The Very Very Saddest "Live" Thing Missing In Live

[supster]

I think you are being REALLY hard here.

every program has its strengths and weaknesses ... and what you are asking for is obviously extremely important to you, and IMHO would definitely be an advance for everyone using a lot of MIDI (especially those that dont live in Arrange mode) and i'm sure that if enough people ask for it, it'll happen ...

yes, i do agree with a lot of what you're saying here and of course there are a lot of perfectly good reasons why features dont make it into a program.

in this case the problem some of us are having is that the program was originally designed to allow freedom of live performance, hence the name "Live"*

the live performance end of the market is a huge portion of thier business; even moreso now that certain hi profile DJs and PA artists are taking it onboard and/or totally replacing vinyl decks with it.

so when you start configuring this thing to manipulate sound in a live situation one of the absolute FIRST things that comes to mind as your screwing around with it is this (in bold to emphasize the point, not to be a dick):

how do i control this thing as efficiently as possible without using the mouse

ie i can guarantee just about every person that started figuring it out asked that question and did everything they could to answer it

etc. coming a public forum and questioning why it cant be done doesnt imply that the programmers are stupid, or that we always know better than they do: its easy for things to read into things that way on a board, but in most cases we're simply trying to help and get what we need if possible.

so a feature like select clip on MIDI launch is wanted and needed by countless people who dont read this board, or havent posted here if they have read it (because they are lurkers) ... even if they havent really articulated what it is or how to describe it

they just know that they have $700 invested in controllers that they want to be able to do a really smooth DJ or PA performance with ... but every 10 seconds they have to reach for the trackball or touchpad and click or move something around .. again and again ..

for what apparenlty seems like no real reason except that a logical feature .. that you would think of just by using the program for 5 minutes ("hey ... wait ... why cant you ... ") is just missing.

same thing goes for control of the browser.

we're not being hard, we're doing exactly what you're suggesting: we're pointing out the gaps and being persistant about it in hopes that it will stick over there, and some morning in some conference room / coffee stained lunch room in berlin someone will go:

"guys, its time we fixed the damn MIDI launchenzfrauzen systemz" thats all.
.

*btw: im not going to go the 'live vs DAW' route here because i use it for both and love whats been done with the production features.

[quandry]

(and just so as you dont think i'm ass licking and just saying 'wow its so cool' ... i saw Robert Henke at Sonar, soon after Live v1.0 came out, and said to him 'this is fantastic, but what I really want is automation of warp markers' he said 'yeah, me too personally, but what people are asking for is VSTi's so it isn't going to happen soon' ... result: VSTis in the next version and i'm STILL waiting for what to me would be the coolest thing possible ... but hey, thats life ...

Umm, vsti's didn't come in til version 4. Though we don't say it outright when whining for features, we all love Live, we all think it is amazing--why else would we be here??? But it is not perfect, and there are some glaring oversights, and some sillyness. They gave us clip envelopes and the ability to use midi to control clip properties, and to use the mouse to draw envelopes. Why they would create the envelopes, give midi control, allow automation (by drawing w/mouse), but NOT allow midi to control automation recording falls into the sillyness category, for sure. Its just counterintuitive, and totally NOT "live" or helpful on stage--who on earth draws envelopes with their mouse on stage???


My short list of other oversights and unbelievable REMOVALS of features in version 5:

1. Buss veiw removed in v.4? Why, it didn't hurt anyone or take up any space? Yet it was the only way to see incoming audio levels before they hit Live, and to be able to adjust the gain--very useful, GONE. No current features replicate this. Why????

2. Presets name box removed from devices. This is absolutely assinine on stage--waste of time. I appreciate the organization allowed by the browser--keep it--just bring back the preset name on the device.

3. Removal of "select on launch". This one kills me the most, as I use Live for a live looper. Version 4 and 5 are WORTHLESS AS LIVE LOOPERS because of this. Why? Because 99% of people loop with midi pedals, and since "select on launch" is gone, the clip you trigger to record with said midi pedal is not selected. Thus, you can't delete it on-the-fly if you mess up playing your instrument. Thus, you are forced to either loop you mistake, or stop playing your instrument, screw up the flow of the tune, and use the damn mouse to select the clip, then delete it, then try to record it again. NO one is perfect, the removal of this features REQUIRES anyone using Live 4 or 5 as a live looper to be perfect, or to sound like ass on stage.

4. Total overhaul of scrubbing in 5. Some like it, some don't. Reguardless, to DRASTICALLY change one of the essential features of Live is destined to mess up the workflow of many long-time users. Sure, DJ's are happy, but I'm not, and neither are scores of others who replied to a thread I stated about it during beta testing. Major changes to the app. should ideally come with an option in prefs. to choose which way you want it to work.

5. Still no midi mappable delete for live loopers, not that it would help in v 4 or 5, but still, take the damn Kid Beyond video off the site.

