Quality

[McQ714]

they've gone more from being a company that's expected to make a yearly release to one that's expected to make a yearly announcement of their next release.

and just because they aren't working on those new features doesn't mean they won't announce what they have planned for the next version. this is marketing at it's finest. they have become, at least IMO, the Don King of the DAW world. and not intended as a slap in the face, but i'm sure there are users out there that feel they paid all that money to see a good fight just to see the great grey+green hope get knocked out in the first round and apparentely each of the 10 rounds after that. they are on release #11 now of Live 8. hopefully this is only a 12-round match.

and there's an attitude from some of the other software developers (not Ableton's) that have posted here that really bothers me. if they are working on new features and something isn't working correctly, they try to find a workaround?!?! fix the underlying problem first! i work for a construction company. if we find a problem, we get that problem fixed before we cover it up! what this tells me is that software developers are lazy and very quick to let a problem go on for years because they were able to not have to deal with it.

[8O]

and there's an attitude from some of the other software developers (not Ableton's) that have posted here that really bothers me. if they are working on new features and something isn't working correctly, they try to find a workaround?!?! fix the underlying problem first! i work for a construction company. if we find a problem, we get that problem fixed before we cover it up! what this tells me is that software developers are lazy and very quick to let a problem go on for years because they were able to not have to deal with it.

Same principle applies: if you have 10 construction workers all working full time on making sure the roof doesn't leak, and then the project sponsor says it's more important to get the extension finished on time, the management will shift all 10 workers to the extension and leave the leaky roof as it is. Nothing to do with being lazy, it's to do with having limited resources and only 24 hours in a day.

[iflux]

Good to hear. They will be getting my money on 8

The only thing I would like for them to work on in 8 is reimplementing the old warp back IN ADDITION to the new. I tried it out on my buddies 8 and I like it where its going, but I would like to see the old mode in addition to the new. Better for DJing...

Thanks Abes... cool company

[cotdagoo]

guess the whiners had it right after all.. who would have thought?

good to hear they're taking a stance on getting these bugs fixed. just wish we weren't footing the bill for them to figure this shit out post-release rather than beforehand.

i'm sure it wasn't an easy statement to make, especially after the 8th version. but these kinds of issues just shouldn't be plaguing a 'mature' product with such a large user base.

[Angstrom]

tonight I mentioned this new development to a few friends who are involved in software development
they couldn't believe it

I think that tells you something

[tmcmahon2]

tonight I mentioned this new development to a few friends who are involved in software development
they couldn't believe it

I think that tells you something

I'll second your friends astonishment. Suspending dev time on "the new thing" and re-assigning everyone, or even some, of the primary dev staff to bug fixing is something you never hear. Ever. (Except today of course...)

[leedsquietman]

Regarding NAMM.

It's still the premier industry event and not to show up at all would be seen as a weakness within the industry. It was probably booked months ago and either impossible or financially unviable to pull out at such a late stage (penalties will definately be incurred).

It's pretty likely that all they will be doing is demonstrating a working Max4Live (instead of just announcing it as last year)and maybe show some progress on the Serato collab, I don't think they are going to unveil Live 9 and show it off, although they may make an announcement regarding a timescale (but remember, these are not set in stone, Steinberg announced Groove Agent 3 at a NAMM and gave a release date of 6 months from the NAMM announcement, but actually took 2 YEARS to bring it to the market).

I have faith they will do as they say and put more emphasis on fixing Live 8 and getting tighter integration with max4live. 3rd party plugins will always be contentious, because some poorly coded VST/AU will bring down a system. This could be Live, Sonar, Logic or Cubase. A lot of companies don't test properly with Live, which is why there seems to be a few more problems. They tend to test out Cubase/Nuendo, Sonar and Logic as long established DAWS. So long as Ableton make an effort to liase with companies to jointly fix these issues.

I am a bit like the previous poster in that I saw a lot of bugs beta testing Live 8 so have stuck with Live 7 and I also upgraded Cubase SX3 to Cubase 5 which has been really rock solid and a much improved product - although Machinesworking is correct that not all DAW releases are great, DP6 was universally panned, and Cubase 4 for the first 10 months was awful, plus the companies arrogance on backing down from a long promised SX3.1.2 upgrade, scrapping DX support without saying anything etc. But they did get C4 eventually working good and added features too. I am cheering on Ableton as I really hope to get back into work and upgrade to a nicely functioning Live 9 down the road. As previous posters said, if they don't fix the issues in Live 8, then Live 9 is going to be borked too. I believe in Ableton and think they will get it right but it will still require a bit of patience and goodwill from us users. Rome wasn't built in a day.

