In other fields of software development instead we dumb everything down to the lowest denominator, and power users can't be at their most productive because we're scared of complexity and build around the casual, computer illiterate user.
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.
I disagree that software has a tendency to dumb everything down to the lowest common denominator, simplifying and automating things is the purpose of software in the first place, but there's a huge amount of software out there that is as powerful as it needs to be. To name a few examples: Blender, DaVinci Resolve, almost everything Adobe makes, and JetBrain's IDEs.
(This is only tangentially relevant to this thread, but the iOS App Store doesn't allow extensions or scriptable apps, and I believe those rules will single-handedly assure iPad only ever has marginal impact on creative fields until those rules are removed.)
1: https://blog.robenkleene.com/2019/08/07/apples-app-stores-ha...
When Lightroom moved from v6 (iirc) to Creative Cloud a stunning amount of functionality seems to have been lost for the sake of making it idiot friendly.
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.
Reading your comment about this new feature it seems obvious to me now that if the tempos in those mp3 recordings vary independently, like they do in much recorded music, it would be impossible to sync the tracks without this new feature. Right?
CAD, rendering/animation, high end photo editing, and a lot of other higher end, professional software are script-able, provide libraries and APIs, and work closely with their end-users to give them what they want.
Photoshop is scriptable/extendable and Lightroom has the more intuitive GUI. Apple started the Lightroom paradigm with Aperture, which was kind of the GarageBand of photo editing softwares until Lightroom caught up with the ease of use.
Same for their graphical programming thing ("grid" I think). A nice hybrid between skeumorphic and digital with e.g. stylized wires hanging down in gravity, but becoming transparent when crossing components.
Also super nice that most "visualizations" are also interactive (see the direct manipulation of the envelope at the end of the following vid)
Ableton is a beast, I haven't used it as much, but I know.
I think with virtually any software out there, there are tools that cater to both audiences.
Though, Ableton has been flat since 1.0 it seems.
I think it's quite the contrary. Look at the history of Logic, Cubase, Sonar, etc. For most of their time they didn't have flat UI. Ableton is the exception.
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?
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.
Typing is usually out of the question since you need to do it by ear. Some controls obviously have numberic input in combination with the knobs, for extra flexibility (e.g. if you made some notes with settings and just want to enter them).
Many of the values use mappings that make little sense as numbers. E.g. a knob marked 0..10 could mean a filter cutoff frequency from 20 to the nyquist frequency, logarithmically. Entering values in a text box with such arbitrary limits is a terrible experience (is it 20...22000...or 20..48000? or 0..1? or 0..100%?). Knobs hide the complexity of the logarithmic mapping and it's easy to to quickly set a value by ear.
In a few cases the knobs are decorative and could just as well have been e.g. most fixed step knobs could be combo boxes. For example a vintage synth often had a rotary knob to select between 3 options (waveform, for example) so now you can see that in ui's too. Doing that in a computer interface is purely for visual appeal.
Sure, you could map a knob to a slider or anything really, but it makes the interaction easier
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.
You need knobs and sliders to convey information visually.
It would look a lot like FL Studio, which caters more towards that end of the market.
GarageBand on the other hand...
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.
Ardour is modelled on "traditional" "linear" DAWs, rather than the live "play this thing when i hit this" flow that Live has enabled so wonderfully. Not sure you'd want to use Live for large scale multi-tracking, movie post-production. Both will work for smaller scale "traditional" record-edit-mix workflows.
I'm not full-time on this, but I'm trying to build an OSS DAW. Here is a first tiny demo: https://timdaub.github.io/wasm-synth/
I also wrote about it: https://timdaub.github.io/2020/02/19/wasm-synth/
- LMMS[1]: The go-to cross-platform FOSS DAW solution, with VST support and a healthy community.
- Ardour[2]: Much like LLMS, it's a classic Open Source project that runs cross-platform and is quite fully-featured.
- VCVRack[3]: A brilliant FOSS EuroRack Simulator. It has a built-in package manager with an enormous selection of officially supported and community submitted plugins, complete with VST and Linux support.
- Waveform Free[4]: By Tracktion, Waveform is a robust DAW with VST sandboxing and great built-in FX.
- Audio Tool[5]: A great web-based DAW, featuring online collaboration. Last I checked, there was no VST support.
- Bandlab[6]: Another web-based DAW by the folks behind Cakewalk. While it lacks VST support, it offers online collaboration and straight-forward defaults.
If you like scripting, Reaper[7] offers a personal license for $60 and supports Lua, Python, EEL2/JSFX, and it's own ReaScript[8]. Reaper offers a highly customizable, robust solution for power-users. While the above projects are some of the more complete projects, there are many more scattered around Github. If you're interested in the more niche/experimental ones, let me know and I'll reply with my more comprehensive list.
