keyframe automation states, expanded effects capabilities

queglay · Post by **queglay** » Tue Jun 20, 2006 2:44 pm

I'm running a small think tank and we usually like to take a product and brainstorm how it could be better. Different to others, our philosophy is to offer the ideas for free. If people like them and use them thats great, and if they want to work more closely with us, especially for future interface developement, then we sort something out.

Anyway down to my first impressions of live.

I love it! For the creative process it kills anything else I've seen in a music creation interface, which even though it isn't geared so heavily towards studio production I still prefer it to anything else, and I think it should be beefed up more in that direction too for those that want it.

a few things though that would be handy:

it would be nice if you could create what they call in animation "keyframes" or "states" for any device. you should be able to say, create a configuration for any device like an eq, click create keyframe or save state. you should then be able to create another state, and dropping that anywhere on the time line will make all the appropriate automation changes over the time difference between the two keyframes, this saves alot of annoying curve drawing or knob turning, and you know exactly where the effect is going to end up once its dropped in. Having a library of these states for any effect or vst plugin would add a lot of power.

sometimes when i have wanted to automate something, i know what i want the final parameters to be but i dont know how i want them to start. thats another reason why these "states" would be really handy.

also, a wet/dry dial should be available on every single effect without exception, especially the eq's.

it would be nice if an advanced effect layout option was available, where the effect processing didn't have to be so linear, so you would use a schematic view similar to reaktor, but keep it as simple as reason. reason has got a good idea, but its useless because cables just get everywhere. a simple schematic view would work well. i have found this problem to be the most limiting issue for me with live. it would be nice to be able to split or connect any output of an effect to as many different effect nodes as i want in any order. having lfo generators and being able to plug them into any parameter in live would be an insanely powerful tool, rather than having to create an automation loop, and then you could use automation to control parameters of the lfo.

also, you should be able to create clips for the effect send/return channels. these could store automation and would save a lot of stuffing around. it would be handy to be able to alter automation only for the effect chain through the use of clips because they are often independent of the audio loops. maybe tracks could be split into two layers that are both controlled by clips, one for automation, and one for the audio input.

this is perhaps my most desired option.

Keep up the good work guys, and I hope you like the ideas!

queglay · Post by **queglay** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 5:17 am

here are just a few more suggestions that I've written down.

again, i think that being able to record automation into cells in the clip view is important. and you should be able to consolidate a recorded clip and drag it back into the cell view, retaining any automation curves that have been recorded. by not allowing this ability, you are essentially saying - you can use this great little cell view for recording, but you cant control any automation with external midi controllers. if you want automation, you have to draw it, which isn't intuitive, and you cant do it on the fly.

you should be able to divide or multiply (by a factor of 2) the speed of automation curves when they are unlinked, without affecting the rest of the track. some kind of scale tool would be handy too.

having an lfo generator would be great. and you should be able to assign it as an autoomation controller to anything you want.

it would be great to have a quick shortcut to an automation curve while playing with controls. you can intuitively see just buy looking at controls whether or not they have automation. so the fastest way to get to the relevent automation curve would be to have a simple right click (show automation for this control)

perhaps you could store automation curve presets in the library, and then drag and drop them directly over a control in your work area to apply it! how instant and easy would that be?

i think allowing colour coding for all your library assets would be very handy. having these kinds of visual cues would allow you to tag things for future reference easily.

Amaury · Post by **Amaury** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 6:31 am

Hi,

thanks for your input!
Just one thing: are you aware of the 'scale' parameter in Eq8? It acts like a dry/wet knob.

Regards,
Amaury

queglay · Post by **queglay** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 6:47 am

yeah for that one i am. thanks for the reply! i think it would be cool to just have a dry wet knob for the entire chain as an option on the mixer/rack. i know there is a workaround to do this, but as a standard option it would be handy.

queglay · Post by **queglay** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 4:23 pm

I just thought of something else that could work well. in addition to the lfo's which you could assign to any parameter, you could also maybe have an adsr envelope. this could be applied to any parameters in an effects chain, and would only be active if the track/effects send is armed. that way you could tweak instruments effects to pull them in closer with the instrument itself.

Poster · Post by **Poster** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 4:46 pm

queglay wrote:it would be great to have a quick shortcut to an automation curve while playing with controls. you can intuitively see just buy looking at controls whether or not they have automation. so the fastest way to get to the relevent automation curve would be to have a simple right click (show automation for this control).

isn't that already there? or did I not understand..
- automated parameters have a red square attached to the parameter..
- right-mouse click a parameter has a contextual 'show automation'..
- when you adjust or click a parameter, the associated automation lane is directly shown in Arrange..

