Happy with Live 9?

[DrWashington]

OK, having slept off some of the rage I was feeling yesterday, I've had time to examine my feelings. Yep, I'm still pretty pissed. I just really don't feel there's an excuse for the direction they've taken.

I couldn't give two shits about yet another piece of hardware to take up space and compromise the ergonomics of my studio yet again. I want the focus to be on sound quality and usability above all else.

I have Suite 9 now, and I've done almost nothing but fight with it to try and get it to behave correctly. And, it won't.

Yes, I know my post was harsh--but this company genuinely needs a wakeup call! What they're doing just smacks of greed, quite honestly.

I have nothing against useful hardware, don't get me wrong... what I have a problem with is the focus on it to the exclusion of very important usability and sound quality concerns.

When it comes to production, there's still absolutely no comparison: Cubase absolutely mops the floor with Ableton. It's worlds more powerful, and there's no getting around that. That's why I use Ableton primarily to develop a vision of mine: live remixing live PA hybrid DJ sets. Getting all my stems together and smoothly blending them with bits of what's now a rather vast collection of carefully selected tunes.

For this, I wan the focus to be on sound quality above all else. If only there was a stretch algorithm I could rely on to work near-transparently on any complete song, I'd be absolutely over the fucking moon! My laptop can handle damn near anything I throw at it, so efficiency really is not a primary concern. I just want it to sound absolutely top notch on a top quality sound system, like one of the big Funktion One systems we now have locally.

Ableton would rather put their misguided idea of 'innovation' over completeness, stability, and a feeling of solid, reliable coherence in workflow.

I think this is great software in so many ways... I just can't believe how let down I feel after three years of patiently waiting and singing Ableton's praises to all my friends. Fuck me, right?

Oh, and this taskbar issue... how this managed to slip by the beta testers I really can't imagine. Like I said, 32-bit 8.3 and 64-bit 8.4 both work perfectly, as have all previous versions. This is just an issue with 9.0.2. I can't remember if this was happening with the earlier ones, but it's driving me mad. I'm often in full screen, and now I can't be at all. Great. Peachy. Simply fabulous!

[simpli.cissimus]

Personally, I just can't believe this program was ever released in its current state. It's a disgrace. Nothing but problems so far. Hell, I can't even get live to go into fullscreen properly! It works just fine on 8.3 and 8.4, but on 9.0.2, the Windows taskbar won't stay put in the background: it comes right back and cuts off part of the screen!

Just unbelievable. I hate to be negative, but I'm really, really turned off by the direction Ableton has been headed of late. Their new site looks pretty bad, too. It's just crap design. I love good design, but this is Berlin hipster bullshit in action. Fire these people. Go back to something pleasing and easy to navigate.

So, no, I am NOT happy with Live 9. At least Cubase is on a roll lately, and I can actually get some music made without the damn thing crashing constantly... Steinberg are doing it right at the moment. Over at Ableton, it's fucking amateur hour.

Really, really frustrated right now... I've wasted hours fighting with 9. My Saturday is half shot because they, after 3 years, released a turd so they could sell hardware.

FOCUS ON MAKING THE BASICS WORK FIRST, and then, only then, start trying to make everything different.

Bitwig cannot come soon enough. I hope they trounce Ableton. I really do. I've had enough!

Also, why haven't they included a better stretch algorithm? This was the ONE THING I really, really wanted. Complex Pro will get me by, sort of, when DJing, but it smears the transients, narrows the stereo field, and no amount of post processing can make it any better. Computer are much faster now. Why couldn't they have focused a bit more on this, something basic and something the professional musicians might actually care about? Why are they trying to revolutionize something that just needs to be IMPROVED and STABILIZED?

I really don't get it. I'm so very upset with this company, and I feel genuinely cheated.

At least their support guy was very nice and sympathetic to the issues I've been bringing up, but he basically said he's really low on the totem pole over there and they don't listen to him, anyway. This attitude will, if not rectified, be Ableton's undoing. What a tragedy... I've spent thousands on this company at this point, and this is what I get? Unusable software after 3 years of waiting?

Fuck you, Ableton. Seriously, eat a dick.

I was here telling people how disappointing Live 8 was and how Live 9 will be,
month before it's release.

