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MPE support.

Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2017 8:23 pm
by zerocrossing
So... Live 10. Not a peep about supporting MPE compatible devices. (Roli, Eigenharp, Linnstrument, etc) My Rise has become my main interface, and using it in Live 9 is a cluster f. I've been dealing with it, but I said to myself, "If they don't add it in the next version, I'm out." Well, it looks like they're not adding it. If someone from Ableton assures me that it's in the hopper and will come out at some point, I'll stay and upgrade to 10, but at this point it feels stupid for me to pretend that someday they'll add this when they show no sign of being remotely interested. I'd really love to stay with Ableton, but sending them even more money when they no longer meet my needs seems dumb.

Re: MPE support.

Posted: Sat Nov 04, 2017 2:59 pm
by orangeslice
I purchased a RISE 25 last month, and I was excited to hear about Live 10 - but was gutted once I noticed no mention of MPE support!

I love Ableton, but I began giving serious thought to switching to Bitwig Studio. MPE instruments have been around for at least about 3 years, and it's obvious they're incredibly useful for electronic musicians! I think Ableton is falling behind in this area.

Re: MPE support.

Posted: Mon Nov 06, 2017 5:28 pm
by edeimos
Does it work with Max 4 Live?

Re: MPE support.

Posted: Mon Nov 06, 2017 7:23 pm
by zerocrossing
edeimos wrote:Does it work with Max 4 Live?
I think there are some M4L objects that do support MPE, but that's far from good enough. It really needs to be as easy as using any other MIDI controller. Currently, you have to create a track for each voice of your instrument. Then, if you want to change the plugin/external instrument, you have to go one by one and reassign the routing/channel options. It's super tedious.

Re: MPE support.

Posted: Sat Nov 11, 2017 7:56 pm
by Roodegar
I just got a Roli Seaboard Block. I was hoping with Ableton supporting Roli Blocks as a control surfaces with the Live 9.7.5 update it would also mean they would be adding MPE support. Bummed that this wasn't actually happening and that there's not even a mention about this for version 10! There's more an more MPE controllers coming out these days and I bet a large portion of the people buying those are also Live users. A bunch of other DAWs are already supporting MPE, even Garageband on Mac.
Looks like Ableton is missing the boat here?

Re: MPE support.

Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2017 6:47 am
by artpunk
Roodegar wrote:I just got a Roli Seaboard Block. I was hoping with Ableton supporting Roli Blocks as a control surfaces with the Live 9.7.5 update it would also mean they would be adding MPE support. Bummed that this wasn't actually happening and that there's not even a mention about this for version 10! There's more an more MPE controllers coming out these days and I bet a large portion of the people buying those are also Live users. A bunch of other DAWs are already supporting MPE, even Garageband on Mac.
Looks like Ableton is missing the boat here?
Same here! Just got the Seaboard block, love the expressive capabilities MPE opens up. Very disappointed my favourite DAW that I (& no doubt many of us) have invested a fair bit of money in over the years seems to be so far behind other DAWS in this regard. If GarageBand can support it why can't Live? Please!!!

Re: MPE support.

Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2017 7:55 am
by Machinesworking
artpunk wrote:seems to be so far behind other DAWS in this regard. If GarageBand can support it why can't Live? Please!!!
Just to be fair, not every DAW supports MPE any better than Live does, there are similar issues in Studio One and Digital Performer in terms of multiple tracks etc.

Another hope for those of you with MPE controllers is that MPE is just about to be standardized, it could be why Ableton haven't done it yet, Max is going to v8.0 in early 2018 so that could be a factor as well. At least Ableton have more of an immediate hope of support for MPE with owning Cycling that have been doing MPE already with Max, than Studio One and DP, neither are probably getting it anytime soon... hopefully DP10 gets it when it comes out.

Re: MPE support.

Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 6:58 pm
by prestonj
Just to note that as of today (2017-01-03), Ableton continues to consider this a 'maybe in the future' feature. Per the support communication I received:
Thanks for reaching out. As you know, full MPE support is not currently available in Live. Though this has been a very popular request among our users, our developers were unable to implement this in the upcoming Live 10 release.

This kind of feedback from our customers is incredibly useful for our company. While I can't guarantee that this will be implemented in future versions of Live, I'm adding this to our internal feedback ticket regarding this feature.
I suspect they will one day support MPE... it seems inevitable... but that could 6 mos... one year... who knows! Too bad really as I was getting excited about upgrading to Live 10.

That said, one alternative that I don't believe has been mentioned in this thread is running two DAWs via ReWire or Ableton Link. I believe Reaper supports MPE... so you could theoretically push your MPE plugins over into Reaper land but keep the rest of stuff within Ableton. Seems like a pain if you use a ton of MPE plugs though, and obviously support for Ableton style workflow with clips etc would be lost.

Re: MPE support - via M4L RISE package?

Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2018 5:09 am
by danmcogden
Just picked up a Linnstrument and looking to use it with Ableton; I see they're not including it in Live 10, but I also see that there appears to be a Max for Live tool meant specifically for MPE, with some exclusives for the Seaboard RISE.

Has anybody used it? Is it basically the same thing as MPE support within Live or is it somehow "less"?

Re: MPE support - via M4L RISE package?

Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2018 8:34 pm
by Roodegar
I'm not sure about that Max for Live tool. Are you talking about the Max MIDI effect "expression control.amxd"?
I haven't tried it yet, but I doubt it allows for expression control per voice which is what MPE is all about and which is why the only workaround currently is to assign a separate track in live for each voice which is outlined in one of the earlier posts above.
Here is a video on how to do that. He uses the Seaboard Block as the example but I think it works the same for any MPE controller:
https://youtu.be/mxZPRsDz07U

While this works in general it is still just a workaround, because any time you want to edit what you've recorded you'll have to edit each voice separately and that is, as mentioned before, very tedious to say the least. The only thing in Live 10 that is helpful with that is the fact that it will now let you edit multiple tracks at a time. However that functionality is limited to 8 tracks! So if you're using more than 8 voices at the same time you're still out of luck with that.

Re: MPE support.

Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2018 7:35 pm
by feothan
Seems relevant to the discussion to point out that MPE is now "official": https://roli.com/stories/mpe-official?u ... 1e1bec2fb6

With Bitwig on board, maybe it won't be long before there's something more than a /workaround/ in Ableton?

Here's hoping.

Re: MPE support.

Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2018 6:55 pm
by soundsliketree
+1

Re: MPE support.

Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2018 8:21 pm
by Angstrom
The lack of MPE support is really saving me a lot of money on expensive MPE controller purchases

Re: MPE support.

Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2018 8:56 pm
by Roodegar
Article about the official adoption of the MPE standard:
http://cdm.link/2018/02/midi-evolves-ad ... iguration/

I particularly like this quote:
"Making MPE official should improve implementations already out there, and standardize inter-operability. And it means no more excuses for software that hasn’t picked it up – yeah, I’m looking at you, Ableton. Those developers could (reasonably) say they didn’t want to move forward until everyone agreed on a standard, to avoid implementing the thing twice. Well, now, it’s time."

Re: MPE support.

Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2018 11:30 pm
by Angstrom
https://www.midi.org/articles/midi-poly ... ession-mpe
THE FOLLOWING PRODUCTS SUPPORT ONE OR MORE OF THE FEATURES OF MPE:
Digital audio workstations (DAWs)

Bitwig 8-Track & Studio
GarageBand macOS
Logic Pro X
Reaper
Steinberg Cubase
Tracktion Waveform
How embarrassing