Introducing Live Tools, including better Git integration

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
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Bayley
Posts: 36
Joined: Wed Nov 24, 2010 2:14 pm

Introducing Live Tools, including better Git integration

Post by Bayley » Tue Feb 10, 2015 6:43 pm

Hey guys,

For those of you on OS X, iv'e put together a few tools for Live that some of you might find useful.
http://github.com/danielbayley/Ableton-Live-tools

If you want to use version control for your Live projects, there's a service in there which will automatically uncompress .als files so that they play nice with Git.
You could bind it to ?S and effectively override Live's save command so you don't even need to think about it.

Another one effectively allows you to export ALAC (.m4a) files straight from Live.

Hopefully the project will grow, and useful devices, racks and templates will be added in future for various audio tasks. Contributions are welcome!

http://github.com/danielbayley/Ableton-Live-tools

Valiumdupeuple
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Joined: Mon May 31, 2010 12:36 pm
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Re: Introducing Live Tools, including better Git integration

Post by Valiumdupeuple » Tue Feb 10, 2015 6:54 pm

This thing looks great !
Of no use for me for the moment, but sounds really promising !

Stromkraft
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Joined: Wed Jun 25, 2014 11:34 am

Re: Introducing Live Tools, including better Git integration

Post by Stromkraft » Wed Feb 11, 2015 1:01 am

Bayley wrote:
Another one effectively allows you to export ALAC (.m4a) files straight from Live.[/url]
Wonderful Bayley! Thank you for sharing.

ALAC "metadata support including artwork" is very handy. I just want to point out you can add this with the proper tools to AIFF too. As some prefer AIFF that's good to know. AIFF should work also on Windows and Linux.

I use the free multi-platform tool Kid3 Tag Editor. It has 29 5-star reviews! I think it's great for preparing digital releases.
Make some music!

Bayley
Posts: 36
Joined: Wed Nov 24, 2010 2:14 pm

Re: Introducing Live Tools, including better Git integration

Post by Bayley » Wed Feb 11, 2015 1:25 am

Stromkraft wrote:
Bayley wrote:
I just want to point out you can add this with the proper tools to AIFF too.
That's true, you get the metadata support with AIF[F] too, but you don't get the lossless compression as you do with ALAC, which usually halves the file size. This particularly matters if you happen to be within the Apple ecosystem and plan on loading stuff onto iPhone/Pad etc.

Stromkraft
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Re: Introducing Live Tools, including better Git integration

Post by Stromkraft » Wed Feb 11, 2015 4:30 am

Bayley wrote:
Stromkraft wrote:
Bayley wrote:
I just want to point out you can add this with the proper tools to AIFF too.
That's true, you get the metadata support with AIF[F] too, but you don't get the lossless compression as you do with ALAC, which usually halves the file size. This particularly matters if you happen to be within the Apple ecosystem and plan on loading stuff onto iPhone/Pad etc.
I knew that, but AIFF — while bigger —  go on the iDevices too. But tagging is not the reason to release on ALAC. It's perfectly reasonable to release on AIFF, ALAC, FLAC, AAC, MP3 as you can automate conversion. Bandcamp for example support many formats.
Make some music!

Bayley
Posts: 36
Joined: Wed Nov 24, 2010 2:14 pm

Re: Introducing Live Tools, including better Git integration

Post by Bayley » Sat Feb 14, 2015 7:38 am

Stromkraft wrote:I knew that, but AIFF — while bigger —  go on the iDevices too. But tagging is not the reason to release on ALAC. It's perfectly reasonable to release on AIFF, ALAC, FLAC, AAC, MP3 as you can automate conversion. Bandcamp for example support many formats.
Sure, use whatever you like. It's mostly personal preference in the end. I just thought it might be handy to be able to export other formats straight from Live. I may add support for more in future.

By the way, Live Tools has had some improvements over the last few days. Support was added for a wider range of systems, and Git integration improved further.

http://github.com/danielbayley/Ableton-Live-tools

Bayley
Posts: 36
Joined: Wed Nov 24, 2010 2:14 pm

Re: Introducing Live Tools, including better Git integration

Post by Bayley » Thu Feb 19, 2015 5:16 pm

Bump

Bayley
Posts: 36
Joined: Wed Nov 24, 2010 2:14 pm

Re: Introducing Live Tools, including better Git integration

Post by Bayley » Sun Feb 22, 2015 7:23 pm

Bump

Jeffromusic
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Joined: Mon Apr 30, 2012 10:36 am

Re: Introducing Live Tools, including better Git integration

Post by Jeffromusic » Tue Feb 24, 2015 11:36 pm

Can you explain for the non-tech people what the Git integration does and what XML backup means in laymen terms?

Bayley
Posts: 36
Joined: Wed Nov 24, 2010 2:14 pm

Re: Introducing Live Tools, including better Git integration

Post by Bayley » Wed Feb 25, 2015 6:17 am

Jeffromusic wrote:Can you explain for the non-tech people what the Git integration does and what XML backup means in laymen terms?
Sure i'll try, although this is probably going to be of use to more technical people (namely developers).

Git is a very popular version control system. Here are a few simple guides/useful links to what it is and how/why to use it.

http://git-scm.com
http://rogerdudler.github.io/git-guide
https://mac.github.com
http://www.git-tower.com
http://www.git-tower.com/learn

Git works best with text-based files because then it only saves the differences between each version of a file as opposed to the whole file over again each time (Live saves compressed .als files which look like gibberish if you were to open them in a text editor) but they can easily be uncompressed back into XML format (which looks a lot like HTML if you were to open in a text editor).

What Live Tools does, amongst other things, is provide a few different ways of automatically uncompressing .als files for you; the "it just works" approach.

Some advantages of using a version control system like Git with Live include
• Maintain a full backup/history of your Live project
• Try out ideas on different branches without affecting the "master"
• Easily revert back to a previous version
• Collaborate with other Live users, and keep an online backup of your Live project (Git repository) using GitHub

Hope that helps.
8)

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