Ableton 9: A message to HQ and the Community

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
Dragonbreath
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Ableton 9: A message to HQ and the Community

Post by Dragonbreath » Fri Dec 07, 2012 5:17 am

I think its fair to say that we all enjoy Ableton. Why would be loosing our time it if we didnt get some joy or benefit from it?

I think the recent launch of Ableton 9 has been overdue and paradoxically a sudden surprise!

Its seems to me as this whole launch has been premature.

The video seems to have leaked, removed, no communication from Ableton, and then Bam! Full launch, with poorly polished, Apple inspired key not. Completely different approach, new website, slashed and mutilated forum. Lets face it with thrilled with the idea of a long awaited Live 9, but were kinda put put off by the face of it, happy of getting long awaited features (like session automation, etc.), but disconcerted by lack of attention to other much needed features (like dual screen support, etc.).

We wanna jump on, but were put off by the recent lack of feedback on the forums.

The way I see it. The video leaked, Ableton refused to admit their mistake and they push on foward. If you repeat the same mistake enough time, it becomes part of the song. The audience doesnt know the difference. But what Ableton seems to have forgotten, were not the audience, were band members. Were as much as part of the creative process as your are. Without user support, there is sound coming out of the speakers. There is no speaker. We buy Ableton because of what it allows us to bring to the audience. Ableton is mystical in the eyes of those who dont understand it, not in the hands of those who use it.

Ableton should admit its faults. Its users would appreciate them alot more from it. I think they being criticized too much and are afraid of more, but alot of it nagging has been about the lack of transparence. Lets face it most of us hate the new look of the website, are unimpressed with the covering up of the forums. Whats this beige color. I loved the old scheme and the old. The logo is like the rest of the marketing. Very square and flat, exactly like the sound that ableton is accused of having. Take of all this make up, this "fond de teint". Give us back the nice clean and concise ableton that we use to love.

Show use live as it should be Alive!
Peel of this dead facade...
The launch was premature, we all know.
Please admit it.

Unless im wrong.

Then fire your marketing team, cause they will drive you into the ground!

Hello
Is anybody still in there?

:D

tone61
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Re: Ableton 9: A message to HQ and the Community

Post by tone61 » Fri Dec 07, 2012 6:38 am

If Ableton announced the key features of Live9 and now they keep improving the quality in beta testing, how was it premature???

oddstep
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Re: Ableton 9: A message to HQ and the Community

Post by oddstep » Fri Dec 07, 2012 7:29 am

Considering the forum design and website colour scheme to be part of my creative process seems to be mistaken at best. The forum could be replaced with a command line interface for all the impact it would have upon my music and life.

Sean_Clarke
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Re: Ableton 9: A message to HQ and the Community

Post by Sean_Clarke » Fri Dec 07, 2012 7:30 am

The Live Beta forum is very active, lots of interaction, very up beat. It's all happening in private with a focused group.

Everyone ranted that live 9 was not announced, then people rant about the way it was announced, that it was too soon, etc. Lets face it, the only thing that actually matters is Live 9 when you actually have a copy...

.....then the missing feature rants will start.....I really don't know when people find the time to make music ;-)
DAWS: Live 11 Suite + PUSH2, Studio One, Bitwig and Reason all via an X32 desk: Instruments: modular and analogue stuff, guitars, basses and drums.

Machinesworking
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Re: Ableton 9: A message to HQ and the Community

Post by Machinesworking » Fri Dec 07, 2012 8:19 am

I'm fine with the new features. The main feature overlooked in your opinion is dual monitor support. It's my firm contention that Ableton will not budge on this. Early interviews with Gerhard Behles (the CEO or whatever of Ableton) had him flatly declaring his annoyance at floating windows, and that translates to the single window where even the embedded plug ins are not floating. So for the last 12 years or so that Live has been around they haven't changed course. I don't see it happening anytime soon.

