Who wants access to Ableton's Python API? .. You? .. Ok!

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
Clearscreen
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Post by Clearscreen » Tue Oct 09, 2007 5:07 am

Nathan Ramella wrote:It depends, until I get access to Live 7 to see what the playing field looks like, any development work would be deprecated as soon as it came out. I'll say this, if there's a way to do it in 7, I'll make the time to update and make things a little sexier.

In the time since we released the first package, I've been writing a lot of Python and have far better tricks up my sleeve (as well as just plain better architecture concepts)..

I'll take a look at the forums and see what I can do about it, it's all been off my radar with other projects. Digging into OSX has been a trip..
sounds good :D i was hoping 7 would have OSC built in, but now you're our last best hope obi ramella!!! and never mind what livetelnet could do (i haven't been able to get it to work due to a similar problem to the one mentioned here: http://www.liveapi.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=40)
Hp Elitebook 2.8Ghz. Live 7.0.14 & Live 8.1.5, XP Pro. and stuff...

Nathan Ramella
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Post by Nathan Ramella » Tue Oct 09, 2007 4:25 pm

Looks like LiveAPI should work as-is with Ableton 7 on the PC.

It's never worked with OSX, but, I just figured out how it could. It'd basically be a rewrite of the messaging code, but.. Could be fun.

I'll see what I can do.

-n
remix.net - versus / liveapi / hangthedj / ammobox

hoffman2k
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Post by hoffman2k » Tue Oct 09, 2007 4:44 pm

Nathan Ramella wrote:Looks like LiveAPI should work as-is with Ableton 7 on the PC.

It's never worked with OSX, but, I just figured out how it could. It'd basically be a rewrite of the messaging code, but.. Could be fun.

I'll see what I can do.

-n
As a mac user, I strongly encourage you to have fun! :D

Nathan Ramella
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Post by Nathan Ramella » Tue Oct 09, 2007 5:42 pm

hoffman2k wrote:As a mac user, I strongly encourage you to have fun! :D
Here's a quick proof of concept showing:

1. A Python client talking to Ableton
2. Ableton accepting data (not so obvious, but it's what appends the 'Ableton got..' part of the string.
3. A 'spy' app that then echos whatever Ableton feeds it.

This is all just fiddling around tho, to get this going on OSX would require a complete rewrite because the interface would need to be changed, but, the upside of that is that you wouldn't be limited to UDP this time. raw TCP, HTTP, XML-RPC, whatever you want..

Granted, this will still be an amazingly ugly hack that probably has the Ableton guys chuckling at me behind my back, BUT, they've always treated me with kindness. :D


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remix.net - versus / liveapi / hangthedj / ammobox

cbit
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Post by cbit » Thu Oct 11, 2007 6:59 pm

Hi Nathan, thanks very much for your work on this. I'm a mac user with a string of arrangement view modifications i'm eager to (try to) make. I'm very much looking forward to a way to interact with the live API.

cheers!
basementhum.blogspot.com. Adventures in computer music production.
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Machinate
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Post by Machinate » Thu Oct 11, 2007 7:01 pm

Nathan Ramella wrote:Granted, this will still be an amazingly ugly hack that probably has the Ableton guys chuckling at me behind my back, BUT, they've always treated me with kindness. :D
well, this is a strange dichotomy, then - ableton focussing on niceness, whereas the users are expanding the functionality of the application...

I love this initiative, but man would I love to see you guys obsolete because of a "Live~" in MaxMSP 5 :lol:

Angstrom
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Post by Angstrom » Thu Oct 11, 2007 7:10 pm

oh mysterious cycling thing, what are you?

Nathan Ramella
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Post by Nathan Ramella » Fri Oct 12, 2007 2:31 pm

Machinate wrote:
Nathan Ramella wrote:Granted, this will still be an amazingly ugly hack that probably has the Ableton guys chuckling at me behind my back, BUT, they've always treated me with kindness. :D
well, this is a strange dichotomy, then - ableton focussing on niceness, whereas the users are expanding the functionality of the application...

I love this initiative, but man would I love to see you guys obsolete because of a "Live~" in MaxMSP 5 :lol:
Well, lets be honest here. The average Live user doesn't care about or need an API, the reason I love Live is because it's so simple to use if you want it to be. I'm also a Logic 8 user, and at the root of it they both do basically the same thing, but when I'm using Live I feel like I'm having fun, it fosters creativity in me because things just fall into place so fast. With Logic it feels like work.

So, while there is no doubt a market for audio programming such as LiveAPI it's tiny compared to the number of non-technical musical types who just want to belt out some tunes.

That the Ableton folks have done as much for LiveAPI.net as they have is pretty cool in my book, it probably got them a little press and made a handful of customers happier and that's what made the effort worth it for me.

My boss gets back from India pretty soon and my girlfriend's radio station finishes it's pledge drive up about the same time, so after that's all done I'll be giving this another stab.

That I was able to figure out a bi-directional communication method was the hard part without a socket library. So that's really the toughest part solved.

-n
remix.net - versus / liveapi / hangthedj / ammobox

Angstrom
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Post by Angstrom » Fri Oct 12, 2007 2:36 pm

Nathan Ramella wrote:
Machinate wrote:
Nathan Ramella wrote:Granted, this will still be an amazingly ugly hack that probably has the Ableton guys chuckling at me behind my back, BUT, they've always treated me with kindness. :D
well, this is a strange dichotomy, then - ableton focussing on niceness, whereas the users are expanding the functionality of the application...