To release a unfinished software, with known bugs and flaws just to sell a new hardware.
That is so lame, Ableton !!!

Lots of dickheads here played the Ableton door keepers and
said no to every logic explanation about Live's flaws. ( Sheeps... )

I knew that Live 9 would be a mess from the start,
an ongoing bugfest, and I wrote it !
But as usual, the idiot's came out and tried to tell me(and others) how wrong I am...

In the end I see I was right in all expectations.

I just can't wait to get Bitwig and throw Live 8 totally out... !

[stringtapper]

I just can't wait to get Bitwig and throw Live 8 totally out... !

Apparently you can, and will.

[dysanfel]

Yesterday my bandmate and I successfully synced his Dell laptop running Windows 8 and Live 9 to my iMac running OSX 10.8 and Live 9 with MIDIoverLAN. Excellent results and performance. No crashes no bugs, we had hours of pure music love.

[simpli.cissimus]

O__U

[john gordon]

OK, having slept off some of the rage I was feeling yesterday, I've had time to examine my feelings. Yep, I'm still pretty pissed. I just really don't feel there's an excuse for the direction they've taken.

I couldn't give two shits about yet another piece of hardware to take up space and compromise the ergonomics of my studio yet again. I want the focus to be on sound quality and usability above all else.

I have Suite 9 now, and I've done almost nothing but fight with it to try and get it to behave correctly. And, it won't.

Yes, I know my post was harsh--but this company genuinely needs a wakeup call! What they're doing just smacks of greed, quite honestly.

I have nothing against useful hardware, don't get me wrong... what I have a problem with is the focus on it to the exclusion of very important usability and sound quality concerns.

When it comes to production, there's still absolutely no comparison: Cubase absolutely mops the floor with Ableton. It's worlds more powerful, and there's no getting around that. That's why I use Ableton primarily to develop a vision of mine: live remixing live PA hybrid DJ sets. Getting all my stems together and smoothly blending them with bits of what's now a rather vast collection of carefully selected tunes.

For this, I wan the focus to be on sound quality above all else. If only there was a stretch algorithm I could rely on to work near-transparently on any complete song, I'd be absolutely over the fucking moon! My laptop can handle damn near anything I throw at it, so efficiency really is not a primary concern. I just want it to sound absolutely top notch on a top quality sound system, like one of the big Funktion One systems we now have locally.

Ableton would rather put their misguided idea of 'innovation' over completeness, stability, and a feeling of solid, reliable coherence in workflow.

I think this is great software in so many ways... I just can't believe how let down I feel after three years of patiently waiting and singing Ableton's praises to all my friends. Fuck me, right?

Oh, and this taskbar issue... how this managed to slip by the beta testers I really can't imagine. Like I said, 32-bit 8.3 and 64-bit 8.4 both work perfectly, as have all previous versions. This is just an issue with 9.0.2. I can't remember if this was happening with the earlier ones, but it's driving me mad. I'm often in full screen, and now I can't be at all. Great. Peachy. Simply fabulous!

im almost positive this is flying lotus,welcome aboard steve..i feel your pain.

[Timbeaux]

Happy

[re:dream]

Live 9's main direction is towards Push, integrating controller wieh software.

Is this true?

I am using Live 9 without Push; it looks and feels like an improved, tweaked, easier to use version of Live 8. I have no desire to use Push (mpd32 + virus keyboard is enough for me for now) and I don't feel, ahem, pushed into acquiring it at all.

Maybe if I did use Push I would notice a lot of additional functionality that I don't even know that I am missing without it. If you get my drift.

But it feels to me as if Live is perfectly functional without Push and I don't feel I am missing anything without it.

[H20nly]

Is this true?

well, that depends what you by "true".

[agent314]

I'd been using 9 without Push up until last week, and it stands on its own very handily

But using it with Push for even just a week, I feel pretty confident in saying they definitely are directing a lot of workflow development towards integrating the Live workflow with it.

And frankly, with good reason. Using Push makes me hope I never have to use Live without it again. It just feels like so much of a more connected, integrated, hands-on workflow, that going back to a mostly m+k+MIDI controller setup feels like such a regression.

