The future of Live - should we worry? (video)

[Machinesworking]

At one point I wanted a DAW that was as adept as a tool for mixing, mastering, audio editing, complex MIDI editing, integration with movies etc....
As it was for performing live. Now I just want Live to fully deliver on it's performance side. Just let me use something besides Live Racks, Push, and clips in a live environment. You realize after using other applications like Kore or MainStage that Live has never addressed VSTi's as a performance tool. It doesn't help that the CEO admits that Push got a grid because he never felt comfortable with regular keys. We are stuck with this idea of playing 'clips', and putzing around with Push, with no quick way to address multiple VSTi's in a performance environment, but it may never change because probably 90% of the people coming into using Live aren't coming from another DAW or a musical background, so they adapt to Live's environment to make their beats.

That said, Live is great at what it does. There's absolutely nothing wrong with using more than one DAW, yes it adds complexity, but if you're looking at creativity as only being possible with simplicity I think you're going to make bad music. Whether the music sounds simple or not, nothing comes into fruition being more interesting and entertaining because it was quick intuitive and simple to produce.

[Angstrom]

I understand Ableton focusing on the EDM performance / Beat making / Push side of the business, ... but if that's really the case they need to inter-connect with other DAWs to provide the features they will not focus on. IE the non-performance features such as comping, mixing, arranging, etc
Look at the way Melodyne integrates with "competitors" as a tightly focused package providing pitch correction tools, using ARA they can let users build a production suite which is bespoke and useful, yet spans manufacturers.

Ableton have a mixed history here, but we can see that the API and Link are at least steps towards a more open model than their older walled garden strategy. Ableton are not Apple, that closed system won't work if Ableton don't cover all the ground. A small and tightly focused walled garden just locks users into a feature limited ecosystem, EG: if that ecosystem is only going to focus on a few areas of musical performance. If Live is to be a "performance instrument" again, it will need to do deals with Presonus, Steinberg, Apple, etc so that users can integrate the Ableton features into a production ecosystem which covers all the required ground. Unless we want to stick with awkwardly rendering stems and not even any support for interoperable mix metadata ( such as OMF)

So, good for them if the company wants to focus on a specific musical production area, more of Push, selling more LoopPacks, focusing on jamming. But forget the walled garden strategy and reach out to other DAWs to integrate missing features.

Lastly - if the if the company really wants to focus on live performances they are going to need to address what Mainstage does, and Live does not. There's a big feature set missing here.

[Stefan Jantschek]

Lastly - if the if the company really wants to focus on live performances they are going to need to address what Mainstage does, and Live does not. There's a big feature set missing here.

...if they want.
Welcome.
Then please do it!

Right now we can´t even change presets of their own instruments "live".


I don´t like that thoughts but sometimes it´s the old thread coming to my mind.
Once some dude was asking if Abes still have great developers working on main app,
or is it merely a bunch of soundpack/web/PR/financial guys left?
It was surprisingly the same time since Ableton stopped making true in-app innovations
and the version update cycles grow ridiculous.

That time they made a clip how cool life is for Abe´s devs.
Nice to see, but no answers at all.

So, still wierd speculations.
Which have big impact on the company´s image.

Beloved Ableton,
please get back your innovative image.
That can´t no more be done with hi-gloss-videos and canned sounds.
Deliver something else.
IMHO.
Leading back to the thread OP question.
What is your opinion about that?

[Machinesworking]

Ableton are a closed system, there is no reason beyond partnership agreements and laziness that rewire couldn't be set up to have Live host VSTs as a slave. Ableton wants Live to be your one stop shop, but it's a shop that takes some very "safe" roads, i.e. I doubt Live will ever have program changes for it's own plug ins, I doubt Live will ever get overtly complex with MIDI.. Even the dual monitor set up in 9 is sort of incomplete, you still can't just have a MIDI editor as full screen without covering Session or Arrangement.....

Again, that said, I'm happy enough, Live does many things very well, although I tend to write these days in MOTU DP9, I have a pretty good Guitar, Tube synth set up with Live and Push2. Mostly the mixing implementation in Push2 is nice. My guitar running Amplitube is chained in to change presets via program change messages, and the note matrix is good enough for noise sources like the Wretch Machine here. Being primarily a guitar player in terms of any sort of ability, I can use Live (with VSTs anyway), in the way I want to.

I've been using and complaining about Live's shortcomings for years, but really it does a lot of things very well. Mostly I think it's one of those things, you realize DAW developers have their own agendas, and you either buy into it or you move on. Bitwig are the only real competition in terms of clips and how they behave in Live, and they're doing the exact same thing in terms of creating an environment for you to use, geared towards their ideas on workflow, a lack of care about being a full featured DAW (SysEx, rewire, movie integration are all missing), or sadly integrating with other DAWs etc.

Basically, Ableton will probably continue to disappoint you if you're looking for certain things in an upgrade/update. They most definitely have their own agenda, and it's not to be Logic, Cubase, Sonar, DP on steroids etc. Does it do enough for you now to where you're making music? if so then realize they won't probably fix what you think is broken. I know this comes across as negative, but I'm just saying be happy with Live or move on. It's not complex, and our complaining isn't doing much positive.

[Tarekith]

Never thought to see a post like that from Maschinesworking

[Stefan Jantschek]

Basically, Ableton will probably continue to disappoint you if you're looking for certain things in an upgrade/update. They most definitely have their own agenda...

eeh...
Now the thread is again about "disappointed i´m not getting the features i want."
That was not the OP question.
It is about the future of live.

