How to use Live 7 without paying a dime....

adventurepants_ · Post by **adventurepants_** » Sun Dec 09, 2007 11:43 pm

Able2Live8 wrote: and no, i am not a troll as this is not very fun for me. I am just trying to expose ableton for what it is.

oh yes you are!

get something worthwhile to rebel against, Che.

Able2Live8 · Post by **Able2Live8** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 12:01 am

adventurepants_ wrote:
Able2Live8 wrote: and no, i am not a troll as this is not very fun for me. I am just trying to expose ableton for what it is.

oh yes you are!

get something worthwhile to rebel against, Che.

Well to some extent yes i am, but the whole thing that separates me from being a troll in a true meaning, is that i got the truth to back me up and have been affected by ableton's marketing with losing my time and money on a program that basically emulates hardware and does a half ass job at it. I'm a bit angry you could say. I'm just hopping that Abe's will see this and question their stance, because at this point, it's a shit stance.

Thanks ableton for blinding peoples eyes with a flat learning curve.

Noel · Post by **Noel** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 12:02 am

Coming, as I do, from an era when keyboards didn't have any presets, I have often thought that the ableton live demo is equivalent to giving away a whole truck load of free synths.

forge · Post by **forge** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 12:43 am

just curious - have you been finding Live 7 still to be bad? they have made quite an overhaul of the MIDI engine

they even released a white paper

if you're still having problems you should let them know, I'm sure they'd be keen to hear it

Able2Live8 · Post by **Able2Live8** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 2:16 am

Live 7 seems to have a very good midi timing. I haven't tested it with external gear yet, but internally it's very good compared to 5.

Able2Live8 · Post by **Able2Live8** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 2:25 am

A little turned off by Ableton's business ethics though. They didn't mind putting in video capabilities in 6 and omitting more important things.

Live 7 seems to finally be at a very good stage, but WTF took them so long.

ilia · Post by **ilia** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 3:29 am

Able2Live8 wrote:A little turned off by Ableton's business ethics though. They didn't mind putting in video capabilities in 6 and omitting more important things.

Live 7 seems to finally be at a very good stage, but WTF took them so long.

I cannot say I am not sympathetic to what you are saying.
After extensively beta testing Live 7, the only things that make it a necessary upgrade for me are the MIDI timing and (less imporantly) the better audio quality. And I don't see why I should be paying for this, after years of having to pay for another software app to track timing-critical midi parts.

BTW, video has been broken on my chipset (NVidia under XP) in every version of Live 6, and they still haven't done a damn thing about it.

leedsquietman · Post by **leedsquietman** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 3:45 am

It's fine to request features and not inappropriate to request major bug fixes.

Problem is, Ableton need the annual revenue stream to compete with the Logics and Cakewalks of this world as a much smaller company and besides, many users request and demand this, some people are too impatient to wait another 6 months for more bugs to be fixed, they want new features and new versions right now.

So ultimately, it comes back to this... If you are constantly disappointed then vote with your feet and leave. There is other software.

Mentioning bugs and requesting bugfixes is fine but there are people who just constantly moan and whine. That seems to be the reason why they exist in some cases. Constant whingeing and moaning is just not productive for Ableton, this forum or most importantly for the individual. Change your software - you will probably find though that the grass isn't always greener - and that as long as there are computers and computer programs, some people will be affected by bugs and that sometimes it is certain hardware that conflicts (such as the nvidia graphics you mention, or certain firewire chipsets or whatever).

IMHO Live 7 offers a hell of a lot - OK, perhaps better MIDI timing should be expected but an upgraded audio engine, drum racks, slicer, sidechain capable compressor, spectograph, improved EQ8, improved sound quality in Operator and Sampler, automatable timing signatures and multiple automation lanes are a significant improvement in my workflow. Yes, other features are still needed in the next version, crossfading audio clips on an arrangement track, folder tracks and support for dual monitors etc would be nice.

