Must watch for Ableton

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aklisiewicz
Posts: 625
Joined: Mon Mar 14, 2005 3:33 am

Must watch for Ableton

Post by aklisiewicz » Fri May 21, 2021 12:01 am

I hesitated to upgrade Live10 to v11, but I finally did. Not really sure if this was right move and perhaps need to take a step back and switch to Studio One as it slowly supersedes Ableton. Watching this video made me sad. It is really mind-blowing how many problems this software still has. Half of them are related to the features implemented 3-4 versions back.

ABLETON PLEASE WATCH THIS VIDEO !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7f5vRzSrqvw


While this is is nice list of bugs (and requests) I could easily add another dozen of bugs not mentioned in this video. I was simply shocked by a number of issues and glitches (which I was not aware of), simply because this product is on the market for so many, many years. Some of the issues have not been fixed for years.

I hope somebody form ABLETON could respond here and at least give us some update when the bugs will be fixed ???

I also do not see why there is no BUGS section in this forum (as it should be).
Finally, requests are obviously picked up[on Ableton discretion (not users) which I really do not like. There are few simple features (easy to implement) which have been requested for 2-3 years and none of them was implemented in v11 (which is super disappointing).
I recently tested Studio One and the speed with which company reacts to bugs and improvements is something I really , really appreciate. That is completely on the opposite side of the spectrum for bug fixes, customer care and new features. For many years Ableton was my favorite DAW but I feel like I should just think about switching to something else because the bigger the company is on the market the fewer benefits for the customers and they become very ignorant of customer needs.

Finally, I would like to add my few major requests which I keep asking since Live v8 !

- more colors for tracks
- playhed cursor updated in every panel (as it moves or is clicked)
- more slots in MIDI settings
"You are what you think you are"
Sadarahu

AdamGreen
Posts: 9
Joined: Wed Mar 17, 2021 3:27 pm

Re: Must watch for Ableton

Post by AdamGreen » Fri May 21, 2021 12:48 am

My life was better before i watched that video lol

dylandigits
Posts: 65
Joined: Tue Aug 04, 2009 2:16 am

Re: Must watch for Ableton

Post by dylandigits » Fri May 21, 2021 1:17 pm

Art, if you aren’t getting the experience you’d prefer from Live then perhaps it’s time to try another product. There are so many other DAWs out there; surely one will offer your desired level of attention to these concerns.

AdamGreen
Posts: 9
Joined: Wed Mar 17, 2021 3:27 pm

Re: Must watch for Ableton

Post by AdamGreen » Fri May 21, 2021 1:42 pm

dylandigits wrote:
Fri May 21, 2021 1:17 pm
Art, if you aren’t getting the experience you’d prefer from Live then perhaps it’s time to try another product. There are so many other DAWs out there; surely one will offer your desired level of attention to these concerns.
ive found with most major updates you always have bugs, (in every DAW) its never smooth transition, i moved from cubase after years and years of loyalty
because of the companies sheer greed paying for things then you pay again for an update to find what just payed for added into the new release so paying twice for it, and being a day out to qualify for a free upgrade only to be met with insult on the forum when i raised the issue, then i jumped over to ableton and its been a fun ride since, 10 is one of the best music software ive used ever an was so excited for 11 release yes its got its faults but not world ending,
ableton has one of the best communities online from here to reddit, max4live devices for free and people giving away amazing racks, access to beta and alpha is amazing, seeing the fixes and the sheer volume of things coming

[jur]
Site Admin
Posts: 5272
Joined: Mon Jun 01, 2015 3:04 pm
Location: Ableton

Re: Must watch for Ableton

Post by [jur] » Fri May 21, 2021 1:51 pm

A little glimpse at the bug fixes list...
Making sure a DAW used by millions of people on millions of different configs is as solid as it can be is not an easy task. It always looks easy from the user point of view, sure, but the reality is quite different.
Ableton Forum Moderator