That being said, I've been an Ableton Live user for over a decade and I recommend it for anyone who wants to invest into a more serious music project. These days, I tend to reach for Studio One[9] by Presonus for more involved projects. While it lacks the focus on live performance, it is more feature-complete DAW than Ableton. Studio One doesn't have the same friction-less workflow that Ableton is famous for, but it's an absolute powerhouse when mastered. It's very well funded and one of the youngest, so Presonus had the opportunity to adopt the best features of more dated solutions like Cubase, Logic, Pro-Tools, and Ableton, while stripping away a lot of the bloat.
[1] https://lmms.io/ [2] https://ardour.org/ [3] https://vcvrack.com/ [4] https://www.tracktion.com/products/waveform-free [5] https://www.audiotool.com [6] https://www.bandlab.com/ [7] https://www.reaper.fm [8] https://www.reaper.fm/sdk/reascript/reascript.php [9] https://www.presonus.com/products/studio-one/
I have Reaper and Ardour, but a friend suggested Bitwig.
It's not free but I like to plug renoise whenever I can. It's more of a tracker than a traditional DAW, scriptable in lua. If you are a programmer you might like trackers.
An entire DAW will be much more complex.
Also, I think any "on paper" description of a DAW that makes it appear that they "aren't that difficult" can just be ignored.
Cakewalk, MPC Beats, Tracktion Waveform,...
Usually Live Lite the free edition (8 tracks) is bundled with $50 MIDI keyboards, and is sufficient to get started with music production, recording and adding a few virtual instruments at least.
It's kind of like a gateway drug, because you can do a lot of stuff on the Lite version but all the "fun" things like all the bundled instruments and effects that let you use it like a modular synth or the scripting and automation goodness come only on the more expensive version.
Not thread-jacking at all. I ALWAYS want a sub-thread on open-sourced competitors to any product.
I would be buying the upgrade if that was the only feature but there's so many!
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 Mac user. I honestly have no idea about the DAW landscape for PC's. I am extremely reliant on exporting songs from GarageBand on my iPhone as I create beats on the go quite often - and opening those .garageband files in Logic Pro to seriously hone in on the sounds, keeping the original instruments and MIDI intact. It's an irreplaceable ecosystem for me.
My favorite is The Giant using either the "emotional" or "intimate" preset. Feel free to tweak those presets if you want, but good luck sounding better, it's already amazing.
However, what you get with ableton live suite is well worth the money. It’s good value.
But I’d still always run any DAW on a Mac. No audio drivers on windows beat CoreAudio on macOS.
Something that wasn't a problem for $200 Logic Pro or even $60 Reaper (with their two-person dev team).
Other than style, one killer difference is that Ableton has Push hardware, which is really an extension of the UI into physical reality. It’s a fantastic control surface that has no equivalent in Logic-world.
And of course, with all those features you can create amazing live setups with Ableton—thus the name “Live”! Logic’s comfort zone is very much as a studio tool.
Edit: I forgot to mention the higher versions of Live come with Max for Live, which is an amazing construction set for making audio/MIDI software. No Logic equivalent for that.
There’s lots of small differences, and obviously you can make any type of music successfully on either, but generally my advice would be:
If you prefer recording traditional instruments & band tracks stay with logic,
If you prefer experimenting with sound design & electronic music in general, try ableton out. Also if you’re a programmer because you’ll enjoy max for live and the max MSP ecosystem.
I ended up with an octatrack for doing what a lot of folks are using live for, tho, and that's been super fun for me.
Strictly speaking you can already do this using multiple tracks, but having a dedicated workflow will make it much easier.
This isn't an optimization. https://ardour.org/plugins-in-process.html
And also, the kernel cannot schedule more efficiently than Ableton does, because it doesn't know the data dependencies between plugins.
> Live uses one thread to process a signal path. A signal path is a single chain of audio flow. In tracks where instrument or effect racks are used, with multiple chains in parallel, Live may use one thread per chain depending on how CPU-intensive each chain may be. If two tracks are "chained" by routings, for instance by a side-chain routing, a track being fed to a return track or any tracks being fed into each-other, they are considered dependent tracks and count as one signal path. Any dependant set of tracks will use one thread each.
https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/articles/209067649-Multi-c...
The way they allocate plugins to threads is very inefficient and wrapping each plugin in a separate process sidesteps it as the OS takes over the allocation to different cores.
Granted you can use a lot of heuristics to figure out simpler solutions since DAW graphs aren't arbitrary DAGs and you can get clever with how you allow them to be constructed, but it's non obvious. That's why parallel performance varies a lot between daw engines.