Push isn't perfect, but for a 1.0 release, I'm pretty happy with it.

Live 9 on its own, very solid. Live 9+Push = great.

[Blendton]

I'd been using 9 without Push up until last week, and it stands on its own very handily

But using it with Push for even just a week, I feel pretty confident in saying they definitely are directing a lot of workflow development towards integrating the Live workflow with it.

And frankly, with good reason. Using Push makes me hope I never have to use Live without it again. It just feels like so much of a more connected, integrated, hands-on workflow, that going back to a mostly m+k+MIDI controller setup feels like such a regression.

Push isn't perfect, but for a 1.0 release, I'm pretty happy with it.

Live 9 on its own, very solid. Live 9+Push = great.

I wish I could afford Push, really. So I'll just agree with your thoughts just because I felt the experience being like you post about it : I mean Live 9 being great, Push being indeed "another pad stutff" but that integration you talk about is very interesting from me but never saw the Push for real... Just reading other's experiences about how the two work together make asking "is Live enhancing the hardware or is Push enhancing the software" question ^^

As a "not push yet" user thinking like if I was even a new-buyer with Suite 9 being my first Abe I would just say :

Max for Live (6.1 based) + FULL OIC included + no bug even browsing = happy.

BTW nobody cares about my thoughts may be, or not.

Wow, thinking about first sets with Live 6.0.1... Operator and sampler being the "must buy" add-ons at the time ...

Yes, if someone thinks Abe's on the way for regression, I have by duty to respect that thought, but I allow myself to ask them to rethink a little more and more until ... it's a surprise

[Tarekith]

Am I happy with Live 9?

It's a question I've gone back and forth on a lot since it was announced. When I first heard what the new features were going to be, I have to admit I was pretty disappointed. For how long it's been since Live 8 came out, it just seemed like not much had really been done. I think a lot of users had been rather "meh" about the last few releases, and with the long delay since 8 was released, there was just this expectation that it was going to be something big hopefully.

But it wasn't. At least, that's how I felt at first.

Fast forward to the beta phase and actually getting my hands on it, and my views started to change. I don't know what it is, but while everything is more or less the same as Live 8, it FEELS different. I don't know how to put it in words, but using the app some things feel slightly quicker than they used to be, and some feel slower. So while I might have felt there weren't a lot of new features, it still sort of felt like a new app to me. Or perhaps saying it felt a little more refined than I imagined it would be is more accurate.

The new features were interesting as well, though to be honest I personally don't have much use for them for the way I use Live day to day. Audio to MIDI was more accurate than I expected it would be, though I know this seems to be a personal thing. Ironically the one time I had a need for it for my work (to extract a melody from a mixdown the client couldn't go back to), it didn't even get close to what the actual melody was. Works great every other time though, go figure.

M4L being included with Suite is great I guess, but I never really used it before, even when I had it with 8. I keep meaning to dive in and check out some of the new devices, but I haven't really had a need yet. The Glue is nice sounding, but again not something I really find myself needing for my music (yet).

In contrast the new EQ8 and Compressor are amazing as far as I'm concerned, easily my favorites out of any DAW. Been doing a lot of mixdowns in Live 9 for clients and been finding that I rarely feel the need to reach for 3rd party options on this front. That saves me a ton of time and makes it easier to send the projects back to the clients if they want it, so hurray for that improvement.

I also like the way that using Session View to record audio seems to have a lot of subtle improvements. Things like Clip Looping being set automatically when you stop recording and snapping to the nearest measure. Just seems faster to sketch out quick ideas.

I hated the browser in Live 8, and I hate the browser in Live 9. They took a clunky way to interact with your files and data and made it clunkier. I rarely need it thank god, but when I do I can't help but wonder WTF? Sorry, this is one of those things that makes no sense to me in terms of design in Live. For every change that made it better, there's 2 that made it worse.

So at the end of the day and after a lot of hours of use, I'm mostly ambivalent about the upgrade from Live 8 to Live 9, leaning slightly to the positive side. I was really hoping for a more radical upgrade in terms of how Live looks and functions, but I think they've drawn the line in the sand with this release and are clearly aiming to refine rather than reinvent. That's fine, there's nothing wrong with fine-tuning an app to make it more functional, and I definitely think that for the vast majority of users they have probably done this.

