A guy redesigned Live's interface

[agent314]

This skin makes that hard and will over a long work day be very tiring.

I disagree. I use a skin called Tympanic (from someone whose name I've long since forgotten) that looks very similar to the color choices here, and it is the only skin I can stand with Live.

http://i.imgur.com/JrHEb5s.png

To my eyes, the contrast and color choices are SO much nicer to look at than any of the Live native skins. First thing I do on every new update is move the Tympanic skin into the Resources/Skins folder, because using any of the Ableton-provided ones has become downright unpleasant.

The Disco skin is the most usable one, but I really don't like the orange highlights on everything - much prefer the green.

Link to the skin

[evon]

This skin makes that hard and will over a long work day be very tiring.

http://i.imgur.com/JrHEb5s.png

Yes this has more definition tan the proposed new UI, and it has a very cool background. Think I will give it a try.

[agent314]

Sweet!

FYI, values for the color scheme there are
Brightness: 72%
Color intensity: 100%
Color hue: 218'

[H20nly]

Nice one agent. Thanks! Gonna install that...

[marra]

Yeah to me it looks like a violation of the KISS principle:

"Things should be as simple as possible but not any simpler"

so, do think it's oversimplified or not simple enough?

it mostly just looks like a new color scheme to me.

oversimplified in the sense that he just removed a few borders and called it "the skin of the future"... reminds me a lot about http://www.motherfuckingwebsite.com/ come to think of it (although it's two completely different subjects)

to me ableton hit the sweet spot, and probably spent thousands of dollars on usability research to do so. the default look is neutral to both those who like light and dark themes. it's almost as if you don't notice it's there... which is one of the main goals in architecture and design as a whole.

this whole thing is kinda like when some real talented artist makes the coolest song ever, then this other dude pops up saying "no, i'd prefer if the hihats wern't that loud" or whatever..

[kitekrazy]

Yeah to me it looks like a violation of the KISS principle:

"Things should be as simple as possible but not any simpler"

so, do think it's oversimplified or not simple enough?

it mostly just looks like a new color scheme to me.

Same here. Is Live 9 skinnable? I see developers steering clear of this in a lost of software other than changing certain color schemes. I stay clear of this because I usually mess something up.
I do like detachable windows in DAWs.

[pinkpaint]

ableton dev words "We’ve always put the experience (...) above features. Sometimes that’s difficult: it means you have to say no"

more here https://t.co/nDjpZ161si

ps this was in direct context to talking about the GUI remaining flat for 9 versions.

[Machinesworking]

ableton dev words "We’ve always put the experience (...) above features. Sometimes that’s difficult: it means you have to say no"

more here https://t.co/nDjpZ161si

ps this was in direct context to talking about the GUI remaining flat for 9 versions.

The flat-ness isn't the issue to me. As a user of Digital Performer which became skin-able in v7 I don't buy that line. There are dozens of skins for DP and most are useful, it's not because they stuck to 2D or didn't do crazy things, it's because things like fonts with various backgrounds can be changed for various windows and areas in DP. Compare this to Live, a massive swath of the factory skins are unusable in daily work because they destroy legibility and contrast, mostly due to the fact that you cannot assign a higher or lower resolution, contrast, color hue etc. to various parts of the GUI, mostly resulting in the default skin being the most readable one....

I suspect the real reason for the lack of interest in opening up the GUI more isn't an adherence to modern UI aesthetics, but a fear of totally unlegible GUIs being brought to bear and the probable customer complaints. Meanwhile a guy who uses DP has spent enough time making pleasing skins for DP to actually sell them to users. http://ampguimods.net/dp_themes.html I'm sure the same is true for Reaper.

[Martin Gifford]

^ Exactly.

[TomViolenz]

This skin makes that hard and will over a long work day be very tiring.

I disagree. I use a skin called Tympanic (from someone whose name I've long since forgotten) that looks very similar to the color choices here, and it is the only skin I can stand with Live.

http://i.imgur.com/JrHEb5s.png

To my eyes, the contrast and color choices are SO much nicer to look at than any of the Live native skins. First thing I do on every new update is move the Tympanic skin into the Resources/Skins folder, because using any of the Ableton-provided ones has become downright unpleasant.

The Disco skin is the most usable one, but I really don't like the orange highlights on everything - much prefer the green.

Link to the skin

I use the Maschine skin and it's great. What I think is tiring on the eyes in the mock up is the straight thin lines between sections not the color scheme.

[xbitz]

http://data.hu/get/9203590/ABLETON_CONCEPT_SKIN.ask

(not my one, just sharing )

[marra]

Find yourself spending more time with your Live skins than with your music? Then you've got a problem.

[Stromkraft]

The real problem with Live isn't the skins, it's the lack of resizing abilities, the lack of being able to set up a window layout of a given combination of plug-ins that you need to look at side by side (showing several plug-in windows is possible with unchecking the limitation of only showing one plug-in window at a time in preferences) and the lack of detailed help when doing minuscule edits.
The lack of a number of useful short cuts also adds to the burden of using the interface.

[pinkpaint]

xbitz i like that but i dont think lack of contrast can make up for not having borders in that one.. i know the theme seems to be go darker for software but wheres the borders between tracks there> lol

[nexus01]

https://dribbble.com/shots/2255100-Able ... gn-Concept

That is the best layout i've seen so far...