The Automation issue in regards to PDC is the only one that I think is truly missing. Like a lot of users I'm not affected by it, but I respect the complaint for sure. :)

jtdj
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Re: Ableton 9: A message to HQ and the Community

Post by jtdj » Fri Dec 07, 2012 9:06 am

Why isnt this been posted in the Messages To Ableton sub-forum? This is an outrage, i want IP bannings, heads must roll.

fishmonkey
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Re: Ableton 9: A message to HQ and the Community

Post by fishmonkey » Fri Dec 07, 2012 9:21 am

funken wrote: But the forum does not represent all Ableton users, just a slice. The forum members themselves should watch their own behaviour. What we need is civilised, rational, polite, and reasonably objective discussion, plus a few jokes and a bit of chit chat. The forum turned into a cesspit not long ago and has improved since then, thankfully. We don't need fanboy vs hater battles, just sensible discussion.
for many years Ableton actively chose to let the forums be anarchic, they were always very tolerant of all but the most extreme antics. some might say ridiculously tolerant given that it is the official forum.

now the choice for them was either to waste resources policing the place, or to tuck it away out of sight. i would say (from a business perspective) they continue to be tolerant by choosing to merely tuck it away...

S4racen
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Re: Ableton 9: A message to HQ and the Community

Post by S4racen » Fri Dec 07, 2012 9:28 am

The beta forum also has some additional features that this one doesn't....

Mainly it's only accessed by actual users and is very much populated by the Ableton team who are answering questions!

Cheers
D

infernal.machine
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Re: Ableton 9: A message to HQ and the Community

Post by infernal.machine » Fri Dec 07, 2012 9:29 am

fishmonkey wrote: for many years Ableton actively chose to let the forums be anarchic, they were always very tolerant of all but the most extreme antics. some might say ridiculously tolerant given that it is the official forum.

now the choice for them was either to waste resources policing the place, or to tuck it away out of sight. i would say (from a business perspective) they continue to be tolerant by choosing to merely tuck it away...
That's actually a really good point.

oddstep
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Re: Ableton 9: A message to HQ and the Community

Post by oddstep » Fri Dec 07, 2012 9:31 am

fishmonkey wrote: for many years Ableton actively chose to let the forums be anarchic, they were always very tolerant of all but the most extreme antics. some might say ridiculously tolerant given that it is the official forum.

now the choice for them was either to waste resources policing the place, or to tuck it away out of sight. i would say (from a business perspective) they continue to be tolerant by choosing to merely tuck it away...
makes sense to me. and thus the beta forum is invite only and answers is in a separate location - all of the stuff that is valuable for Ableton has been taken off the forum. Its a shame because as has become clear on the beta forum, its great engaging with the Ableton staff on software design and functionality. the people using this forum as a means of failing to develop anger management strategies have made it a toxic environment for Ableton staff and as a consequence made the forum less useful for the rest of us.

Machinesworking
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Re: Ableton 9: A message to HQ and the Community

Post by Machinesworking » Fri Dec 07, 2012 10:48 am

oddstep wrote:
fishmonkey wrote: for many years Ableton actively chose to let the forums be anarchic, they were always very tolerant of all but the most extreme antics. some might say ridiculously tolerant given that it is the official forum.

now the choice for them was either to waste resources policing the place, or to tuck it away out of sight. i would say (from a business perspective) they continue to be tolerant by choosing to merely tuck it away...
makes sense to me. and thus the beta forum is invite only and answers is in a separate location - all of the stuff that is valuable for Ableton has been taken off the forum. Its a shame because as has become clear on the beta forum, its great engaging with the Ableton staff on software design and functionality. the people using this forum as a means of failing to develop anger management strategies have made it a toxic environment for Ableton staff and as a consequence made the forum less useful for the rest of us.
???
Have any of you been coming here for more than a year or so? This place is absolutely calm compared to years ago.
(It's also less interesting and funny, but to each their own)

There have been literally hundreds of threads begging, whining, and threatening the Ableton staff to get rid of person X or thread Y... and Ableton have done the most admirable thing that any large company with a public image could do IMO, and that's absolutely nothing. Except in rare cases where the law was broken and a few people who had serious anger issues. This forum is pretty amazing and great, if you don't like it there are plenty of other forums on Live. It never was and never will be a place where you can start a thread addressed to Ableton employees and expect them to answer, it's not a realistic request of any company IMO.
Also, in that respect, even though I sort of like KVR it's far more of a cesspool at times, and far more developers post on it than here. So the logic is faulty IMO. Ableton employees don't post much here because Ableton isn't Run by Urs Heckman or the guys in FXPansion who have the sort of internet based business model that gives them a big forum presence. Plus, tech support wise, their email address works really quite well.

