Ableton Forum

many of us who use Live as their main sequencer have been arguing for more DAWlike features... proper surround support, decent midi editing, folder tracks, and so on and so forth.

recently however i have switched to using Cubase (and occasionally REAPER) as my primary DAW. and since then i've started to see the argument in a totally different light. it's something forge and others have been saying for a while: that every new DAWlike implementation dilutes Live, bloats it, distracts it, diverts it from its real strengths - i.e. a wonderful working environment, incredible real-time audio trickery, etc. etc...

so - i was thinking.

would it be possible (or desirable) to diversify the product range to include a LIVE version of Live?

apologies if something similar has been posted before... basically, i'm thinking a simplified, back-to-basics, small-footprint, fast-as-hell performance version of live. i don't know whether this is something the Ableton people would give a fuck about, or whether it's technically feasible, but it strikes me that it might be a nice idea to produce something intentionally streamlined for live performance. something really fast, really small footprint, and really really really fucking rock solid. it could be bundled with the big daddy Live packages or even sold separately.

it might have limits (number of channels / inserts / sends). it might have no arrangement page. it might be almost indistinguishable from the full app...

what do you think?

question :
Does having the empty arrangement window running in the background eat CPU?

I would use it if it had stable midi clock!

you know recently I've been coming to exactly the same conclusion

Like Melodyne do a plug-in version, I was thinking maybe Ableton should do a session plug-in edition

a standalone version of just "Ableton Session"

Arrange has been removed from the equation so there would be no need to be defeated by session automation any longer as there would be no relative/absolute

thinking about it further -

you could have proper session automation because there is no relative or absolute, just "automation"

so if you then wanted to sequence your session into a track then you could use clips on the MASTER track to record the clip/scene sequences, in much the way you would do it now if you used MIDI yoke/IAC and a clip to record scene or clip sequences

[if you do this now with MIDI Yoke/IAC then you create a track just for triggering the sequence and map MIDI notes to the scenes or clips then play the notes on the keyboard and record the different notes in a clip, which was fed via MIDI yoke/IAC and then sends it to Live's REMOTE - it's actually a really simple process, it just seems complex because a 3rd party routing system is involved]

I sort of imagine it to be a bit like how pattern sequences are recorded in Reason

I have absolutely no idea about the coding side of it, but I have a feeling if arrange was just removed from the picture altogether then a lot of this stuff would be a LOT easier to implement

aeon wrote: recently however i have switched to using Cubase (and occasionally REAPER) as my primary DAW. and since then i've started to see the argument in a totally different light. it's something forge and others have been saying for a while: that every new DAWlike implementation dilutes Live, bloats it, distracts it, diverts it from its real strengths - i.e. a wonderful working environment, incredible real-time audio trickery, etc. etc...

I've only worked with Live for about 6 months now, and with increasing enthusiasm. In the past, I've worked with Cubase, Logic, DP and Tracktion. At first, I also wanted more of the more "linear" features of the above apps. But I am also changing my mind about this. Live has some really big advantages over more timeline based sequenzers and it should play more on these strengths, especially since I also think that more "linear" features would probably make it much more complicated to use. I already find the "back to arrangement" button/concept rather weird.

So, yes, I totally agree, that Ableton should primarily work on making Live even more powerful as a LIVE/realtime app/instrument than it already is. You can still export your finished arrangement to another app for mixing. At least, that's what I find myself doing more and more.

Also, this should be much more fun to code than making just another "traditional" sequenzer.

Axl

bad idea.
this is why there is session view, and then arrangement view.

need not to complicate things anymore. i agree about over cluttering Live with DAW like features, but it's really not that far behind right now. there are only a few features they need to implement that will strengthen Live and make it easier and more flexible to use.