Live6 Beta1 is in the wild...to registered 5 users only!

[headquest]

No - its a transferred serial for Live 4 (plus then I'll upgrade and get free 6)

Oh, I see.

[headquest]

I haven't tried the sampler yet, but I have to say they really nailed it with the racks. I had no intention of updating at first... but the racks alone could be enough to make me crack open the piggy bank. Sure I've built stuff somewhat similar using lots of modular tools... but the beauty of it, is that it doesn't require any of that. It's dead simple, and works really well. I'm impressed.

Hey ModuLR
I really must try them tomorrow...

But are you saying that the Racks in Live 6 could replace, say Tracktion's racks, eXT, Reason's Combinator, etc...? Is the functionality all there in Ableton, do you think?

[luxgud]

Is there is list of *all* the "improvements" anywhere ?

The web site highlights the obvious new stuff and then mentions ' ... and many others improvements'

WTF are they ?

Thank you so much.

[pdxindy]

There is no sample content to use with Sampler. So it takes a while playing with it to get a sense of it.

record a midi synth part, flatten it, drag the audio into sampler, play a key. The drag n drop ability sure is nice compared to Kontakt. There is a lot of sound shaping capacity.

I much like Tone and Timemachine in Kontakt and there is nothing like that in Sampler.

Sampler is fast. The interface is small and easy to work with other effects etc. Fits right into Live.

It is going to take a couple weeks to truly have an opinion, but I am much drawn by the drag-n-drop and fast ease of use.

[ModuLR]

But are you saying that the Racks in Live 6 could replace, say Tracktion's racks, eXT, Reason's Combinator, etc...? Is the functionality all there in Ableton, do you think?

I don't think it really replaces them. I tend to use the modular aspects of Tracktion and eXT to their fullest extent... so for me, it can't replace that... but I also build little velocity/note/cc switchers and stuff that reroute signals to various fx chains and what not. Live's new racks basically do this all in one snap. It makes setting up such things extremely easy.. with the added bonus of being able to nest the racks within themselves. You could create some really wild and interesting switching matricies with this. It would make sound design extremely fun. So not a replacement, but definately really useful imo.

[coldmachine]

The editing parameters on the new sampler are global, no individual zone or sample editing of envelopes filters etc. For many people this will render it useless. I spoke to them about it months ago but they thought the typical Live user doesnt need those facilities. I pointed out it was standard and that they were making a mistake especially considering its added cost.

[coreydavid]

hmm, seems I'm too late to get the beta in this phase..

Me too!

But there's an update to Live 5 that I grabbed while I was there.

[pdxindy]

I haven't tried the sampler yet, but I have to say they really nailed it with the racks. I had no intention of updating at first... but the racks alone could be enough to make me crack open the piggy bank. Sure I've built stuff somewhat similar using lots of modular tools... but the beauty of it, is that it doesn't require any of that. It's dead simple, and works really well. I'm impressed.

Hey ModuLR
I really must try them tomorrow...

But are you saying that the Racks in Live 6 could replace, say Tracktion's racks, eXT, Reason's Combinator, etc...? Is the functionality all there in Ableton, do you think?

I think the Live6 racks far surpass Tracktion racks for ease of use for most stuff. Suppose you want to have 3 synths play on one midi key and you want to crosfade them by key velocity. You just drag the 3 synths into an instrument rack and you can adjust all 3 velocity layers in seconds. No need to wire in midi effects etc.

or... If you want 3 synths (or presets of the same synth) to play and manually switch between them with the modwheel or other controller, you can set that up in seconds. Start playing a synth part on one preset, move the modwheel up, and the different synth part takes over while you are playing. You could also use the modwheel to blend between them rather than hardswitch.

It is just seconds to set up this sort of thing and no wiring.

I can think of some complex situations where the Tracktion racks would be visually easier if you had multiple chains and wanted to send the audio from a plug-in in one chain to the specific input of another plug-in on a different chain and so on. When it gets really complex like that, then the visual wiring technique starts to be easier to visualize and implement.

However, the vast majority of the stuff I actually do for making music, (rather than playing around with complex racks just because it is sorta cool to route stuff crazily) is more straightforward and will be far faster in Lives racks than in say Tracktion racks.

Someone who does more complex routing stuff like I described above might not see it as a replacement.

[kuniklo]

The editing parameters on the new sampler are global, no individual zone or sample editing of envelopes filters etc. For many people this will render it useless. I spoke to them about it months ago but they thought the typical Live user doesnt need those facilities. I pointed out it was standard and that they were making a mistake especially considering its added cost.

You can work around this by using multiple instances in a rack.

Now that I've actually tried it, it's clear that Sampler isn't a replacement for something like Kontakt - it's more of a sound design tool. This makes a lot of sense, really, since they can't compete with Kontakt on it's own turf. The drag & drop of samples is pretty sweet too.

Just about all the new things in Live 6 make a lot of sense and add a lot to the program. Unfortunately, almost none of the things I was really hoping to see addressed got any attention, so I'm still not sure if I'll be upgrading.

[pdxindy]

The editing parameters on the new sampler are global, no individual zone or sample editing of envelopes filters etc. For many people this will render it useless. I spoke to them about it months ago but they thought the typical Live user doesnt need those facilities. I pointed out it was standard and that they were making a mistake especially considering its added cost.

Add an instrument rack to your track, add 3 Samplers each with their own keyzone, and edit the filters, envelopes etc for each.

I am making no comment on whether Sampler is worth the money, or whether Ableton should add sample or zone editing within Sampler. Only pointing out that you can do it, you can easily save it as its own instrument and there is little/no CPU overhead for doing it this way as compared to having it 'built into' Sampler.

[pdxindy]

Now that I've actually tried it, it's clear that Sampler isn't a replacement for something like Kontakt - it's more of a sound design tool. This makes a lot of sense, really, since they can't compete with Kontakt on it's own turf. The drag & drop of samples is pretty sweet too.

the lack of any timestretch in Sampler may end up turning me away from it. For example, you cannot play a sample across a key range with changing pitch and constant speed. You cannot adjust the speed of a sample at all. So far I can see it having some things I like about it, but it does not wow me.

At the moment I think they have to add a little more to Sampler to make me pull out my wallet. If there was good timestretch capability I would get it.

Live6 itself is a no brainer for me cause the CPU advantage is worth the upgrade price right there.

[coldmachine]

error

[coldmachine]

[quote="pdxindy"][quote="coldmachine"]The editing parameters on the new sampler are global, no individual zone or sample editing of envelopes filters etc. For many people this will render it useless. I spoke to them about it months ago but they thought the typical Live user doesnt need those facilities. I pointed out it was standard and that they were making a mistake especially considering its added cost.[/quote]


Add an instrument rack to your track, add 3 Samplers each with their own keyzone, and edit the filters, envelopes etc for each.

I am making no comment on whether Sampler is worth the money, or whether Ableton should add sample or zone editing within Sampler. Only pointing out that you can do it, you can easily save it as its own instrument and there is little/no CPU overhead for doing it this way as compared to having it 'built into' Sampler.[/quote]


I understand that, Ive been using it for a while. Its just a weak implementation of a good idea

[pdxindy]

why is it weak?

[pdxindy]

okay... the improvements to the Saturation effect are solid. The analog curve and the waveshaper sound good. Add some modulation and you can get some distortion that is still musical. Very nice. Also, the new Dynamic Tube effect is good.

I have not tried them on recorded audio yet, just synth sounds, but so far they are a valuable addition.