Surprise Live 5 !

[braj]

The Ford GT40 is cool but the Mustang is still a piece of shit.

[Meffy]

In a fit of poor judgement I posted the following ditty in response to a question on the Ableton forums concerning the cost of upgrading. Good thing I'm too refined and dignified to post such nonsense here!

[to the tune of "Twenty-Five or Six to Four" by Chicago]

Waiting for the new release,
Searching for spiritual peace...
Hoping to get in that beta
(If not this round, maybe later).

Will I have to pay some more
To upgrade to five from four?

[celticdale]

Now if we could only create our own color schemes...

It is ugly but it's my favorite program to work in. Only Native Instruments is uglier.

I'm going to wait a little longer and watch the Euro decline. When it's equal to the dollar (or less) I'll upgrade then. It won't be long.

[LarryAW]

The thing that sets them apart is they actually listen to what their customers feature requests and respond to any problems you have in PERSON (they also update the product on a regular basis).

I have Live 4 and I will grab Live 5 the day it's available for download. I had to say that when Live 4 was released, people were saying the exact opposite, that Ableton does not listen to customer's feature requests. Do a search for Live 4 and laugh at the post now.

I do remember an interview somewhere where Ableton said that they will not add a feature until they have thoroughly discussed it to avoid having to remove it later.

[james0tucson]

Interesting, but slightly unfair to people who bought Live 4 before May 1st 2005.

Wait, you're saying there's no upgrade for existing users?

Well, that's bad for anyone who bought the program, but good for anyone who didn't (and *won't* now).

[Meffy]

Wait, you're saying there's no upgrade for existing users?

Nooo! From the Ableton website:

Live 5 will be available for 499 EUR/USD (MSRP) from dealers worldwide and from the Ableton webshop. The release is scheduled for late July 2005.

Buy your version of Live now and be among the first to own Live 5! All customers who unlock Live 4 for the first time from June 1, 2005 until the final release day of Live 5 will receive a version 5 serial number on release day at no charge.

Upgrading from Live 4

* For customers who purchased Live 4 before May 1, 2005, downloadable upgrades to Live 5 will be available for 119 EUR/USD from the Ableton webshop.
* Boxed upgrades will be available for 149 EUR/USD (MSRP) from dealers worldwide and from the Ableton webshop.

Accommodation for recent buyers of Live 4

* For customers who purchased Live 4 between May 1, 2005 and May 31, 2005, downloadable upgrades to Live 5 will be available for 49 EUR/USD from the Ableton webshop.
* All customers who unlock Live 4 for the first time from June 1, 2005 until the final release day of Live 5 will receive a version 5 serial number on release day at no charge.

Upgrading from Live 1, 2 and 3

* Downloadable upgrades from Live 1, 2 or 3 to Live 5 will be available for 169 EUR/USD from the Ableton webshop.
* Boxed upgrades from Live 1, 2 or 3 to Live 5 will be available for 199 EUR/USD from the Ableton webshop.

http://www.ableton.com/index.php?main=l ... ailability

[braj]

Interesting, but slightly unfair to people who bought Live 4 before May 1st 2005.

Wait, you're saying there's no upgrade for existing users?

Well, that's bad for anyone who bought the program, but good for anyone who didn't (and *won't* now).

No, there are reasonable upgrade paths for existing users.

[james0tucson]

Interesting, but slightly unfair to people who bought Live 4 before May 1st 2005.

Wait, you're saying there's no upgrade for existing users?

Well, that's bad for anyone who bought the program, but good for anyone who didn't (and *won't* now).

No, there are reasonable upgrade paths for existing users.

Okay, the post implied otherwise.

This is one thing that stopped Magix for me. They expect you to buy the $80 package every time the release it. I did that for a few years, but then they missed the 24 bit boat. That wasn't the biggest problem though. They were downright hostile to me when I asked about it. THAT was the end.

I use Audition now for audio. I've never read how Live compares to it.

[ztutz]

This release of Live is going to be great, and well worth the cost of upgrading, but at some point, with all of those "extra" programmers, Live will become a feature-bloated, quirky, but still very useful sequencer just like Sonar is today. Unfortunate, that! The march of progress, I guess.

One of the best and most distinguishing things about Live has been its simple and consistent user model...

