Ableton Forum

forge wrote: the crucial point is that that relisation was secondary to the main purpose - I got it for Live use then used it for production as well, but it was always called Live - in fact it was a "sequencer instrument!" I loved that concept and miss it a lot.

But what do you think it is that they could change, ideally with the least amount of change, to provide what you want?

I think if they extended the Key map to make computer keyboard key whatever "focus here", and then had a MIDI utility that did HID<->MIDI mapping, to allow kybd/USB devices to send MIDI messages and to allow MIDI devices to send keystrokes, that would cover a lot, if not all, of the bases.

[edit] was writing this as the post re: the insertable virtual controller layout was posted, this is a good idea, too.

forge wrote:

give the DAW stuff a rest now and get back to being a LIVE program

there's too many bloody DAWs around now and NO other Live apps like this one

AMEN! i say this since ages...

AND GIVE US BACK A ROCK SOLID PERFORMANCE!!! damn!!!

i am not even close to get 7 yet.

hearing pretty much only nightmares around me, all the artists i know went back to 6 for live performances.

hambone1 wrote:

I wish the Abes would split the DAW stuff away from Live and call it something else.

I thought it was called Live cuz it was meant to be played... er... Live!

spot on.

i always said that it is total rubbish to call for another DAW, there are superb ones to choose around, without the need of yet another one... [which by the way does the same as already a hndfull on the market] but as it has been said here in this thread, there is nothing for playing live...

i personally would rather see, focus on live performace and DJ-ing...

in the DJ-ing field is a lot to wish for... and that, at least to me counts as a Live use... but it is so weak in that respect that i need to run one apps for DJ-ing, one apps for production and one apps for Live performance of my own material.

MAKE LIVE AGAIN A RELIABLE LIVE APPLICATION FOR LIVE USE.

my over and over repeated 2cents.

mikemc wrote:3) Not being an instrumentalist, the DJ is not as intermeshed with the generation of the music per se, the 'record is spinning' (clip is playing, etc) and will continue to generate music unless otherwise interrupted as opposed to requiring constant interaction to keep the music going. So the DJ is controlling applied effects with both hands and even feet, as more of the primary aspect of that performance, having the advantage of modifying multiple parameters of the effects as the record/clip progresses.

Nice.

For the DJ that does nothing but play someone else's recorded music while adding effects/EQ/beatmatching, or building tracks live with ready-rendered clips, I think you're right. He's got plenty of time and appendages to mouse or MIDI-controller around. But for the forward-leaning DJs that are playing keyboard/percussion/etc, the ability to access patches quickly and easily is really important.

There's always talk about missing "DAW" features on the forum. Usually I am in 100% agreement with that. When I have to mix vocals I usually end up back in Cubase SX. I love the ability to draw volume envelops directly on the tracks which are independent and relative to mixer track volume.

I haven't done that for a long time though.

Yesterday I had to finish a track that was in Cubase and it was the first time I'd used it for a long time. Man. It drove me absolutely nuts. I think I am so used to Ableton Arrangement view now that SX seems like a joke.

+1 for more "live" features and less "DAW"!

hambone1 wrote:

mikemc wrote:3)But for the forward-leaning DJs that are playing keyboard/percussion/etc.

Hee hee.

Otherwise known as....... m u s i c i a n s.

hambone1 wrote:

mikemc wrote:3) Not being an instrumentalist, the DJ is not as intermeshed with the generation of the music per se, the 'record is spinning' (clip is playing, etc) and will continue to generate music unless otherwise interrupted as opposed to requiring constant interaction to keep the music going. So the DJ is controlling applied effects with both hands and even feet, as more of the primary aspect of that performance, having the advantage of modifying multiple parameters of the effects as the record/clip progresses.

For the DJ that does nothing but play someone else's recorded music while adding effects/EQ/beatmatching, I think you're right. He's got plenty of time and appendages to mouse or MIDI-controller around. But for the forward-leaning DJs that are playing keyboard/percussion/etc, the ability to access patches quickly and easily is really important.

Sure, I don't disagree: the three 'models' are 'purer base models' for points of reference.

The guitarist that does looping, the keyboardist that is doing sequencing and the DJ that is adding instrumentals-- these are hybrids of the base models.

mikemc wrote:

forge wrote: the crucial point is that that relisation was secondary to the main purpose - I got it for Live use then used it for production as well, but it was always called Live - in fact it was a "sequencer instrument!" I loved that concept and miss it a lot.

But what do you think it is that they could change, ideally with the least amount of change, to provide what you want?

I think if they extended the Key map to make computer keyboard key whatever "focus here", and then had a MIDI utility that did HID<->MIDI mapping, to allow kybd/USB devices to send MIDI messages and to allow MIDI devices to send keystrokes, that would cover a lot, if not all, of the bases.

[edit] was writing this as the post re: the insertable virtual controller layout was posted, this is a good idea, too.

well I've made all my comments about automation ad nauseum and even got confirmation from Ableton that it is high on their radar - for which I am very grateful

I guess, aside from the initial complaint about selecting devices this is more a general criticism of the overall direction Ableton's vision has taken

if I'm brutally honest I was expecting Live 7 to address a lot of these things and when I saw it, on one hand it was exciting and there were features that I really appreciated and were very exciting, but I just cannot pretend I wasnt disappinted at the apparent lack of awareness of the real time elements of using Live

I actually want real time composition more than Live performance, but to me they have the same requirements

I dont know, I just dont really agree with the Ableton approach of 'all-in-one' when there are already so many products out there that already do most of that

I almost feel Ableton needs to conduct some usability surveys - not that online survey I just did that Kabuki linked that asked loaded questions that suggested a particular response, but instead some real life usability studies into what people actually need live

the thing is if the focus was always on Live performance then it would naturally logically follow what to do, but it doesnt seem like tht is the focus

when they started that's exactly what they were doing and that was exciting because they were the only ones thinking about it like that -really, they were THE ONLY ONES giving some serious thought to what people need in a Live context

I dont know, I like a lot of the stuff they added because I have immense respect for them and know they tend to come up with good versions of things, but something about adding all these things like EIC and focusing on ways to implement stuff like that just says to me that they are looking in completely the wrong direction

On using several user scripts

Would that necessitate having an equal number of MIDI controllers?
OR is there some clever way around that?

you can use several user scripts for the same control surface. for instance, if it has 16 knobs you can assign 8 to one script and 8 to the other, showing up as 2 surfaces in live that you could lock to 2 different devices.

