I don't mean it to be insulting, not at all. Its just that some people work one way and some work another.
You commented on the previews so it's obvious you favour the factory presets, and that's good for you - you get a go at the new feature for that. That's all. If you never used them you would never have heard them. As I said : user presets don't get previews.
In beta I suggested a way that user presets could get previews. I wont repeat myself here. I don't plan on participating any future Ableton betas as the effort expended contributes nothing. It seems dissenting voices are ignored, and any issues raised seem to be treated as
attacks to be defended rather than issues to be noted as input, and filed dispassionately.
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My comment about the stock presets is because (based on outcomes)I can only picture their internal discussion like this:
SPEC MEETING GUYS ! We need to bring our customers attention more to the add-on content and the added value it brings. We are competing against Apple Loops on one side and NI's sound banks on the other, we hear no end of "GarageBand with all its content is better than Live". Our partners feel that their affiliations could be better promoted by us, be made more findable, and be put into findable categories more easily, perhaps automatically, and so on. So driving more sales of packs. So what's the solution?
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How about : we redesign the browser so that our content and our partners packs are installed directly into pre-formatted categories, that everyone will use. We'll determine which are the correct categorisations for everything and then make a big authoritative hierarchic tree and categorise everything we can. Then - put some main filters in the browser with the top 5 things which everybody looks for.
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Great solution for everybody!
A User :
- Um where do I put my content? And how do I get it to show in these new categories? question asked on beta
- How do I import my existing content (beta link )
- How do I get my presets to have previews (beta link)
Ableton : Do you really want to do that? We'll have to work something out. You can create folders with the correct names if you want, please determine them from the folder structure. Although user defined categories cannot be made. We'll have to get back to you on the details. um ...
And so ... just prior to Live 9's launch, and late in the public beta, a system is hastily implemented to allow user content to show in the main category filters with something more like logic than luck.
It may have been that a plan was in place for this all along, but damn it did not seem that way.
9.0b64 Release Notes When saving presets into the User Library by clicking the save button on a device, Live will no longer save the presets as a flat list in the User Library's root directory, but rather creates a folder structure which is identical with the preset's source context. Example: If you save an Operator preset with the name foo.adv that origins from 'Categories -> Instruments -> Operator -> Bass', then the saved preset goes into '~/User Library/Presets/Instruments/Operator/Bass/foo.adv'.
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What was the focus of this new browser?
this browser appears to be have been designed to meet the requirement : how do we wish to display and categorise content, and then play previews of this known content? Rather than answering the question :
how can we empower our users to store, and retrieve their disparate content through powerful customisable categorisation tools which meet their varied needs?
When it was suggested that users might
generate content, and might have their own unique (and weird) requirements for storing, retrieving and accessing their own content it was greeted with great shock and amazement.
When some users said that the new arbitrary hierarchic categorisation did not match their own working practices, those users were told in no uncertain terms that they were
wrong, and should either adapt to the new system, or just be quiet.
What should have happened?
If
you, right now, designed a browser for Samples, Songs, Presets, Virtual instruments - what would it have? Consider it is intended to meet the
highly varied needs of Producers / Performers / DJs / Studio people / Artists ... just imagine what might that focus on?
Just think : what would
you include in a media & content management system designed for so many different usage types: on stage, studio, etc. and by so many different creative people.
Would it be customisable? Would it focus on allowing user-centric shortcuts? Would your new browser show MP3 tags to DJs? Perhaps it might tell a DJ the bpm of a song? Would your design for a browser allow collections, and groupings of content "Live presets for Berlin", "Live set 2" , .. that sort of thing. Might it allow users to show and hide lots of information, and filter on that information?
All this is possible with a database. It's just a choice how the data is represented on screen.
A choice was made.
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tl;dr not a fan of this browser