Ableton Forum

While working myself into Kore I just realized what Live is missing to be an instrument: Patches/Presets (and maybe a dedicated controller to make use of those presets)!

You cannot just start playing Live because there is nothing to start with. You do have to program stuff or have someone else program it for you.

In Kore there are several multi-instrument Koresounds which include ready-made midi-loops for drums and basslines. The necessary buttons to fire those up and switch them back and forth are already set on my Kore controller with several modulation controls set to knobs and buttons and usually some pad or lead sound mapped to keys (sometimes with multi-map and velocity zones for different tones). When I start up one of those I can immediately start my play my "instrument", I can start doing a song right away. And this is what an instrument enables you to do. It's how we use synths and guitars, we start playing with some preset and only if we don't like the sound or need something special or want more control we will start to program that thing. With Live (and any DAW for that matter) it's the other way around, program controls, program sounds, start playing.

@tamtam:

sorry for the delay...

thanks for your answer, I think you misunderstood me a bit. Your first point is absolutely right, I also don't wanna have a software that does all by itself (but a software that gives me the possibility to do all by myself...)

@second point: I am not talking about that LIVE should do everything I want right away, but it should give me the possibilty to do everything I want with as less restrictions as possible. My suggestion was that if there are applications like midistroke that work, why is this feature not implemented or why don't we have direct access to all hotkeys and can setup them the way we want?

So concerning the matter of learning LIVE as an instrument is (at this point) about building up a setup that works for yourself with the given possibilities we already have in LIVE. This is what we all can do by now... What I intended with my original post was more about looking for other musical solutions to make it a real instrument and also improve the given features for those who are "learning" their instrument "laptop" with the given features... I welcome both ways if one of them leads us to the possibilty to create new musical styles by using new technological efforts (described in my original post)

I have no problem with investing time in "learning" (and this is also the way it should be, like with a guitar for example), but if the setup is the only difference to others we'll have what we already have in productions -> the same styles of music with no real steps further in musical development. Studio setups vary in many ways but the music sounds the same...

In the end it's all about thirsting for the next revolution without knowing if there can be one. But I was part of one back in the days and it still thrills me when I remember those days...

regards,

stefan