Live 6

[pdxindy]

Save as a group...like an effect you can load into another project?

you can save the group like it is one effect in the browser and then drag it into any project. You select the device chain, control-G (or Apple-G) and drag it into the browser.... saved

Now though, it will include any 3rd party plug-ins (that is how I read it) so if you have say a Zebra2 preset that you like to play with a Kjaerhus compressor, you can save them together as their own device.

Sweet!

...You *can* do this in Live5 using MIDI tracks (...not audio, though...), but it's sort of a *fake*:
create your synth/effects chain with either Live or 3rd party or mix on a MIDI track...dbl clik a session cell on that MIDI track (this creates a blank MIDI clip)...name the clip whatever you like...drag that clip to a folder you've set up for just such a purpose as to save all your custom synth/fx chains and you're done. All synth and fx assignments are saved to that clip. Pull it into a project and it will have saved all settings to that blank MIDI clip
This aint what's being proposed for L6, but hey- it's already in your L5 toolbox sorry if this is old territory for some, but it's a great convenience that can be exploited (time savers are always cool )

good point, I use that a lot myself now...

in 6 with the racks you can have multiple synths, effects, routings etc and you can setup multiple controls on a single knob... that is a big step forward

[pdxindy]

The midi is still going to be shit, follow actions has not been updated,

Monolake said the follow actions were improved in Live6 -

[kuniklo]

in 6 with the racks you can have multiple synths, effects, routings etc and you can setup multiple controls on a single knob... that is a big step forward

When would you ever want to do this? I can get a patch as big as I want with any of a dozen synths I have now. I don't get this whole instrument-layering thing. Maybe it makes sense on a triton when you're trying to lay a whole performance out on a single keyboard or something but with the softsynths available today I rarely use half of the oscillators available in a single instance, let alone a stack of three or four.

It seems like a lot of the new features in Live 6 are there to pave the way for a bunch of professional third party sound & loop packs, like Reason. Phooey.

[docbot]

yes, it seem to become more like reason in some ways.

I think it's just strange that you can assign a parameter to a knob and wiggle it, but can't have a Lfo generator that does the same. I thought Live was geared torward electronic musicians firstly and those little building blocks just would work very well for such things. Also would find it nice if you could see the arpeggiators work in the arrange view in a different color and then choose to sort of render it to the midi file if you want too.

[blortblort]

You can use midiclips to control parameters now.
It is a woraround though, involving the use of a third party utility such as modi yoke.

true, you can use midi yoke, etc- but you can also map cc's to plugins by using in the "little arrow" (the "native GUI" support in Live instead of the plugin's own GUI). When you unfold the parameters of the effect or synth, you can then use Live's native MIDI or KEY mapping (admittedly, not perfect- a lot of times plugin parameter descriptions are cryptic at best..and Live only provides for 128 parameters with their native GUI controls)

[kuniklo]

The really irritating thing about this is that it makes two major releases without any serious effort to improve the fundamental workflow and capabilities of the core application. Instead we get a bunch of second-rate effect plugins, a bare-bones arpeggiator, an extremely limited arpeggiator, and a crappy FM synth that costs as much as far, far superior VST plugins. Live 5 was also very flaky and crashy for a long time. Now we get a bare-bones "sampler" for $200 extra in a tiny little UI strip. A full upgrade from Live 5 to Live 6 + boxed content + sampler is $420!!!! Logic users got Sculpture, Ultrabeat, and Space Designer and a bunch of workflow improvements and sample content for much less in the upgrade to 7.

At this point I think I'd rather see them just dump the whole arrange view and give me a simplified session view-style tool for half price that I can rewire into Logic or Cubase and just use as a sketchpad because it's starting to look more and more like the rest of it is going to suck for a long time.

Grumpy...

[diverdee]

Oh yeah - I know about live's midi mapping - I'm on about using envelopes within the session view etc. to control parameters on send effects etc.

[kuniklo]

You can use midiclips to control parameters now.
It is a woraround though, involving the use of a third party utility such as modi yoke.

true, you can use midi yoke, etc- but you can also map cc's to plugins by using in the "little arrow" (the "native GUI" support in Live instead of the plugin's own GUI). When you unfold the parameters of the effect or synth, you can then use Live's native MIDI or KEY mapping (admittedly, not perfect- a lot of times plugin parameter descriptions are cryptic at best..and Live only provides for 128 parameters with their native GUI controls)

And, when you do this you CAN'T record this automation into session clips, only into the arrange view. As far as I can tell this is still the case in version 6.

