a lot of people are using Live as a performance
app - which it was originally designed as.
However - particularly with Live 4 - there is a growing
base of us that are leaving Cubase / Logic etc behind,
and are using it as thier primary sequencer and production
tool.
Live is thouroughly amazing - but needs some additional
features in order to excell as a production sequencer.
Please forgive me if any of these have been raised here
before - havent had a chance to read the entire wishlist
forum
1 IMPROVED ARRANGEMENT VIEW
The arrangement view is key to sequencing and big
picture arrangement.
a. MIDI Editing Directly in Arrangement Window.
Currently it is confusing to edit entire tracks and see
the flow of your MIDI over the entire song using just
the clip editing on the bottom.
Keep the current clip editing on the bottom, but
implement the ability to edit MIDI clips right on the track
ala Cubase / Logic / PT. (fold / unfold this view the in
the same way and same place as automation tracks)
b. Markers for Song Arrangement
Live needs markers to mark off song sections in the
Arrangement view. Not necessarily a marker track ala
Cubase, but some way of marking off chunks of time
devisions and labeling them clearly. Add color choice
to these markers as well.
Personally I trust Ableton to come up with a devestatingly
simple and effective way of implementing this
c. Vertical Zooming
Arrangement view currently allows horiziontal zooming,
but not vertical. We need to be able to zoom in on tracks
in both dimensions, easily
d. Zooming directly on Arrangement Window
Currently we need to move cursor up to the timeline in
order to zoom. Too awkward.
Implement a hotkey that allows us to change the cursor
to the magnifying glass at the current position, and zoom
horizontal / vertical
e. Pos / End / Length / Offset Buttons on Arrange View.
Clipview has --> arrows that allow us to jump to the
beginning loop point, end, and zoom out on the the entire
loop in one click. We need to be able to do this for the entire arrangment loop. It is tedious without them.
Put the controls right at the top, between the overview
and the timeline. Then "click,click" we can zoom around
our arrangement the way we do a clip.
2 HOTKEYS
a. User Configurable Hotkey Combos
Why are the hotkeys currently frozen to default?
We need to be able to map hotkeys to whatever keys are
most convienient for us personally.
A huge part of being totally efficient and quick in using an
app lies in personalizing the hotkey mappings to our preference.
The current mappings are pretty logical overall, but in some
cases awkward.
This might be even more important for Live performance,
actually. User hotkeys allow us to "play" an app like an
instrument. Not having them is a major oversight.
b. MORE Hotkeys.
On same tip: every function in Live where it makes sense
to have one, should allow a user configurable hotkey combo.
There are many that are missing. Cubase is excellent in this
respect, if a little awkward in how the functions are
organized / named in the tree.
3 COLORING / NAMING
Keeping track of clips via naming and coloring is CRUCIAL
to keeping track of what is going on, organization, and
working intuitively. It is the only way to make clear
distinctions between sounds, of which we have multiple
versions constantly being modified.
For both coloring and naming, currently, we need to move
the cursor all the way down to the left of the screen in
order to make changes. Very tedious and awkward.
a. Change Color / Name Directly on Clip
- Hold hotkey modifyer, click on clip. "Colorwheel"
or dropdown appears right THERE. Click to change color.
- Hold hotkey modifyer, click on clip. Type new name.
BAM. Done.
b. More Colors.
Self explanatory. We need more colors / shades to
distinguish sounds.
c. Full Name Appears by Hovering Cursor on Clip
I agree with this suggestion. We need to have more
charachters to name clips. Allowing longer names, with
a pop up on cursor hover, allows this.
4. SAMPLE MANAGEMENT
The ability to preview clips with one click is beautiful. This is
only half the battle toward quickly and intuitively choosing
sounds.
Live needs improved sample management. We should
be able to:
- Create new folders in the sample preview window
- Cut / copy / move / drag drop - samples from folder to
folder right in this view
- Allow "favorites" folders to jump instantly to priority
sounds. Preferably with hotkeys.
Instantly organizing our collections of thousands of samples
will be 100 times easier, therefore more intuitive for
producing music. Or playing live for that matter.
--
Live needs features like this to fully compete with the
major sequencers. Which, IMO it is already putting to
shame in other areas, particularly for EDM styles of music.
If you agree with any of this, please add your support -
suggestions - modifications! Thanks for having the patience
to read thru ...
hehe