Anyhow, there's lots to like about v5, the re-sizable session tracks and new effects are great, but with all of these other OMISSIONS, I can't bring myself to even buy it since I'll still be giggin with 3.

Ryan

[Kodama]

Presets name box removed from devices. This is absolutely assinine on stage--waste of time. I appreciate the organization allowed by the browser--keep it--just bring back the preset name on the device.

True that, plus they never put previous/next arrows for presets, such a wrist breaker!


I'm hoping Live 6 will be all about the midi:


- Recording automation in loops

- Increase published VSTI parameters list sizes

- Duplicate tracks

- More than 1 parameter per CC#

- More than 1 CC# per parameter

- Ranges for clip paramater midi remote control

- A nice modular rack set up like Tracktion

- Quantize in play midi effect

- Maybe a nice Dash Board ala Fruity Loops

[quandry]

nice ones all around, Kodama. Totally agree.

[Davo]

[quote="Kodama"]Has to be recording midi automation in clips.
quote]

I don't see the problem. You can record CC tweaks into a midi clip. If you want to record NRPNs then you can use a program like MIDI-OX to map these to CCs, then map them back when they come out of Live.

[Machinate]

Davo, I'm quite sure he means automation for the plugins in Live - including the native ones.

[Angstrom]

to my mind I should be able to do simple things like:


* load a simpler and put a sample in , make it play a sample every bar.
* assign a controller to the filter.
* now tweak that filter cc and record it as a loop
* play it back and hear the filter automation I just recorded.

but I cant do that last one

right now I can do this if I install some virtual drivers and run some 3rd party app - but it seems such a simple thing, they went to the trouble of including MIDI out from tracks but missed what it would be best for ... looped automation of parameters.

. Sure there is lots of talk in the manual about absolute offsets and things ... but I dont care. I just want to record a loop of automation and assign it to things.

[Davo]

Davo, I'm quite sure he means automation for the plugins in Live - including the native ones.

As Angstrom says, you can use recorded CCs to automate plugins, including the native ones. In Windows you can use MIDI Yoke to send midi out from the CC automation track on one of the virtual ports and if this port is set up to receive remote control then it automates the plugin. I think you don't even need the MIDI Yoke to do this on a Mac (not sure about this). Its a slight hassle to set it up, but not enough to get very sad about. In a way it is more elegant because it stores the automation separately from the notes.

[Machinate]

hehe, Davo I think we disagree on the concept of Elegant. To me some sense of immediacy is required. I do have midi yoke installed (and I know how to use it) but in order to have one set of midi controls per track would mean that I'd need to have 1 controller track per synth-line in Live. Now, I'm currently working on a 25 track setup... I would rather not have to juggle 50 tracks live, let alone increase my clip-triggering skills by 100%.

Now on plugins that have midi learn the scenario changes quite a bit - with reaktor I can actually get some pretty smooth controller stuff going, although the implementation isn't perfect .IIrc any tiny tweaks in an overdub pass will delete the previous envelope, not just a portion of it, etc.

But then there's the problem of running 25 reaktor ensembles

[hambone1]

Simple Bézier control of CCs and automation!

Linear curves (?) are crap, especially for lighting and video.

[Davo]

in order to have one set of midi controls per track would mean that I'd need to have 1 controller track per synth-line in Live.

True. It is a hack, not very elegant. It appear to me that the reason Ableton may not have fixed this obvious problem is to do with the design of "remote control". When they did the MIDI implementation they only considered that "remote control" would be coming from midi ports outside of Live, not from tracks within live. So, to fix the problem they need to re-design and integrate "remote control" and "automation", which presumably are in different code modules. There may be some reluctance to do this given that there are probably other dependencies on these modules. But this is all speculation, perhaps Ableton would care to comment?

[kineticUk]

Yeah everybody seems to have similar feelings
I know on windows you can use that program with live to use NRPN (I dont have windows so I am screwed) and there are probably ways of getting around some of the other midi issues that others will know, but why not improve live? I think personally all the requests here are valid ones and importantly requests which could be implemented to make live a much better program for us without changing it too much that it creates problems for anybody else using it who doesnt give a shit about recording auto into clips etc.
Some people taking the critisisms the wrong way need to know I dont think we are slagging live off at all. And I do not think it is unreasonable for people who use the program to recommend areas where it can be improved. This usually benefits all of us in the end
Anyway I'll be quiet now

[Angstrom]

I dont think we are slagging live off at all. And I do not think it is unreasonable for people who use the program to recommend ...

true.

I mean - we all must like it enough to have paid X many hundreds of dollars/pounds/euros/zloty eh?

my clients ring me up all the time and ask for improvements - often they are very good ideas, sometimes they seem weird to me ... either way - if they are possible and will add to the product I do them.
Also, If they say they don't understand a feature - I try to explain it to them, if that fails I am forced to look again at my (our) initial conception of the feature and perhaps start from scratch with a new method.
If the client doesn't get it - then I have made a mistake in my modelling of their needs.
.

[Kodama]

BUMP!