Beyond Live 8 what's next really?

Discuss anything related to audio or music production.
alex.the.forge
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Re: Beyond Live 8 what's next really?

Post by alex.the.forge » Tue Mar 02, 2010 10:00 pm

Poster wrote: the only thing I would really like to see is improvements on the Session/Arrange relation..
this will include;
- meta clips.. ((Session) clips that can hold multiple clips or chunks of clips.. sort of miniature arrangements)..
- Session automation..
- non-linear options in Arrange..
- focus on Session as a sampler, with typical sampler like functions, so not a mere clip launcher..
Angstrom wrote:I would like the arrangement side to go non-linear.
This means kill off the 1 dimensional tape metaphor and allow multiple mixes to coexist in parallel chunks. The benefits would be: for trying out mix sections and arrangement sections, for trying out/ creating alternate mixes and versions, such as a mono mix, a club mix, a soundtrack mix.

All of these variants obviously use the same source material / clips, and so it would make sense to allow alternate arrangements and mixes to coexist in the same file, rather than requiring us to fork off a version (as we must now). It's currently impossible to recombine two arrangements once they are forked, so any parallel experiments with automation, mixing or arranging can never be reconciled.
I was thinking about this again just the other day.. I really think the way we are most likely to see this implemented first will be as an extension of the "freeze" function on a clip basis. Mainly because it doesn't have far to go already.

Obviously the feature would only be available for audio clips, so there is an inconsistency there with track freeze, but it would enable slightly more flexibility in working with clips but having the option of going back to the original edits

then maybe the ideal longer term solution would be "group clips" where there is a kind of frame for the clips, and in the clip view you have multiple start/end markers to mark each clip

I also think it is only a matter of time before we can cut and paste in clip view - in fact I would guess that may even come first as it's really obvious

even just cut and paste in clip view would go a long way to providing this kind of flexibility.

I think it would be great to have some much more detailed non-linear stuff, but in reality I just think it would be too big a change

Angstrom
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Re: Beyond Live 8 what's next really?

Post by Angstrom » Tue Mar 02, 2010 10:44 pm

alex.the.forge wrote: I was thinking about this again just the other day.. I really think the way we are most likely to see this implemented first will be as an extension of the "freeze" function on a clip basis. Mainly because it doesn't have far to go already.
hmmm, I can't see it. there isn't really a need or a benefit of freezing here.

A very simple use case:
lets say I want to try a new drum breakdown right in the middle of a tune. The breakdown I'm thinking of involves lots of automation tweaks and little chopped up audio and midi clips. In Live the standard method for trying this would be to play about in Session for the length of the breakdown while arrangement record is active, and then tidy up what you just did.

Now My ideal work flow would allow me to do that, but to also compare lots of tries at that drum breakdown ... and pick the best one.

The very simplest (current) method to achieve this is record all of the different passes sequentially onto the arrangement timeline one after another, then use the markers to jump about and preview what each pass sounded like, then delete the rejects and paste the winner into place.

We have had a suggestion of extending this existing functionality so we could temporarilly "fold" or hide these chunks of time out of the timeline play list. Effectively automating the marker-jumping process I described above.

I think the fold-time would be a much simpler method of creating, comparing and keeping alternative segments in a song than expanding the freeze facility, which would just get in the way. "Fold time" is a pretty simple sort of thing to my mind.
Of course, I would prefer something a bit more drastic. I would like Session clips to be able to hold arrangement sections. But something is better than nothing.

KrisM
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Re: Beyond Live 8 what's next really?

Post by KrisM » Tue Mar 02, 2010 11:24 pm

The ability to have no time signature in the Arrangement view. Probably not all that important to most people, but it'd please me to no end.

I'd rather not see Amp modelling stuff, but if Ableton simply must go that route, do it WELL. The ability to create your own preamp/power amp hydribs, mic positioning and cab models, etc. I'm sure they'd likely license Guitar rig, Amplitube, or some Line6 stuff (or any of the other myriad of possibilities). Hell, add in a licensed Superior Drummer, SSD, or even EZDrummer while you're at it and multisampled bass and guitar instruments. Or do it all in-house and we'll see this in 2015 lol While we're going crazy with it, add some multisampled guitars and basses :lol:

But that's only if Ableton feels the need to go after that crowd. :D Just do it in as awesome and complete a way as possible, is all I ask.

