Time Signatures

[braduro]

If you have to accompany a belly dancer, begin with a dumbek.
It seems to me all your righteousness is directed towards what you feel was "false advertising" or you are preoccupied with shaming Ableton for not seeing the so called error in their ways. The thing is a grid.

What I could forsee is the step sequencer measuring the number of steps in the pattern and therefore representing partial or a number of pages in length. This is not an unreasonable update.

But there's nothing precluding you from RTFM and seeing if the features you require are on there. And there's nothing written in the stars that says Ableton has to solve your belly dancing problems. By your own confession you are not making an attempt at humility, so begin with a grasp on reality. If it's you vs the known universe, I'm betting on the universe.

It's kind of a dumbed down little box. If it bypasses your outer critic and you make music with it and you're not actually hurting anyone, there's no reason to ridicule yourself or other people for it.

The new sequencers work on Push Standalone. That to me is the bigger story currently. And you could also look at a Torso T1

[Buleriachk]

If you have to accompany a belly dancer, begin with a dumbek.
It seems to me all your righteousness is directed towards what you feel was "false advertising" or you are preoccupied with shaming Ableton for not seeing the so called error in their ways. The thing is a grid.

What I could forsee is the step sequencer measuring the number of steps in the pattern and therefore representing partial or a number of pages in length. This is not an unreasonable update.

But there's nothing precluding you from RTFM and seeing if the features you require are on there. And there's nothing written in the stars that says Ableton has to solve your belly dancing problems. By your own confession you are not making an attempt at humility, so begin with a grasp on reality. If it's you vs the known universe, I'm betting on the universe.

It's kind of a dumbed down little box. If it bypasses your outer critic and you make music with it and you're not actually hurting anyone, there's no reason to ridicule yourself or other people for it.

The new sequencers work on Push Standalone. That to me is the bigger story currently. And you could also look at a Torso T1

I shouldn't have to RTFM before purchase to discover a fundamental limitation that should be available to all musicians who understand Midi. 3/4 time is a fundamental meter of music, and restricting it to duple meter is dumbing it down for users who may not even be aware of it - it reduces music to a level of stupidity and forces new student musicians into a duple meter consciousness which is then spread to the general public.

The box should note be dumbed down, and neither should Notes. (Notes should have an optional 12 x 4 or 16 x 4 performing matrix (hey, or even 9/4 or 5/4 or 7/4 or.... - as should Ableton in its touchscreen mode (e.g. on a laptop) with the 8 x 8 matrix as a default.

OTH, I guess there is somewhat a positive goal in motivating peoople who know nothing of music to get involved at all, and be ignorant in their wisdom ...

[pottering]

Move has triplet mode, isn't that pretty much 3/4?

[Buleriachk]

Move has triplet mode, isn't that pretty much 3/4?

No

[pottering]

OK

[chapelier fou]

Move has triplet mode, isn't that pretty much 3/4?

Not at all !
3/4 is in fact using 12 steps (per bar).
But if you do this, you’re simply not allowed to launch clips in time, since the clock runs in 4/4 in the background, offsetting one beat every bar.

[pottering]

Oh, so there is no Launch Quantization settings, I see.

[chapelier fou]

No, it’s fixed to 4/4 regardless of… anything you’re doing.

[Machinesworking]

I'm still a bit dumfounded by this move in electronic music against time signatures. We have a situation where almost ANY hardware drum or sequencer from 25 years ago had time signatures, and now even "professional" music companies release boxes with only 4/4. It's not just Ableton, NI, Novation and others have done this with their "professional" hardware, and even Push 3 SO is a workaround to get other time signatures.

I don't buy the argument that it's a "dumbed down little box", it's an expensive little box. The choice was made to cut time signatures out of the thing, because unfortunately most people don't care, most modern electronic music is strictly 4/4, so it cuts down expenses to leave it out. I still don't get how a drum machine from 35 years ago can do this, but somehow it's worth cutting out of modern devices, even though it will alienate maybe 5% of the market? is it that hard? why could a comparatively priced drum machine from decades ago do it then?

[chapelier fou]

unfortunately most people don't care, most modern electronic music is strictly 4/4, so it cuts down expenses to leave it out.

I don't agree 100% with that.
It's a loop : manufacturers listen to the trends of music and release software/hardware to fit these trends, BUT, they also at the same time influence the trends by releasing software/hardware that orientate musicians into some directions. They do have a huge responsibility in what I beleive to be a "normalization" of music.
And in the case of Move, I see this as a lack of courage coming from Ableton.

(interesting discussion going on here : https://llllllll.co/t/fight-the-4-4-hegemony/69001)

[Machinesworking]

unfortunately most people don't care, most modern electronic music is strictly 4/4, so it cuts down expenses to leave it out.

I don't agree 100% with that.
It's a loop : manufacturers listen to the trends of music and release software/hardware to fit these trends, BUT, they also at the same time influence the trends by releasing software/hardware that orientate musicians into some directions. They do have a huge responsibility in what I beleive to be a "normalization" of music.
And in the case of Move, I see this as a lack of courage coming from Ableton.

