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Ableton Live 11

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Re: Ableton Live 11

#231

Post by pizza »

RickS wrote: post #198
jaspergilley wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you'd end up with Fruity Loops

As a long time (15+yrs) user of both. FLS has better ergonomics in a lot of places. Especially piano roll (slide MIDI notes) and arrangement view (automation as standalone clip). Plus the razor tool, my god... FLS doesn't have a max for live equivalent, but I'd guess 90% of people don't use MFL. The edison recording workflow is hot trash IMO, or else I'd pretty readily move back to FL.

> the razor tool

I really really enjoy using Ableton and have stuck with it for years now, but one of the first things that struck me once I swapped from FL Studio was how stupid it was that Ableton's piano roll lacked this fairly basic yet crucial tool..

Re: Ableton Live 11

#232

Post by joeevans1000 »

iainctduncan wrote: post #227
joeevans1000 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't yet seen a third party device that allows you to create a clip of a given length, record into it, and have it loop. You can do this in software if you want to sit on your laptop in front of your audience. You can do the BinkLooper workaround if you want a simple external hardware device to interact with things but it's really complicated. I would truly love to find out a way to do what the Push 2 does for l…

This is not at all a hard thing to do in Max (and thus Max4Live), and it's also very easy to hook up midi controllers to let you steer it without ever looking at your laptop.

That's what I've been wondering and wanting to explore. Thanks for nudging me n that direction. Maybe I can do it all with Max and Live. Then I'd be up for it all.

Re: Ableton Live 11

#233

Post by joeevans1000 »

iainctduncan wrote: post #227
joeevans1000 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't yet seen a third party device that allows you to create a clip of a given length, record into it, and have it loop. You can do this in software if you want to sit on your laptop in front of your audience. You can do the BinkLooper workaround if you want a simple external hardware device to interact with things but it's really complicated. I would truly love to find out a way to do what the Push 2 does for l…

This is not at all a hard thing to do in Max (and thus Max4Live), and it's also very easy to hook up midi controllers to let you steer it without ever looking at your laptop.

That's what I've been wondering and wanting to explore. Thanks for nudging me n that direction. Maybe I can do it all with Max and Live. Then I'd be up for it all. Have you or do you know of someone who has done something like this?

Re: Ableton Live 11

#234

Post by lostgame »

dumpsterdiver wrote: post #134
lostgame wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously. That alone has been one of the big things keeping me firmly in Logic Pro's camp. I'm also glad they're starting to add more instruments to the default package (notably, finally; a proper 'Upright Piano') - as the value proposition of Ableton Standard at $400 vs Logic Pro at $200 has been extremely one-sided in Logic's favour for many, many years now. I do understand, of course; I'm strictly speaking as a M…

Speaking of instruments, after purchasing the Native Instruments Kontakt piano plugins: The Giant, The Maverick, The Grandeur, The Gentleman and Una Corda - I can never go back to the instruments provided with the DAW. The NI instruments mentioned above are just so head and shoulder above the rest, imo. My favorite is The Giant using either the "emotional" or "intimate" preset. Feel free to tweak those presets if you…

I agree. The Giant is messed up. So phenomenal. :)

Re: Ableton Live 11

#235

Post by dharma1 »

arvinsim wrote: post #172
dharma1 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I wonder how iOS Logic Pro would handle plugins.

The same way as iOS Garageband handles AUv3 now, I assume.

AUv3 plugins are meant to be able to run on both MacOS and iOS in the near future (this has caused some concern in the plugin dev community, because of different pricing models). Just in iOS they are apps you install from the app store, because everything that executes code needs to be a sandboxed app in iOS.

Re: Ableton Live 11

#236

Post by arvinsim »

dharma1 wrote: post #235
arvinsim wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how iOS Logic Pro would handle plugins.

The same way as iOS Garageband handles AUv3 now, I assume. AUv3 plugins are meant to be able to run on both MacOS and iOS in the near future (this has caused some concern in the plugin dev community, because of different pricing models). Just in iOS they are apps you install from the app store, because everything that executes code needs to be a sandboxed app in iOS.

Okay, I do see why it would affect pricing then if they are forced to be in the App store. I always thought that they would be handled the same way as desktop.

In any case, I am still waiting for Logic Pro or Ableton to be ported to the iPad.

Re: Ableton Live 11

#237

Post by aldanor »

Slow_Hand wrote: post #221
aldanor wrote: post #175

Now if ONLY they added things all other DAWs have - say, a mixer where you could see all your attached plugins at once? Try mixing a 100-channel project with a few plugins on most tracks where you have to click on the track first to see which plugins it has. I'm completely baffled at why they can't just accept some standard designs that have become common practice over time and integrate them into the UI. (I'm aware…

I believe it may have to do with the fact that Ableton is a performance tool first and foremost. It would follow that all design decisions stem from that requirement. Yes it is a full-featured DAW like Logic or Pro Tools, but Ableton differentiate themselves by supporting that paradigm and that leads them to configurations that are unconventional for non-performance-oriented DAWs: 1. Having all instruments and plugin…

> That said, you CAN still have Ableton's plugins displayed in the manner you prefer. It's a hidden feature that's not documented. Pretty easy to setup, but not discoverable. It's an option that they developed but decided not to include in the final version. Here's a tutorial: sonicbloom.net/en/ableton-live-insider-tips-options-txt-part-1/

I've specifically noted above, expecting this reply: "I'm aware of the Options.txt hack which is unreliable and I'm not even sure it works with the latest Live 10". It does NOT work properly and it's unsupported/unmaintained. You get misaligned circles, up to 4 per channel, instead of plugin names, because redraw logic is broken.

