Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ableton Live 11

ableton.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 268 posts

Re: Ableton Live 11

#101

Post by alexilliamson »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #10
sph wrote: post #4

As a UI and UX nerd, one thing I really love about the digital music production scene is that software companies writing DAWs and VSTs know their audience and strive to give power users all the tools they need to be as productive as possible. Knobs, curves, programming (Max for Live), integration with external tools. In other fields of software development instead we dumb everything down to the lowest denominator, an…

> Imagine what Ableton would look like if they were only optimising for the user that wants to put a couple of pre-made loops together and call it a song. It would look a lot like FL Studio, which caters more towards that end of the market.

You can run python scripts in FL Studio. I think it's more accurate to say that FL caters to midi/piano roll workflows. It's more about style than complexity level.

Re: Ableton Live 11

#102

Post by dharma1 »

packetlost wrote: post #96
robenkleene wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually amazing how consistent the pattern is for professional creative apps, I did a study of market leaders across various industries[1] (based on the best data I could fine), and every single one supports some form of extension. Just doing a quick eye-ball glance, and I'd guess every single one of the apps I looked at also supports some form of scripting. (This is only tangentially relevant to this thread, b…

Anyone who works in a specialized field (or hobbyists) can tell you the iPad will never be a "pro" device for any serious work outside of art/digital painting. iOS is simply just too limiting, and Apple intentionally neuters the App store to protect the lowest common denominator from shooting themselves in the foot with malware.

I think you could have a really good iOS DAW, I think Apple will release Logic for iPad pro at some point. But yes some of the iOS architecture is a bit weird, in terms of apps/plugins/files silos.

I think the "no windows" and sandboxed apps/files paradigms are very limiting for pro work.

And you really need lots of customisable keyboard shortcuts for most pro work, most iOS apps are extremely lacking in this department.

Re: Ableton Live 11

#103

Post by marshray »

jancsika wrote: post #86
sph wrote: post #4

As a UI and UX nerd, one thing I really love about the digital music production scene is that software companies writing DAWs and VSTs know their audience and strive to give power users all the tools they need to be as productive as possible. Knobs, curves, programming (Max for Live), integration with external tools. In other fields of software development instead we dumb everything down to the lowest denominator, an…

> Knobs Can someone explain to me the point of a GUI knob? Is it just the analogy to physical knobs on mixers that makes people comfortable with them in GUIs?

Knobs and sliders allow users to leverage their spatial and manipulation abilities to specify a value from a continuous range.

You could also ask users to just type in a number, but that interrupts the flow and pushes some other data out of their short-term memory. Composers and audio engineers would probably prefer to keep that part of their brain free to focus on other things.

Sliders can also be laid out in an array (as on a mixing console) to give at a glance a graphical representation of relative levels. Another example is on the classic "two turntable" DJ mixing setup where a horizontally-oriented slider is used to control the balance between left and right.

Knobs' advantage is they are particularly space-efficient.

So you tend to see sliders used for the primary controls in situations where its useful to compare them side-by-side, and everything else as a knob.

Re: Ableton Live 11

#104

Post by taffer »

sph wrote: post #4

As a UI and UX nerd, one thing I really love about the digital music production scene is that software companies writing DAWs and VSTs know their audience and strive to give power users all the tools they need to be as productive as possible. Knobs, curves, programming (Max for Live), integration with external tools. In other fields of software development instead we dumb everything down to the lowest denominator, an…

Interestingly, DAWs have always had flat UI designs, something that many HN commentators seem to frown upon.

Re: Ableton Live 11

#105

Post by andybak »

jancsika wrote: post #86
sph wrote: post #4

As a UI and UX nerd, one thing I really love about the digital music production scene is that software companies writing DAWs and VSTs know their audience and strive to give power users all the tools they need to be as productive as possible. Knobs, curves, programming (Max for Live), integration with external tools. In other fields of software development instead we dumb everything down to the lowest denominator, an…

> Knobs Can someone explain to me the point of a GUI knob? Is it just the analogy to physical knobs on mixers that makes people comfortable with them in GUIs?

Sliders are a great fit for a touchscreen. And knobs are basically sliders that take up less room.

I don’t see the problem? If you give me a numeric input that doesn’t allow me to drag or swipe to change values then I’ll swiftly be looking for a different app.

