KVR Audio

jules99 · Post by **jules99** » Mon Jul 22, 2024 9:32 am

Generally speaking, Ableton has seen quite the turmoil in recent months with over 20 percent of staff been let go soon after Superbooth. Who knows which departments were hit hardest?

From the looks of it, their main manual guy, Dennis DeSantis, is still at Ableton. As spotty as Live 12's manual may be, I still think it is one of the most well-written manuals in all of music software. But that makes these omissions even more glaring. Let's hope they'll catch up soon, which I'm sure they will.

The only thing that's really bugging me these days, that they introduced with one of the last 12.0 updates is that annoying loading time in the browser to display third-party plugins. That persists in 12.1. It seems like the browser is re-scanning VSTs' metadata every time it loads instead of saving it somewhere. Oh and to add to that, the auto-tagging feature for plugins at this stage still does not recognize a lot of plugins. Not sure of these are missing metadata or if the browser isn't scanning properly, though.

revvy · Post by **revvy** » Mon Jul 22, 2024 10:37 am

Wow, the online community pretty fired up about Live’s fucking manual. Serious business.

SLiC · Post by **SLiC** » Mon Jul 22, 2024 12:18 pm

Never read it myself...probably should have but I'm more of a YT guy....

legendCNCD · Post by **legendCNCD** » Mon Jul 22, 2024 3:13 pm

Live was so very easy to get into, I've only glanced some "stranger" parts so to say, how to do them. Or some key bindings.

jonljacobi · Post by **jonljacobi** » Mon Jul 22, 2024 3:17 pm

Reading it helps, but YT university has probably taught me more. Learn here as well. It may be very easy to get into, but there's a lot of it.

Valkasman · Post by **Valkasman** » Mon Jul 22, 2024 3:30 pm

I currently have Bitwig 5. I've seen the videos comparing Bitwig and Ableton. Is it worth having both DAWs?

SLiC · Post by **SLiC** » Mon Jul 22, 2024 5:25 pm

Valkasman wrote: Mon Jul 22, 2024 3:30 pm I currently have Bitwig 5. I've seen the videos comparing Bitwig and Ableton. Is it worth having both DAWs?

I have both (Started on Live) and I think so personally (obviously!) but currently since PUSH 3 I am using Live most...the last few Bitwig updates haven't done much for me (but 12 and 12.1 were massive) but the advantage of having both is no fear of missing out

There are plenty of threads about pros and cons of each...but for me the incredible PUSH 3 integration and MAX (perhaps 3rd party content in general) make Live a different proposition to Bitwig.

Valkasman · Post by **Valkasman** » Mon Jul 22, 2024 11:43 pm

SLiC wrote: Mon Jul 22, 2024 5:25 pm
Valkasman wrote: Mon Jul 22, 2024 3:30 pm I currently have Bitwig 5. I've seen the videos comparing Bitwig and Ableton. Is it worth having both DAWs?
I have both (Started on Live) and I think so personally (obviously!) but currently since PUSH 3 I am using Live most...the last few Bitwig updates haven't done much for me (but 12 and 12.1 were massive) but the advantage of having both is no fear of missing out There are plenty of threads about pros and cons of each...but for me the incredible PUSH 3 integration and MAX (perhaps 3rd party content in general) make Live a different proposition to Bitwig.

I think I'll need to try Ableton and then look at the Push. The Push does look pretty sweet.

machinesworking · Post by **machinesworking** » Tue Jul 23, 2024 1:21 am

Valkasman wrote: Mon Jul 22, 2024 3:30 pm I currently have Bitwig 5. I've seen the videos comparing Bitwig and Ableton. Is it worth having both DAWs?

Quick rundown from another person with both:

Key commands are better in Bitwig.

Dual monitor support is far batter in Live, (Bitwig does have touch and three monitor support though)

M4L is a far more robust system than the Grid, it is however not as stable, but it has hundreds of paid and free FX, instruments and add ons. It also has video DJ type facilities.

Though on Mac OS Live has both AU and VST support, I can't say enough good things about Bitwigs plugin sandboxing. This is hands down one of the most brilliant things, making Bitwig the most stable DAW I've used. (I've had graphics bugs with it, and one plugin managed to hang the whole DAW, but that was once.)

