Ableton Forum

Ok, it is settled. Live could be a little more efficient on MACs and I for one hope the implement some sort of dual processor support because I certainly do not need a G5 dedicated to the GUI. Even if this were to happen tomorrow, we would all still be pushing the limits of our CPUs complaining about overhead and optimizations and PC vs. MAC. This is the nature of technology so get over it.

I LOVE Live. (A friend of mine who I recently converted to a live user wants to figure out how to copulate with it. I think it can be done with MIDI.) It is essentially two really great programs in one. The problem is, nobody wants to admit it. At some point, however, you have to STOP TWEAKING and START RECORDING. I know, it hurts. I will be the first to admit being a tweakaholic but the sooner you learn to record that great synth part as a loop or entire track and then put that friend away for a while, the sooner you will realize how productive and sexy Live can be.

Cheers,

Sir Dodgy Huffington


Cheers,

Sir Dodgy Huffington

drush wrote:perhaps whatever mac optimizing they did for v4 is indicative of how useless Live may have been with VSTi/AU's had they not done it. i really wish i knew technically, literally what the issue is. but it's obvious that they wrote first and foremost for the PC. while this thread is all well and good, the reason i'm so married to Live is that i don't want to use Logic/SX/DP/etc. even rewired.

for the longest time i was understanding of Ableton's plight. coding primarily for x86 makes sense on paper. but they've got to have decent operating capital by now, if not be profitable. FIX THE APP ALREADY.

I'm pretty sure that Ableton is not coding for x86 primarily. Their sales are split 50/50 PC /mac so simply coding for PC because it is dominant in other markets besides theirs would do nothing but alienate us conspiracy theory driven mac people! So it doesn't make sense, and when I got a chance to talk to Frank from Ableton in person, he flatly stated they just don't code for either mac or PC chipsets AT ALL!

This isn't as bad on PC, most of the power from the PC chips comes straight from clock speed, but with the G4 and G5 chips you can get a serious speed increase in audio apps from Altivec code enhancment etc.
40%
So IMO it is time for them to start thinking about optimizing Live.

isk8str8 wrote:Even if this were to happen tomorrow, we would all still be pushing the limits of our CPUs complaining about overhead and optimizations and PC vs. MAC. This is the nature of technology so get over it.

Not really applicable here, I'm a pretty poor person in general, and don't plan on getting a new computer for quite some time. I wrote for well over a year on a powerbook with Logic, I have very simple demands from my system compared to others here.

isk8str8 wrote:I know, it hurts. I will be the first to admit being a tweakaholic but the sooner you learn to record that great synth part as a loop or entire track and then put that friend away for a while, the sooner you will realize how productive and sexy Live can be.

Burning synths to audio is of course a solution, but does that make Live a better choice than Logic for song writing? IMO, it does not. I want it to be, but as it stands I'm writing in Logic and burning to audio for Live 4 and live performance.
The reasons are simple really Live 4 isn't that good at soft synths and midi in general yet IMO. Too bad, I would forgo some of the limitations Live has midi wise if I had similar performance out of my powerbook with Live.

Why would you need to run 6 instances of Absynth? Less is more. Especially in electronic music. Take Zombie Nation. Why was that track so friggin huge? It was so simple. I think people just need to use there resources more wisely. Be more creative with what you have.


Ishimaru

ishimaru wrote:Less is more. Especially in electronic music.

That's why Kraftwerk toured with P4 laptops, plus TC Powercore's?
Think about it.

ishimaru has a point that electronic music is about utilizing what you have.
making the most out of the tools at your disposal.

but then the definition of "your disposal" finds its way under the microscope.
Lets say for instance you have a fast CPU and enough Ram to run 10 VSTi's simultaneously..
Well then whats wrong with using it? Its all at your disposal.

Or if you could trade in an old rack of FX and get TC Powercore with that $$, wouldn't that be considered using the "tools available".

I agree that it ain't what you got, its how you use it.
but i also agree that if you know how to use what you already got... then there's nothing wrong with getting more!!

AdamJay wrote:but then the definition of "your disposal" finds its way under the microscope.
Lets say for instance you have a fast CPU and enough Ram to run 10 VSTi's simultaneously..
Well then whats wrong with using it? Its all at your disposal.

Exactly, though I'm not ready to sell my macs, and transfer NI and various other licenses to PC just to get a similar CPU performance to what Logic currently has on my laptop?
I'm just pointing out that though it might be true that pure CPU in Lives case is the most important factor in performance, there's plenty of room for improvement.
[cough, Altivec!]

One interesting thing to note is that Live craps out with zipper noises and such way before the CPU hits 90%? More like around 70%, it's a bit frusterating, Logic goes DEEP into the red before it affects the sound at all.

Also, why do people assume that you are in fact not getting work done on your computer because you point out the shortcomings of a particular piece of software online? Never have understood that? As if you have to be fully satisfied with a particular product in order to be productive? If that were the case, I think I would be waiting around for eternity to write a single note?
I don't shy away from performance or compatibility issues, and I make no apologies for my choices, but it's silly to sit there and deny something that can be proven.
For instance Logic and SX have a much more advanced MIDI functionality than Live.
Now should a ton of people chime in that SX and Logic are too complicated and not as users friendly as Live, therefore who cares that Live is a bitch to edit MIDI in comparatively?