Ableton Forum

Leon Tricker wrote: My wider point, I guess, is what will Ableton add to Live now M4L is here? Because everything I've seen made with M4L so far are things that I would have hoped would have made it into Live as standard in the future. If those things wont make it in, what else will be added to Live?

Don´t worry: our feature wishlist reaches from Berlin Mitte to Potsdam - it´s just that with M4L you can fulfill your own crazy ideas....audio effects, MIDI effects, Api-stuff etc. - you name it.

Christian

This reminds me of one of those magic colouring books where children can just brush water haphazardly on to the page and the colours magically emerge from the paper. Great fun, but is it art?

Not that everything has to be judged as art, but if you are in to art then this isn't it - is it?

Leon Tricker wrote:

chapelier fou wrote:And what would you enhance on the "scale" and "chord" plugins?

I'd combine them and make them like this schwarzonator M4L device.

But I guess Ableton wont do that now as part of the standard Live programme because it will be seen as ripping off schwarzonator.

My wider point, I guess, is what will Ableton add to Live now M4L is here? Because everything I've seen made with M4L so far are things that I would have hoped would have made it into Live as standard in the future. If those things wont make it in, what else will be added to Live?

I understand your fear with M4L and basic functions improvement in ableton. But, in this particular case, I think "scale" and "chord" are so simple that they can't be improved. Put random, chord, and scale in a rack, scratch your head, and you'll be able to make something close to this "schwarzinator". Without the little brother thing I confess.

Wait.. Pushing buttons to achieve musical results is getting trashed on this forum?

I've crammed some theory, I did loads of Chord and Scale presets and had lots of fun with it.
I even built some racks to achieve similar effects.
For the people who are offended by this device, wait till you learn what else Live can do. You'll be outraged!

I definitely won't argue that this device has a better feel than a MIDI Rack with a scale on each octave, automating chords in other tracks by way of 3rd party midi driver.
Its easier now. Is that bad? I'm sure it feels better to actually have the skill to play like that. But does that make it more fun? How do you measure fun? I know you can measure skill.

You'll see a lot of devices that do things that were possible before with workarounds. The only difference is that you can build your workarounds inside Live now.

I'd love to see the reactions when some of the more outlandish crazy stuff starts popping up.
Physical modeling synths like flutes, horns and other windy stuff (percolate lib?). The RTC lib made into devices. That flock of sheep sound generator into a device (would do it myself if I could find the thread). Arduino Sequencers (good old Machinate). Dancing Lego Robots. Video Clips, effects, outputs and inputs. Honestly, as M4L matures I doubt you'll be able to come up with things that can't be done.

As for stuff made in Max not making it into Live.. That doesn't make much sense.
You can use a MS. Pinky M4L device, that isn't exactly halting what is coming up in 2010. We still need proper session automation recording without M4L.
We might need even better recording for M4L. Like we'll ever give em some rest.. Beers? Yes! Money? Sure! Rest? Hell no!!

crumhorn wrote:This reminds me of one of those magic colouring books where children can just brush water haphazardly on to the page and the colours magically emerge from the paper. Great fun, but is it art?

Not that everything has to be judged as art, but if you are in to art then this isn't it - is it?

I don't know, is this?



Or this?



Or.....



Surely it's up to the individual to decide what is and isn't art.

^^^

Absolutely. If I produce some work and think that I am creating are then it is art.

My own criteria for judging a work include the idea that the artist has some original vision of what they want to produce and puts something of themselves into producing it. IMO that applies to all the images that you posted. Whether it applies to this or not depends entirely on how it is used. It's quite possible to see the patch itself as a work of art.

I'm totally open to this kind of thing. But I'm also interested in abstract questions like "what is art?".

i think it's quite useful, although a bit limited!

crumhorn wrote:^^^

Absolutely. If I produce some work and think that I am creating are then it is art.

My own criteria for judging a work include the idea that the artist has some original vision of what they want to produce and puts something of themselves into producing it. IMO that applies to all the images that you posted. Whether it applies to this or not depends entirely on how it is used. It's quite possible to see the patch itself as a work of art.

I'm totally open to this kind of thing. But I'm also interested in abstract questions like "what is art?".

Then we are in complete agreement.

I'm not sure the coloring book analogy really applies. There's a lot more to making and playing music other than note choice, and keyboard mashing a ton of diatonic chords won't instantly turn anyone of us into Herbie Hancock.

When I look at this plug in I see a tool that enables, but doesn't substitute. I see something good in being able to look for a chord progression or a melody without being afraid of touching 41% of the keyboard because it might sound anywhere from bad to bloody awful, and depending on the harmonic context, that set of notes might be completely different than it was less than 2 seconds ago.

I do use the chord and scale plugs from time to time because even when I have a good grasp of harmony and music theory, the gap between knowing something and being able to apply it quickly and skillfully to an instrument that is somewhat foreign to me such as the keyboard is very wide. Still, I don't just slap them on and hope for the best, I like to set them up carefully based on what I want to achieve, and then render their output to MIDI to further adjust chord voicings and movement.

Tools like this enable many things, such as easier entry levels, collaboration, composition and performance. In the end it's all about generating ideas and turning them into sound, and I think we shouldn't instantly hate on a tool that might help with both.

rbmonosylabik wrote: I do use the chord and scale plugs from time to time because even when I have a good grasp of harmony and music theory, the gap between knowing something and being able to apply it quickly and skillfully to an instrument that is somewhat foreign to me such as the keyboard is very wide.

+1

at the end of the day it doesnt matter how skilled a player you are, how full your head is with music theory, ultimatly everything you can do, eveything you know, every thing you play/sequence/sample or whatever gets boiled and funneled down to that moment when you make a critical decision and ask your self are you liking what you hear, does it stay or does it go. how you get there doesnt realy matter atall, use whatever tools you can equip yourself with.

one good use I've found for it is for going through presets (in this case Absynth 5)

put a clip with one note>arpeggiator set to 1 bar or 1/2 then a random plug-in followed by swarzonator, then you can change presets to your hearts content without having to play the keyboard etc

Make everything super safe, make all those notes fit, but with no thought put into that fit, make it clean, strip away all elements of danger, and eventually hopefully people will come back around to music that takes chances. So yeah, I'm all for it, but not for the reasons people want me to be.

Machinesworking wrote:Make everything super safe, make all those notes fit, but with no thought put into that fit, make it clean, strip away all elements of danger, and eventually hopefully people will come back around to music that takes chances. So yeah, I'm all for it, but not for the reasons people want me to be.

+1

and maybe we could call that music then additionally innervisitionator music? that way we would have created something from utter genius, worthwhile a mention.

wow... so many pages about the topic.

it is an example. if the result is boring to people, they still might enjoy the techique and learn how to use it to come up with a max patch that creates the most amazing jazz harmonies. and actually, users where able to create the most generic music long before max for live....

Robert