Live 9 likely launch date...?

[golemus]

What do you think that is according to current state of affairs a likely time to get live9? No trolling, just facts please.

Musikmesse is in a few weeks and I don't find Ableton as a participant. If they won't have a stand. Seems to me very unlikely to have a live9 in the near future...?

What has usually (in the past) been the order of things, first public beta testing, then presentation at an exhibition, then launch, or first exhibition then public beta? And how were timings with Live7 and Live8..?

[login]

Maybe they are going to turn in to Blizzard entertainment language: SOON

[kev herb]

there are no facts just lots of live9 threads started by people like you

[JuanSOLO]

What has usually (in the past) been the order of things,

Lots of things have changed since then. For one, Ableton said they will not be making announcements at events like NAMM. I am assuming that includes Musikmesse. Not to mention Live 8 changed a lot since v7, with new features, merging things with Max and Serato, dedicated controllers, plus the ongoing stability drama of v8, and the time elapsed since it's release.

Live 9 is in the works, there is no doubt about that, as to when it's gonna be announced/released, that information seems to be very secret.

[timothyallan]

Sigh, just read no troll posts.

Have a good day!

[clive_damagedgoods]

The facts are simple. There aren't any.

Ableton are NOT talking about this even when provoked quite heavily with a pretty sharp stick.

I should know. It was me doing the poking

The following extracts, dated 6th Feb 2012, are taken from comments posted on Ableton's official Google+ page. A few people contributed to this exchange of opinions including Ableton AG. The following comments although abridged for reasons of brevity, are unedited. For those who care enough about it the full exchange can be found here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/111213825654134950584/posts

Following calls for news about Live 9 and allegations of a self imposed information blackout regarding it's progress, Ableton stated at that time that their official position was this:

*extract begins*

Ableton:
'We know it's tough to wait, and while we're working on some exciting things, we aren't ready to talk about them publicly yet. You'll all definitely know as soon as they're ready.'

Doombadger Doomus:
'(edit)....Ableton are missing the point. It's not tough to wait. It's tough to be a loyal customer base who actively promote your product to others and, i might add, pay your wages, and find yourself being increasingly treated like pawns in some camp 70s spy drama about industrial espionage and microfilm. It's pathetic and it's quite obviously a marketing strategy to create buzz about a product that no one knows anything about, in a market place where innovation has almost stagnated yet has to motivate new sales at triple figure ticket prices.

You're not working in Biotech, selling viruses to the Chinese. You're working in software, making programs to make some music. This cloak and dagger, hush hush, perpetual rumor machine just shuts out your customers and eventually creates a climate where no one says anything to anyone about anything whether it exists or not.

and then consequently, no one cares anymore.

Waiting is easy. You can't miss what doesn't exist.

It's being treated like a twat I find insulting.'

Ableton:
'sorry to hear about your frustration, but we're not trying to pull anything on you or any other users. We just don't want to debut new developments before they're ready.'

Doombadger Doomus:
'Yes thats perfectly understandable and I think we can all agree that is fair.

No one is asking you to.

At the moment though there really is nothing out there regarding Live 9 except rumour, speculation and outright invention. Nothing.

On one end of the information scale we have what would be considered a blackout. No official announcements, press statements, interviews or leaks about something. I'm not suggesting this is where we are, I'm stating it is one extreme polarity and so I'm not going to name any names here. Draw your own conclusions.

Now, at the other end of the spectrum are the developers and companies who, from day one, bombard users, the media and anyone else in their core demographic that'll listen, with a constant drip feed of development and pre release piffle. Again no names, they know who they are.

Both these extremes are annoying to the point of insane criminality. I'm not saying these vapid aspects of life are the cause of armed rampages and random slayings but I do think they could be that last tiny push that breaks the final thread of sanity in me....errrr.....i mean....in them.

(...edit...)

We don't expect you to give everything away, that wouldn't be exciting at all and we don't want the door codes to the office or your debit card pin numbers.

We don't even want promises.

