Ableton Live 9 announced

[hibidy]

Of course, yeah please stop w.......ing.

Anyways fanboi's gonna fanboi. It's been this way every since I joined kvr.

Me? I've got nothing to complain about. It's 284 for the DL (though I think it's stupid the boxed version is the one that comes with all the extra content, same with "suite" ) and would love to jump back on the live bandwagon.......if it works.

Currently, there is no way to demo the x64 version (comes up "page does not exist" even for live full version owners) so it's really hard to demo. That would include the 9 upgrade for free which is terrific, but that is months and months away even if it came out Jan 1st, which we know it wont.

One good thing is that they are certainly not rushing it. They really do seem to want to get things right. Get me on the beta team if that is true! I guarantee I'll find the bugs!

[pdxindy]

Live 8 standard owners are still getting a much better upgrade route than suite 8 owners

Ableton already said they were going to offer an intro price to Suite owners... at the moment, there is nothing for Suite owners to purchase, so any complaint is entirely speculation that one will not be happy with that intro price.

[nickman]

Live 8 standard owners are still getting a much better upgrade route than suite 8 owners

Ableton already said they were going to offer an intro price to Suite owners... at the moment, there is nothing for Suite owners to purchase, so any complaint is entirely speculation that one will not be happy with that intro price.

I agree - but if you check the numbers on my last post, even if they give a FREE upgrade in the future to suite 8/ max owners, standard live 8 owners are still getting a cheaper upgrade path

If it is a free upgrade, suite 8/ M4L will have paid 600 euros to get suite 9

Standard 8 owners pay 300 + 200 upgrade to get suite 9 and everything - as it now includes max and all previously bundled instruments etc

The only way I would get an EQUAL upgrade cost would be if they gave me a REDUCTION to upgrade of 100 euros!

Can't see that happening - so whilst the statement in the forum is encouraging, the facts remain that it still says in my account that my best price to upgrade is 199 - and live 8 standard owners can buy NOW the right to own a live 9 suite licence. I don't have that right to buy because I own suite 8

So there is a risk the price could go up or down. But in business you pay for risk - and you pay for price certainty

To summarise, it is not satisfactory - those who have bought higher product levels are being penalised

I look to Ableton to resolve this and have emailed them accordingly

[ksandvik]

I think the only thing we could agree upon just now is that the Ableton pricing is a big mess.

It's a showcase of how not to announce major releases. Feature discussions are drowning in the pricing discussion.

[puzzlefactory]

Live 8 standard owners are still getting a much better upgrade route than suite 8 owners

Ableton already said they were going to offer an intro price to Suite owners... at the moment, there is nothing for Suite owners to purchase, so any complaint is entirely speculation that one will not be happy with that intro price.

I agree - but if you check the numbers on my last post, even if they give a FREE upgrade in the future to suite 8/ max owners, standard live 8 owners are still getting a cheaper upgrade path

If it is a free upgrade, suite 8/ M4L will have paid 600 euros to get suite 9

Standard 8 owners pay 300 + 200 upgrade to get suite 9 and everything - as it now includes max and all previously bundled instruments etc

The only way I would get an EQUAL upgrade cost would be if they gave me a REDUCTION to upgrade of 100 euros!

Can't see that happening - so whilst the statement in the forum is encouraging, the facts remain that it still says in my account that my best price to upgrade is 199 - and live 8 standard owners can buy NOW the right to own a live 9 suite licence. I don't have that right to buy because I own suite 8

So there is a risk the price could go up or down. But in business you pay for risk - and you pay for price certainty

To summarise, it is not satisfactory - those who have bought higher product levels are being penalised

I look to Ableton to resolve this and have emailed them accordingly

You're not taking into account the time of use. Yeah people upgrading right now from standard to suite will end up paying less if you add up the total money spent over the whole time they've been a live customer. But people who bought suite and m4l last year have had a whole years worth of use of the extra features that other users haven't been able to use. And yes there will be a few people who upgraded a couple of days ago and so will be pissed off that they missed out but you'll always get this and companies have to draw the line somewhere.

[aMUSEd]

When I saw the Live 8 to Live 8 suite upgrade pricing with free upgrade to Live 9 suite, it was a brilliant price. Would move a large group of Live 8 users to the suite side for future more profitable upgrades. Then they hiked up the price $100 and this is no longer a no-brainer for most Live 8 users. What a missed opportunity.