For me, the changes that I don't like are slightly outweighed by the ones I do, so I think overall it was worth the upgrade. Over the years I've learned that I can't always work with just one DAW, so I look at Live as a tool that helps me achieve certain tasks. Anything related to quickly organizing looped audio or detailed time-stretching work that I need to do. And then about 50% of the time I end up just doing the whole track in Live once I'm done anyway.

Live 9 didn't really change the way I look at the program and how I use it, so in a way I'm glad it didn't change too much too I guess.

PUSH

A lot of people have been asking me if I'm getting a Push. I want a Push, bad right now. Even though I know that most likely I will probably end up selling it after a few months anyway. I applaud Ableton for creating something new that is targeted as an instrument, but I also know that I just don't like creating music that way. I still want to get my hands on one for some extended time to see if I can be swayed, but I have a feeling I'm too set in my ways on this front.

Still, I think it's going to be very common to see people rocking these everywhere. They may have just created a whole new market with a demand other companies haven't been able to quite achieve yet. The fact there's such a long wait almost from the get go just shows how many people are interested in it. Will be interesting to see if a lot of these end up trading hands once more people get more time with one.

[Blendton]

They may have just created a whole new market with a demand other companies haven't been able to quite achieve yet

Maybe...

They already did it with Maw for Live : I was indeed before M4L thinking about "how to do with both obscure and friendly tools without some feeling I switch from one to another" >>> and then M4L came.

With Push, my only negative "maybe or not" thought could be the "new market"'s consumers are more or less never/never will be musicians as they consume /// unlike CUSTOMERS. Nobody or in fact very few guys praise such a freakin' feature like doing Live and Max embrace in a 3rd and coop end MAX FOR LIVE which WOW, I mean you realize what has be done by creating that (now bundled in Suite) "feature" ?

So for Push, it's interesting for real musicians I must admit. And I definitly wanna give it a fucking week to explore what can't be talked about if any experience. I think Live + Push may be boring to say but such a close hard with soft partnership I could be unable to get up and go pee being addicted to integration. Saying "Push an instrument" was joked by all of us, nobody as far as I can read confirms that, but some have understood what they mean : NO mouse, LESS screen looking >>> why not Push ?

BTW, something pisses me off : people complaining about the soft for Push reasons despite they don't have Push. Can't bear simple minded / able to write guys doing bad thoughts posts about Live 9 just by melting Push indexing "not enough changes" in the same post you read "... why all ... changed" I mean not valuable argumntation.

And wow, sorry to say it, it's boring here. Because viewing everything with Push out of the whole thing :

Live 8 + some changes + cool browser + WTF it's OIC BUNDLED IN SUITE ??? + WTFFF Max for Live based on Max 6.1 ????????

>>> Ableton deserves respect. At least from the Suite user point of view, even (my case) knowing M4L in Suite 8. A Great product.

Finally what should be marked by everyone here could look like:

"To like or dislike is allowed. To send shit on Abe's work is not."

Regards.

[brettonwoodsapocalypse]

Live 9 has been a good upgrade so far. It sounds that most stability problems are coming from PC users, it's really strage as I didn't have a single crash or problem since I installed L9 which is pretty impressive.

I LOVE the audio to midi thing, I use it quite often when inspiration doesn't come and it produces pretty interesting results although the audio to midi drums is not as good as the 2 other algorythms.

I bought Push andafter using it for 3 weeks now it's something that I will continue to explore more and more. I've always been more of a mouse guy but Push and particularly the scale modes has changed quite the way I'm composing. I just wish you could step sequence chords and have more audio tools available. The only thing which is really not great with Push is Live 9 browser. There's no way to have some QUICK access to favorite presets and there's not enough description of sounds/Loops so you have to browser for ages in search of the sound you want. This where Maschine shines in my opinion. Live clips preview doesn't work moist of the time too, this is very annoying when you search the library.

Overall happy with L9. Re-think the browser, give us better sounds in the library ( still not on par with other packages ) and multi-screen support and I think I'd be a very happy customer

[Tarekith]

Good point, I haven't had a single stability issue with Live 9 since release.