I love this initiative, but man would I love to see you guys obsolete because of a "Live~" in MaxMSP 5 :lol:
Well, lets be honest here. The average Live user doesn't care about or need an API, the reason I love Live is because it's so simple to use if you want it to be. I'm also a Logic 8 user, and at the root of it they both do basically the same thing, but when I'm using Live I feel like I'm having fun, it fosters creativity in me because things just fall into place so fast. With Logic it feels like work.

So, while there is no doubt a market for audio programming such as LiveAPI it's tiny compared to the number of non-technical musical types who just want to belt out some tunes.
...

-n
Nathan , although the 'programming community' for such a thing is tiny , the end-user base is massive.
In the same way that most NI Reaktor users buy it for the library, the LiveAPI is a similar way of producing new fun out of existing functions.
I would expect most 'users' of LiveAPI to be simply using things built by a small group of creators.

I can think of a lot of uses for LiveAPI and solutions which many many thousands of people would enjoy, even though they would hate to create them!
:)

well, the future is big.
Last edited by Angstrom on Fri Oct 12, 2007 2:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

mdk
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Post by mdk » Fri Oct 12, 2007 2:38 pm

good work. i think we'll see a resurgence of interest when L7 is released and if we can get all the mac users involved.

i cant wait to get my hands on an L7 Beta to dig around the API. :)
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Nokatus
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Post by Nokatus » Fri Oct 12, 2007 3:30 pm

GREAT to see this thing alive :)

I actually posted a thread some days ago, asking what's up with the Live API project currently. That post got drowned under the Live 7 release threads, but then I noticed this one was back up.

Very good to know that the Python interface will still (most probably) be usable in version 7, too.

Nathan Ramella
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Post by Nathan Ramella » Fri Oct 12, 2007 5:05 pm

Angstrom wrote:
Nathan , although the 'programming community' for such a thing is tiny , the end-user base is massive.
In the same way that most NI Reaktor users buy it for the library, the LiveAPI is a similar way of producing new fun out of existing functions.
I would expect most 'users' of LiveAPI to be simply using things built by a small group of creators.

I can think of a lot of uses for LiveAPI and solutions which many many thousands of people would enjoy, even though they would hate to create them!
:)

well, the future is big.
Very well put. So far I've only seen a couple uses of the API, but mostly because I think people didn't "get it", though the couple uses out there were really impressive. The tragedy is that after doing it, I got super busy with work and never got the impetus to expand on it.

There's actually another issue, since the Live API inside is somewhat limited, it kind of was discouraging for me. Since 7 has come out and there's no push whatsoever to enhance it's capabilities (even unoffically), it kind of seems like why bother?

With the emphesas on new instruments and bug fixes, while 7 is a nice update and I appreciate the work they've done (Hell, I'll even be upgrading at least the basic suite), the addition of new instruments is kinda ho-hum, I've been a Reaktor user since 2.3, so additional VST-style things are kind of valueless to me, that library provides everything and a kitchen sink as far as noise makers.

But they've decided to take the FruityLoops marketing stance, once you've got a good central editing system, you make more money by providing tools with the same UI components that plug in tightly, can't blame them at all for that..

Kinda meandering, guess who doesn't want to finish installing these cluster machines? :D

I think at the end of the day my time would probably be better spent writing Python code on top of a DSP that provides the option, but I like Live too much. So, tilting at windmills a bit longer.

-n
remix.net - versus / liveapi / hangthedj / ammobox

litL1
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there're still some grains to be milled...

Post by litL1 » Fri Oct 12, 2007 5:47 pm

... so pleeeeeeeze keep tilting :)

I am a Mac user, and therefore dearly hope for this to make it on to OS X, too!

Despite thinking Live is the life for uninterrupted flow of creativity in terms of sequencer softwares on the market, i'm so stuck with my current set-up and lack of freedom, that i attempted to study python, after i had found liveapi.org LOL.. which got me even more stuck.

I just wanted to know how Ableton utilized one of the buttons on my, relatively limited controller Surface (Axiom), turning it into a kind of Modifier button, with the aim of perhaps customizing & duplicating this behaviour ... but ... i'm still loosing sleep over this, while i oughta be kicking away :oops:

So, if a nincompoop like me can have hope to make this happen, it'd shatter my enthusiasm and motivation into a trillion pieces, to find out you've left such a brilliant achievement stranded.

Thanks for the hours, weeks and months spent!!!!
***ONE LOVE***


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simioliolio
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?

Post by simioliolio » Tue Oct 30, 2007 2:31 pm

anyone know whats happened to this? is this project still going? or has it been abandoned? really wanna get things working with my monome...

mdk
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Post by mdk » Tue Oct 30, 2007 2:41 pm

well, i had a poke around the l7 beta to see if anything had been added to expand our horizons and it looks like the answer is sadly no, so i made a post on the feature wishlist thingy saying what i would like to see :)

http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=75974

of course its still possible that something will turn up before the final release, but i somehow doubt it.

anyway, its still possible to get something working, dont know about the OSX side, would be interested to hear more about that, but for the PC version you should be able to get something rolling.

how far have you got and what do you want to do?
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