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Ableton Extensions SDK

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Re: Ableton Extensions SDK

#21

Post by peteforde »

coldtea wrote: post #17
peteforde wrote: post #11

I've often felt as though the way to make a DAW that competes with Ableton today would be to build the entire UI around composable scripted modules. Far too much of Ableton's secret sauce is hidden away behind Max for Live and top-tier pricing only features. This is a great step in the right direction.

> Far too much of Ableton's secret sauce is hidden away behind Max for Live The other way around. Ableton exposes some internal modules to Max for Live as Max for Live modules. What Ableton gets from Max for Live is not internals, but basically a few Ableton-only Max-built plugins, that could as well use VST underneath.

I answered this in a different branch of the thread, but you're kind of missing my point. I don't own Max for Live, so the large ecosystem of useful tools that I'd enjoy trying out is unavailable to me.

It's not about special powers, just being forced to pay the gatekeeper to the otherwise free/OSS ecosystem.

Re: Ableton Extensions SDK

#22

Post by henry28256 »

bbgm wrote: post #20

Somewhat unrelated, but the number of times I have invoked Ableton as a metaphor of challenging the status quo is quite high. I was a Cubase user before Ableton showed up and completely upended the DAW world. And they've kept going. This is just what I've been looking for. I never warmed to Max for Live for mods. But the extensions SDK I can get behind.

I've used the same metaphor for AI tools. The incumbents keep adding features to the old paradigm (like Cubase did). Then someone comes along and rethinks the interaction model entirely (like Ableton with Session View). AI tools are in that transition moment right now — most are just adding AI to old workflows, not rethinking the workflow itself.

Re: Ableton Extensions SDK

#23

Post by krrishd »

This is cool - feels great that there's a growing long-term incentive to implement open SDKs and APIs, for the sake of agent-forward prosumers, in the spirit of earlier internet stuff that used to do it but stopped.

Re: Ableton Extensions SDK

#24

Post by AaronAPU »

moralestapia wrote: post #2

>Extensions are built on the NodeJS platform, a free, open-source, cross-platform JavaScript runtime environment. I applied for a job with them and proposed this exact thing about 8 years ago (got auto-rejected, I would've been very happy to work on it). But I'm glad to see they finally did it.

I would imagine nearly every programmer who has ever used a DAW has thought “this would be cool to have its own scripting language.”

They already had Python. Mentioning an architecturally obvious idea in a job application is likely to read as insulting, because it presumes their engineers weren’t already aware of that possibility.

Re: Ableton Extensions SDK

#25

Post by SoleilAbsolu »

peteforde wrote: post #19
jmole wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is zero "secret sauce" in max for live. Ableton and Max are totally separate codebases, and "Max for Live" is just a ~VST interface between them. I do agree that "scriptable Ableton" would be far better for production and sound design than Max, because they make all the hard parts easy: MIDI, sequencing, mixing, etc. In Max, you have to build everything from scratch, every time.

I think we're talking past each other. I don't own Max for Live. If I want to use it, I either need to upgrade to Ableton Suite for $500 or I need to upgrade to Standard and buy Max for Live separately (also $500). There's a huge ecosystem of tools that are implemented as Max for Live packages which I cannot access because I haven't paid the toll. I see that even this new Extensions SDK is only available to people wh…

FWIW you should be "able to" get 2ndhand Ableton Suite licenses for significantly less...IIRC I paid ~$350 a few years ago.

Re: Ableton Extensions SDK

#26

Post by SoleilAbsolu »

bbgm wrote: post #20

Somewhat unrelated, but the number of times I have invoked Ableton as a metaphor of challenging the status quo is quite high. I was a Cubase user before Ableton showed up and completely upended the DAW world. And they've kept going. This is just what I've been looking for. I never warmed to Max for Live for mods. But the extensions SDK I can get behind.

Also the fact that Ableton has stayed independent (and bought Cycling '74, maker of Max/MSP) is IMO critical to their ongoing success...Compare to how Native Instruments and iZoptope are mere rent-seeking shadows of their founders' visions since PE/VC took over.

One of the features that got me hooked on Ableton Live was how easy it was to do "analog style" audio recording of whatever you're hearing in realtime...not bounce, render, or sample to another device (it can do all of these too). For the master bus - just create an audio track, arm for recording and set input to "Resampling". Can do the same with any number of tracks/groups. This is critical to me for capturing ideas in realtime and continually reprocessing/resampling as I go.

I was astonished when I first started making digital music 20 years ago that this isn't a standard feature in every DAW. Some DAWs (REAPER, Bitwig, AudioMulch) do this as easily, others (Logic, Reason) have workarounds.

Re: Ableton Extensions SDK

#27

Post by Lucasoato »

Among the first examples they show Paulstretch for Live. I remember using Audacity to apply it in the past because it wasn't easily available in other DAWs :)

Try slowing the PSX opening sound by 5x to 10x, you won't regret it.

Re: Ableton Extensions SDK

#28

Post by peteforde »

SoleilAbsolu wrote: post #25
peteforde wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we're talking past each other. I don't own Max for Live. If I want to use it, I either need to upgrade to Ableton Suite for $500 or I need to upgrade to Standard and buy Max for Live separately (also $500). There's a huge ecosystem of tools that are implemented as Max for Live packages which I cannot access because I haven't paid the toll. I see that even this new Extensions SDK is only available to people wh…

FWIW you should be "able to" get 2ndhand Ableton Suite licenses for significantly less...IIRC I paid ~$350 a few years ago.

Please say more

Re: Ableton Extensions SDK

#29

Post by lukaszkorecki »

iainctduncan wrote: post #8

For people into this sort of thing, another option is using my foss Max extension, Scheme for Max, to script Live through the live API using Scheme. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0sKBA-Pv2c&t=1s The live object model is MUCH nicer to use in a lisp, as basically you do everything by making dynamic lists to represent what you want to access! There are examples in the Scheme for Max help file. (Also, Scheme for Max c…

I need to check this out, I bounced off Max 3 times now because I find the GUI approach so tedious

Re: Ableton Extensions SDK

#30

Post by moralestapia »

AaronAPU wrote: post #24
moralestapia wrote: post #2

>Extensions are built on the NodeJS platform, a free, open-source, cross-platform JavaScript runtime environment. I applied for a job with them and proposed this exact thing about 8 years ago (got auto-rejected, I would've been very happy to work on it). But I'm glad to see they finally did it.

I would imagine nearly every programmer who has ever used a DAW has thought “this would be cool to have its own scripting language.” They already had Python. Mentioning an architecturally obvious idea in a job application is likely to read as insulting, because it presumes their engineers weren’t already aware of that possibility.

I'd love to read those cover letters then.

Then I can make a meaningful comparison.

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