Crash wrote:First I need to remind you about the
topic of this thread:
I pointed out that Ableton Support
finally and
for the first time ever (as far as the search function reveals and my own experience of providing that kind of support to other users for months) publically suggests users to turn on Aero in Vista in order to workaround performance issues with Live. You keep talking to me about bug-free code, I keep talking about how bugs are handled.
The irony and sarcasm in your
topic is evident despite english being a second language for you.
I keep talking about your
response to bugs. That is absolutely relevant to the topic, it's a response to bugs.
Machinesworking wrote:You have no idea how long, or if even a bug fix will require serious rewrite of base code for them.
As a customer, I don't have to care what internal problems keeps them from delivering results as long as they chose not to inform me. If they need this long I can expect them to tell me it's gonna take long and that they will offer me a
free bug-fix once it's available. They don't have to meet my expectations, but that doesn't mean I have to expect less.
Agreed.
It is Ableton that is clearly and publically claiming that their software is Vista compatible. They know it isn't but don't tell their customers about it. Alot of people are wasting hours and days of time trying to make Live run on Vista because of Ableton's misinformations.
Honestly turing off a function of the OS causing problems in Live is an obvious low priority bug. Most people will simply turn that function back on, write Ableton with a bug report and wait for an update. I understand that you have a right to be upset that this seems to have been handled bellow par customer care wise, but realize that your attitude about it exhibited on these forums is of intolerance and attack with what seems like unjustified anger. Remember, most of us have had nothing but positive experiences with Ableton support. It's exactly the opposite of your original assumption.
To address the subject of people buying cheap computers to use for music, that's ALWAYS a risk, and it's a tough learning lesson, but if it wasn't Live it would be something else that isn't happy with Windows Basic, and a cheap computer.
Like I said, I'm there with you on wanting the software to work, I'm just well aware of how little money these companies actually have at their disposal
Live is one of the most expensive DAWs out there (not counting in DigiDesign hardware) and for what if brings in features with its basic version it's even more expensive when you go for the full Suite. Add to that that Ableton is shelving out new paid-for versions once a year compared to how seldom other software DAWs publish paid-for updates.
Even
if software DAWs are relatively inexpensive to the real deal studio hardware then it's the company who decided to sell to big masses for relatively little money instead of asking premium for only premium users. Modern harddrives cost less than a promille of what you paid per GB only a few years back, but still I expect them save my data as reliable as possible.
It's a good analogy. Hard drives are the weakest link in a modern computer, the most likely to crash and die. DAWs are prone to bugs, and if you had used other DAWs for years before Live, you would know this.
Someone else covered the money thing, but it's not up to you when you buy software to determine the working practices of a company, You choose to keep it, or move on. I've used three DAWs as a main sequencer so far. DP, Logic, and Live. Live is in no way buggier than either of those DAWs, and none of them are half as buggy as Cubase. A crippling bug will have me change my DAW, especially if I don't feal it's being addressed properly or in a time frame I need it to be. The things aren't cheap, but they sure aren't expensive either. It's less than the price of a good guitar for an entire workstation.
Besides, these are not complex audio-software related problems we are talking about. Live uses some exotic system-calls for GUI drawing which they claim have been changed my Microsoft with Vista. No other software on my PC shows these problems (including two other DAWs and all NI plugins), so obviously no other software uses these system-calls.
and exactly how are you certain that Live's unique GUI drawing isn't due to their rather unique performance driven code? I mean here you point to Live being different than the other DAWs and plug ins, which would imply a major amount of work to re-code, yet you seem to believe that it's a simple problem. Looking at things like routing options and other well coded things in Live I would sincerely doubt that unique system calls were just out of laziness etc.
Basically you know enough about this to be getting close to the problem, but not enough to actually know their code, and what exactly the reasons are for the problem, yet you assume the simplicity of the solution.
I do understand that Ableton was taken by surprise by this move, but I do not understand that not only did they not recognize it when supposedly they should have tested Vista compatibility, but it took them 6 months to acknowledge the problem in a private email and after nearly one year they still don't inform their customers about it publically. That's really, really bad business behavior.
Agreed.
Bottom line is you cannot determine how long a bug will take to fix, yet you stated very clearly that you expected them to fix it within weeks., so you in effect are not acknowledging that all software, especially complex software like Live, Cubase, Logic etc. has bugs.
Ok, nail me down to each word, I should have written "not months and years, but weeks and months", but, you know, weeks is months, too. We are talking about a product here that has an average life-cycle of only one (1) year. Live 8 is already knocking on the doors and I still cannot use my Live 7 on Vista.
Honestly I hope they slow that down, and to a degree if your bitching and whining helps to do that then by all means! NI were total shit three years ago bug wise, it took them slowing down and not trying to sell upgrades all the time for that to happen though.
(Kore packs must sell well)
Ableton unfortunately tie their plug ins to the their upgrades, which limits their ability to function like that.
The sad truth of the matter is bugs can be hardcore. Digital Performer
still will not transmit beat clock through M-Audio and various other MIDI boxes. Granted, MOTU make probably the best MIDI boxes out there, but there's nothing on the DP box that states "In order for MIDI beat clock to work reliably we suggest you use our hardware." That bug was around on OS9. THIS is why I stated that you haven't been using DAW software for very long, I really don't think there's a complex DAW out there that doesn't have at least one persistent bug that even travels to new paid upgrade versions. In Logic it was Tap Tempo, I think that one's finally fixed but it was years.
I actually remember you signing up here, and chatting with someone about how you were going to break, you were all busy trying to get your bug list addressed, while Live was still in beta, and it was obvious that you would turn out the way you did about Ableton. Not because Ableton release buggier software than the others, but because you expected them to address your particular bugs.