> Having all instruments and plugins in a horizontally-oriented trough allows quick drag-and-drop rearrangement.

That's true in most DAWs. E.g. in Logic, you just drag plugins around, either in the channel strip which would be always open for a given channel, but ALSO in the mixer view. Try dragging plugins across channels in Live and see how that goes for you.

> It allows you to reach the knobs on their native instruments and plugins without the need to open/close plugin windows firs

Same in Bitwig. In Logic, you can't but instead you can e.g. see all (native) EQ curves for all channels simultaneously in the mixer view and access it without having to select the track first.

> MIDI mapping becomes much quicker and intuitive when you can simply toggle the MIDI/Keyboard mapping overlay for a given plugin.

Same in Bitwig. In Logic it's a few clicks instead of one but the idea is the same.

> Being able to nest plugins within them like macros and then quickly hide or reveal a dozen plugins within a single rack is great for declutterring an otherwise busy interface.

True. But that comes at a price of those chains and effects being even LESS discoverable when it comes to mixing. Since now a particular plugin may be buried deep two layers down in a rack of racks.

Re: Ableton Live 11

#238

Post by capableweb »

adamnemecek wrote: post #91
capableweb wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like you always appear to plug your vaporware every time any music production tool comes up on the front page. I would be OK with that if what you're linking actually had some content on it or we could actually play with it. But the last 10 times I've seen you mention it, it's been without any details what so ever and without any ability to actually see/use it. Might actually been more than 10 times now when I…

I don't "appear" to plug it, I plug it. Are you the person in charge of what's OK? Why do you think it's vaporware? How long do you think it takes to write a DAW?

> I don't "appear" to plug it, I plug it

If you had something to contribute to the discussion and then plug your project, then I'd say you're just plugging it. But you're not. You're just "appearing" in threads to plug you project. It's not a side-effect of your comment, it's the entirety of your comment. Hence "appear > plug" instead of just "plug".

And no, I'm not in charge of what's OK, just telling you that people are starting to see your constant, unrelated plugging as spam.

And yes, it is (currently) vaporware, no matter how long time it takes to build it. Why is it vaporware? You're advertising something that currently no one can use and their is no concrete information about it. When someone asks what it is, you ask them what they want. You don't even seem to know what the project you're building is yet.

Re: Ableton Live 11

#239

Post by spacechild1 »

varispeed wrote: post #180
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The specific example you cite seems to be: [ A, B, C ] --+ | +--> [ G ] | [ D, E, F ] --+ If Live really insists on running [ A, B, C, D, E, F, G ] all in a single thread, then I agree with you, Live is being sub-optimal at best, dumb at worst. Despite their description supporting this notion that their scheduling works this way, I'm skeptical, because they're just not that dumb (I hope! :) However, sandboxing is abs…

Yes this is what's happening in Ableton and by your description I'd love if Ableton did the same thing as Ardour. I understand sandbox is not the simplest, but it is exactly what jBridge does and it gives me better performance in Ableton, so by simplest I meant that Ableton wouldn't have to change how they do processing, as jBridge is just a wrapper - does not modify Ableton in any way.

Again, sandboxing is not done for performance reasons. On the contrary, it degrades performance because of the context switch and thread synchronization overhead. I am saying this as someone who has developed a VST plugin host with sandboxing options.

Finally, please make sure you understand what Paul Davis has tried to explain you. He's a well-respected industry expert.

Re: Ableton Live 11

#240

Post by spacechild1 »

spacechild1 wrote: post #239
varispeed wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes this is what's happening in Ableton and by your description I'd love if Ableton did the same thing as Ardour. I understand sandbox is not the simplest, but it is exactly what jBridge does and it gives me better performance in Ableton, so by simplest I meant that Ableton wouldn't have to change how they do processing, as jBridge is just a wrapper - does not modify Ableton in any way.

Again, sandboxing is not done for performance reasons. On the contrary, it degrades performance because of the context switch and thread synchronization overhead. I am saying this as someone who has developed a VST plugin host with sandboxing options. Finally, please make sure you understand what Paul Davis has tried to explain you. He's a well-respected industry expert.

To elaborate why sandboxing itself can't help performance, let's assume you have an FX chain A -> B -> C and "B" is sandboxed. After you've computed "A", you take the output and pass it to "B". You then have to wait for "B" to finish before you can go on and compute "C". So while the subprocess for "B" might run in another thread, the main audio thread has to go to sleep. See how there's actually no parallelism at play? In fact, you lose performance because context switches and thread synchronization (especially wake up from sleep) takes time.

I think jBridge might actually collect the result of the subprocess in the next DSP tick. This means that the thread can go on to compute "C" because it can take the result of "B" from the previous DSP tick. Now you indeed have things run in parallel. However, this adds additional latency of 1 audio block. If you have several of such sandboxed plugins in a row, this can easily add up.

This is technique is sometimes called the "pipelining" (see "2.3" in https://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/Diplomarbeiten/blechmann11...). Note that you don't need sandboxing for this. You can just as well dispatch items to a thread pool, so everything stays within the same process.

So I think the speed up you observe with jBridge has nothing to do with sandboxing per-se, but is just a side effect of its implementation. I can't prove this because I can't look at the source code, but for me this is the most likely explanation.

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