Frustration with slow development of Ableton Live

[thecontrolcentre]

After the whole debacle over Live8 its not surprising that the beta periods since have been longer.

[enroe]

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

Sometimes it is the case that new developers first have to deal with the code of
the others who have obviously left. Thinking about someone else's code and
analyzing it can be very elaborate and time-consuming. And if the new ones do
change something, there is a great risk that something else will break.

In other words, one new feature per year is a lot! We should be happy!

[Kinh]

You ungrateful sod!

You should be thankful to be in an age with this technology's at your fingertips.

[Fraggle]

I used Fruity loops (back in the day before they renamed it FL Studio) then moved to Ableton (think it was 3 or 4) used that until version 9 when I got pissed off at something I couldn't do with MIDI in Ableton and moved to Studio One . That DAW seemed great before it's instability slowly but surely eroded its viability for me. I briefly went to Logic last year when the M1s were released, and loved the way they organized their library. I demo'd Bitwig , but felt that it was 'missing something' , and money was tight so I went back to Ableton 9. It was like coming home.

I think they really should have a way of magnifying or resizing their own plugins just like many 3rd party plugins nowadays do. And . for gods sake , why do I need a 3rd party audio editor --- Ableton should implement destructive editing of audio inside the clips........but I have managed to live with that for a decade.....for me I can't see me moving to another DAW

[docbot]

I used Fruity loops (back in the day before they renamed it FL Studio) then moved to Ableton (think it was 3 or 4) used that until version 9 when I got pissed off at something I couldn't do with MIDI in Ableton and moved to Studio One . That DAW seemed great before it's instability slowly but surely eroded its viability for me. I briefly went to Logic last year when the M1s were released, and loved the way they organized their library. I demo'd Bitwig , but felt that it was 'missing something' , and money was tight so I went back to Ableton 9. It was like coming home.

I think they really should have a way of magnifying or resizing their own plugins just like many 3rd party plugins nowadays do. And . for gods sake , why do I need a 3rd party audio editor --- Ableton should implement destructive editing of audio inside the clips........but I have managed to live with that for a decade.....for me I can't see me moving to another DAW

me neither, I love Live, it's just incredibly frustrating to me that it's not more fine tuned by now after all these years considering the price.

[RugerioDelStereo]

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?

Ableton could have sold out years ago, but they didn't. it's not just about profit for them.

[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?

Ableton could have sold out years ago, but they didn't. it's not just about profit for them.

That is true.
But new DAW features are expensive.

[Orbit-50]

Just think of Ableton Live as a fine wine if you will.

[Opaque]

I switched from Reaper to Ableton precisely because it seems very measured when it comes to adding new features. For the most part, I feel like everything in it works well and is of pretty good quality (instruments, effects, even sample packs), and the whole racks thing, together with clips/scenes, is something that's not just a gimmick of a feature but has been thought through.

Too often I see some feature introductions into DAWs that are half-useful or just something to market a new version more easily - basically I think about how far I can push something for composition, etc. (e.g. clips in Logic, like someone mentioned, don't have follow actions, although I think Logic is a great DAW).

And yes, there are things missing like in any DAW, but it's one thing to add something basic and which works well within the existing system, like comping that should have been there a long time ago, but it's unreasonable to expect a paradigm change or additions that would likely f**k everything up - for example, modular stuff like Bitwig (in Ableton they've obviously envisioned this kind of stuff to be done in Max, while retaining racks as they are, with now native modulation effects - envelope, lfo, etc.).

[PieBerger]

As someone else pointed out earlier on, you either accept or you move on. I decided to move over to Bitwig, which isn't perfet, but it solved most of my personal gripes with Live (which I don't see myself using it much going forward). Ableton would have to copy over everything I like from Bitwig, especially Hybrid Tracks, before I would even think about opening my wallet and that just doesn't seem likely. I'm not even that keen to upgrade Bitwig tbh; there might be a new shiny thing that grabs my attention after my plan runs out, I'm sure but nothing essential is missing and that's a good place to be in.

[UncleAge]

As someone else pointed out earlier on, you either accept or you move on.

I agree. I started on Live @ v4 I think. I stopped upgrading at 10 but I keep my Live license. If I had been able to route multi-channel midi in Live as easy as Bitwig I would have never purchased a Bitwig license. I still prefer Live because its the daw I know best. However I see no need to wait for them to add the features I am looking for. I just moved on.

[docbot]

They definitely didn‘t sell out, but considering it‘s price, I don’t think the „one feature a year Argument“ counts if all the other developers manage to improve their products at a more rapid pace.

As said I also don‘t want them to pump it full with unfinished features, I understand that they want to keep live to the point, but they could at least polish it.

No unnecessary scissors tool? fine, but then at least give us a key command to split chords / notes at the edit position.

Why can I even display scale highlighting on a drum track?

Why is dragging a scene from sessions view to arrangement view still so Bad? looped clips should automatically loop to the size of the longest dragged clip (as in Bitwig) instead of me having to drag them all out again.

a simple arrangement track, wouldn‘t overcomplicate things.

VST Midieffects should be able to be placed infront of vsts

It‘s called LIVE, why is there still no compensated Midi Output delay like in Logic or Renoise?

Etc, Etc…

I am not even talking about features that would be progressive.. like simpler routing via Drag and drop or a clip Pianoroll that can do ping ponging or random playback that can be set up per key/keyzones or being able to mute individual keys on the pianoroll for live performances.

What I like about live is that you can literally play it like an instrument and sometimes I feel like they are totally forgetting that this could be taken way further.
Scene Follow Actions for example are great, but the implementation is a bit convoluted and takes too many clicks etc and since you can‘t delete the playhead of scenes it‘s a hassle to set up kind of crazy half random systems that still have some control.

[pixel85]

Seriously, I think that at this point they should make two versions: Live and Live-Studio.
People want more and more features. Nobody wants 'all features' but only 'necessary features'. Necessary = "those that I want".
Live as a program for live performances, doesn't need most of the new features that were added over the last several years. Those new features are mostly needed for production at home/studio.
Now, because a lot of Live users doesn't even perform live, it puts Ableton in a position where they have to add so many features that are making Live less and less stable as a live performance tool.

Every new feature = risk of stability issues. No wonder they're 'slow'. Live is not a typical DAW where crash here and there, or some audio delay here and there are considered as 'not a big deal'. Issues that can be considered as minor in the studio, are major in the case of live performance.

Personally, I prefer to use older Live versions for live performance (which I have none because of covid but it's another story). It's way more stable and solid than Live 10 (or 11 which I didn't even buy because I have another DAW for studio work).

Maybe they really should make the 'Live-Live' version for live performances, which has only features for exactly that + 'Live-Studio' with all bells and whistles that can be used in the studio.

[jonljacobi]

Rather than two versions, perhaps two modes. Or simply make it configurable enough that you can remove the stuff you don't use.

[Rastkovic]

No need for more features here. Bought Live 11 one year ago, but I still use Live 10. For me personally it's the better choice.

I also use Reaktor, Softube Modular and VCV Rack in combination with Live, I really can't think of more possibilities.