Honestly, I think that you guys complaining about the upgrade costs is in very poor taste.

I am assuming that you did not get the memo (ie, the email from ableton for those of us that are subscribed).

They said that due to the success of LIVE4, they were able to add programmers and thus get such a great program to us ASAP. If you stop to realize that they really only have the one product, and that it, evidently, costs money to develop software....well, you do the math.

Plus, it takes time to develop stuff. Would you rather still be working with LIVE3, waiting 2 years for LIVE5 just to save $120? Not me, I would rather have the functionality for a year and then upgrade. It isn't as if they have all the code written already and are saying......hmmmm, what should we put in this time so that we can release something and make money off of those poor suckers....

By the way, a lot of the development is done by people who actually use this to make their music....so, yeah, they aren't putting functionality in that they would want so they can't use it and bilk us out of money..

Jeez, and the power of LIVE5 with all the other vstis around is like having a $20,000 studio on your laptop (just a guess on the figure)......what a bunch of whiners.

[anti-banausic]

I don't know, as long as the development is being driven by folks like Robert and Gerhard, I think it will remain different no matter how many programmers they add.

The real difference is that musicians are developing for themselves and other musicians. Therefore, it is designed differently. It was never really designed to emulate (visually or otherwise) hardware consoles etc....

I believe that it will remain different so long as all the people at Ableton remain there.

My .02

[ztutz]

I don't know, as long as the development is being driven by folks like Robert and Gerhard, I think it will remain different no matter how many programmers they add.

The real difference is that musicians are developing for themselves and other musicians. Therefore, it is designed differently. It was never really designed to emulate (visually or otherwise) hardware consoles etc....

I believe that it will remain different so long as all the people at Ableton remain there.

My .02

It is a *great* program. I agree that it was a clear usability breakthough.

Cassandra sez: whenever I see someone crowing about new staff (especially marketing staff <shudder>) it brings out an unpleasant streak of pessimism in me... Over the years, we've all watched the recurrent spectacle of both music software and hardware companies blowing/bloating themselves up, or else selling their wonderful inventions to very poorly matched partners. A large appetite for cash brought on by a big payroll, coupled with minimal management experience, often seems to blame. Ironically, the "listening to customers" thing also often screws things up as the customer base and the musical fads morph, pushing the limits of what were originally clean, simple, user models.

I'm also very glad to see that they've stepped back from the "use the upgrade to sell new, non-included, features" approach that they used around NAMM this year when Live became a demo for Operator. That is another disease that often strikes: bundle-itis.

Despite these sour predictions, I certainly hope that you are right! I plan to snarf a copy of Live5 as soon as possible - looks wonderful.

[soulkraka]

In a fit of poor judgement I posted the following ditty in response to a question on the Ableton forums concerning the cost of upgrading. Good thing I'm too refined and dignified to post such nonsense here!

[to the tune of "Twenty-Five or Six to Four" by Chicago]

Waiting for the new release,
Searching for spiritual peace...
Hoping to get in that beta
(If not this round, maybe later).

Will I have to pay some more
To upgrade to five from four?

you crack me up Meffy

[anti-banausic]

Actually ztutz, Operator wasnt' unveiled (and we didn't even know about it) until after the release of LIVE4. Therefore, there could be something in the works over at Ableton concerning new instruments. They are adding a bunch of effects (arpeggiator and the stutter-er look really good to me) and updating simpler. I personally wasn't a huge fan of Operator and didn't purchase it. Just have too many other VSTi's that sit better with me. Especially when I got Filterscape for $89 and minimonsta for the same price as Operator. Don't get me wrong I think it is a really cool synth and, to be honest, I haven't fooled around with it that much.

Just saying that there could be something else around the corner after LIVE5. I too am not terribly fond of that technique...I think that if they are really, truly proud of Operator they should market it as a VSTi that is optimized for LIVE. I don't think that there are that many people that are going to try Operator and say....this is soooooo good that I have to have LIVE for it....

But I think there would be plenty of people that would like Operator enough to pay $149 for it and use it in other hosts as well.

Cheers,
AB

[stale bread]

cool thing about it though is that they knowingly left the work around in so that you don't even have to pay for operator if you don't want to but you can still use it, that is very big
of them in my opinion.