Did you see the video on the Abe´s site about their devs culture?
And the talk about "creating the future of music"?
So let me sum this up:
Why does almost nothing of the stuff you could see there reach the user?
Not even talks about?
What is the reason?
It´s not about specific needs or features.
But proclaiming to create the future while the product falls more and more behind the standards
of 2017´s software possibilities is some kind of strange, isn´t it?

This is a very serious question arising although the fact that i´m happy with Live.
More than happy.
I still love it.
That´s why i am so concerned about "the future..."

Any Ideas?

[TomKern]

Ableton doesn't care for addressing them and instead focuses on things I personally couldn't care less, like live performance & Push.

The program is called Live for a reason you know?!

[TomKern]

the "beat makers" are touring the world, making money and getting laid

No, not really.
Most of them are just as poor and ignored as all the other musicians.

[hyperscientist]

I read "Ableton" and "deadware" together often enough on various forums, so that is becoming a thing regardless of reasons.

[Stromkraft]

I read "Ableton" and "deadware" together often enough on various forums, so that is becoming a thing regardless of reasons.

Yeah, just as relevant as "Apple is going out of business". Since 1985!

[TomKern]

Hangouts to avoid meeting with people

My kinda guy!

[hyperscientist]

I 100% agree, Stromkraft Same with "XXXX will be the year of linux" and more. But regardless, if it's a thing then it is a thing and can cause some people to go away.

Personally, I am particularly fragile when it comes to abandonware. It literarily pains me to use outdated tech unless it does have an old-school vibe I am looking after. If I know something next gen (with a well founded promise of being better) is out there I will sell what I have and move on.

I am with Ableton for Push. For Live I don't care anymore, just waiting for a good excuse to switch I would prefer to switch to Live 10 rather than Bitwig or Cubase or whatever, but I will at some point, likely this year. Anyway, just voicing my opinions, hoping to influence Ableton a tiniest bit.

Ableton, talk to us about your products!

[Stromkraft]

I 100% agree, Stromkraft Same with "XXXX will be the year of linux" and more. But regardless, if it's a thing then it is a thing and can cause some people to go away.

Personally, I am particularly fragile when it comes to abandonware. It literarily pains me to use outdated tech unless it does have an old-school vibe I am looking after. If I know something next gen (with a well founded promise of being better) is out there I will sell what I have and move on.

I am with Ableton for Push. For Live I don't care anymore, just waiting for a good excuse to switch I would prefer to switch to Live 10 rather than Bitwig or Cubase or whatever, but I will at some point, likely this year. Anyway, just voicing my opinions, hoping to influence Ableton a tiniest bit.

Ableton, talk to us about your products!

Yes, I'm with you.

[Stefan Jantschek]

I 100% agree, Stromkraft Same with "XXXX will be the year of linux" and more. But regardless, if it's a thing then it is a thing and can cause some people to go away.

Personally, I am particularly fragile when it comes to abandonware. It literarily pains me to use outdated tech unless it does have an old-school vibe I am looking after. If I know something next gen (with a well founded promise of being better) is out there I will sell what I have and move on.

I am with Ableton for Push. For Live I don't care anymore, just waiting for a good excuse to switch I would prefer to switch to Live 10 rather than Bitwig or Cubase or whatever, but I will at some point, likely this year. Anyway, just voicing my opinions, hoping to influence Ableton a tiniest bit.

Ableton, talk to us about your products!

Yes, I'm with you.

I´m almost shure the whole userbase is with you.

[sporkles]

Nice discussion, people. One of the main reasons I wanted to bring this up is exactly the fact that the recent promos from Ableton have been extremely hardware focussed (ie. Push). My memory has a tendency to fail me, but I seem to recall their "more flow, less work" campaign being connected with the last real round of "boring" additions - dual monitor support etc.

As many of you have pointed out, the performance focus we're seeing now is kind of taking Live back to its roots (which was audio clip launching, basically). But I'm quite convinced that there are many, many users (myself included) who wouldn't be using Live at all if it had no MIDI sequencer and editing abilities. (I started by rewiring Reason into Live to have audio tracks, and ditched Reason when I realised I *could* do everything in one app. At the time, Reason was MIDI only, btw.) The addition of dual monitor support tells me that Ableton also want (or at least wanted at one point) to please users who mainly use arrangement view and, in turn, would be interested in a better MIDI editor, etc.

When Max for Live was introduced, I voiced a concern that M4L would be the answer to and excuse for everything that wasn't natively in Live, and we are absolutely there now. While Isotonik's Multi Clip Editor is a very welcome band aid, that's all it can ever be. A more or less clunky M4L floating window can never compete with a solid, native implementation. I don't want to jump from one DAW to another - like I mentioned, I want to do everything in one app (ideally Live), but unless all you do is launch audio clips in Session view, chances are you've screamed in agony when you've realised that you should transpose your entire MIDI arrangement a couple of semitones. It is exactly the way Daniel describes it.

So the reason I'm still hoping is the fact that I don't think Ableton want to be a company that does anything half-assed. The current state of the “under the bonnet” part of Live is half-assed, in my opinion. Live and Push are great, fine, but I think they can only take Live so far if that's their only focus. How can they justify new versions? Can they afford a business model that doesn't give users an incentive to upgrade?