In short - Ableton are not perfect. But they are developing their product as well as can be expected for a company their size and if you feel disappointed since Live 4 or 5 then cut your losses and go with another product next time.

ilia · Post by **ilia** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 4:15 am

I am not debating this as a general attitude towards Ableton or their product, I am talking about this specific update. 4 was great, 5 was a mix of really good ideas and half-finished implementation, 6 was solid, 7 doesn't do much for me personally, because it does not address what I consider to be the most glaring omissions in the workflow, other than, yes, the better MIDI timing, and none of the features it offers outweigh those bottlenecks (compared, for example, to introduction of midi/VSTi's in 4 or freeze/delay compensation/merging projects and later multiple-core support in 5, drum racks or better EQ are not so impressive). So to me it feels mostly like a paid-for bug fix upgrade and not a complete one at that.

And -- people who have invested a lot of time and money into the product have every right to complain about its limitations at whatever point they choose to. I for one, have always been supportive of Ableton in the past (I started out by writing a glowing review of their early version for a publication I was working for at the time). When you are spending many hours a day in front of an application, the small things that drag you down get multiplied into major hurdles. Nobody who has spent years working on hundreds of projects will switch software because of an unexciting update, but at this point my money is going as a credit towards stuff I really need and hope they'll be able to get done in the next upgrade. If that doesn't happen, then yes, I will reconsider.

As for the effectiveness of whining -- well I am starting to think there might be something to it. Bounce's public drama finally brought the fix to the bug which apparently he was the only one to experience. Several of us have been quietly discussing the video issue with Ableton's support, helping them debug it and suggesting possible solutions, and so far this has yielded very little.

ava · Post by **ava** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 2:35 pm

Just use sound recorder under accessories/entertainment

@ adventurepants_

Sereously though, can you make a good track in a few hours before windows or mac's crash?

Personaly though the money for ableton aint that much considering the development that has gone in to it.

roby · Post by **roby** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 3:59 pm

Able2Live8 wrote:
Lo-Fi Massahkah wrote:Mayor Pain?
No pain, no gain..

shit, I just thought of that. It rhymes as well..

philipc · Post by **philipc** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 8:48 pm

Or you can freeze each track and recover the audio files manually.

Sleep Tyght · Post by **Sleep Tyght** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 11:38 pm

adventurepants_ wrote:
leedsquietman wrote:MIDI timing is mostly down to hardware (especially on windows, MIDI timing is well known to suck on Windows, Mac OSX implemented MIDI much better), I used Live 6 though on my windows laptop without any problems on MIDI. Some minor latency issues that we are all going to go through (keyboards and midi interfaces induce some latency before you even consider software), that can be compensated for with quantization or offsetting. I didn't notice any difference from using Cubase SX3 in all honesty.

you cant be using much hardware to say that. Lives midi sync for external instruments is loose, sloppy and variable. this is well documented.

as for the OP, whats the problem? he's not doing anything illegal, and was already a previously paid up user. If hes doing one shot compositions and recording instruments to a sampler, he's hardly using a tiny fraction of the DAW features. i cant see how anyones losing out?

Wow...and the whole time I'm just sitting there wondering why it's so freakin' hard to slave Live to the MPC, but not so tough the other way around.

Yeah I'm pretty much still using Logic for sequencing keys, strings, brass, etc., but the mpc is strictly for drums. Live at this point is a joke for slaving.

Question though...

How come everytime I sequence a loop in Live say from 2.1.1 to 3.0, the notes in the editor show up under 10.1.1-11.0...it's usually some weird shit like that. Doesn't always happen...just sometimes.

sweetjesus · Post by **sweetjesus** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 11:56 pm

man ur hack is lame

back in the day .. i found a hack to make live the demo version of Live save you an ALS file. i dont have the demo version, it may still be there. enjoy hunting.

adventurepants_ · Post by **adventurepants_** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 12:00 am

sweetjesus wrote:man ur hack is lame

back in the day .. i found a hack to make live the demo version of Live save you an ALS file. i dont have the demo version, it may still be there. enjoy hunting.

isnt that the same thing in spirit as just running a cracked version?