Digital Performer actually added in new more modern stretch features, but it really really needed to. Other areas might be 15-20 years old in implementation and at this point hardly useful.

Basically IMO it's not "bloatware"that's the issue, I personally have no problem with complex DAWs or applications in general, it's features half implemented or poorly implemented, then abandoned.

jonljacobi
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Joined: Sat Dec 30, 2017 3:36 am

Re: FILM COMPOSER Feature Requests

Post by jonljacobi » Mon Feb 28, 2022 3:19 am

I stand by it, mostly. The reason I use Live is because of its visual simplicity, non-modal approach, clever methodology, and relatively clean interface. They do an admirable job of adding stuff without letting it get in the way, but it can start to add up. Look at S1's event and audio menus. Even Live's are getting a bit long.

So perhaps I should say that my primary concern is "interface bloat" rather than "feature creep".

Funny you should mention DP, as I'm currently evaluating both it and Performer Lite. I'm particularly impressed with the latter though the track limits (16 MIDI/16 audio) would be a tough go. Doable.

Machinesworking
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Location: Seattle

Re: FILM COMPOSER Feature Requests

Post by Machinesworking » Mon Feb 28, 2022 3:30 am

jonljacobi wrote:
Mon Feb 28, 2022 3:19 am
Funny you should mention DP, as I'm currently evaluating both it and Performer Lite. I'm particularly impressed with the latter though the track limits (16 MIDI/16 audio) would be a tough go. Doable.
That's cool this has been my go to DAW combination for years.
Basically DP for large unwieldily templates, straight rock, orchestral and Live for most other things. Performer Lite is just a cut down version of Digital Performer, you can easily ignore the extra features of DP and use it like Performer Lite. :) I've been meaning to bug them for a copy of Lite just to see the cut down workflow of it.

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