Live has video hosting for scoring to film, along with other things if you're doing video work of the two of them, Live is just much better. There's third party VST plugins that will host video, but meh!

Bitwig is a bit better at CPU management, you'll get a few more plugins out of it. Neither hold a candle to old school DAWs like Reaper, Digital Performer, Logic or Cubase, but then again both Live and Bitwig less glitchy when instantiating plugins while the sequencer is running.

Bitwigs browser used to be better than Lives, but Live 12 has a great redo of the browser, and IMO Bitwig 5 kinda hosed its browser.

Frustration wise, I love Live, I'm not that sure about Ableton as a company though, they still haven't written a Live 12 manual, it's online only now, and they still haven't fixed it. They decided to work on Accessibility, so they dumped old key commands, added new ones and even then almost none of them are single key, and plenty of them are three key. Bitwig take their own path, it's not always about what seems like common user requests, but their update schedule is solid, and it definitly feels less like dealing with Microsoft, Adobe, or Apple with them.

Anyway from someone who leans towards Bitwig but upgraded to Live 12 and would be on it 100% if they had made Push 3 standalone capable of song composition.

Valkasman · Post by **Valkasman** » Tue Jul 23, 2024 1:56 am

Thanks. I kinda ran the gambit with DAWs. I have Reason 13, Cubase 13, Bitwig 5.1, FL2024. They all seem to have their plus and minus. I know it's all about preference though. I think if BItwig had built in retrospective recording and some slightly different ways of doing chords and scales I might not even consider Ableton. Seeing peoples work flow in and and the ease of doing some things has me interested enough to try it.

HOTF · Post by **HOTF** » Thu Jul 25, 2024 7:16 pm

any idea when the patch is going to be officially released ?

jonljacobi · Post by **jonljacobi** » Fri Jul 26, 2024 12:31 am

jules99 wrote: Mon Jul 22, 2024 9:32 am Generally speaking, Ableton has seen quite the turmoil in recent months with over 20 percent of staff been let go soon after Superbooth. Who knows which departments were hit hardest?

Sorry to hear. They're quite nice to me for my reviews. Are their financials bad or something?

concealed identity · Post by **concealed identity** » Fri Jul 26, 2024 9:45 pm

As a non-user, can someone explain why you would use the new Drum Sampler in Drum Racks instead of Simpler? Does it offer any new functionality or make anything easier to do? Because I feel like Simpler is pretty straightforward and easy to work with, so I'm not really sure why one would use the Drum Sampler instead.

HOTF · Post by **HOTF** » Fri Jul 26, 2024 11:09 pm

concealed identity wrote: Fri Jul 26, 2024 9:45 pm As a non-user, can someone explain why you would use the new Drum Sampler in Drum Racks instead of Simpler? Does it offer any new functionality or make anything easier to do? Because I feel like Simpler is pretty straightforward and easy to work with, so I'm not really sure why one would use the Drum Sampler instead.

yeah you can timsetretch, loop, bit crush, fm, ring mod, add a sub layer or noise layer with just one click. The more important settings for drums are arguably eaasier to reach even if they are also already easy too reach in simpler.

concealed identity · Post by **concealed identity** » Fri Jul 26, 2024 11:18 pm

HOTF wrote: Fri Jul 26, 2024 11:09 pm
concealed identity wrote: Fri Jul 26, 2024 9:45 pm As a non-user, can someone explain why you would use the new Drum Sampler in Drum Racks instead of Simpler? Does it offer any new functionality or make anything easier to do? Because I feel like Simpler is pretty straightforward and easy to work with, so I'm not really sure why one would use the Drum Sampler instead.
yeah you can timsetretch, loop, bit crush, fm, ring mod, add a sub layer or noise layer with just one click. The more important settings for drums are arguably eaasier to reach even if they are also already easy too reach in simpler.

Gotcha, thanks! Still seems like a kind of surprising thing to add, but I get it

Ableton Live 12.1 is released! (Feb26 12.1.10 is out)