Right now, nothing is really a major game changer for me. Perhaps better CPU use for those of us who (gasp!) use Live mostly... not live :twisted: Or a way to toggle between 'use it live' and 'in the studio'.

While not important for me at this time, as I use a MacBook, better monitor support sounds GREAT. Were I to use a desktop, I would love to be able to use two. LOVE.

I really wish I could add more, but I haven't even been using Live for a year yet, so I guess it's hard for me to say. Ableton has a bit of a niche product; adding features found in a lot of the 'general' market DAWS like Logic and Cubase will alienate core users.

on the other hand, there are things mentioned in this thread worth pursuing
I don't 'produce.' I write music.

Angstrom
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Re: Beyond Live 8 what's next really?

Post by Angstrom » Tue Mar 02, 2010 11:44 pm

KrisM wrote:The ability to have no time signature in the Arrangement view. Probably not all that important to most people, but it'd please me to no end.
I'm puzzled by this. What do you want to achieve with "no" time signature that can't be done already?

Poster
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Re: Beyond Live 8 what's next really?

Post by Poster » Wed Mar 03, 2010 12:07 am

alex.the.forge wrote:I also think it is only a matter of time before we can cut and paste in clip view - in fact I would guess that may even come first as it's really obvious
obvious to us yes, to Ableton I'm not sure..
the past has not shown any big signs of extending Session's conceptual core..

I even dare to say that, at least for me personally, Session view isn't that powerful in terms of quickly laying and trying out ideas..
because 'quick' implies that your material is ready to go already.. and most of the time, it just isn't..
I need a lot of preparation first; cutting, chopping, editing, doing small sub arrangements before I can even start to try out different stuff..
since Session view doesn't offer any of this I find myself doing all these preparations in the Arranger,
where I tend to stay from that point on because we all know you can't just drag stuff back to Session..

to me that is a serious flaw in the concept of Live..
too much focus went/goes to the non-linear arranging of large chunks of (raw) material on a macro level,
while zooming in on that material and work on it on a micro level is hardly possible..

Homebelly
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Re: Beyond Live 8 what's next really?

Post by Homebelly » Wed Mar 03, 2010 8:32 am

Can some one please explain the advantage that would be gained by being able to have a dual monitor set up that would allow session view in one monitor and arrange in another?

I could understand it if session view was a full on virtual mixer with vertical per channel inserts like in logic, PT or any other DAW that has been modeled on an emulation of a traditional hard ware type mixing desk paradigm. But live has never struck me as trying to be that thing.

In my mind session and arrange are completely different animals, its like two over lying applications that complement each other.
Session is for working at a macro level, arrange for working at a meta level, you go to one after working in the other.

I would like to see some kind of session view based sample editor. Even just providing editing tools in clip view would work for me. being able to nest clips would be very cool, kind of clips in side of clips, you could take a long clip and divide it into smaller clips that can then be edited individually.. You would then be given an option to consolidate them into one single clip again with another option to include any FX processing on that track.

I would also like to be able to edit stop buttons across all of the clip slots in a group from the group master channel.

Be able to set up follow actions on the master scene launch channel, or be able to group clips so that they all behave the same way in a follow actions across several channels. You can already highlight several clips on several channels and give them all the same follow action properties and this works well for standard actions like play next clip or go to first clip and so on, but i would like to be able to set up many channels of clips and use the any and other commands but not have all of the clips on every channel jumping around at random. I would like them all to follow the same random vertical actions.

Please add time stretching to sampler.....
PLEASE-PLEASE-PLEASE!!!!!!!

Please add granular synthesis to sampler..
PLEASE-PLEASE-PLEASE!!!!!!!
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anybody human
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Re: Beyond Live 8 what's next really?

