What's Ableton up to?

[docbot]

Just to make it clear, I've been using LIVE since Version 7, I love their KISS philosophy and thought Live 11 was a really great release with a ton of features. I just hoped that Live 11 was the end of their rather slow development/update cycle and they finally reworked the internals to bring out updates faster than they used to. As far as I remember the slowing down of features during 8,9 and 10 was attributed to problems with the code base.

And as mention before, some of their KISS features are just a bit too bare bones, no one wants Live to turn into Logic, but they're could be some rather simple improvements to make certain features more usable.

and while I'm ranting, I still absolutely hate how they just erased the feature where you could just drag down/up while drawing notes to change velocity, but 90% of their user base doesn't care, because they're not even using 60% of Live features. In Theory they could just do nothing and concentrate on expanding the ecosystem with hardware and mobile apps (as they have been doing), which seems is what they're doing, I just don't agree that they should be doing that.

[liquidsound]

I still absolutely hate how they just erased the feature where you could just drag down/up while drawing notes to change velocity

Are you sure you are using Ableton while you do that

[rod_zero]

I'm not sure how long you have been using Ableton, but it does not seem that long. Because the company has been this slow since the debacle that was version 9, which came out at least 10 years ago.

What I'm saying is if you're still disappointed about Ableton being slow in catching up and in improving features knowing for how long they have been doing it this way, I'm not sure what your point is.

Ableton has been doing things at their own speed and in their own way for a very long time without any considerable loss in market position, judging by their sales position at retailers in DAW lists, which has been second to FL for many, many years. So they don't need to change.

I'm not saying to not make feature suggestions, but I'd suggest finding a way to deal with this by either finding replacement VSTs or switching DAWs. It's getting real tiring having these weekly "I can't believe Ableton still has no XX" or "How come FL still has no XY" threads.

It was version 8 the one with problems because of, at the time, new M4L. Before that version they were on annual releases, sometimes even shorter.

Live 9 release came with Push 1, with a long beta and was largely very successful. They even released a video around that time on how the company change internally after the Live 8 bug ridden release.

And well, people is delusional if they think Ableton is losing market share, it is second most popular still and it is not going anywhere.

[vertibration]

most popular according to who? KVR polls? LMAO

[machinesworking]

most popular according to who? KVR polls? LMAO

Ableton are one of the few DAW developers to publish their customer base numbers, over ten years ago they had over 2 million unique users according to them directly. That's probably only smaller than FL Studio, and FL Studio don't charge for upgrades so it's entirely possible that Abletons net worth is more than Image Line.

I think without a doubt FL Studio, Live, Pro Tools and Logic are the top DAWs sales wise. Everyone else is a distant second tier.

For the "captain obvious" record, none of this means that these are the "best" DAWs.

[Echoes in the Attic]

all i know is andy cytomic dev said somewhere on kvr hes given ableton a lot of stuff that hasn't been implemented in any version of live yet

Bullshit. Richie Hawtin's version has all of it.

Richie Hawtin's version is called Bitwig.

[rod_zero]

most popular according to who? KVR polls? LMAO

According to the sheer number of tutorials on youtube and the respective view counts

[machinesworking]

I don't miss any of the additional automation options from Reaper, but was really won over by the way Live 11 incorporated what are essentially automation items, but far better in most situations imo. Same with modulation, which is technically a feature, but practically a useless gimmick in the former.

I've owned and used Live since v3. What bothers me is basic stuff, things that seem logical to add but like people have mentioned Live is geared towards electronic music, so live instruments like guitar aren't catered to. Count in options in DP for instance are geared towards practicing as well as recording parts, you can choose between count in only in count off, while recording, or continuous etc. All this is really helpful if you play a live instrument. In their advertisements they show home recording setups with the occasional hardware synth and guitar, but Live just isn't geared towards traditional recording techniques, i.e. practicing and playing in parts from beginning to end. I get it though, most people using guitars with Live are recording in looped parts etc. Traditional recording techniques are low priority.

