Ableton Forum

Nevermind. Sorry.

Not sure if this was posted yet but - here's a 15 minute in-depth video Bitwig demo, fom AudioFanzine.
Interesting features in action.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz5nH05MAWg

donmich wrote:Nevermind. Sorry.

I thought that was a pretty interesting post. Why did you delete it? I can sort of understand brand loyalty to a certain degree but on the other hand you are trying to use the best available tool for you to create your art or product. I am anti-monopoly and although I am definitely not anti-Ableton they almost have a monopoly on the live performance DAW market right now. Competition may eat into their profits a little bit but this could also help improve their product, make it more competitive, and remind them to please their long time faithful customers (not insinuating that they do or don't. I'm a fairly recent user.)

I'm also a bit of a socialist on the anarchism fence and usually don't really care how successful a corporation is in profit share as I consider the work of the lower employees as important as the CEOs or owners and the success of most corporations is rarely distributed well throughout the company. I can't comment on how Ableton operates specifically as they are a German company and I don't know much about German corporate norms. Here in the U.S. a company that isn't essentially stealing from their employees based on the product of their labor versus what they are paid is a rare and celebrated occurrence.

SuburbanThug wrote:

donmich wrote:Nevermind. Sorry.

I thought that was a pretty interesting post. Why did you delete it? I can sort of understand brand loyalty to a certain degree but on the other hand you are trying to use the best available tool for you to create your art or product. I am anti-monopoly and although I am definitely not anti-Ableton they almost have a monopoly on the live performance DAW market right now. Competition may eat into their profits a little bit but this could also help improve their product, make it more competitive, and remind them to please their long time faithful customers (not insinuating that they do or don't. I'm a fairly recent user.)

I'm also a bit of a socialist on the anarchism fence and usually don't really care how successful a corporation is in profit share as I consider the work of the lower employees as important as the CEOs or owners and the success of most corporations is rarely distributed well throughout the company. I can't comment on how Ableton operates specifically as they are a German company and I don't know much about German corporate norms. Here in the U.S. a company that isn't essentially stealing from their employees based on the product of their labor versus what they are paid is a rare and celebrated occurrence.

Thanks and great post. I just had premonitions of getting flamed after posting it and wasnt in the mood I guess. Its been a rough week. I was just thinking out loud.
Your comments about business models are very interesting. Im more of a semi-anarcho-libertarian but I was left-leaning most of my life, so I can identify with what younsaid and agree that CEOs are paid in a stupidly disproportionate fashion. Im all for collectives, peer-production and sharing - as long as it is consensual. I would oppose socialism as an imposed form of government though, especially on former "democracies".

My aversion to what Bitwig has done is more affected by my personal affection towards Ableton and how deeply they affected the way I approach music than my politics, most likely. What Bitwig have done is conceptually legitimate in "free market" sense (not that I believe truly "free" markets exist any more than "pure" socialism or communism). Competition is fine with me in general. Its just that Henke and Behles, as far as I know, and could be wrong, conceptualized what Live does. So while the coders may have done a great deal of the actual development and feel like the greater contributers and entitled to port their work away to a competing product, Its very possible they would have been nothing without ableton, and Bitwig stands to really hurt abe's marketshare, not just take a bite out of it. But they are free to do so. I just couldnt do it.
On the other hand it could be the case that they were the real brains behind Live, were poorly compensated, treated poorly or needlessly constrained, or anyhng along these lines really, and this might or might not be evidenced in the flavour of the direction Live seems to be taking. So this gets back to my point about not knowing the backstory, which really would influence my perception of Bitwig. If Ableton has a "dark side" I would probably want to know that too.

Angstrom wrote:Not sure if this was posted yet but - here's a 15 minute in-depth video Bitwig demo, fom AudioFanzine.
Interesting features in action.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz5nH05MAWg

Angstrom wrote:Not sure if this was posted yet but - here's a 15 minute in-depth video Bitwig demo, fom AudioFanzine.
Interesting features in action.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz5nH05MAWg

Looking good... still seems like a little while to go, but it was very nice to see it functioning. Thanx!
I hope they release a stable version before Ableton works out all the Live 9 Bugs and fix the browser, cause I'm tempted every day to upgrade to Live 9 but I just can't pull the trigger with the browser the way it is... So I've been sticking with the 64bit Live 8.

donmich wrote:

SuburbanThug wrote:

donmich wrote:Nevermind. Sorry.

I thought that was a pretty interesting post. Why did you delete it? I can sort of understand brand loyalty to a certain degree but on the other hand you are trying to use the best available tool for you to create your art or product. I am anti-monopoly and although I am definitely not anti-Ableton they almost have a monopoly on the live performance DAW market right now. Competition may eat into their profits a little bit but this could also help improve their product, make it more competitive, and remind them to please their long time faithful customers (not insinuating that they do or don't. I'm a fairly recent user.)