We want to feel like Ableton belongs to us as well and it does. You gave it to us, remember? You should. You were there when you did it. In return we gave you our loyalty and we showed others what the future looked like. We showed alot of others. And, together we made your dream a reality. It's time we as end users started reminding all companies and businesses of one very simple reality:

You couldn't have done this without us.

We deserve to be part of the process.'

*extract ends*

Ableton chose to make no further comment and their contribution to the discussion ended here.

Now, I'm quite able to tell the difference between an answer formed from genuinely held concerns, an objection formed by an unconscious conditioned response or a calculated attempt to avoid illiciting information. I do this shit for a living and I sometimes hear these games played out as many as 140 times a day. Answers that are polite, seemingly friendly and linguistically rational whilst at the same time managing to completely avoid answering the questions asked or addressing the concerns raised, are clear and classic examples of avoidence tactics. This is standard behaviour in business to consumer dealings and uses nuero-linguistic misdirection to avoid lying by being 'economical with the truth.'

"There are certain questions we do not want to have to answer at this time as the truth could potentially be bad PR and 'market unfriendly.' Equally, we don't want to 'escalate' any isolated events and end up 'causing a scene.' At all costs avoid creating an 'incident.' We must not allow this to grow into a 'clusterfuck.' So, 1)be nice, 2)back down and don't get drawn into any arguments, 3)don't actually say anything, for gods sake!"

I still hold that the stance Ableton have adopted is a marketing directed strategy but I now think its less about using intrigue to create empty hype and has alot more to do with BitWig Studio than anyone first thought.

My belief is that Ableton are watching this very carefully and are a little bit anxious to see exactly what those lads have come up with. If BitWig release what they're pitching, if they've done it right and it's as uber as they're hinting then Ableton may well need to go away and fundamentally rethink what Live 9 does and how it does it.

Ultimately this is about what business is always about, the bottom line. It's about the measured and sustained growth of reported quarterly turnovers. And, like the mobile telecoms industry, consumer electronics or any other saturated market dominated by a few big players sustained growth really only boils down to one key performance indicator.

Market share.

If BitWig live up to the hype then disgruntled Ableton users will almost certainly scramble to jump ship. Linux users understandably could also jump ship as could anyone running native 64bit systems. If that happens alot then Ableton will start hemorrhaging market share at too greater rate to keep the money men happy so they'll need to make sure a strategy is in place that'll win back some ground and limit the damage.

And what is the only weapon they have to do this with?

Live 9.

Quite reasonably, everyone with a stake in Ableton AG will need to feel as confident as possible that if their predicted worst case scenario occurs their response is a Live 9 that's not just good but really really good. Jaw-droppingly good. A piece of software so fresh and groundbreaking in it's concept, so inspiring and creative in it's execution, so perfect in fact that it turns out to be the solution to all humanities problems. A DAW that brings about lasting world peace, eliviates global poverty and even spontaineously creates bacon sandwiches out thin air whilst simultainiously giving you head from under the deck stand, all while maintaining a rocksteady latency of 5.2ms at 96Khz.

And I think it's fair to say that will be a very hard thing to do, but arguably it'll prove much much harder to do if they've already announced key features or worse yet, gone and actually finished it and released the thing.

I'm guessing most of the work on coding Live 9 slowed off around the time Ableton found out exactly what those cheeky scamps at BitWig were up to. I also imagine that anxiety levels have been directly proportionate to how good a shape they feel the Live 9 code is in and how good a job they feel BitWig will do.

I'll let you know that when the pre-release Beta arrives.

Of course, I could be completely wrong about all of this. I may be totally off the mark and simply spaffing a load of old stuff and nonsense. It has happened. But, then I guess we won't really ever know for sure, we will....

The people who know everything, are saying nothing.

[JuanSOLO]

Ableton chose to make no further comment and the companies participation in this discussion ended here.

I bet they did. If I was receiving these I would have at least asked you if you wanted some cheese with that whine. SHEESH.

[clive_damagedgoods]

Ok let me get this straight. Now what you're saying there and please do correct me if I'm wrong, is that if consumers, customers or anyone raises legitimate areas of concern they are 'whining' is that it? Have I understood you correctly there?