Post by anybody human » Wed Mar 03, 2010 12:15 pm

dum wrote:
anybody human wrote:Convolution/IR reverb can take a TON of CPU btw. I'd settle for just a better reverb, always kick myself for not joining the Aether group buy. Tisk, the GUI was downright offensive at the time.

Just curious what convolution reverbs you've been using to come to this conclusion ?
I've been using altiverb for a few years now and it's super lean. Ridiculous how lean it is. been using other convo-reverbs like reverberate on my netbook - super lean. Only convolution reverbs I've used that disproportionately drained my cpu were freebies I discovered on KVR, coded by 'amateurs' and c++ enthusiasts.

As for Aether, I use that regularly too and it's a cpu PIG. biggest cpu pig reverb I've ever tried. And the gui hasn't changed since the group buy. You could make the gui 50% smaller at the time, and you still can. I like the (smaller) GUI - it's useful for spotting problematic frequencies quickly. I suppose it's possible the gui changed in the 1.0.1 bugfix, but I wouldn't know since 2caudio stopped supporting aether on 10.4 right after version 1.0.0 (smooth move! I was impressed with the cojones needed to be so shrift) anyway, from my experience, the whole convolution reverb = cpu pig thing is a complete myth perpetuated by those with little or no experience with modern convolution reverbs from the last few years.
At any rate, if there is actually a commercially available convolution reverb that uses a comparative TONNE of CPU out there I'd like to check it out.

When convolution reverb was brand new, it was indeed a hog. but that was years ago. Good algos are much more taxing.
I'm using Waves IR-L so maybe that's it. The CPU spikes happen when I use those free Bricasti impulses (known company made them & they sound great though). Everyone says Altiverb is hands down the best.

Pretty sure the Aether GUI has changed since the group buy, buy yeah, algorithmic reverbs can definitely be CPU hogs.

anybody human
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Re: Beyond Live 8 what's next really?

Post by anybody human » Wed Mar 03, 2010 12:19 pm

Pasha wrote:
anybody human wrote:@Pasha/Jarvismon: No VST's? 8O 5 major plugin brands? 8O C'mon now. Really? That came oughta nowhere. That would mean getting rid of Uh-He, Fabfilter & Soundtoys cos they're not Waves or NI? :cry:
How about the 3rd parties & Live just try to fix bugs as best they can and everybody just use what works for them. 8)
I know what you mean though, it's already a self contained DAW etc. yawn it's late goodnight y'all.
Just trying to be provocative. Do not get my 5 strictly, just to mean that you cannot be compatible with everything around.
Simply not possible. So reduce your scope and certify. Working in a software company that's what we do to avoid problems.

- Best
- Pasha
Right on.

anybody human
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Re: Beyond Live 8 what's next really?

Post by anybody human » Wed Mar 03, 2010 12:26 pm

Jarvisimon wrote:
anybody human wrote:How about the 3rd parties & Live just try to fix bugs as best they can
That's basically what's happening, however, it seems that VST/AU etc plug in support is at the heart of much of Live's present instability.

An Ableton plug in building kit would allow designers to build instruments that were just for use in Live and make the product far more reliable on each update.

Which would you rather have? A platform that didn't crash, or your favourite synths that did crash?
I agree that VST/AU support is the big problem stability wise. Both Ableton and the 3rd parties need to work on this IMO, I'm sure it's not easy. There should be communication on this, but as Pasha points out, you can't spread yourself too thin.

Angstrom
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Re: Beyond Live 8 what's next really?

Post by Angstrom » Wed Mar 03, 2010 2:06 pm

Homebelly wrote:Can some one please explain the advantage that would be gained by being able to have a dual monitor set up that would allow session view in one monitor and arrange in another?

I could understand it if session view was a full on virtual mixer with vertical per channel inserts like in logic, PT or any other DAW that has been modeled on an emulation of a traditional hard ware type mixing desk paradigm. But live has never struck me as trying to be that thing.
Surely Live does have per channel inserts, but it just doesn't call them that. The 'Devices' and racks which exist inline with each track seem functionally identical to inserts. The Live mixer is pretty usable once the height of the faders is stretched so you can see the db markings, etc.
The only thing it lacks from a traditional mixer is persistent EQ dials sitting above the volume faders, but that's not too hard to deal with.

