I'm a professional composer/producer working across games, entertainment, EDM, and concert music. I've been using Ableton for almost 10 years now, and while I use other DAWs depending on what I'm doing, Ableton still remains my favorite to create in. The user interface is unmatched, the experience is so smooth, Max for Live remains totally unmatched, I don't use clip view very often but I appreciate it when I do, generally I'm a huge fan.
However, there are some small things which have added up to make this DAW extremely difficult to use in a professional setting. Before I face the music and switch to Cubase full time (which I currently use for orchestral composing), I thought as a hail Mary I would post some feedback here, as I think there are some pretty small adjustments that would allow me to continue maining Ableton if the developers are willing.
The main problem I have is that it is very, very difficult for Ableton to collaborate with other DAWs and notation software, which is an absolute necessity for any pro work. Here is my feedback:
Bugs:
- Small, but when I hit "edit value" on an automation point (I've noticed this mostly on tempo automation) I have to click edit value twice, the first time it does nothing and the second time it will actually let me edit the value
- With the built in Splice window sometimes even after I click back into the main Ableton window out of the Splice window, my key commands will still apply to the Splice window, and I have to click back into Splice and then back into Ableton in order to focus my key commands there. This took me a while to figure out what was going on and I was so confused why I suddenly couldn't undo anything...even though I know what the problem is now it's still quite annoying. IMO you only ever need to type like 3 words into the Splice window so I think it would be acceptable just to always keep key commands focused on the main Ableton window
- Something is up with the tempo interpolation in Ableton. This is a big one and quite annoying. What I mean is that if I have a gradual, linear tempo change, if I set up the same linear tempo change in a different DAW like Pro Tools or Logic, the music from Ableton will be slightly off. So for example if I'm recording in Pro Tools during a recording session with stems exported from Ableton and there is a gradual tempo change the tempo/click will not line up during and after the tempo change (yes I'm 100% sure I have the automation points matching). I don't have this problem going between Logic and Pro Tools for example but Logic and Ableton or Ableton and Pro Tools always have issues. It's a huge hassle and my workaround is to measure by measure add tiny automation points in Ableton to attempt to match the interpolation of the other DAW. This seems to be an Ableton-specific issue and it realllllly cramps my style.
Features:
- WE NEED TO BE ABLE TO IMPORT/EXPORT MIDI TYPE 1 FILES!!! If there is one takeaway from this entire post it should be this. I don't understand why Ableton is living in the stone ages in this regard. The cute "just make a little click track and export it, then import it in the other DAW and it will know the tempo! :3" advice is total horsesh*t, we all know this does not work with variable tempo, and if I don't have variable tempo than this wouldn't even be an issue. The inability to import/export project MIDI and tempo information is an absolute collaboration killer (combined with bug #3 above). Having to import and export all my MIDI clip by clip is preposterous and extremely time consuming.
- Similarly, I don't understand why Ableton doesn't have an offline render option. I do occasionally use sample libraries in Ableton and exporting is pretty much like playing roulette to see if the samples would load in time. An offline render would solve this and every other DAW can do it.
- SMPTE lock. This is a lifesaver in other DAWs when you need to adjust tempo frequently, I would really appreciate it if Ableton added it.
- Better user preferences. Ableton's MIDI/Key bindings window is nice, but I wish that I could set it so that what I set up would persist across sessions. I know the workaround is to just put it in a template and also use that but I still think it would be nice to add this
- Better track rendering options. Reaper is babygirl in this regard, and I would be happy if Ableton went even 10% of the way there when it comes to renderings. My absolute dream would be for Ableton to copy Reaper's region render matrix, but at the bare minimum we need to be able to have wildcards for naming when we're in export all tracks or selected tracks mode. Even if we don't have render regions I would love to be able to have a matrix where I can tell Ableton which tracks to render in which file (for example, tracks 1 4 and 8 go to stem A, tracks 5 9 and 11 go to stem B, etc (no, I can't always just group these and then do export selected tracks if I have a more complicated track organization going on)
If any Ableton developers read this, thank you so much!