Speaking as an audio developer, you would certainly not run things in a seperate process to achieve parallelism. Instead you would use a thread pool.
I owned a Push 2 for 2 years before I sold it, and in my experience there is very little (if anything) it does that cannot be done with a 1:1 analogue in the software.
If you are at all code-savvy it is very easy to make your own custom rig that does everything everything you need for live performing in Ableton. You can write your own control surface scripts in Python (unofficially, but google is your friend and Ableton said "we know they're out there and we aren't going to try to shut it down") and you can make anything you want be your own customized equivalent of push with Max for Live. You can do anything you want with your clips and loops from either control surface scripts or M4L devices. Ableton itself was originally just a Max patch!
Sure they've made it easier, but it's definitely not true that you can't do this without Push.
What did they do to cripple the features of non-push interfaces? As far as I know the monomes, apc40s, etc of the world continue to work as they always did?
Pad controllers are dime a dozen. I've never gotten the impression that Ableton was willfully sabotaging the market there.
It's so easy to get jaded with software these days because of freemium apps, dark patterns, social media apps hijacking human psychology to drive up engagement, etc. Ableton Live reminds me that software can be beautiful and empowering, and how good and natural it feels to just pay money for a well-crafted product.
I used to tinker with beatmaking back when fl studio was still called fruity loops, and this post has made me very nostalgic. I would like to get back as a hobby, but it's been like 15 years and I'm quite lost.
Youtube has a ton of stuff, but it's such a vast topic that even in the realm of something like Abelton there's a vast array of things you could be looking at and it's super easy to lose focus.
I have a FL license from around the turn of the century... I think it still works. You might see if you do and start there.
* Julian Earle
* Tom Cosom
* Make Pop Music
* edit: you suck at producing definitely makes the list
Youtube's the spot for info, but the CreateDigitalMusic blog has also been an impressive source since FL studio was still called fruity loops
It is kind of overwhelming because the options are huge. Also, we're in a resurgence of electronic music hardware right now, which is super exciting but also ramps up the paradox of choice and analysis paralysis.
However, we have two things going for us: 1. Most music software has free demos or inexpensive lightweight versions. 2. The used hardware market is very strong so you can recoup most of the cost if you sell something (especially if you bought it used).
This means it's relatively feasible to sort of incrementally explore the space and see what works for you. I do think you have to treat it as an exploration. Unlike other music genres, electronic music lends itself to very personalized workflows. The gear and software you have and how you have it all set up is a big part of the creative process. Also, the user experience of hardware and software affects the music you make in profound ways that are hard to predict. You have to just sort of try stuff and see what gels with you.
I'd suggest:
1. Research the artists you like to see how they make their music. You can usually find video interviews with them, often in their studio.
2. Watch YouTube videos for the gear they use and see which things look inspiring.
3. Acquire a piece of it and give it a try. Make sure to force yourself to sink enough time to get past the initial learning curve.
4. If you like it, keep it. Otherwise, sell it and move on. Either way, go back to step 1.
Finding the right balance between just playing around, working to finish songs, and tinkering with your set up is a continuing challenge. Be mindful of it (i.e. don't just fetishize gear acquisition, or grind so hard you take the fun out of it) and you'll be OK.
Blezz Beats (8.68K subs) – https://www.youtube.com/blezzbeats
Synth Mania (126K subs) – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSGAKoBpUJI5jrJLgFQxiiw
Rick Beato (1.93M subs) – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJquYOG5EL82sKTfH9aMA9Q
Ave McRee (71K subs) – https://www.youtube.com/user/AveMcree
Dom Sigalas (23.5K subs) – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGGgrpgOZ-DMvjLSYxn8W3w
Accurate Beats (81.7K subs) – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoT0i4T3r3d4oYkdYQgZ4fg
Da Drank Kang (7.13K subs) – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCD7cuqL0P3x8RGsLQxxTpAA
Poli Popo (3.55K subs) – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZv3Yw5jtvjwcrzJ90yscEw
JAde Wii ツ (36.2K subs) – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqjAXHR5DHTCahIHpg7vspg
Doctor Mix (486K subs) – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbzNcFN7cxA8HO18cTYyTfg
Swiftstyle (33.7K subs) – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHPY6JX3EBMo1N9SKIxNDmQ
Kirk State (1.05K subs) – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGGgt68KDkMsHaniWUhjbBw
Tube Digga (14.1K subs) – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCs9r5J_56ta_n_hI3RUcGw
You Suck at Producing (222K subs) – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCapo4XcpVOlTLkbKIDL0WlA
Marlow Digs - mpc head (27.4K subs) – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXTqU3m3XZx_rWV_XaPiDcg
I setup a discord channel the project https://discord.gg/a5ttYuG
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 searched for it. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Why do you think it's vaporware? How long do you think it takes to write a DAW?