(interesting discussion going on here : https://llllllll.co/t/fight-the-4-4-hegemony/69001)

I don't want to be that guy, but I feel like there's a huge percentage of the electronic music market that don't play an instrument, they play a grid, leave it in 4/4 and that's it. So the loop continues, manufacturers just leave out actual elements of music knowing it will be a small percentage of people that are affected. Here's the other element, influencers. I have to say the amount of people who follow youtube influencers is affecting the market in a negative way.

Case in point is what we're talking about. when Push 3 came out it took me forever to find out what it did not have. Every shill on youtube was clout chasing praise for it, and not mentioning what it lacks from Live besides the obvious: Follow Actions, Tempo and time signature per Scene, some sort of basic way to tie Scenes into a song. I had to email Ableton to find this stuff out. Same applies to the beta for MPC3, as of now time signatures are missing from the beta, so are Clips, and none of the "influencers" mention this stuff, and they got the beta first, so you're hearing all about it, but only the best parts. I think this lack of actual rational non trolling or whinging critique is what is driving this downward spiral.

I'll say it, I don't trust that Ableton is going to fix Push before MPC 3 gets time signatures sorted, the development cycle for Live is fantastic, but Akai are beating the snot out of them in standalone and I don't really understand why? Ableton have the product in Live, getting it to work standalone on Push 3 should not be the struggle they've made it into.

[chapelier fou]

there's a huge percentage of the electronic music market that don't play an instrument, they play a grid, leave it in 4/4 and that's it

There's an even greater percentage of music that with simply be forgotten in a few years because it will weight nothing in music history.
The question is, are companies in it only for the money (hello Frank Zappa) or do they feel like they have a role to play in the music history ?
Ableton was co-founded by Robert Henke, who definitely is an important and creative musician. I wonder how he feels about the current trend of normalization.

[braduro]

It’s not called Common Time out of some late-capitalism theory.

Seriously, if you want to get upset about something, why do people still eat meat? Why are people still on twitter? Or how is it that you already have PFAS in your tap and liver?

I already gave you 2 tips as to where you could constructively and pragmatically apply yourself.

As for what it can’t do, there is a universe of choices it can’t do. Sounds like you’re stuck on the crapper, not actually making choices, figuring out what it can’t do, and making a political statement about it. Guess what? It also can’t chop a tomato real thin. And it doesn’t come with a fire retardant blanket or a midi chord collection, or sleep aid gummies. I say dump or get off the pot. And yes, you can RTFM.

[braduro]

me thinks there is more than one lumbering troll on here. So I will gladly take my leave. No one is arguing against time signatures, you cad.
Anymore than I'd argue that a hammer must have something against screws. Or that my refrigerator must be against toast...

Look, please take a seat for this: this is a product. A tool. I hate to disillusion you. To answer your question, yes, it is about selling them. Join the line. Who isn't trying to sell you something? Your own boyfriend, your own social media friends, your favourite blogger? Where does your platforming fit in to this, considering the soap box you are standing on and sales pitch? I can confirm that I am not trying to sell you something. I'll gladly leave you to your temper tantrum.

Where I draw the line is when you treat the community here as hostile or insult people's musical merit. You're like a stand up comedian that thinks the entire audience is unworthy of you. That's not why we gather here.

What kind of BS are you selling the community here? That we need to die on the hill of time signatures as cultural white washing? Or that we must not know something you know? Or that manufacturers are cutting corners by excluding time signatures? How about micro tunings? How about freeform tape-style recording. How about granular synthesis. How about note layouts. How about CV.

If you want to make an intelligent argument, consider that this product is not for you, and bask in the glory of lining your pocket with 449Euro while your colleagues go threadbare. Speak for yourself, not for everyone else.

This product is not the tool you were looking for. I stick to my point that it is limited in function and its objective as forming seed ideas or beats. It's self evident. They say it in the promotional material. To this end, they trained it on common time. It has a speaker on it. It's a music maker. Please tell me that you have a fisher price microphone and are complaining about sound quality and how children are being pandered to and don't understand what a real microphone sounds like. Wait a bit for other features. But you're going to tell me "I shouldn't have to wait a bit. It's the principle of having to wait that I object to.". Make your own device then. Make your own decisions. Be something other than a consumer and a statistic.

That's what Ableton chose to make.

They didn't make a mixer/transport satellite device for arrangement mode. That would be about finishing tracks. They didn't make a two channel dj mixer with cross fader. And thankfully they didn't acquire roli.

[chapelier fou]

At first, I want to assure that there is no trolling intention...well that's easy to say, I know. And I admit that I got carried away with my enthusiasm.
I think I've had this feeling about the 4/4 hegemony for a long time, but the release of Move has been my personal "that's too much" point.
I don't want to criticize other musicians and I have absolutely nothing against 4/4.
But I genuinely think that 4/4 only represents a (quite big I admit) portion of music. So reducing a musical instrument to the use of 4/4 is an arbitrary decision that has more consequences than many other choices. And in my experience, it simply makes the tool almost useless.
Which is frustrating because I like pretty much everything else about the device.