[Machinesworking]

they've gone more from being a company that's expected to make a yearly release to one that's expected to make a yearly announcement of their next release.

and just because they aren't working on those new features doesn't mean they won't announce what they have planned for the next version. this is marketing at it's finest. they have become, at least IMO, the Don King of the DAW world. and not intended as a slap in the face, but i'm sure there are users out there that feel they paid all that money to see a good fight just to see the great grey+green hope get knocked out in the first round and apparentely each of the 10 rounds after that. they are on release #11 now of Live 8. hopefully this is only a 12-round match.

and there's an attitude from some of the other software developers (not Ableton's) that have posted here that really bothers me. if they are working on new features and something isn't working correctly, they try to find a workaround?!?! fix the underlying problem first! i work for a construction company. if we find a problem, we get that problem fixed before we cover it up! what this tells me is that software developers are lazy and very quick to let a problem go on for years because they were able to not have to deal with it.

Cool I work construction too, I've also used Digital Performer, Logic, Cubase etc. for years.
Every DAW I've used at some point releases a version that for whatever reason doesn't work well on certain peoples configurations. I had that problem big time with Logic 7. Apple/Logic didn't announce shit, never admitted to anything wrong at all. Personally I would rather have a company eventually come out and admit that stability is an issue, than to ignore it like that. Steinberg promised bug fixers for Cubase 4 all the way up to the announcement of Cubase 5, and the completely fucked statement that they would not be fixing problems with 4. Same thing recently happened to people afflicted with bugs in Digital Performer 6, 7 was announced etc. though MOTU did release a bug fix for 6 post announcement and release of 7, so some people bent over and bought 7 to fix bugs....
I'm not a PC user so I can't vouch for Sonar, but as far as the major Mac DAWs, all the big players are tight lipped and uncommunicative even when they shouldn't be. I really can't see any bad thing about this announcement, it's not comparable to 'a problem' IMO, more like this: you use a certain brand of paint for a project that you haven't used before as it supposedly holds up better etc. Months later it's obvious it's not very good at all in certain situations etc. so you throw the paint crew at it and stop painting the walls inside for a short period of time. Any contractor is eventually going to try new things in order to eventually speed up the whole process, but at some point that isn't going to work out so well. I remember when MDF was first widely used for trim etc. and it would sponge up really badly at the slightest contact with water for instance, now it's a lot better for sure.

You can read my posts and realize I'm not one to kiss Ableton's ass, I pretty much say what I feel is right, and knock the GUI constantly for certain limitations etc. I never bought 8 because I didn't think it was stable enough for my use for instance. I also believe it's only fair then to praise them when they do something positive and forthright. Making an announcement like that couldn't have been easy and certainly wasn't any good publicity. You yourself said you aren't affected by any bugs in 8, yet you're not happy they made the announcement.... it was entirely possible that people like me would do a huge I told you so!! routine. It's not in their best interest actually. That's why companies go tight lipped, because if they don't announce problems, users with problems can be seen as whiners, problem solved, although by being assholes about it IMO.

[j2j]

Speaking as a software developer of extremely reliable systems; I think it is great that Ableton move from a company that is expected to produce a yearly new release to a company that produces stable new releases.

You know?

Agreed.....

Cause when the $pgrade comes every two, or three years, then it seems like a less money in terms of price, also it seems like they have taken their time to code things correctly.

I don't know if it is true, or rumor, and I don't recall it exactly, but I believe somebody was bitching about the folder tracks, "being very poorly done."

[smutek]

Actions speak loudest, but it's good to see them express some humility.

[knotkranky]

Actions speak loudest, but it's good to see them express some humility.

+1

Very politely put, though humility is a stretch for me.

More like Lemonade, and more of a hedge since they be doubling over onto the precious 9 schedule real soon.
As usual, abes bites off too big a piece at the expense of others. Who cares if they admit it.

I'll wait for the pudding.

[Tone Deft]

The Best Troll Post EVAH! Award goes to...
Gerhard and Bernd!!!


they got high at the Ableton Xmas party and went online. what time was it out there?

[anybody human]

Wow, we really are fanboys.

"We value quality over innovation". After a football team lost a game the press said "but they played hard". The coach said, "I take playing hard for granted, I want execution so we can win the game". Isn't quality supposed to be a given?

If this is anything other than damage control then there are big problems, long term. The whole team is working on bug fixes? Yikes!

3rd party issues can't all be solved by the host, the other manufacturers have to see enough Live use to care unfortunately. It took Netflix years to cater to Macs. How many people actually bought M4L? Share wasn't used by customers, people don't even want to collaborate with folks they know. I applaud the innovation, but I think Live missed the boat by not doing whatever it took to get a reputation as a full featured DAW (basics not bundled content), they already had the innovation angle.

Hope they get it figured out but this is a bad sign. To say it's a good sign is just spin IMO, which is hopefully what the original statement was about cos if they really stopped working on the next release something's wrong.

[sublimelobc]

Dear Ableton,
You had me at hello.....

You had me at hello.

[jonesonyou]

Fixing the issue with usb and windowz would be great,

Thank you Ableton for everything!