#41

another reason I was waiting for 10, I was sure they would make M4L standard as there is no reason to segregate it off, when it would drive many more sales of Live.

#42

Absolutely, if it does end up being another 5 years of updates, that is good value. Iā€™ve just been screwed over by Adobe with their change to subscription only with Lightroom.

They deserve praise for not going down the subscription route.

Here is a video from a few years back about their software development processes (and how they had to change), I know itā€™s an advert really, but it says a lot of the right thingsā€¦

I was hopping that suite would include the standalone version of Max, not just M4L.

(would also love a Linux version of Live)

2 Likes
#43

Iā€™ve been testing Live 10 for about a month or so and, while I do understand why everybody seems to be underwhelmed by the update, I gotta say that thereā€™s a lot more to it then it seems at first glance.

In my opinion, the entire UI looks and feels a lot better. The new font looks super nice on retina screens, the new color scheme is nice and the animations look a lot more fluid and natural. While this doesnā€™t affect the audio in any way, I think it definitely makes the whole experience way more enjoyable to the point that Live 9 now looks and feels really old to me.
Thereā€™s a bunch of other small things that I really enjoyed about this update: using the Utility to make a signal mono below x Hz, new drum synths, pressing Z to zoom to selected area, installing and updating packs directly from Live, ability to hide certain categories from the sidebar, automation snapping, sysex support in MaxforLive (finally!), etc.
As for the new flagship features, I agree with everybody that including MaxforLive by default was a great decision and the new Wavetable synth is super awesome (just wish it could import wavetables and had more modulation options).

Another information that I got directly from Ableton is that they will indeed add more major improvements to Live 10 in future dot releases (as they did with Live 9.5 etc) so that might also be something to keep in mind. The only one that I got from them that I havenā€™t seen in the marketing material so far is that third party drum plug-ins will have a layout similar to the Drum Rack in Push.

I donā€™t mean to sound like an Ableton apologist but, after testing it for quite a bit, I think this update adds a bunch of smaller improvements that really make the whole thing a lot better. I really miss many of these changes when I need go back to Live 9 (which is quite often because the beta is still buggy).
Sure thereā€™s a lot that Ableton couldā€™ve added and improved but I do think they did a very nice job here.

11 Likes
#44

I do kind of wonder what Ableton does to collect feedback from testers like yourself. A lot of the things people are asking for here have been desired for quite a long time.

I love Ableton Live, and I always go back to it after spending time in other DAWs, so clearly theyā€™re doing something right from my perspective. But it doesnā€™t always feel like their priorities are very tightly aligned with usersā€™ priorities. And hey, sometimes users are just wrong!

So, anyway, just curious what theyā€™re doing to collect feedback from beta testers.

#45

They do actively ask for as much feedback as possible.
I got the beta from some AR people I know and they actively sent me emails asking me for feedback. Yesterday, when they sent me a message saying that the embargo was lifted, they also provided a link to a more extensive feedback form.
Iā€™ve also submitted a couple of bug reports via Center Code and the whole process seems to be very effective.

I do think that they do have some great priorities but itā€™s a DAW so different from other, more standard, DAWs that their user base is so diversified to the point that imho they simply canā€™t please everybody.
Everybody that I know uses Live in different ways.

4 Likes
#46

In the new I/O naming function, is there an ability to ā€œselect allā€ input and output channels to make them active? I use an aggregate audio device and end up with somewhere around 34 channels. Its a minor annoyance when I have to click around to each individual channel to activate them in the audio settings.

#47

Every single time I power cycle an audio interface. Major irritation!

1 Like
#48

To Abletonā€™s credit, the whole thing usually crashes when a power cycle occurs so its not like the clicking around is whatā€™s taking me out of the zone.

2 Likes
#49

I know, right? ā€œLess crashyā€ is the feature Iā€™m most eagerly anticipating.

1 Like
#50

Yeah, the beta doesnā€™t seem to include a enable / disable all :confused:
Iā€™ll make sure to mention it in my next feedback email tho. Itā€™s probably something that they could easily add to the final release.

