Ableton Forum

There has been no Live 9 beta activity since the last release at the beginning of December. Is this the sign we've been looking for?

Has anyone ever done a Horoscope for Live?

I Ching? Tarot Card readings?

Love 10 was released last week in an alternate timeline.

In this timeline, Live 10 will never exist

I mentioned this in another forum as a reason why I was surprised they weren't at NAMM this year. It's been a while since they've had a paid update, but we've received a lot of free updates with new features.

Maybe they'll do the Apple business model and release some new hardware when they release the new Live OS 10

“The new version would go to ten. Look, right across my laptop and desktop, ten, ten, and...”

“Oh, I see. And the current version is nine?”

“Exactly.”

“Does that mean it's more? Is it one version more?”

“Well, Live 10 would be one more, wouldn’t it? It's not nine. You see, most blokes, you know, are using Live 9. You're on version nine here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on version nine on your laptop. Where can you go from there? Where?”

“I don't know.”

“Nowhere. Exactly. What we want is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we want?”

“Live 10.”

“Live 10. Exactly. One more.”

“Why don't you just want Live 9, and they keep adding free features, and that is the latest version and it has all features?”

“[pause] This version goes to ten.”

[jur] wrote:Hi there,
There's already a few dozen threads about this subject (probably because Live hasn't been updated for years
Next time it would be very cool if you could do a search before posting, just to ensure that the same topic isn't created over and over.
thx
j

Have there been several threads specifically addressing the lack of new betas? This is the first one I could find. It's a pretty recent development. Up until now Ableton has made betas available for the next iteration Live 9 within a few weeks of the release of the previous version. It's been 3-4 months since 9.7.1 and this is the first time since Live 9 was first released that this has occurred. It is a very curious change in their development schedule and imo strongly seems to be an indicator of something big coming. If development of Live 9 has been suspended, it suggests to me that the Ableton now has their engineers working full time on finishing off Live 10. Unlike most of the baseless speculation about 10 that goes on in these forums, this is the first actually compelling evidence I've seen so far pointing indicating that a major release from Ableton is indeed on the horizon.

Leaked box art of new version.

chudslayer wrote:
Have there been several threads specifically addressing the lack of new betas? This is the first one I could find. It's a pretty recent development. Up until now Ableton has made betas available for the next iteration Live 9 within a few weeks of the release of the previous version.

At least this fact has been mentioned. I forgot now how much time passed after the last 9.2 beta and before the 9.5 release, but there were no public betas of 9.5.

Live 9.7.1 was released in the beginning of December. that's 2 months ago.

Do I think it's likely Live 10 is around the corner? It would appear likely, but a 9.8 preview (of some "10" features) is not out of the picture either. Hopefully Ableton have chosen the focus of the next release wisely whatever it is.

Pardon me if I'm taking this the wrong way, but is this Spinal Tap meme supposed to imply that there is no need for Ableton 10.0, and anyone interested in 10.0 is participating in some sort of irrelevant circle jerk? If so, that seems rather short sighted. Do you guys honestly believe there are no major improvements that need to be made and the current version covers everything anyone could possibly need? Live is an incredible DAW in it's current state but I think it's quite clear that there is still quite a bit of room for improvement. Knowing Ableton, I doubt we will see a huge overhaul, the GUI will likely stay mostly the same, but there are some major under the hood improvements that have yet to be made. To give just one example:

•Support for Polyphonic Aftertouch/MPE (Multidimensional Polyphonic Expression)/Per note automation

This one is a particularly big deal because in the last few years several developers of MIDI controllers have introduced products Poly Aftertouch/MPE, marking the beginning of a new generation of controllers with capabilities that far surpass traditional MIDI devices. These products, including the Roli Seaboard, CMC XKey, Keith McMillen K-Board/QuNexus, Roger Linn Linnstrument, among others. Even the Push and Push 2 are capable of transmitting polyphonic aftertouch, even though Live does support it. The current version of Live is fundamentally incompatible with poly expression and the developers have stated it's going to require a ground-up rewrite of the software in order to make it work. I think this is a crucial move they need to make, because right now a lot of Live users are buying these MPE controllers, discovering that Live does not support MPE at all, and are therefore heavily motivated to switch over to Cubase, Bitwig, or Logic, all of which have fully implemented and seamless support for polyphonic expression.

I could go on and list 100 more examples of desirable features yet to be implemented, but just this single issue by itself, i think, is enough to make me feel like Live 10 is indeed something that is needed by the music community.

Stromkraft wrote:

chudslayer wrote:
Have there been several threads specifically addressing the lack of new betas? This is the first one I could find. It's a pretty recent development. Up until now Ableton has made betas available for the next iteration Live 9 within a few weeks of the release of the previous version.