I agree, who in their right mind (as long as they had the financial ability) would not have jumped on that!!!

dw

I did

Phew!

[nickman]

You're not taking into account the time of use. Yeah people upgrading right now from standard to suite will end up paying less if you add up the total money spent over the whole time they've been a live customer. But people who bought suite and m4l last year have had a whole years worth of use of the extra features that other users haven't been able to use. And yes there will be a few people who upgraded a couple of days ago and so will be pissed off that they missed out but you'll always get this and companies have to draw the line somewhere.

Yes I accept that - all I want is the chance to make a pre-order - which is effectively what live 8 standard owners can do now. Even though something "doesn't exist yet", it doesn't mean you can't buy it! Amazon do it all the time with discounts on pre-orders before release

And as I've said, I think not more than 100 euros would be a fair price for an upgrade - not the 200 they are currently advising in my account

As pointed out by many, Ableton have released a statement saying they will give a special rate on release.

Fine, in which case they should remove the 200 euro "offer" in my account - which can't be actioned anyway - and replace it with a lower pre-order offer that I could use - or simply say "special upgrade price to be agreed on release as per our forum post"

[Harry_HH]

Automation in clips is kind of a big deal.

Yes - for those to whom it is a big deal...
Live 9 features, the areas Ableton has put 95% of their efforts in the upgrade,
strenghtens the idea of Live as a (as the name says...) live performance tool,
some kind of dj DAW. Ableton has chosen the side: if you are a music
maker and/or a producer who mostly needs a DAW for studio, and your way to operate is mostly "traditional" linear work flow, the development in the Live 9 has gone to the wrong direction.

What are the improvements in the arrange mode? How much Ableton has put the effort to make some very basic operations, which at the preset Live 8 are really robust, better? (there are so many that no point to list here, but take example the way tempo automation is implemented at the moment, how accureat you are able to define the automation line). Also the cooperation between arrange and session modes in the work flow when you automate are not very elegant at the moment: Hard to say if the Live 9 brings any light to this mess.

Those who are musicians and want to mix the "traditional" music producing to the modern one, but whose foothold are strongly in the music "old school" socres etc., (according to the published information) are going the get not a single really new improvements (e.g. no notation, no arrangement block automation).

I've used Live now for 4 years (Logic besides), given quite a lot feedback to the Ableton, I really like many of the Live's feature and wanted to see it developing to a real holistic DAW, but Ableton wants define their market position as "dj playmate" more than a music writing DAW. Ableton has chosen their segment and competetive edge and they don't want to listen "old school" producers, which I think is pitty. H.

[puzzlefactory]

You can't blame them for that though. They occupy a niche in the market and are concentrating on developing the parts of their product that make up that unique niche. There are plenty of products that already accommodate people wishing to work in a more traditional DAW environment. Live, I feel, has always been an alternative working environment not an additional one.

[pdxindy]

Can't see that happening - so whilst the statement in the forum is encouraging, the facts remain that it still says in my account that my best price to upgrade is 199 - and live 8 standard owners can buy NOW the right to own a live 9 suite licence. I don't have that right to buy because I own suite 8

So there is a risk the price could go up or down. But in business you pay for risk - and you pay for price certainty

To summarise, it is not satisfactory - those who have bought higher product levels are being penalised

You don't know you are being penalized cause you do not know what you will pay yet...

Some M4L owners purchased at the initial release price which was much higher than today. Are they penalized even more? Isn't that just pretty standard with software?

Anyway, I agree that Ableton did a poor job with the pricing. Kinda odd really... I suppose that by the time it matters to me, they will have it sorted. I have Suite 8 (no M4L) so there is also nothing for me to upgrade to right now either. I don't mind that cause I want to try Live 9 before buying anyway. There is gonna be months of beta testing.

[masstronaut]

When I saw the Live 8 to Live 8 suite upgrade pricing with free upgrade to Live 9 suite, it was a brilliant price. Would move a large group of Live 8 users to the suite side for future more profitable upgrades. Then they hiked up the price $100 and this is no longer a no-brainer for most Live 8 users. What a missed opportunity.