The reason for wanting it on a separate screen is that when I work in Arrangement I want to be able to mix with this
Image

rather than this
Image

sporkles
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Re: Beyond Live 8 what's next really?

Post by sporkles » Wed Mar 03, 2010 7:25 pm

I think Live 9 will have to feature a pretty hefty improvement as far as loops are concerned if I'm going to update. I'm
talking something in the veins of Traktor Pro - the ability to set hot loops on the fly, changing the loop size, etc. I
can see how this would require a bit of creative thinking in session view, but isn't that what Ableton is all about?

I easily get my fix with Live 8, but I really want some easily accessible way of looping on the fly. Let's say you have
your clips set up with Follow Actions to play next clip after X bars/beats: first of all, you want to be able to jump to the
next clip when the current one reaches its end marker - that's a no-brainer. Then, you'd want to set a provisional loop,
which would be adjustable with mappable controls; effectively you'd have a hot key / midi button which would start looping
all currently playing clips at a predetermined loop size (pressing the button again would deactivate the loop, and return to
whatever Follow Actions you've got going. You would of course be able to launch other clips while the loop is running, which
would override the loop on a per track basis.

This is turning into a plain old feature request, but at the moment, this is the only thing I can think of that would make
me upgrade to Live 9.

Ultra quick mock-up:

Image

Homebelly
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Re: Beyond Live 8 what's next really?

Post by Homebelly » Wed Mar 03, 2010 8:53 pm

Related to to this idea,,, i think???,,,
I would love to be able to have empty audio clips that i can fill.
I've played with looper, but it doesn't quite work for me, i would love to be able to create an empty clip, map all of the clip based controls like pitch, length and so on. Then be able to record into them in real time amd manipulate the audio after the fact all in real time.
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Pasha
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Re: Beyond Live 8 what's next really?

Post by Pasha » Thu Mar 04, 2010 5:38 am

... As promised I have answered my own question about what would make me buy Live 9...
As a guitarist I think Live should have a Tuner.
As a singer some sort of Voice Pitch correction capabilities should
be there.
M4L runtime with optional upgrade path to full M4L.
A Mixing view with EQ on every channel... Harrison Mixbus Like but Ableton clean style.
This one in Addition to current session Mixing view.

That'll do. I'm a simple soul. :)
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davepermen
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Re: Beyond Live 8 what's next really?

Post by davepermen » Thu Mar 04, 2010 11:04 am

Pasha wrote:... As promised I have answered my own question about what would make me buy Live 9...
As a guitarist I think Live should have a Tuner.
it has spectrum, allows for tuning.
As a singer some sort of Voice Pitch correction capabilities should
be there.
t-pain panic :)
M4L runtime with optional upgrade path to full M4L.
A Mixing view with EQ on every channel... Harrison Mixbus Like but Ableton clean style.
This one in Addition to current session Mixing view.

That'll do. I'm a simple soul. :)
how about instead being able to have sort of "macros in channel". so you can add an eq8, or an eq3, or what ever you like (a compressor), say "map to track", and you get a knob added above the send-knobs (or below, doesn't matter to me) so you can quickly use it.

that way, you could have a setup similar to harrison mixbus, but flexible like live is.
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Pasha
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Re: Beyond Live 8 what's next really?

Post by Pasha » Thu Mar 04, 2010 4:00 pm

davepermen wrote: how about instead being able to have sort of "macros in channel". so you can add an eq8, or an eq3, or what ever you like (a compressor), say "map to track", and you get a knob added above the send-knobs (or below, doesn't matter to me) so you can quickly use it.
that way, you could have a setup similar to harrison mixbus, but flexible like live is.
YOU'RE A GENIUS!!!!!
I have never thought about that. That's great. :D
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Live 12 Suite,Zebra ,Valhalla Plugins, MIDI Guitar (2+3),Guitar, Bass, VG99, GP10, JV1010 and some controllers
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