Ableton Forum

Hi folks,

I'm using 7 right now, working great on both Macbook pro and my G5.
Been waiting for a solid 8 to do the upgrade.
What's tempting me is mostly the nested tracks, fades & groove engine.
But I don't wanna sacrifice stability for those features.
So my question is simply... is it time to go to 8?

Best,
Fredrik

I can't specifically talk about macs, being a windows user myself, but I'm not the only one using live 8 since day one without any problem. Obviously, you only see the bad cases in this forum, as they are the ones crying for help. But besides them, there are tons of happy 8 users without any problems. So i guess close to one year after release, you should, with a big chance, be save.

How about trying the demo for a while, and trying to push it to it's limits? then you know if it works for you.

Then again, I'm a lucky guy. Played live with some traktor betas on a vista beta back when xp was still the only thing known, and continued like that during all my years. I never cared about "stable versions" because I never had any issue (that was software related). I just update / upgrade to newest versions, and only fall back if the new version lacks an essential feature I need (like traktor pro lacking one for me).

Same for ableton live, of course.

Oh, and unimportant if it's stable or not, you have to have some fallback solution anyways. HW can die, your cables can get plucked out, something drops onto the laptop (yeah, even stuff of a stage can fall down, or a light in a club, what ever).

you always need some fallback. but in my case, so far never because of the software..

why not demo it and see ?

Just be sure not to load your Live 7 projects in without making a backup of them first. You're probably better off just making something from scratch to test the new new capabilities and if it runs stable it should be fine.

But If I install 8, won't that screw with my library?
I remember installing the beta of 8 early on, and I had to mess with my library to get it working again.
I guess I could install it on another hard drive.

I just wanted to know if there are any nasty bugs still there...

F

yeah, backup your library and put the Live 8 one in a different location to be safe.

just backup everything with time machine or time capsule before testing out. i do this with new stuff, or stuff that could harm my system, too. first a system backup to the home server, then testing out.

I haven't had a problem with live since the beta testing and even then I didn't have many problems. I'm using a 3 year old macbook pro and it does great!
I support what the others say, though. try the demo, then decide!

I'm hoping the Abes might offer a Christmas special of some kind (I couldn't afford to take advantage of the $30 coupon earlier in the year).

thunderbay wrote:But If I install 8, won't that screw with my library?
I remember installing the beta of 8 early on, and I had to mess with my library to get it working again.
I guess I could install it on another hard drive.

I just wanted to know if there are any nasty bugs still there...

F

back up to be safe. i didn't really have that many issues going from live le to 8.
btw 8 runs flawlessly. all issues I've had are my fault and or plug in related

i absolutely love 8, and dont have any problems on 8.0.4, id say demo it and see how it runs for the time being, upgrade if you really feel like you want to and want some extra and new stuff.

if you are on mac use simply another user account for 8 demo. i did so. and i'm not upgrading.

Great idea with another account, thanks!

What made you stick with 7?

Best,
Fredrik

I'd recommend upgrading as long as you're on 10.5 and not 10.6. Live 8 was solid on my Mac Pro with 10.5 and still seems pretty good with 10.6, though for stability sake, stay with 10.5. Live 8 is much better than 7 in terms of features.

nobody can answer that for you, try the demo.

every release of Live 8 has been solid for me. others would tell you differently.

thunderbay wrote:Great idea with another account, thanks!

What made you stick with 7?

Best,
Fredrik

I'm still on 7, and its been, economic reasons, for sure. I guess, as cool as 8 looks, I didn't have, "an upgrade urgency." Not to mention the fact that, "there was a lot of other gear I wanted to buy this year as well." One picks n chooses, I suppose.

Now I feel like, "maybe I will just skip 8, and wait till L 9. After all, its 2010, and Live 9 will arrive in the final three months of the year, or shortly thereafter."

I wouldn't even be surprised if we started hearing about 9 in June. Ableton likes to cycle faster than lesbian twins!