Benefits of Live 8?

[LJN]

Dear users of Live 8,

I've been using Live since v2. At the moment I'm on v6 and I am very satisfied with it - practically crash free, works flawless on both my desktop pc and macbook. I don't have any of the fancy stuff like Operator or Sampler. And now Ableton comes teasing me with upgrade discounts for Live 8. Well then, from what I can tell I would get a few new plugins, track folders, crossfades and a few more midi editing options - but no new instruments, no performance benefits and no major new additions, like a staff editor. I am missing something? After all, with the discount the upgrade is still something like €160. Is it worth the money? What are the benefits of Live 8 justifying the expense? Opinions please!

Cheers

[hoffman2k]

Hmm. Vocoder, high quality mode for most audio effects, pitch delays, Covert goodies, Operator as single cycle sample creator, hundreds of bug fixes (and potentially dozens of new bugs), more user friendly macros, Multiband dynamics, improved compressor, notes in sets, slicing, default presets, etc..
Its the little things that really show the progress.

[aeon_flux]

you should consider also 7 new features (scroll to page 2)
http://www.scribd.com/doc/2438331/User-Manual-English

[ark]

No new instruments? I know that 8 gets Collision and Corpus as new instruments. I think that Analog, Tension, and Electric are new in 7, along with drum racks. There are also several new effects in 8 including Vocoder, Looper, and Multiband Dynamics.

[davepermen]

and while operator is no new instrument in 8, it evolved much from the version in 7.

[squelcht]

Limiter.

[3phase]

except incompatibility with the older version and when owning the wrong computer lots of crashes..bad latency compensation you dont get too much new things..exept you want to use max for live ...


good points in 8 that are really worth to mention...


the new transient markers that allow to do groove shifts or have events that are not precisely cutted to the one stretched in a reasonable quality..

this comes together with the ability to switch the looping in the stretching process off, what gives on percusive signals much better results than the previous beat warp mode...

the associated groove design function is a pain in the ass at the actual version.. its a nice feature..
but one that is a standard on other daws since mid 1990´s... o the midi side since the late 80´s..
And its absolute inferior working with live 8..you have to reset any transient marker by hand to get a correct groove quantize template..

So in the actual version not a feature to advertise live 8..

what else?

group tracks... but graphically done so bad thats not really fun to work with them..you have them unfolded all the time anyway.. so they are only usefull as a routing option to have a sub master with quasi scene in scene launch..
what is actually something..

New complex warp modes that cause clicks and timing fluctuations or crashes..so rather an offline stretching which you can have in better quality in any other daw anyway

Conclusion:

When you are happy now maybe wait a bit longer up to the time the development has reached a worthy state..
probably not before live 9, considering that this will appear in a few month and the november 2009 state of live 8 is still inferior


Actually buying the live 8 upgrade was paid beta testing ( the user pays to beta test) with little fun and lots of trouble.. a total waste of money

[The Carpet Cleaner]

In live 7, there was drum rack that was introduced. I think it's a major update in Live's evolution.
Live 8 there is new groove engine that is really good for production. You can apply groove on midi and audio file directly.

[aeon_flux]

Limiter.

w1

[3phase]

To answer to the question of the benefits of Live 8 with "limiter"...
is pretty sarcastic but somehow on the point... love this british black humor

of cause the groove engine is theoretical the biggest benefit..
just surprising how a development team totally dont got it that groove templates need time acuracy..
otherwise its rather a randomizer.

I dont think that the developers of ableton are stupid.. but intelligent programmers can do stupid things as the past has shown many times..highly spezialised people sometimes get the goal of their doing out of sight..
Or maybe just dont understand what a producer is doing with a groove template... that its actualy there for getting things tight and not to get the stuff a bit more mushy... for semirandm mushiness you don need a template.. differnt swing settings and offset delays do a much better grooving and more predictable job there.


However..with lots of hard work its possible to have groove templates with ableton Live now..


I see that Ableton live is still to much behind to focus on such smart features like automatic groove extraction and a search engine that directly comunicates with the computer OS´s internal one.. Or some automation related features ..
like automation on/off per track.. and overwrite only on selected track...

But would be nice if they would do anyway instead putting all the energy into the integration of max..
What i see actually as a nice thing.. but leaving other things half finished for it?

[liveISlife]

It has a "PRO" toggle switch. Because sometimes you just want to sound "PRO". Thank you. Enjoy yourselfs. Big ups to Berlin. I gotta jet. Peace yall.