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 of the Options.txt hack which is unreliable and I'm not even sure it works with the latest Live 10)
What’s even more impressive is that they did not start out doing any user research. They made what they wanted and (pardon the pun) it struck a chord. If they had not had the courage to trust their instinct, but had done what so many designers do and focus on satisfying only the needs users can imagine and articulate, I think they would have made yet another Cubase or Protools lookalike. That’s a crowded market and they wouldn’t have made it.
Sure, I understand and agree with your criticism, but there are probably great tools that do what you ask for cleaner and better because those tools are designed around different ideas.
If they can squeeze this in and make it work: great. If they can’t, that’s okay too.
But for professional use, you do end up with a hundred or a few hundred track lanes in your projects, and mixing and tweaking the whole thing becomes an unavoidable disastrous chore.
If I understand this correctly, they planned on introducing it in Live 8 (hence a hidden flag in Options.txt which sort-of enables a preview of this feature but is extremely buggy), but it never fully worked out because they also introduced Racks with nested tree-like flow of plugins, which doesn't play well with a conventional matrix-like mixer view. That being said, I believe most pro users would be happy with a simplified solution like "if you fork a chain in a rack, its branches won't be shown in the mixer", which would cover the 95% of other simple use cases like, seeing where your compressors are at a glance without having to click on each track a hundred times...
There's many such things - like proper multi-screen support (e.g. with 3+ screens), which, hypothetically, could also couple well with a separate-window mixer view where they could introduce chain branching and all that (and become the first DAW to do that!). For pro use, there's lots of features like this that may sound boring but end up hampering your workflow a lot. It may not be as fun-sounding as 'yet another cool phaser bitcrusher spectral distortion plugin' but the reality is, professional users that they supposedly aim at do require core functionality that's been missing since the start.
1. Having all instruments and plugins in a horizontally-oriented trough allows quick drag-and-drop rearrangement. So if you want to rearrange their order very quickly you can do it. In Pro Tools it would be a two click operation at best and depending on how your plugins are arranged it could be significantly more than that.
2. It allows you to reach the knobs on their native instruments and plugins without the need to open/close plugin windows first.
3. MIDI mapping becomes much quicker and intuitive when you can simply toggle the MIDI/Keyboard mapping overlay for a given plugin.
4. Their Instrument Rack/Drum Rack/Midi Rack devices are very flexible in their capabilites. 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.
As someone who mixes most of their projects in Ableton, their Rack paradigm allows me to condense a lot of parallel processing into a single instrument/audio channel. This makes for a very clean representation of very complex processing. To do a similar task such as having three channels of parallel processing on a single channel in Pro Tools involves either sending them to as many return channels, or creating duplicates of that channel which all have their own parallel processing chains. This creates way more clutter on the screen.
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.
So I'm extremely glad to see it being integrated.
The velocity MIDI effect already let you randomize all note velocities by a user-controlled range. This just lets you set random ranges per-note.
Edit: I’ve seen other folks online posting a price of $183 for Suite upgrade, so I would just login and see what price they give you. I think I came from Suite 9, so maybe that accounts for the price difference.
As an amateur, it's extremely hard to justify the doubling of the price of FL. (The $100 edition of Live is limited to 16 tracks so don't even bother.)
I know there is a forum and documentation but if all my time goes to trying to figure out technical solutions then all my creativity goes into finding technical solutions, rather than solving artistic problems.
Don't get me wrong, these are nice additions for Live users, but VSL is simply one of the top orchestral libraries.
With MPE, you can think of it as each note having its own channel, with added dimensions like pitch bend, vibrato, timbre and more all encoded into a note.
This allows you to interface with new kinds of controllers like the Roli Seaboard for example, which are much more expressive than your standard midi keyboard.
In terms of Live, MPE wasn't supported until now and connecting an MPE controller to the DAW was a massive headache and super hacky.
What truly amazes me though is the stability of the platform. Yes, it's great for home recording and casual use, but the same application is used as a core piece in live performances with huge audiences. There's not a lot of "consumer" software out there that I would trust with that. Ableton Live is certainly one of those.
This is the music I make[1]. The older, more piano-based songs are written in Overtone, and you'll here where they change up to be more textured and electronic sounding when I got into Ableton
Just curious: do you guys buy the full version? It's so expensive that I've never been able to justify it. I actually have been using the free version that came with a midi controller I bought a few years ago, and even that has been great.
(I'd rather spend the money on hardware synths)
One thing I love about sound design is playing with randomization and effects to make really quirky sounds, and those new devices and features are gonna be a blast for me.
