Ableton Live 9 announced

[re8]

I think the progress may have been a lot faster if literally half the company hadn't left to form another company! That would slow most people down...

Three people out of around 150 is hardly "half"

Is that for the entire Live programming staff? I would assume a small (1-3) team for GUI, another team for effects, another for the core, 1 go-between person for M4L, etc. I'd assume the bulk of the company is for support, web site, marketing, licensing, etc.

& if those 3 programmers were important programmers...

[headquest]

The approx 150 is the whole company, including the business and support staff - all of whom are VERY important to the end-user experience I should say.

In terms of programming staff, this was discussed on the Ableton forum when Bitwig were first mentioned, and the Ableton rep there put it in context. In terms of a quite large team of programmers the two who left were *junior* within their respective teams. The third person who left was a support staff, not a programmer.

And those who left were quickly replaced... and none of the three were founder members of the Ableton team (I believe it was mentioned they had only been in the company for two years).

[puzzlefactory]

. We're talking one of the best orchestral sample libraries on the market, all carefully mapped out to seemlessly work in Live.

Really? I've never really heard it mentioned elsewhere.

I've heard the names Vienna, East West, Project Sam and recently Spitfire when ever people talk about orchestral sounds but I've never seen people bring up the Ableton sample libraries.

[phazedown]

delete-me

[headquest]

. We're talking one of the best orchestral sample libraries on the market, all carefully mapped out to seemlessly work in Live.

Really? I've never really heard it mentioned elsewhere.

I've heard the names Vienna, East West, Project Sam and recently Spitfire when ever people talk about orchestral sounds but I've never seen people bring up the Ableton sample libraries.

They are licensed from SONiVOX and you can read about them and listen to audio demo's here:

Strings: https://www.ableton.com/en/packs/orchestral-strings/

Woodwind: https://www.ableton.com/en/packs/orchestral-woodwinds/

Brass: https://www.ableton.com/en/packs/orchestral-brass/

Percussion: https://www.ableton.com/en/packs/orchestral-percussion/

They got stunning reviews on release, but being Ableton only they've not picked up the widespread use with film composers/etc that they might otherwise have done.

I'm hope I've not misunderstood about their inclusion - it seems though that they are now part of Suite 9.

[aMUSEd]

That's very cool - it does look like they are included (and a lot more - not sure I have room for it all actually) in the product comparison:

https://www.ableton.com/en/live/feature-comparison/

on the product page for Orchestral Strings it says they open in Simpler - for people that don't have the full Sampler that is understandable but if you do do they open by default in Sampler instead?

[Amberience]

Yup. People have the right to weigh in with their opinion, in order to guide the product.

... likewise the devs and the company has a whole has the right to completely ignore you

On a different tack... did anyone resolve the difference between content with Suite download and suite boxed? 3gb of sounds VS 40gb of sounds... big difference. But what is the extra content in the boxed version ???

[headquest]

On a different tack... did anyone resolve the difference between content with Suite download and suite boxed? 3gb of sounds VS 40gb of sounds... big difference. But what is the extra content in the boxed version ???

It's the inclusion of Session Drums, which is huge.
Also EIC2.

Those figures are for Suite 8 - with Suite 9 all content is downloadable if you go down that route.

[headquest]

That's very cool - it does look like they are included (and a lot more - not sure I have room for it all actually) in the product comparison:

https://www.ableton.com/en/live/feature-comparison/

Assuming this is the full versions of the Orchestral Instruments, I would say that definitely places Ableton Suite as the DAW with the most/best included content, and by a considerable margin. A stunning addition, way ahead of the competition.

[chroma]

That's very cool - it does look like they are included (and a lot more - not sure I have room for it all actually) in the product comparison:

https://www.ableton.com/en/live/feature-comparison/

on the product page for Orchestral Strings it says they open in Simpler - for people that don't have the full Sampler that is understandable but if you do do they open by default in Sampler instead?

they are just like any other sampler library. if you have it open in sampler, you can do sampler->simpler and get a version you can distribute to anyone, even if they don't have sampler; simpler->sampler will get you back. very cool actually.

normally, for an orchestral library, it doesn't matter that much (since a lot of times they are racks with macro knobs you adjust, and what's way down in a subchain isn't as important). but i'm curious as what they will do with m4l - one (big) miss with the old orchestral libraries (aside from the relative paucity of articulations) compared to kontakt was that there is a lot of scripting used for legatos, round robins, auto divisi and layer switching/crossfading, etc. which was for the most part impossible to do with live racks (round robins are the only one i think you can do). with m4l there is an even more powerful scripting language than ksp, so i hope the live 9 oic has improved patches too.

[headquest]

with m4l there is an even more powerful scripting language than ksp, so i hope the live 9 oic has improved patches too.

Interesting point, and it would be great. But I suspect they are unchanged... my guess would be that they have been included because they aren't selling on their own any sufficiently, so Ableton are including them as another reward for Suite customers.

If they go ahead to do M4L scripting maybe that would be a new OIC2 in the future...

[pdxindy]

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.

Live is already a serious music producer daw...

I need a more serious/better tool - but what is the core point in my comment is that the direction Ableton is taking with the Live 9 is wrong. H.

Maybe wrong for you... but not wrong for everyone...

You have a clear idea of the toolset you want and Live does not come close to it. Just get something else then.

Live is a mature tool. It has been 3 years and there is not that much change in Live 9. That is the nature of a mature tool and that is okay. The people working at Ableton who wanted big change, left and started Bitwig. Time will tell where that goes.

If you want to spend years waiting and explaining what you want Live to be, that is up to you, but I think the picture is pretty clear of what it is at this point in its trajectory.

[headquest]

Live is a mature tool. It has been 3 years and there is not that much change in Live 9. That is the nature of a mature tool and that is okay. The people working at Ableton who wanted big change, left and started Bitwig. Time will tell where that goes.

If you want to spend years waiting and explaining what you want Live to be, that is up to you, but I think the picture is pretty clear of what it is at this point in its trajectory.

+1

Brilliantly put.

[Harry_HH]

[quote="pdxindy
If you want to spend years waiting and explaining what you want Live to be, that is up to you, but I think the picture is pretty clear of what it is at this point in its trajectory.[/quote]

There's an other citizen who doesn't believe in free flow of information, market economy which is basicly exance of information, and that these "trajectories" are result of what people do, these are not "given from the top" or "constants" in the universe. H.

[colinssx]

On a different tack... did anyone resolve the difference between content with Suite download and suite boxed? 3gb of sounds VS 40gb of sounds... big difference. But what is the extra content in the boxed version ???

Those figures are for Suite 8 - with Suite 9 all content is downloadable if you go down that route.

I wouldn't assume that Suite 9's downloaded version comes with all 40+ gb of content, considering they're still selling the download version of Suite 8 for about a hundred dollars less than the boxed one.

Not to mention that the wording is pretty ambiguous for the download/box comparison

What comes with the download version?
A Live 8 installer to download from Your Account.
A PDF manual included with your installer.
All included sounds available for download from Your Packs.

What extras do I get if I buy a box?
A DVD with your Live 8 installer
DVDs with all your included Sounds
A printed manual
Stickers

Notice how it says "all your included sounds", which could be taken to mean "all of the sounds included with the download version of Suite 9" instead of "all of the sounds listed above". That being said, the wording is ambiguous enough that I'd be pretty pissed off if I didn't get all of the sounds as a download customer.