I'm also a bit of a socialist on the anarchism fence and usually don't really care how successful a corporation is in profit share as I consider the work of the lower employees as important as the CEOs or owners and the success of most corporations is rarely distributed well throughout the company. I can't comment on how Ableton operates specifically as they are a German company and I don't know much about German corporate norms. Here in the U.S. a company that isn't essentially stealing from their employees based on the product of their labor versus what they are paid is a rare and celebrated occurrence.

Thanks and great post. I just had premonitions of getting flamed after posting it and wasnt in the mood I guess. Its been a rough week. I was just thinking out loud.
Your comments about business models are very interesting. Im more of a semi-anarcho-libertarian but I was left-leaning most of my life, so I can identify with what younsaid and agree that CEOs are paid in a stupidly disproportionate fashion. Im all for collectives, peer-production and sharing - as long as it is consensual. I would oppose socialism as an imposed form of government though, especially on former "democracies".

My aversion to what Bitwig has done is more affected by my personal affection towards Ableton and how deeply they affected the way I approach music than my politics, most likely. What Bitwig have done is conceptually legitimate in "free market" sense (not that I believe truly "free" markets exist any more than "pure" socialism or communism). Competition is fine with me in general. Its just that Henke and Behles, as far as I know, and could be wrong, conceptualized what Live does. So while the coders may have done a great deal of the actual development and feel like the greater contributers and entitled to port their work away to a competing product, Its very possible they would have been nothing without ableton, and Bitwig stands to really hurt abe's marketshare, not just take a bite out of it. But they are free to do so. I just couldnt do it.
On the other hand it could be the case that they were the real brains behind Live, were poorly compensated, treated poorly or needlessly constrained, or anyhng along these lines really, and this might or might not be evidenced in the flavour of the direction Live seems to be taking. So this gets back to my point about not knowing the backstory, which really would influence my perception of Bitwig. If Ableton has a "dark side" I would probably want to know that too.

I have to admit I'm a little enamored with one of the current stories being that these guys were "fed up with a company that seemed to be leaning more towards creating a money making product than a music making product." That said after using Live 9 I'm not sure that this could be the case although some would reference Push and the browser's heavy preference toward partner content to be evidence of this. I'm not convinced. It's still very useful and creative for me but I haven't been using Live as long as some of the other folks around here and can't tell whether they are justified in their criticisms or just whiny.
I see what you are saying though about leaving the company and creating what some will no doubt see as a copy of Live, better as it may be or not. Thanks for putting things in perspective a bit. There is certainly the possibility that these guys have basically just stolen the product to some degree.

Apple has been always stealing other companie's products without permission. E.g Swiss Railway Watch.

This is the way how company makes profit now.

SuburbanThug wrote:Here in the U.S. a company that isn't essentially stealing from their employees based on the product of their labor versus what they are paid is a rare and celebrated occurrence.

I'd appreciate if you could expand on this. I think it's a really interesting concept and merits discussion.

d.reamonn wrote:

SuburbanThug wrote:Here in the U.S. a company that isn't essentially stealing from their employees based on the product of their labor versus what they are paid is a rare and celebrated occurrence.

I'd appreciate if you could expand on this. I think it's a really interesting concept and merits discussion.

According to some schools of thought corporations have become authoritarian in nature, basically enslaving the majority through owning the means of production. There was a brief time in the late 1800's when some economists proposed that there was a moral obligation to pay workers based on productivity but it found little popularity. Wal-Mart can be made an extreme example where the productivity of the workers allows the corporation to profit massively but pays such small wages to the workers that the taxpayer essentially subsidizes Wal-Mart by way of paying into welfare programs that their employees must use in order to survive (food stamps, etc.) Wal-Mart is not obligated to pay it's workers based on the profit they produce since the worker does not own the means of production. This is why factories are occasionally seized by unions or "fall victim" to lockouts as the workers take control of the means of production in an attempt to receive a fair wage based on the fruit of their labor.

The U.S. has recently moved from a free market capitalist society to a dominant capital market society although some would argue that corporations unfair advantage in their ability to lobby lawmakers has made us a dominant capital market for some time now. In a dominant capital market lawmakers are allowed to profit from the laws they pass ensuring the dominance of those already in control of the means of production. Squashing competition before it can begin. Certain predatory lending practices were made legal for banking institutions in the 90's leading to the downfall of the independent business in the early 2000's. This dominant capital market is part of what Occupy Wall Street was battling primarily when it began but their message was almost immediately convoluted during public meetings in which minorities were allowed to block resolutions and the focus went from making demands that certain laws ensuring a dominant capital market be repealed to a more open ended platform which sought no answer to any demands.

Certain corporations, such as Costco, are celebrated for their willingness to "treat the employees right" by paying them fair wages and benefits. Currently there is little to no regulation of business in the U.S. that isn't lobbied against by those with the money to do so and there is no assurance that workers will be paid fairly and legislation is being passed day to day to weaken unions. So, according to some schools of thought, we live in wage slavery.

