Persistence Please
Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2015 2:53 pm
Dear Ableton,
Imagine having a hardware synth and creating some patch for it and the next time you load the patch, it sorta' sounds like what you created... absurd, but that is the actual state of things using Live 9 and current Ableton Packs.
I often experience that module states are not properly preserved across sessions, i.e. stuff sounds differently after a save and reload. Which pretty much renders Ableton Live unusable for any serious work. It is completely useless that carefully crafted sounds and moods are not preserved across saves in what purports to be a professional tool.
I believe that Live itself is capable of properly preserving the project state across saves, i.e. project structure, mix and automation setting and so on. The culprits are mostly various instrument and effect modules not preserving their state properly. And especially, it seems, Max 4 Live products with Mono Sequencer being a well known example (why is this still not fixed?).
I am not talking about various more or less finished 3rd party hobby M4L creations, as those are shared in various states of completeness which is the whole point of an open platform like Max. I am talking about commercial Packs distributed by Ableton.
I think Ableton should pursue this vigorously, and demand from its contributors (K-Devices, Max for Cats, AAS, Amazing Noises and so on) that the criterium be met before being released, that their instruments, effects, whatever, are capable of properly preserving state across sessions. It is rather fundamental, in my opinion.
Now just as an example: I spent a lot of time creating a patch in OSCiLLOT 1.01 yesterday. And when I loaded it up today, several settings across the patch were not preserved properly, resulting in the patch sounding rather differently - useless. I am not out to get OSCiLLOT specifically, and I think it is an absolutely brilliant idea and product, but it is an example of a product that ought to be too rough and unfinished for commercial sale, since the pretty basic requirement that you can deterministically create a certain sound and preserve that is not met. So as I said, just an example - the problem is general and goes of course for any module, M4L or otherwise - some of the VSTs have the problem also. But those are not sold by Ableton.
So please Ableton, raise the bar, at least for the products you sell.
Imagine having a hardware synth and creating some patch for it and the next time you load the patch, it sorta' sounds like what you created... absurd, but that is the actual state of things using Live 9 and current Ableton Packs.
I often experience that module states are not properly preserved across sessions, i.e. stuff sounds differently after a save and reload. Which pretty much renders Ableton Live unusable for any serious work. It is completely useless that carefully crafted sounds and moods are not preserved across saves in what purports to be a professional tool.
I believe that Live itself is capable of properly preserving the project state across saves, i.e. project structure, mix and automation setting and so on. The culprits are mostly various instrument and effect modules not preserving their state properly. And especially, it seems, Max 4 Live products with Mono Sequencer being a well known example (why is this still not fixed?).
I am not talking about various more or less finished 3rd party hobby M4L creations, as those are shared in various states of completeness which is the whole point of an open platform like Max. I am talking about commercial Packs distributed by Ableton.
I think Ableton should pursue this vigorously, and demand from its contributors (K-Devices, Max for Cats, AAS, Amazing Noises and so on) that the criterium be met before being released, that their instruments, effects, whatever, are capable of properly preserving state across sessions. It is rather fundamental, in my opinion.
Now just as an example: I spent a lot of time creating a patch in OSCiLLOT 1.01 yesterday. And when I loaded it up today, several settings across the patch were not preserved properly, resulting in the patch sounding rather differently - useless. I am not out to get OSCiLLOT specifically, and I think it is an absolutely brilliant idea and product, but it is an example of a product that ought to be too rough and unfinished for commercial sale, since the pretty basic requirement that you can deterministically create a certain sound and preserve that is not met. So as I said, just an example - the problem is general and goes of course for any module, M4L or otherwise - some of the VSTs have the problem also. But those are not sold by Ableton.
So please Ableton, raise the bar, at least for the products you sell.