@jasonw22 Yeah, I feel that Live 9 is very stable these days but the 10 Beta is still very crashy (which is understandable for a beta).
But I hope things will get a lot better around 10.2, 10.3, etc.

#51

I wish I felt that way!

#52

Haha yeah, I understand that different people have different experiences with the software. I can only say, while Live 9 definitely crashes every now and then, I never had critical problems in the middle of my live sets or anything.
Maybe Iā€™m just lucky :man_shrugging:

#53

Iā€™m not performing live with Live (and donā€™t plan to, too crashy!) so itā€™s all studio work, with lots of plugins and M4L. I imagine itā€™s either the aggregate device, the plugins, or the M4L devices, or a combination of all of the above, that are taking away from my stability.

I could go through the pain of diagnosing the crashes and trying to improve stability, but my plan for live performance is to remove the computer from the equation altogether. Leave it in the studio. Weā€™ll see if the plan comes to fruition at any point. Iā€™m not really in a position to be performing right now anyway. Not enough time for practice.

When Ableton adds the feature of ā€œmore time for practiceā€ to the list, I will pay eleventy-gajillion dollars for it.

3 Likes
#54

M4L is now native Live. Wondering if it runs without Java.

#55

Iā€™ve heard from a friend at Ableton, that most crash reports are unfortunately due to crappy third party plugins. :frowning: Is your experience the same with other DAWs+a lot of plugins? I mostly use the stock ableton ones and it never crashed on me *knocks on wood*

#56

No, I donā€™t have these problems in Logic or Bitwig. But I use Live anyway, so that says something.

#57

Capture is going to be quirky and not work how I want it to, but Iā€™m gonna use it all the timeā€¦ just like Live itself.

2 Likes
#58

Iā€™d guess the aggregate device, Iā€™ve never been able to get them to work in a stable and reliable way. Makes the glut of instruments that want to pass audio data to your computer by being a sound card a little dicey for me.

2 Likes
#59

My hunch is you are correct. But it doesnā€™t cause any trouble in other DAWs.

#60

not sure Iā€™m enough of an engineer to describe what is actually happening, but for some reason the ā€œexport all individual tracksā€ function in 9 creates (in my experience) stems that have artifacts, especially when you build them back up into a mix. itā€™s almost like they reintroduced the summing artifacts (low end muddiness, cloudy stereo field, lack of separation) they solved on the 2 bus into the stem prints somehow. it took me a long time to figure out that was the culprit of a bunch of mix issues - the first time I went back and each one by hand and brought them back in it was like night and day as far as separation & clarity. itā€™s a really specific and subtle clouding effect (also makes some frequencies oddly harsh and exhausting) that I can now identify when hearing it in my own stuff, but it took fighting to get mixes back to how I thought they should sound when bringing up the stems in other studios to figure out it was a thing.

no, this is what I was referring to earlier when I griped about ā€˜playlistingā€™, which is pro toolsā€™ term for comp-able takes on one track. when I comp I do it in logic, which to me is the best sounding, most intuitive daw for the job right now. but they came up with such a simple system (take folders, if you havenā€™t checked it out) that I canā€™t believe Ableton/PT/etc havenā€™t implemented some similar idea, ESPECIALLY since people have been asking for it since the dawn of live.

I donā€™t know how other people do it, but I just compose / record like I normally do in live and then at some point start breaking out the individual channel outputs to the mixer, which runs through a buss compressor and then back into the daw, where I record a print of the mix. if most of the mix happened ITB, Iā€™d just bring it in right at the end and leave all the faders at unity, so itā€™s just the ITB mix but using the mixer for summing and buss compression. bringing it into the studio has changed my workflow in all sorts of ways, but thatā€™s getting pretty OT. maybe another thread about studio setups / IO routing / workflow?

back to 10, though, thanks @IcaroFerre for the helpful roundup of lesser-applauded features that end up mattering most! i feel like I always end up upgrading something for some big feature, only to end up enjoying (or hating) the minor workflow improvements much more than whatever got me to upgrade.

6 Likes