[JuanSOLO]

I just dont understand why people feel entitled to information about a future product because they bought the last one. You bought an Ableton product, weather or not you feel satisfied with that purchase, thats what you paid for, nothing more.

[clive_damagedgoods]

Because it's a relationship, maybe? (sigh)

First up let me state again that I am very satisfied with Live as a product. In fact I now have more copies of Live Lite than I know what to do with. I've started giving them away as gifts. To complete strangers. It's good that I'm happy. I think most users are happy in general and this is also good. But this is not a product quality issue, this is a customer relations issue. A relationship issue.

Both consumer and company take a conscious choice to enter an ongoing mutually beneficial agreement. A sale of the provision of goods or supply of a service marks the beginning of a journey. It is a relationship and I believe that businesses succeed and flourish by not only supplying goods and services that serve the needs and desires of consumers but by aslo engaging the customer equally and pro actively in that relationship. Gaining customers is one thing. Keeping them is another. Just as companies should have a developed understanding of corporate, customer and social responsibility so should consumers and it is our responsibility to speak out, with praise when it is earnt and with scorn when it is not. Left to their own devices, companies have a responsibility to one thing. Profit at the expense of all other concerns be they moral, ethical, political or social. The only thing that keeps them in their place is US!!!

With the greatest of respect mate, it would certainly appear that you have forgotten this is a two way street and it seems you're also missing the bloody point!!!

[JuanSOLO]

this is a customer relations issue. A relationship issue.

Well if you put it that way, then Live is more like a fine ass stripper. So you tip well, doesn't mean shes gonna give you attention that shes not giving out to everyone with a few dollars. Now if your tipping hundreds of thousands, maybe she'll take you to the VIP room. However, she is still just doing her job, shes not obligated to you, you volunteered, so your not a victim.

I'm sure Ableton are just as eager to tell us about Live 9 as we are to hear it. However, as indicated in their response to you, seems they are choosing to be uber cautious, about how they release 9. WHY? Because they want this to be the best release yet, because they have competition, because Live 8 was full of false advertisement and the product was ultra buggy and many customers rightfully complained. The pressure is on these guys, and I imagine they dont want to dissapoint and come correct.

[skatr2]

Maybe its a difference of how one views their music creation experience. I don't know the people whom make the product I chose to purchase...nor had a hand in making it. The only relationships I've fostered is in the groups of people who support it...who provide WAY more help in terms of getting direction and usefulness of the product than the company itself. But this is what I generally expect from a company.

The way I see it, ableton is no different than a moog instrument I might buy, or if I shelled out some loot for pro tools, or my Komplete 8 set of instruments. Its all gear and kits I've collected and means to ends that are only reliant on them working as intended. In MY view, ableton works as intended and has far exceeded what my expectations were in getting music focus and providing a nice integration for live electronic music. To me, if they discontinued ableton tomorrow, I would continue to use it until something more intuitive to me came along. Nothing changes in my workflow if 9 is scrapped and nothing changes if they say they will be another two years out.

I get that people spend alot of money on a product and at least want a reach around once in a while. But unless the product is broke to you and you feel your time/money was wasted, there's no point in demanding a warm and fuzzy to keep your business. Live has your cash and you are more than free to go elsewhere if they have something that works for you. If you feel the competition is worth leaving for, then go for it! So far the only real competition I've seen so far is an unreleased version of Fruity and a copy cat software company that has some really cool jpegs. So unless Live is broken to you NOW, bitching about live's lack of communication or updates on a nonexistant and unannounced product is kind of moot. You are working yourself up in a one-sided relationship and may need a change given some of the frustration you are feeling.

[skatr2]

Live is more like a fine ass stripper.

statement of the day!

[23kon]

Ableton: "We know it's tough to wait, and while we're working on some exciting things..."

Ableton DAW for Quadcore iPad3 that will be announced later this week? ....

[Rave]

Apple don't do it do why should ableton. There are sites dedicated to Apple speculation, tis all part of marketing.