Thoughts on Note

[Fizmarble]

I understand that Note is not intended to be a portable, full-featured DAW. That said, I have some thoughts I wanted to share.

1. Great idea, Ableton! I was surprised by this announcement.
2. Integration with Live?! Woohoo!
3. Free cloud support!? I expected there to be a charge for this. Bravo!
4. $5.99 for Note!?!? Ah, that's where you are making your money. Disappointed, but at least no paying for cloud.
5. It would be great if I could add notes after the recording (edit: by click and dragging). I see that I can transpose them, but If I want to do some hi-hat rolls, I just have to use beat repeat? Maybe you plan to add support for moving notes in the future. (more edit: Playing beats in real-time with AirPods adding a bit of delay really highlights this need. Yes, I own wired headphones. But they are not nearly as convenient and portable as AirPods. Plus, Ableton opted to go iOS first, and iOS users are going to have some AirPods.)
6. Same as above for length of notes.
7. Ok, since you are already charging 6 bucks, how about make this more like a DAW, then you can charge a few more, and I'll pay!
[apparently number 8 is a non-issue. I but I couldn't find a strikethrough to cross it out]
8. Since now you are making it more like a DAW, you can add support for audio interfaces like iRig and others.

I'm glad we had this little chat!

[Tarekith]

5. You can add more notes to a clip after you've already recorded some, Note supports overdubbing. Just start playing the notes and use Capture to add them to the current clip.

There is also built in Repeat functionality for doing hi hat rolls, tap the button next to the Redo arrow when in clip view to access a lot more options.

You can also move your notes as well, just select the notes you want to move and use the Nudge functionality. I highly recommend watching the video stickied at the top of this forum to learn all the functionality of Note!

8. You can use any audio interface that you normally can use in iOS apps, so not sure I understand your issue?

[Fizmarble]

5. You can add more notes to a clip after you've already recorded some, Note supports overdubbing. Just start playing the notes and use Capture to add them to the current clip.

Yeah, I wasn't clear on that. I'm looking for more of a "tap the grid marker to add a note" sort of functionality, like Live proper. I don't want to have to nail a single 16th note in between two eights to get add a little spice to the hats. I also don't want to have to precision tap and release using beat repeat. The current approach is, you either play it until you get it right, or you record more than needed and then delete.

There is also built in Repeat functionality for doing hi hat rolls, tap the button next to the Redo arrow when in clip view to access a lot more options.

I addressed this in my original post. I'm aware of it, I just want other options.

I highly recommend watching the video stickied at the top of this forum to learn all the functionality of Note!

I did!

8. You can use any audio interface that you normally can use in iOS apps, so not sure I understand your issue?

Well, thanks. I guess my issue was that I didn't know that.

[klangsulfat]

I can't really get to grips with the app.

Do I understand correctly that Note is only meant for real-time recording and finger drumming, so it doesn't have any features for step sequencing or key-roll editing?

[Tarekith]

Yes, currently you have to actually play the parts you want to record first like musicians historically have done. Afterwards there is some editing available for things like nudging, transposing, quantizing, etc.

[klangsulfat]

OK, then probably many of the usual Ableton users (myself included) won't be too happy with the new app.

However, we're talking about version 1.0 here, and all sound-generating or sound-shaping aspects are already very satisfying. It remains exciting and I hope that Ableton will expand the editing features of the sequencer section sooner or later.

[ze2be]

Ive been hoping for this for years, so a big THANK YOU to the Ableton team!!

Some thoughts:

0. Its awesome!
1. Needs 4 fx slots: rev, delay, eq, <- these 3 absolute minimum!
2. Need to make our own synth presets. None of these leads and basses fits my genre!
3. Custom frequency needed on the low cut of the eq.
4. Needs auto pan plug and regular pan for instruments.
5. Why not add a simple side-chain option, like most hardware groove-boxes.


Id be willing to make a free preset pack for Note, just to get my genre represented, if thats what it takes. This would make it usable for me. I know hundreds of producers in my broad circle that would appreciate that.

[Flowingglower]

My first thoughts:

First off: I loooove that Ableton finally dips its toes into the mobile world. I was begging for an iPad app for years and here we go. I can't express how happy I am about this.

Some more details:
1) agree that first it wasn't super intuitive, but watching the couple short videos on their site and playing around with the app I got used to it very quickly.
2) the app seems basic initially, but if you dive deeper the sound capabilities and editing capabilities are far from basic. You can get some advanced sounding stuff outta this app.
3) let's also remember that this is version 1.0 and for what it wants to be for now - an idea capturing app - it delivers.
4) of course I also have a long list of features I want to have but to get started Note really is great. Top of the list would be to load your own sample/drum rack kits.

Generally I think it depends on your workflow if this app really suits your way of working right now. I do create my tracks mostly with midi anyway so for me it works. If you heavily rely on audio warping this might not be for you right now.

I can see this easily becoming more and more powerful over time and heading more into a real DAW solution with more features being added. And I can't wait

[ze2be]

You can load you own samples and drum samples. This is great!

However you can not create your own synth presets, which makes the app less usable then it could be for some of us with particular styles.

It looks like when opening the projects in live that all the synth sounds are made with Wavetable and 8 macros, followed by 2 standard effects. If we could make our own preset racks within this limitation it would be so amazing. Or at least let some of us build some free preset packs to the community. That would be ace.

To represent my genre I only need about 4 bass presets, 4 lead presets, and 3 kick samples. Absolutely no need for a gazillion preset libraries.

[emma]

Just a thought about the GUI - why do have the sampler clips a little keyboard symbol and the key/synth clips a wave as symbol ? Should be vice versa in my opinion . However, I like Note, very cool app !

[JukkaK]

Initial thoughts really positive. I like the workflow based on the capture.
However, for me anyways, possibility to change note lenght would be important. Can’t see myself writing any actual melodies etc with this, but could easily lay down some grooves and note lenght plays important role in that. Also because Apple, i often use BT headphones which makes real time playing really hard.

Some other wishes for the future would be;
- some simple but more proper synth to tweak a bit
- fadeout in sampler and Slice mode!
- maybe arp of some kind

Anyways, positive first try. Feels quite intuitive for me.