What, a missed opportunity to lose tons of money by selling at the wrong prices? I'm going to hike up a big greeny flob in a minute.

According to your economical ideas a company makes more money on lower cost upgrades than higher cost upgrades over time even after they increase the customer base for higher cost upgrades... ho ho.

As I said. It was brilliant. Now it's plain dumb.

Yes, that was one possible explanation, assuming it was intentional and Ableton considered that to make business sense. But of course as it turns out it wasn't and they didn't. It was just a mistake. The "economic model" I use to determine this is that they have obviously had to adjust the price and take the flak and bad PR that entails. It was never a brilliant plan, it was never a plan. That's obvious. You seem to think it was intentional policy, and yet they've had to awkwardly about-face in a day. That makes no sense.

Of course it looked kind of "brilliant" if you were offered a deal that was too good to be true.

[masstronaut]

The idea that someone wouldn't be upset about a price change increase one day after is absurd.

Nope, someone being overly upset about about a quick adjustment to an obviously incorrect price, an adjustment that doesn't affect them in any way is, what's the word I'm looking for....

[masstronaut]

Automation in clips is kind of a big deal.

Yes - for those to whom it is a big deal...

Indeed, it's good for Ableton and for people that have wanted that in Live for a long time. Nice tautology. I was replying to the post above mine that was talking about what was new by the way.

Live 9 features, the areas Ableton has put 95% of their efforts in the upgrade,
strenghtens the idea of Live as a (as the name says...) live performance tool,
some kind of dj DAW. Ableton has chosen the side: if you are a music
maker and/or a producer who mostly needs a DAW for studio, and your way to operate is mostly "traditional" linear work flow, the development in the Live 9 has gone to the wrong direction.

Yes, decide if it does what you want it to and use it or use something else. Tough isn't it.

What are the improvements in the arrange mode? How much Ableton has put the effort to make some very basic operations, which at the preset Live 8 are really robust, better?

Well let's see. Of course it would be nice if some improvements were made to Arrange mode. There's stuff a lot of us would like to see, including some quite basic things. And?

Also the cooperation between arrange and session modes in the work flow when you automate are not very elegant at the moment: Hard to say if the Live 9 brings any light to this mess.

Actually it looks like there's some major changes in this area don't you think?

Those who are musicians and want to mix the "traditional" music producing to the modern one, but whose foothold are strongly in the music "old school" socres etc., (according to the published information) are going the get not a single really new improvements (e.g. no notation, no arrangement block automation).

True, it doesn't do score editing. It doesn't feed your dog either if that's what you should want. I guess it's just not the tool for those jobs.

I've used Live now for 4 years (Logic besides), given quite a lot feedback to the Ableton, I really like many of the Live's feature and wanted to see it developing to a real holistic DAW, but Ableton wants define their market position as "dj playmate" more than a music writing DAW. Ableton has chosen their segment and competetive edge and they don't want to listen "old school" producers, which I think is pitty. H.

Of course there's more focus on certain areas, like live stuff (doh), but kind of daft to suggest it can't be used in any number of ways. Feature bloat is no fun, though.

[Harry_HH]

You can't blame them for that though. They occupy a niche in the market and are concentrating on developing the parts of their product that make up that unique niche. There are plenty of products that already accommodate people wishing to work in a more traditional DAW environment. Live, I feel, has always been an alternative working environment not an additional one.

Yes I can, and I do. As a consumer and Live end-user I have all right to give my feedback and to affect to what kind of product I get.
Of course then it's the company which draws the conclusion and makes the decisions. What is essential, is that the end-user, e.g. musicians who is now choosing a DAW, knows what kind of product he/she is buying, what are the alternatives, and if the product suits to his/her purposes. If the Live want's to be first of all a "dj playmate" and not develope the arrange features, then it is a "dj playmate" and not a serious music producer DAW. I think the Live could be innovative tool, which integrates the sample management and traditional linear music making, but then the Ableton should put the development efforts 50-50 (or rather 20-80 to the arrange), now the ratio seems to be 95-5 for the djs'.

I know what the (present) Live is, as said, like very much many of it's feature, and liked to see it developing a much better tool for musicians and producers. H.

[Mushy Mushy]

It doesn't feed your dog either

Have you tried? Anything is possible with M4L