Re: Ableton Live 11

#106

Post by packetlost »

dharma1 wrote: post #102
packetlost wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who works in a specialized field (or hobbyists) can tell you the iPad will never be a "pro" device for any serious work outside of art/digital painting. iOS is simply just too limiting, and Apple intentionally neuters the App store to protect the lowest common denominator from shooting themselves in the foot with malware.

I think you could have a really good iOS DAW, I think Apple will release Logic for iPad pro at some point. But yes some of the iOS architecture is a bit weird, in terms of apps/plugins/files silos. I think the "no windows" and sandboxed apps/files paradigms are very limiting for pro work. And you really need lots of customisable keyboard shortcuts for most pro work, most iOS apps are extremely lacking in this departm…

FL Studio mobile is already quite capable, and I'm sure Logic for iPad would be great. But most DAWs make heavy use of plugins/VSTs to provide extensibility to the environment, and I highly doubt that will be supported. Why would you use an iPad over a MBP for that kind of thing? I can't imagine the touch-screen gives any sort of real advantage.

Re: Ableton Live 11

#107

Post by andybak »

powerapple wrote: post #45
sph wrote: post #4

As a UI and UX nerd, one thing I really love about the digital music production scene is that software companies writing DAWs and VSTs know their audience and strive to give power users all the tools they need to be as productive as possible. Knobs, curves, programming (Max for Live), integration with external tools. In other fields of software development instead we dumb everything down to the lowest denominator, an…

I remember the first time I saw Reason's cable system, it was so pleasant to use. The software makes you happy. Music software not only does something, it also does something in style, I really appreciate the details given for each little things.

I felt this way briefly until I tried to use it and then I started to understand that physical metaphors have their limits. Ableton seemed like a much smarter piece of UX design.

Re: Ableton Live 11

#108

Post by andybak »

farias0 wrote: post #67
toomanybeersies wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine what Ableton would look like if they were only optimising for the user that wants to put a couple of pre-made loops together and call it a song. It would look a lot like FL Studio, which caters more towards that end of the market.

Dude, FL Studio is so much more complex and flexible than Ableton! So much that I'm switching to Ableton for a while to see if I can get more productive and spend less time troubleshooting stuff I'd say the opposite: Ableton is more focused and simpler, streamlining lots of stuff (live VSTs) without being less powerful. Kinda Apple-ish in a way.

I don’t know FL very well but Ableton’s power is cleverly designed and is easy to miss when you only use the obvious surface features.

Re: Ableton Live 11

#109

Post by Slow_Hand »

sph wrote: post #4

As a UI and UX nerd, one thing I really love about the digital music production scene is that software companies writing DAWs and VSTs know their audience and strive to give power users all the tools they need to be as productive as possible. Knobs, curves, programming (Max for Live), integration with external tools. In other fields of software development instead we dumb everything down to the lowest denominator, an…

Absolutely love this about Ableton and that’s the reason it’s my main tool.

As a creator it allows me to flow and shift quickly between different modes of production. It emphasizes speed and intuition, and it allows me to excute powerful moves in far fewer steps than every other DAW I use (Pro Tools, Logic, Cubase).

With the announcement of track comping (long overdue) it resolves my biggest pain point.

Particularly interesting is it’s newly integrated tempo-follow feature which allows the DAW to follow the tempo of an external audio source, such as a live drummer. This bridges the performance gap between live bands with tempos that fluctuate and electronic instruments that typically adhere to a rigid clock source. It goes a long way towards resolving a long-standing tension between live musicians and sequenced electronic music. I’m thrilled to see Ableton doubling down on it’s essence as a performance tool and cannot wait to try it out.

Re: Ableton Live 11

#110

Post by teucris »

packetlost wrote: post #96
robenkleene wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually amazing how consistent the pattern is for professional creative apps, I did a study of market leaders across various industries[1] (based on the best data I could fine), and every single one supports some form of extension. Just doing a quick eye-ball glance, and I'd guess every single one of the apps I looked at also supports some form of scripting. (This is only tangentially relevant to this thread, b…

Anyone who works in a specialized field (or hobbyists) can tell you the iPad will never be a "pro" device for any serious work outside of art/digital painting. iOS is simply just too limiting, and Apple intentionally neuters the App store to protect the lowest common denominator from shooting themselves in the foot with malware.

I have been using Ableton Live for music production for over a decade, and I can say that if it were ported to work on my iPad, I’d use it every day.
Post reply on HN