Frustration with slow development of Ableton Live

[Michael L]

Ableton often says they want to minimise change to keep the workflow easy & familiar. That's their USP.

Not necessarily something I would like to hear from a DAW developer...

I think they see limiting features as an advantage for better UI integration across versions, fewer things to go wrong in performance, and ability for users brains to fully understand it.

I have no opinion on Ableton, but I do prefer software that I can master.

If you are interested in a general theory of cautious music software development:
http://msp.ucsd.edu/Publications/pdf_EMS14_puckette.pdf

[antic604]

Ableton was not always their current size, they were way smaller in 2009, they grew several times bigger later, after the Bitwig devs left.

Which would suggest 1 dev that left for Bitwig required 10 other devs to replace them?

j/k

[sQeetz]

Just like THE lead dev at Image-Line was replaced with, I don't really know, 20?

[docbot]

Live 11.1 public beta started 28 Sept 2021, it is 15 Jan 2022 as of this post, so it is like 3 1/2 months old.

Don't know the FL and S1 dates, but kinda doubt it really takes them less than 4 months per "entire update".

Studio 5.4 was released on Sept 14 last year... Studio 5.5 dropped like a week ago.

FL Studio 20.8.4 dropped beginning of September (with M1 support, new plugins and a ton of usability improvements and new features). FL Studio 20.9 was released also like 2 weeks ago.

11.1 has not been released as of today... and won't introduce nowhere near as many features as FL und S1 did.

I just don't understand how it can take a company 10 years to integrate scale highlightning on the piano roll as if this is a very complex computational science problem to be solved. At that pace the missing chord track will drop in 2033.

as others have said as well, there's just so much that could be simplyfied and speed up. I am sure they could come up with a better track routing system in f*cking 2022, where you don't have to use drop down menus on every single track (just as an example).

[Jolaff]

It's quite easy to pick up one feature and say "hey look at DAW X ...it does it for 5 years and Live still doesn't do it"... you can do that in any DAW for any feature...

Each DAW have their own way of doing things and no DAW will do everything exactly like you want it. You have to use your imagination and find workaround ...it's part of the game...

Now what makes you stick to Live if they are that bad ? There is plenty of other options...

[JerGoertz]

Make music now with the tools you have, use them the way the developers intended, and don't worry about the software development process.

Agreed, except I'd say, "Use them any way you want."

[cryophonik]

I wonder if the pace of development and testing is (partly) driven by retaining and/or implementing new compatibility with Push 2 when new features are added, or by ensuring that the features will work in a live setting, since those are two considerations that are pretty much exclusive to Live. It's bad enough when an update introduces new bugs for studio use, but I can't imagine the frustration people who use Live for live performances would suffer if a new bug(s) ruined their live sets.

I just don't understand how it can take a company 10 years to integrate scale highlightning on the piano roll as if this is a very complex computational science problem to be solved. At that pace the missing chord track will drop in 2033.

Maybe they haven't had enough requests for those features to bother with them? I sure as hell don't care for either of them. That's not to say I'd be opposed to them for people who do, but if I'm replying to a poll, those features don't get a checked box from me.

[lobanov]

In addition to banal laziness and "slow pace" there may be other reasons.

1. Any big DAW has a lot of users and they require new features all the time. It's not possible to satisfy all of them. Sometimes these "wishes" are incompatible and conflict with each other. Devs need some time to find a decision and to satisfy most of their users.

2. Ableton is a big, complex software with many lines of code. Who knows the quality of this code? Who knows its complexity? The easiness of implementing new features depends on it drastically.

3. And finally, devs have its own vision of a program they develop. May be, they think, Ableton doesn't need what all the people require.

[Michael L]

May be, they think, Ableton doesn't need what all the people require.

May be, they only need enough new features to make a profit?

[docbot]

May be, they think, Ableton doesn't need what all the people require.

May be, they only need enough new features to make a profit?

Of course, they make much more money by appealing to new young Music Producers (they're fantastic at marketing), instead of refining the product for Pros who want usability improvements. It's just that to me they seem unnecessary slow if I look back on the decade I've been using Live and it has nothing to do with not wanting to add bloat features imo.

But whatever... not that anything is gonna change by ranting about it, just needed to vent hehe

[antic604]

May be, they think, Ableton doesn't need what all the people require.

May be, they only need enough new features to make a profit?

Profit, shmofit. It's disheartening that none of the developers want to conquer & rule the world and make every other DAW obsolete by implementing all possible features better than everyone else

Capitalism literally stands in the way of progress














Just in case - j/k

[EvilDragon]

Which would suggest 1 dev that left for Bitwig required 10 other devs to replace them?

Sick burn!

[Michael L]

Of course, they make much more money by appealing to new young Music Producers

Maybe you've outgrown it?

[apoclypse]

I think their pace since at least 9 has been pretty good. I don't think Ableton is interested in overloading the DAW with features and adding every feature everyone asks for. One of its main draws is that it's easy to use. There isn't a lot to it, it works in a specific way and they are sticking to that. Other DAWs are trying to cater to everybody and so they just add features regardless of how well implemented they are. Bitwig has comping, but doesn't have midi comping, feels half finished. Logic has clip launching but doesn't have follow actions, feels half finished. I like that Ableton kind of stays the same no matter what they add to the software. You can use Ableton from version 7 (when they added racks) on and it looks and works the same.

Also sometimes users just don't know what they want and so they ask for everything because more is better, right? Sometimes it's better to be good at one thing rather than try to do everything.

[jonljacobi]

The clean interface and workflow are why I use Live. And I think they do a bang up job of adding functionality without cluttering things up too much. Development was super slow there for a while, but since 9 it has really picked up.