I think you should also be able to use one physical surface and have it send on different midi channels for different user scripts.

it's a very limited solution and doesn't let you move around and select devices at will. but it might be a workaround for some.

It's what I'm going to do with my mpk49, because the implementation in live seems piss poor: 8 encoders, 8 level faders and 8 arm track buttons, 12 drum rack pads, that's all, no extra uses for the 2 other banks of controllers, or the 3 other banks of pads on the mpk49. I.e. apart from the arm track buttons there's nothing there that can't be achieved with user scripts...

Mackie control emulation might be a solution for many issues, provided you have a programmable controller. don't think it does device selection, though..

If I can also just add - part of what I am talking about is this apparent need to 'provide everything in one program' rather than understanding their place in the already grand scheme of things in the music technology world

for example, the whole reason I posted this thread is because I am experimenting with different hardware controllers using GlovePIE as mentioned here: http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=88813

this lack of an ability to select a device via MIDI or KEY is not exclusively within Live, if you then try and work around Live's shortcomings using a 3rd party App then it is not even set up to allow you to easily do that

now I will have to not only find a way of routing MIDI within Live (MIDI yoke) and then find a way of configuring my controllers, but I also have to create some kind of long winded script to emulate ALT+(down*3) in key commands - just to select the device to use with Live's instant mapping

it just seems like every conversation they should be having in Ableton HQ should have the words in it somewhere "how will this help in Live performance?"

davec1 wrote:On using several user scripts

Would that necessitate having an equal number of MIDI controllers?
OR is there some clever way around that?

you can use several user scripts for the same control surface. for instance, if it has 16 knobs you can assign 8 to one script and 8 to the other, showing up as 2 surfaces in live that you could lock to 2 different devices.

I think you should also be able to use one physical surface and have it send on different midi channels for different user scripts.

it's a very limited solution and doesn't let you move around and select devices at will. but it might be a workaround for some.

It's what I'm going to do with my mpk49, because the implementation in live seems piss poor: 8 encoders, 8 level faders and 8 arm track buttons, 12 drum rack pads, that's all, no extra uses for the 2 other banks of controllers, or the 3 other banks of pads on the mpk49. I.e. apart from the arm track buttons there's nothing there that can't be achieved with user scripts...

Mackie control emulation might be a solution for many issues, provided you have a programmable controller. don't think it does device selection, though..

this is my point - if they eye was always on the Live performance ball then stuff like this would have been considered and dealt with from the start

...sorry everyone, these posts always come from me a 3am after a few Scotches

+1 for focusing on Live's live performance features more than competing with Cubase, Nuendo, Logic, Reaper, blah blah blah.......

That's one of the reasons why I'm using Kore, the controller let's me select any device or effect remotely, move around the whole tree of plugins and displays that on its own LCD. It's not as convinient as a Remote SL as far as number of knobs/buttons go, but for the lack of these function in Live I need to make up with it via Kore. Bad luck for internal Live effects, though, but using the ARM buttons on the SL usually does the trick for at least the first plugin of a track, combining that with Native Kontrol (Padkontrol hack) gives alot of options, albeit it also needs a combination of several controllers.

That's not my no.1 issue with Live's live performance though, unstable Midi support with unreliable Midi Clock is a bigger issue for me (what need for control if it doesn't work properly in the first place?)!

Still there is nothing like Session View, it's a fantastic jamming tool, plus the incredible flexible routing options of Live make it a perfect brain-bug for any setup.

I agree, Live is becoming to bloated.

I think some of the recent additions like the quicktime support or the 'new' instruments are totally unnecessary.
And it also worries me, because as a programmer I know that every new feature is also a new potential source for bugs.

So if they start to add those bells and whistles I start to wonder why almost everyone agrees that 6 is more stable than 7.
Shouldn't it be the other way around?

I really wish they would come up with more of their clever stuff. Quality instead of quantity.


Besides, I would really welcome some improvements in the overall program navigation.
Something like holding down Ctrl and using the mouse wheel to navigate through tracks.
And with a left click one would then mouse-wheel through all devices of the selected track and with a right click through all clips.
Something simple and powerful.

However for live use i found that a rack with a midi mapped chain selector gives a solid way to selected devices and make good use of the macros.

forge, maybe if you rethink your setup you can come up with something working, without all the external apps.

attackmode wrote:
However for live use i found that a rack with a midi mapped chain selector gives a solid way to selected devices and make good use of the macros.

Chain selector is a great help, but this doesn't address the problem of having to manually click on the device if you want your controller knobs to "auto map" to the macro knobs. That's the problem. Chain selector will let you switch between them easily to play those synths, but you'd have to manually and statically map controller knobs to macro knobs; requiring tons more knobs. Using Lives unsupported mapping script you can auto map your controller knobs to the macro knobs of the selected device but we still have the problem of how to select that device without dicking with the mouse or keyboard shortcuts with 3rd party hacks.

But don´t we all love live? Maybe its a mans nature to critique most what you love most... (throwing in some philosophical thoughts)