Poster · Post by **Poster** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 4:49 pm

queglay wrote:I just thought of something else that could work well. in addition to the lfo's which you could assign to any parameter, you could also maybe have an adsr envelope. this could be applied to any parameters in an effects chain, and would only be active if the track/effects send is armed. that way you could tweak instruments effects to pull them in closer with the instrument itself.

+1
http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic. ... highlight=

queglay · Post by **queglay** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 3:00 am

there you go. already done. thats it right there! haha.

annihilator.1 · Post by **annihilator.1** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 7:10 am

i'd like preset state morphing too.

queglay · Post by **queglay** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 4:24 am

im not sure if this has been covered already, but this relates to midi control.
currently being able to turn cliups on and off works well, being able to use lights on whatever interface your using to see when a clip is playing is great. but it would be even better if there was a light indicator for any cells that just contain a clip. for example if on a lemur, or monome, you wouldn't have to look at your computer screen to see if a cell contained a clip. all that information would aready be there.

queglay · Post by **queglay** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 4:26 am

Poster wrote:
queglay wrote:isn't that already there? or did I not understand..- automated parameters have a red square attached to the parameter..
- right-mouse click a parameter has a contextual 'show automation'..
- when you adjust or click a parameter, the associated automation lane is directly shown in Arrange..

yeah it is there. sorry that must be new to live 6. pretty sure i didn't see both the automation and modulation shortcuts in 5. it might have just been automation.

queglay · Post by **queglay** » Mon Apr 23, 2007 5:13 am

another idea -

when tracks outputs are being routed out to another's input, it would be handy if there was a user option to have those tracks become "dropdown" items of the parent track. there currently isnt any real visual communication of how track routings are working and it can be difficult to troubleshoot any issues you're having with levels.

cubase's system works pretty well like this.

queglay · Post by **queglay** » Sun Nov 25, 2007 1:35 pm

i realise that one of the things about the design of live is that it try's not to just keep on adding features to the point that the interface looses its intuitiveness. so it's important when thinking of new ideas to keep this in mind.

theres a plugin im going to start working on in max for this next idea, but it could be great if it was incorporated into live itself.

it would be interesting if there was an option for some tracks to enable a continuous loop buffer mode so that you could loop somthing that you just played on any track. this could fill a cell with the midi or audio information. and it would be important to have control over the quantization or how many bars to start back at through midi.

this thread has a more detailed explanation of the concept-
http://www.ableton.com/pages/forum

given that live is so loop orientated i think this would be a much better and free flowing aproach to looping music and the way we use and perform with live. it would mean you could keep playing until you knew you just got it right, rather than hitting record, and attempting to get it right.

queglay · Post by **queglay** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 2:16 am

a new idea - one of the things that irritates us all with midi is having to map it. and there's also no system for applying a template of midi instructions if create a new object in ableton, like a new track. the realm of osc in the future provides an opportunity to get around this, but here is a solution i want to present for midi because we are all still going to be using it for a long time.

when you create a new track you have to map all your midi functions again. control surface protocols help get around this problem, a little. but thats only because they are predefined, and therfor limited.

what if you could use a mode in ableton that enabled you to create midi rules? this could be a hidden feature so it wouldn't clutter the interface for those that didn't want it.

you could say define a set of rules through a simple interface on the left that would be something like -
track volume = midi cc (track number), channel 1
track mute = midi note (track number), channel 1
play clip for track = midi note (track number), channel 1
track pan = midi cc (track number), channel 2
or you could add extra math too like
track pan = midi cc (track number + 16), channel 1

this would enable people to create their own kinds control surface protocols based on the ways they like to use their own hardware.

maybe the ableton/cycling 74 partnership could create something like this.

queglay · Post by **queglay** » Wed May 06, 2009 5:32 am

a new idea I've been thinking about -

better asset management.

this would allow you to rate any sample/instrument/effect, add colours and tags for groups.
group suggestions would include previous groups you have created.

this would mean you could mainatain very large libraryies of samples in multiple folders and very easily find your favourite kicks, snares and have them coloured and rated.

one of the biggest issues of audio production is managing assets in folders, and i think ni's kore has done a pretty good job of handling this.