At least this fact has been mentioned. I forgot now how much time passed after the last 9.2 beta and before the 9.5 release, but there were no public betas of 9.5.

Live 9.7.1 was released in the beginning of December. that's 2 months ago.

Huh. Feels longer than than 2 months. Well, regardless if it's been mentioned, I personally don't think this thread warrants a "use the search function" dismissal since there has not previously been a thread about this specific topic (lack of post-9.7.1 betas) on this forum, or anywhere else that I could find.

Do I think it's likely Live 10 is around the corner? It would appear likely, but a 9.8 preview (of some "10" features) is not out of the picture either. Hopefully Ableton have chosen the focus of the next release wisely whatever it is.

Agreed

chudslayer wrote: I think this is a crucial move they need to make, because right now a lot of Live users are buying these MPE controllers, discovering that Live does not support MPE at all, and are therefore heavily motivated to switch over to Cubase, Bitwig, or Logic, all of which have fully implemented and seamless support for polyphonic expression.

Given the fact that polyphonic aftertouch made its first appearance in the eighties I'm not sure what to hope for in this department.

chudslayer wrote: Do you guys honestly believe there are no major improvements that need to be made and the current version covers everything anyone could possibly need? Live is an incredible DAW in it's current state but I think it's quite clear that there is still quite a bit of room for improvement. .

Now, I think you perhaps should use that search function anyhow. These forums would be significantly more empty unless numerous posts on what should be in Live hadn't been made over the years.

I just want to note that quite big improvements doesn't have to come in major updates. Just look at 9.5.

I worry about the fact computers haven't become that much faster the last 5 years and the demands DAW users put on them has only increased many times over that. There's currently a performance gap.

Stromkraft wrote:

chudslayer wrote: I think this is a crucial move they need to make, because right now a lot of Live users are buying these MPE controllers, discovering that Live does not support MPE at all, and are therefore heavily motivated to switch over to Cubase, Bitwig, or Logic, all of which have fully implemented and seamless support for polyphonic expression.

Given the fact that polyphonic aftertouch made its first appearance in the eighties I'm not sure what to hope for in this department.

In the 80s (actually late 70s) poly aftertouch arrived in the form of the Yamaha CS80, which cost $7000 when it was released in 1979. Adjusted for inflation, it cost approximately $23,000 in 2016 US dollars. This is easily one of the most revered synthesizers of all time, but obviously the high price point for the CS80, and other poly aftertouch compatible keyboards like the VAX 77 ($3000), was a barrier to poly aftertouch becoming widely adopted.

That barrier remained for decades but in the last 5 years the situation has drastically changed. Today you can get a Roli Seaboard Rise for $800, Linnstrument for $1500, K-Board for $400, QuNexus for $150, CME XKey for $90. Quality products, affordable to the average joe, extremely useful, and most importantly, plenty of people are buying them. The market for these controllers is exploding, demand is high. You wouldn't see this many manufacturers getting involved if that wasn't the case. Virtually all these people are buying these controllers to use them with a DAW, and as it stands, that means Ableton Live is no longer a suitable option for them. I'm one of those people, and it's extremely frustrating because Live is by far my favorite DAW. I don't want to have to switch to Cubase, whose workflow i cannot stand, just to use my fancy controller.

Stromkraft wrote:

chudslayer wrote: Do you guys honestly believe there are no major improvements that need to be made and the current version covers everything anyone could possibly need? Live is an incredible DAW in it's current state but I think it's quite clear that there is still quite a bit of room for improvement. .

Now, I think you perhaps should use that search function anyhow. These forums would be significantly more empty unless numerous posts on what should be in Live hadn't been made over the years.

I'm aware that it's a common topic of discussion. That's precisely why I found it strange that people were comparing the possible release of Live 10 to "a volume knob that goes to 11!"

I just want to note that quite big improvements doesn't have to come in major updates. Just look at 9.5.

It's true that 9.5 was a big update, but, according to statements from the devs, many of the features Ableton needs to add (MPE/poly expression compatibility being a major one) are going to require a ground-up rewrite of the software. I can't imagine them releasing an overhaul of the software of that magnitude as a mere incremental update.

I worry about the fact computers haven't become that much faster the last 5 years and the demands DAW users put on them has only increased many times over that. There's currently a performance gap.

I think at this point the limitations are more in the software than the hardware. There's plenty of power available in modern CPUs but most developers have yet to optimize their software to fully take advantage of the high CPU-core counts and expanded RAM common in modern computers.