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Ableton Extensions SDK

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Re: Ableton Extensions SDK

#61

Post by SuddsMcDuff »

tnolet wrote: post #50
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.

Totally unrelated, but it's still interesting that a lot of the key music software was / is created in either Berlin (Ableton, Native Instruments) or in / near Hamburg (Steinberg of Cubase — now owned by Yamaha — and Emagic of Logic — now owned by Apple). There must have been something in the air.

I never knew that, and it is _really_ interesting! My DAW of choice (Bitwig) also based in Berlin...

Re: Ableton Extensions SDK

#62

Post by moralestapia »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #34
moralestapia wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Native Instruments is bankrupt, unfortunately.

They've been purchased.

Wow, you created Ardour! Thanks!

I was a heavy and loyal Cubase user then switched to Ardour when it came out because of OSS.

Also Reason, you guys remember Reason? It had such a warm, characteristic sound out of the box. You could easily hear it in many songs of the time; same with Fruity Loops but for all the wrong reasons, lol.

I don't do a lot of music at the moment, but it's nice to read you here ^^.

Re: Ableton Extensions SDK

#63

Post by windowliker »

jmole wrote: post #13
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.

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.

>Ableton and Max are totally separate codebases, and "Max for Live" is just a ~VST interface between them.

This is not strictly true, and Max for Live (M4L) is much more than a pseudo-VST. In the context of Live, the Max runtime is controlled by the DAW, which itself then exposes part of its interface to Max. So there's realtime bi-directional communication going on, more akin to how Propellerhead Software's (now deprecated) ReWire protocol used to work, the host passing control information (transport position, note data, etc.) and audio buffers into the client software and vice-versa. There is some superficial similarity with VST in this sense, but with M4L it's much more deeply integrated into the DAW as a whole. The Live Object Model[1], while not complete, is extensive, and there is very little that is off-limits to a M4L device to manipulate, with the caveat that care must be taken to avoid overflow of the control stream coming back from Max into Live (certain operations must be placed in the low-priority scheduler thread).

This new API gives much of the same control that M4L already did, but without having to have Max involved.

>In Max, you have to build everything from scratch, every time.

Again, not strictly true. Editing a M4L device opens the full Max environment, which has a snippets[2] feature much like any other good IDE. You can easily build a large library of boilerplate code for your own specific purposes with it. There are also many basic examples included out of the box.

[1] https://docs.cycling74.com/apiref/lom/

[2] https://docs.cycling74.com/userguide/snippets/

Re: Ableton Extensions SDK

#64

Post by cdavid »

tnolet wrote: post #50
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.

Totally unrelated, but it's still interesting that a lot of the key music software was / is created in either Berlin (Ableton, Native Instruments) or in / near Hamburg (Steinberg of Cubase — now owned by Yamaha — and Emagic of Logic — now owned by Apple). There must have been something in the air.

Partially a mix of strong, hacker culture in Germany in the 90ies + Berlin being a major place for electronic music in that decade.

For example, ableton was famousley co-created by the members of the monolake, a pioneer of minimalist techno in the 90ies. Some history there: https://www.roberthenke.com/interviews/ableton.html

Re: Ableton Extensions SDK

#65

Post by jiriknesl »

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.

I don't think it is true.

There are massive communities around tools far more simple than Ableton was even a decade ago, like SP404, Akai MPCs, Elektron Digitakt.

Many musicians treat any item as an instrument, not as a plaform. There are probably dozens of videos on youtube, where musicians explain, why they use more limited tools instead of Ableton.

To make a successful music tool (that includes DAW), you have to own a powerful workflow, that some group of musicians love or need. Extensibility is fine, but not the only way to succeed.

There are now people making music on pocket trackers that have ± same amount of features as modplug Tracker I used in the end of 90s.

The thing is, when you make a music with a guitar, you don't want your guitar to be 'built around composable scripted modules'. You want to play an instrument, and the UX should enable it, and generally get out of the way.

Re: Ableton Extensions SDK

#66

Post by briandear »

SoleilAbsolu wrote: post #26
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…

FabFilter is another independent company that make some of the best plugins around.

Re: Ableton Extensions SDK

#67

Post by easyThrowaway »

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.

They also offer substantial discounts if you attend their seminars. I was able to buy Live Standard for roughly 150€ a few years ago.

Re: Ableton Extensions SDK

#68

Post by [deleted] »

honkycat wrote: post #38
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.

You're describing reaper. Super great for scripting

[deleted]

Re: Ableton Extensions SDK

#70

Post by nedt »

The have it buried in the FAQ, but that's pretty much the interface for AI. And a really good one. You can use it with just your old human intelligence, but then you can also get help if coding isn't your thing.

Biggest issue with having something so easy to work with is the huge amount of extensions we will be getting, which makes it harder to find the jewels.

Also wondering if we will get extensions for Abelton Move as well. There are already a couple of hacks that are adding functions that are running as a sidecar. This could give them an official API.

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