Also, quite honestly this forum and it's lack of moderation gives you a rare opportunity, it begs you to learn how to not engage in endless debate with people who enjoy circular logic and have more time on their hands than you do. It's also quite possible that you, yes you, might be the reason for the endless debate, and you might be the one with circular logic. This is a valuable life lesson. Case in point, some of the biggest whiners and most obnoxious threads about other users have come from shit posters, people who are openly hostile towards new users with basic questions, people who have a hard time being wrong, etc.

oddstep
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Re: Ableton 9: A message to HQ and the Community

Post by oddstep » Fri Dec 07, 2012 11:06 am

Machinesworking wrote:
oddstep wrote:
fishmonkey wrote: for many years Ableton actively chose to let the forums be anarchic, they were always very tolerant of all but the most extreme antics. some might say ridiculously tolerant given that it is the official forum.

now the choice for them was either to waste resources policing the place, or to tuck it away out of sight. i would say (from a business perspective) they continue to be tolerant by choosing to merely tuck it away...
makes sense to me. and thus the beta forum is invite only and answers is in a separate location - all of the stuff that is valuable for Ableton has been taken off the forum. Its a shame because as has become clear on the beta forum, its great engaging with the Ableton staff on software design and functionality. the people using this forum as a means of failing to develop anger management strategies have made it a toxic environment for Ableton staff and as a consequence made the forum less useful for the rest of us.
???
Have any of you been coming here for more than a year or so? This place is absolutely calm compared to years ago.
(It's also less interesting and funny, but to each their own)

There have been literally hundreds of threads begging, whining, and threatening the Ableton staff to get rid of person X or thread Y... and Ableton have done the most admirable thing that any large company with a public image could do IMO, and that's absolutely nothing. Except in rare cases where the law was broken and a few people who had serious anger issues. This forum is pretty amazing and great, if you don't like it there are plenty of other forums on Live. It never was and never will be a place where you can start a thread addressed to Ableton employees and expect them to answer, it's not a realistic request of any company IMO.
Also, in that respect, even though I sort of like KVR it's far more of a cesspool at times, and far more developers post on it than here. So the logic is faulty IMO. Ableton employees don't post much here because Ableton isn't Run by Urs Heckman or the guys in FXPansion who have the sort of internet based business model that gives them a big forum presence. Plus, tech support wise, their email address works really quite well.

Also, quite honestly this forum and it's lack of moderation gives you a rare opportunity, it begs you to learn how to not engage in endless debate with people who enjoy circular logic and have more time on their hands than you do. It's also quite possible that you, yes you, might be the reason for the endless debate, and you might be the one with circular logic. This is a valuable life lesson. Case in point, some of the biggest whiners and most obnoxious threads about other users have come from shit posters, people who are openly hostile towards new users with basic questions, people who have a hard time being wrong, etc.
yeah guilty as charged - the forum was better 3-4 years back though; better useful post : twatrant ratio... y'know stuff like user scripts, ideas on device design - the only thing that's been good recently is the max subforum and the occasional threads on music theory. I see the forum as a social space where ideas and passions can be shared.. a bit like a bar - currently every other table in the bar has someone shouting about how the tools they use are rubbish and that no one listens to them. If this was a real bar I would go somewhere else - maybe I should check out another forum.

morbid
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Re: Ableton 9: A message to HQ and the Community

Post by morbid » Fri Dec 07, 2012 11:22 am

You know I love Coca Cola

But they rushed the launch of the Christmas can this year.

I was expecting thumbgrip intergration, less phosphoric acid per ml, modular and interchangeable ringpulls etc etc. Not to mention that Santa looks like a sex offender this year (And you can thank the marketing team for that one!)

The whole thing looks rushed, shamefully postmodern and has poor integration with other can based beverages which are widely available. Not to mention the fact that they refuse to acknowledge their mistake in removing the cocaine from the recipe in 1903.

When are they going to wake up and listen to us - the end user?

I'm drinking water only until the CEO himself agrees to suck me off whilst wearing a Santa suit.

oddstep
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Re: Ableton 9: A message to HQ and the Community

Post by oddstep » Fri Dec 07, 2012 11:34 am

:lol:

fishmonkey
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Re: Ableton 9: A message to HQ and the Community

Post by fishmonkey » Fri Dec 07, 2012 11:40 am

Machinesworking wrote: Have any of you been coming here for more than a year or so? This place is absolutely calm compared to years ago.
(It's also less interesting and funny, but to each their own)
by and large i find it refreshing that the Ableton forum has been so freewheeling.

however while it is calm now compared to past antics, that is because Ableton does now moderate the forum. over the top aggressive posters don't last long any more.

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