SuburbanThug wrote: According to some schools of thought corporations have become authoritarian in nature, basically enslaving the majority through owning the means of production. There was a brief time in the late 1800's when some economists proposed that there was a moral obligation to pay workers based on productivity but it found little popularity.

Eh? Eh?

SuburbanThug wrote:we live in slavery.

fixed that man.. this is a BIG topic with very far reaching consequences..

I have been looking @ this for quite a while, and the more I see, the more I realize that we, the people of the world are indeed in slavery.
Modern slavery through corporative governmental constitutional law.. man don't get me started!!

Hd
edit .. good post btw sub!

Angstrom wrote:

SuburbanThug wrote: According to some schools of thought corporations have become authoritarian in nature, basically enslaving the majority through owning the means of production. There was a brief time in the late 1800's when some economists proposed that there was a moral obligation to pay workers based on productivity but it found little popularity.

Eh? Eh?

Walked right into that one, didn't I?

SuburbanThug wrote:

donmich wrote: My aversion to what Bitwig has done is more affected by my personal affection towards Ableton and how deeply they affected the way I approach music than my politics, most likely. What Bitwig have done is conceptually legitimate in "free market" sense (not that I believe truly "free" markets exist any more than "pure" socialism or communism). Competition is fine with me in general. Its just that Henke and Behles, as far as I know, and could be wrong, conceptualized what Live does. So while the coders may have done a great deal of the actual development and feel like the greater contributers and entitled to port their work away to a competing product, Its very possible they would have been nothing without ableton, and Bitwig stands to really hurt abe's marketshare, not just take a bite out of it. But they are free to do so. I just couldnt do it.
On the other hand it could be the case that they were the real brains behind Live, were poorly compensated, treated poorly or needlessly constrained, or anyhng along these lines really, and this might or might not be evidenced in the flavour of the direction Live seems to be taking. So this gets back to my point about not knowing the backstory, which really would influence my perception of Bitwig. If Ableton has a "dark side" I would probably want to know that too.

...... There is certainly the possibility that these guys have basically just stolen the product to some degree.

It's really not just as simple as a company "stealing" another company's intellectual property, developing it and selling it.... A company files patents for their particular "unique" features. Live probably has a patent for their version of the clip launcher. Live however almost certainly does not have a patent on their timeline editor. They probably have many of the sub features and particular parts of the gui in their timeline patented but as a whole it's just a re-iteration of any other DAWs timeline. Another example would be Logic, they most certainly have a patent on Flextime editing (but also not a timeline …)

So..... I noticed Bitwig's scene launcher runs vertically instead of horizontally. It's quite possible that this discrepancy wasn't specified in Ableton's patent. (Who knows, maybe Bitwig even licensed some features of their clip launcher from Live. Doubtful, but software companies do license their technology all the time.) The point is, if Live's patent specifies a horizontal scene launcher that exists on a separate tab, then Bitwig legally has every right to patent a vertical one that exists next to the timeline. Yeah, maybe it's unoriginal, but that's how technology evolves, It builds off of pre-existing technology. Live is just a re-iteration of all DAWs that came before it, and aside from the clip launcher, it's really not all that unique.

Which leads me to people being all up in arms about Bitwig ripping off Live. The clip launcher yeah, it's obvioulsy the same concept... but EVERYTHING else in Live is the same old re-hashed shit you see in any other DAW. Getting up in arms over Ableton finally having some truly close competition after a decade of having their own little corner in the DAW market is laughable. Most companies with an innovative idea maybe get a year before everyone else starts playing in their sandbox and borrowing their ideas. A decade is a damn good run .... I personally thought 9 was their weakest release to date. Nothing really new, no real workflow improvements. Direct competition is GOOD for Ableton. it will most likely force them to step up their game and start to create new features and make some long overdo improvements, which is good for anyone who uses Live.

Anyway, here's another pretty interesting video from NAMM:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqQhgbJSpmI

dnbhallifax wrote:Live is just a re-iteration of all DAWs that came before it, and aside from the clip launcher, it's really not all that unique.

Exactly. Even the idea of clip launching wasn't thought of in a vacuum, other DAWs had similar concepts, Logic for instance had "Touch Tracks" for launching MIDI runs with a keyboard key.
The main advantage to Live over the rest was the input quantize feature of launching, so things would be precise to the millisecond. Plus that they organized it all in Session View specifically designed for that purpose.


This is all similar to Microsoft taking the GUI idea from Apple who had taken it from Xerox. When Apple sued, they lost 90% of the lawsuits because you can't patent a generalized idea, it's like patenting 'a car that flies'. The only reason they won some was due to lines of code Microsoft ripped, and that's still debatable because Apple and MS aren't talking about it...