[docbot]

yeah it's really sad how this turned out, I really thought that ableton was going to make everything right and concentrate on the important ui stuff, but almost nothing has changed on a fundamental level.

[Mr. Tunes]

Why's everyone beating up on Ableton? It's not like anyone's really tried this version yet? Also look how quickly the program has evolved- It came out a year after Reason! Reason's last update just included the Combinator and some mastering effects.

[kuniklo]

Why's everyone beating up on Ableton? It's not like anyone's really tried this version yet? Also look how quickly the program has evolved- It came out a year after Reason! Reason's last update just included the Combinator and some mastering effects.

The point is that a whole bunch of things haven't been touched since Live 4 and a lot of use were hoping this would be the version that addressed them. Reason's hardly the best counter-example. Look how much Cubase, Logic and Sonar have improved in the same timespan.

[docbot]

I sometimes wonder what the Logic, Cubase developers are actually doing all the time. one would thinkt that with all their money and workforce they would be the ones who bring us nice updates all the time.

anyway I am getting a hardware sequencer, and mfb synth and an mbass and will be kicking it electro style

[MartynM]

Why's everyone beating up on Ableton? It's not like anyone's really tried this version yet? Also look how quickly the program has evolved- It came out a year after Reason! Reason's last update just included the Combinator and some mastering effects.

Yeah, fair point.

It looks like we'll be able to re-size the mixer vertically as well as horizontally, that'll make for better control over mixdowns. When you put it all together in the upgrade price, new FX (eq looks good) and everything, its not too bad actually. Bit of a shame they chose to charge extra for the sampler, but apert from that I think I've changed my mind, The mixer sold it to me.

[blortblort]

Save as a group...like an effect you can load into another project?

you can save the group like it is one effect in the browser and then drag it into any project. You select the device chain, control-G (or Apple-G) and drag it into the browser.... saved

Now though, it will include any 3rd party plug-ins (that is how I read it) so if you have say a Zebra2 preset that you like to play with a Kjaerhus compressor, you can save them together as their own device.

Sweet!

...You *can* do this in Live5 using MIDI tracks (...not audio, though...), but it's sort of a *fake*:
create your synth/effects chain with either Live or 3rd party or mix on a MIDI track...dbl clik a session cell on that MIDI track (this creates a blank MIDI clip)...name the clip whatever you like...drag that clip to a folder you've set up for just such a purpose as to save all your custom synth/fx chains and you're done. All synth and fx assignments are saved to that clip. Pull it into a project and it will have saved all settings to that blank MIDI clip
This aint what's being proposed for L6, but hey- it's already in your L5 toolbox sorry if this is old territory for some, but it's a great convenience that can be exploited (time savers are always cool )

good point, I use that a lot myself now...

in 6 with the racks you can have multiple synths, effects, routings etc and you can setup multiple controls on a single knob... that is a big step forward

the fact that you'll be able to route multiple controllers to a given knob is one of the biggest advantages that I see so far in the new features.
the "ableton combinator" thingy is a cool deal, but so far- I think money's better spent on adding eXT to your toolbox than forking out for the L6 upgrade (...though I've already got eXT- I'll still probably upgrade to 6 meself ) seriously- eXT and Live solves a lot of problems.

Oh yeah - I know about live's midi mapping - I'm on about using envelopes within the session view etc. to control parameters on send effects etc.

yes- THAT WOULD be nice...

[pdxindy]

the fact that you'll be able to route multiple controllers to a given knob is one of the biggest advantages that I see so far in the new features.
the "ableton combinator" thingy is a cool deal, but so far- I think money's better spent on adding eXT to your toolbox than forking out for the L6 upgrade (...though I've already got eXT- I'll still probably upgrade to 6 meself ) seriously- eXT and Live solves a lot of problems.

eXT is not available on Mac so it is no solution at all for me, but I would still rather have some of the functionality in Live itself than have to use another program.

the first tests posted show about a 60% cpu increase with the dual processor support. That is big