Does Live 8 Support Sysex ???

[stiefelmusik]

Before taking the plunge and upgrading to Live 8 from Live 7, I wanted to ask does anyone know if Live 8 supports sysex? After glancing through the manual's index, I fear not -- but I wanted to confirm that with someone who already owns Live 8. Previous versions apparently filter out sysex messages, making it impossible to store patch dumps from external synths, etc. Anyone?

[hoffman2k]

Live does not deal with sysex messages.
Max for Live probably will.

[GUY SMILEY]

no. it's a major pain in the arse

[stiefelmusik]

Thanks for the replies. I was afraid as much.... Sysex support is something I've sorely missed in Live for years. Not only have I never been able to use those tasty cells to store patches, I've never been able to record real-time control changes from my Roland PG-300 which only transmits sysex.

Bummer!

[GUY SMILEY]

yeah same.. have to use protools to record sysex..
severely limits how you can use external synths, and considering my old atari used to record sysex 20 years ago pretty astonishingly crap

[stiefelmusik]

My sentiments, exactly! As great a composition tool as Live is, the lack of sysex and patchname support, among other things, is one of the primary reasons I mostly use it as a rewire client and not as a standalone sequencer. What's more, Live mostly ignores OS X's global CoreMIDI setup. Sure, it gives us access to the MIDI ports, but there are no custom port names and no patchnames.

In general, I feel modern sequencers are biased towards people using virtual instruments. Hell, I've got a studio full of fabulous old synths. I don't NEED virtual instruments!

This is why I still have an old Powermac G4 running OS 9.2.2, Cubase VST 5.1, and eMagic Sound Diver! Talk about a great setup for working with external MIDI synths!

[purpurkatten]

I must agree, Live not supporting sysex is a serious limitation for a serious sequencer.

Would it be realistic to hope that someone would fix this with Max for Live?

[inmazevo]

FWIW:
If you use a Mac, you can get this:
http://www.snoize.com/SysExLibrarian/

Works pretty well, and free.

I actually use that over even Logic Pro, which does handle sysex messages, but it's implementation is so clunky (IMHO) I'd rather just use a librarian. Apple never got around to getting SoundDiver going again, or putting its functionality into Logic Pro. Bummer.

Anyway, you just dump your sysex to/from your hardware with it before playing back your track.

Not sure what's around for Windows.

Take care,
- zevo

[rasputin]

Where does it end?

Live also does not have a means to edit individual MIDI events, like MIDI sequencers have.
Then when you have that you need a means to select MIDI events by characteristic, and replace or interpolate events with different characteristics.

Basically, there is an endless list of features you could enumerate. I am not happy that all the controller support is built into the program. It seems like a waste to me. But Live is still fast enough, powerful enough and functional enough that I'm still slurping the Kool Aid. I don't even ever play live and it's still the best production tool I have.

There may come a day when I say "Basta!" and not upgrade anymore, but so far they're still getting my yearly "subscription fee".

[GUY SMILEY]

FWIW:
If you use a Mac, you can get this:
http://www.snoize.com/SysExLibrarian/

Works pretty well, and free.

I actually use that over even Logic Pro, which does handle sysex messages, but it's implementation is so clunky (IMHO) I'd rather just use a librarian. Apple never got around to getting SoundDiver going again, or putting its functionality into Logic Pro. Bummer.

Anyway, you just dump your sysex to/from your hardware with it before playing back your track.

Not sure what's around for Windows.

Take care,
- zevo

Ah thanks yeah, thats useful. To be honest, it's the ability to record fader movements in realtime which appeals, rather than dumping memory.. maybe Max will solve this .. I wait with baited breath !

[ytsek]

M4L wont do sysex either.

[Hermanus]

add this to WISHLIST!!!!!!!

[stiefelmusik]

add this to WISHLIST!!!!!!!

I'm afraid it's already been on the wishlist for years. I researched this topic before posting and found that quite a number of people have been wishing for sysex support in Live for years.

Wouldn't hurt to keep asking, though, I suppose. But I'm not getting my hopes up about it any more. Clearly, building sysex support into Live is not a priority.

So, I will just have to continue using workarounds it seems. Thanks to the poster above for the links to SysEx Librarian. I will check it out. That should at least help with patch management for my external synths. But it still won't help me record fader movements from the PG-300. Not the end of the world, mind you... but like Guy Smiley said, it's frustrating that I could do this almost 20 years ago with Cubase on an Atari ST, but can't in 2009 with Ableton Live 7 on an Apple G5.

In Ableton's defense, I honestly feel it's more a statement of the times; a reflection of current trends in technology. Old school MIDI, of which sysex was an essential part, is no longer important for most developers. The fact that Apple let SoundDiver die after acquiring eMagic further demonstrates the general trend away from outboard synths and Old School MIDI towards Virtual Instruments and New School MIDI.

So, I'm forced to make a choice: go with the trends or put up with the inconveniences of working Old School. For me, the decision is easy: I'll take my Roland Juno-2 with PG-300 programmer any day over even my favorite softsynth (like Arturia's Minimoog, which I find excellent). I mean, a huge part of making music is simply the Element of Fun -- and, for me at least, softsynths just aren't that much fun... no matter how good they sound. I still use them, of course, depending on the track... but when I want to have FUN... outboard is the only way for me.

So, while I lament the lack of sysex in Live, I'm not going to let it stop me from enjoying the best of both worlds: using Live's state-of-the-art cutting edge interface with vintage gear is still incredibly inspiring.

[GUY SMILEY]

So, while I lament the lack of sysex in Live, I'm not going to let it stop me from enjoying the best of both worlds: using Live's state-of-the-art cutting edge interface with vintage gear is still incredibly inspiring.

I'm with you there. I hope this doesn't just slide though.
There seems to be enough people who enjoy using old synthesisers for sysex to be integrated in some way into live being genuinely appreciated by many of us.

[shannong]

Lack of SysEx support is the single reason I won't shell out $200 to upgrade to Live 8. I was pretty bummed to find out that Live 7 didn't support SysEx. My money since then had to be spent on a competitive upgrade to another DAW program (MOTU DP6). I'd *love* to use Live instead, but without SysEx support... I'm about ready to just remove it from my hard drive at this point. I certainly wouldn't recommend Live to any owner of a serious workstation.