aklisiewicz
Posts: 625
Joined: Mon Mar 14, 2005 3:33 am

Re: Must watch for Ableton

Post by aklisiewicz » Sat May 22, 2021 3:18 am

Yes, I am fully aware it is not easy and fixing some bugs is tedious job while not giving profits. I personally do not question or complain but bugs but rather the fact how soon there are fixed and what is company response. I used to do web programming and some desktop years ago. Part of it was designing the interface. The m,ajor factor to make software successful is to implement what users want (not what the developers think is easiest).
Of course users always want everything, and I mean - everything in next release.
An honest developer would simply post a request list to make users vote and follow the list according to what is most voted. This is unfortunately not the case for most companies who grow a bit bigger. This applies to Microsoft/Apple and Ableton as well.
My first DAW was Live v3. IT has been a long time... and from my development experience I am always very frustrated when I see things which are easy to implement but ignored. When I have had a client and the customer requested something simple which I could do in an hour or day I would not hesitate to do this to have win-win scenario and often this customer bought me more other customers.
In bug companies even small changes often go through a tedious (usually stupid) approval process and often those changes end up in somebody's drawer, leaving users dissatisfied. I experienced this scenario many times (while being a customer).

There are bugs which simply come from ignorance, there are bugs which would rather qualify as feature requests and there are bugs which are hard to fix. None of them however should last through several iterations (that is 3-5 years), and often this is a case with LIVE.

I would really want to see full transparency as far as bugs log and some kind of public database listing bugs and requests and allowing users to track the progress. This way the company could A) prove they fix bugs B) respond in public (not through on-on-one conversation C) users could see that no bugs are hanging on the list for years

The posted bug list is nice but very hard to move around. There are tons of bug tracking Apps and I have one I developed (which I can freely hand over to Ableton). This is what should be used (not a handwritten page, which cannot be sorted, filtered, and barely searched). Also, this list show what's fixed but does not show the bug list (what is not fixed)...
"You are what you think you are"
Sadarahu

[jur]
Site Admin
Posts: 5272
Joined: Mon Jun 01, 2015 3:04 pm
Location: Ableton

Re: Must watch for Ableton

Post by [jur] » Sat May 22, 2021 2:26 pm

aklisiewicz wrote:
Sat May 22, 2021 3:18 am
The m,ajor factor to make software successful is to implement what users want (not what the developers think is easiest).
There's a very interesting talk by Roger Linn who states excatly the opposite, not a bout software per se, but about developing/inventing musical instruments... but you have to think about Ableton as an instrument maker rather than a software one (which I think is the case) to value this opinion. "Nobody" wanted to hear fuzz on guitar until they heard how awesome it was. Nobody asked for a Session View either... but that was a very smart "do you what you want as a developer" move, don't you think?

aklisiewicz wrote:
Sat May 22, 2021 3:18 am
An honest developer would simply post a request list to make users vote and follow the list according to what is most voted. This is unfortunately not the case for most companies who grow a bit bigger. This applies to Microsoft/Apple and Ableton as well.
Centercode (Live's beta testing platform) always had a "Suggestions" section where users propose features ideas/wishes and vote, and if you look at it you'll see that every new major Live release includes at least 70% of those feature requests.

That beng said, I don't disagree with what you wrote. Sure there's long standing bugs and it shouldn't be the case. Once again, that's hard to accept from the user POV, but it's really easy to break something when programming such a complex software and if this happens you end up with way more troubles for eveybody than when you postpone something that's maybe annoying but not a showstopper.
Ableton Forum Moderator

aklisiewicz
Posts: 625
Joined: Mon Mar 14, 2005 3:33 am

Re: Must watch for Ableton

Post by aklisiewicz » Wed May 26, 2021 6:54 pm

Bugs is one thing, but adding new features which would take simply hours or perhaps few days is another. Screwing interface id another one. I simply compare what ABLTEON was when I purchased version 3 and what it is today at v11. Not the same company. Is Live more complex ? Yes. Is it harder to work with development than 10 years ago ? Yes. But this should not be an excuse for fixing super simple thing which even non-developer knows - would take minutes, hours perhaps day but not months (where more serious decisions have to be made on how to invest developer time).
The bigger the company the more lazy it gets and the harder it is to deal with such company from end user stand point.
"You are what you think you are"
Sadarahu

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