[andypryce]

I believe before AI Live needs the basics like

Selecting multiple clips on arrangement without time in between for fading, trimming, moving them together.
Bounce in place.
Hide/Disable Tracks
Not being able to start anywhere in the piano roll when multiple tracks are selected is another annoyance
There is a ton but these are the most requested.

[bilasta]

I believe before AI Live needs the basics like

Selecting multiple clips on arrangement without time in between for fading, trimming, moving them together.
Bounce in place.
Hide/Disable Tracks
Not being able to start anywhere in the piano roll when multiple tracks are selected is another annoyance
There is a ton but these are the most requested.

+ internal midi channels

[jules99]

+ internal midi channels

This sounds intriguing. Care to elaborate?

Right now, all you can do in Live is that you can route any MIDI track into any other MIDI track. Also, you can route multiple MIDI tracks on multiple MIDI channels into one multi-timbral VST.

What would internal MIDI channels add?

[Trancit]

+ internal midi channels

This sounds intriguing. Care to elaborate?

Right now, all you can do in Live is that you can route any MIDI track into any other MIDI track. Also, you can route multiple MIDI tracks on multiple MIDI channels into one multi-timbral VST.

What would internal MIDI channels add?

Take a Midi Plugin like Instant Composer or Scaler which send Midi on different midi channels...

No way to route these to different instruments (tracks) in Live...

[machinesworking]

I believe before AI Live needs the basics like

Selecting multiple clips on arrangement without time in between for fading, trimming, moving them together.
Bounce in place.
Hide/Disable Tracks
Not being able to start anywhere in the piano roll when multiple tracks are selected is another annoyance
There is a ton but these are the most requested.

For bounce in place the current workaround is to freeze the track then flatten it. Which of course only works if you're good with losing the entire plugin chain and keeping only audio. I like the way it works in DP, you bounce to a new track, then disable the original track. Some other DAWs take it further and disable the original track for you.

[Opaque]

and while I'm ranting, I still absolutely hate how they just erased the feature where you could just drag down/up while drawing notes to change velocity, but 90% of their user base doesn't care, because they're not even using 60% of Live features. In Theory they could just do nothing and concentrate on expanding the ecosystem with hardware and mobile apps (as they have been doing), which seems is what they're doing, I just don't agree that they should be doing that.

Hold Ctrl+Alt while drawing notes to adjust the velocity.

I believe before AI Live needs the basics like

Selecting multiple clips on arrangement without time in between for fading, trimming, moving them together.
Bounce in place.
Hide/Disable Tracks
Not being able to start anywhere in the piano roll when multiple tracks are selected is another annoyance
There is a ton but these are the most requested.

For bounce in place the current workaround is to freeze the track then flatten it. Which of course only works if you're good with losing the entire plugin chain and keeping only audio. I like the way it works in DP, you bounce to a new track, then disable the original track. Some other DAWs take it further and disable the original track for you.

The workaround, kinda, is to freeze the track, ctrl+D to duplicate and flatten the duplicate while muting the original. Definitely more clicks, but a somewhat good thing being that the original is frozen so it doesn't eat up resources while being muted, and it preserves all plugins. Then again, it's impossible to hide it (ike e.g. in Reaper) so it takes up screen space or has to be foldered with all such tracks which is again extra work.


Agree about some of the other suggestions of course, the multiple clip selection and adjustment without time in between would seem logical to implement... although I agree with whoever suggested earlier that it's not a bad thing that daws remain somewhat specialised or idiosyncratic in a certain direction, while adopting some widespread standards.

[Trancit]

...Then again, it's impossible to hide it (ike e.g. in Reaper) so it takes up screen space or has to be foldered with all such tracks which is again extra work.
...

Or you drag it to the project folder in the browser to save it and delete it afterwards...
If you ever have the need to bring the original back, just drag it in from the browser...