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Ableton Live is my main daw. I use it every day, generally for hours, and for a wide variety of purposes. The most depressing thing about ableton is made obvio

Ableton Live is my main daw. I use it every day, generally for hours, and for a wide variety of purposes. The most depressing thing about ableton is made obvious in two seconds of messing with that tutorial. A complete disregard for music in the sense of pushing boundaries of time, or doing things that are not tied to any sort of grid, and the sense of music as an emotive form. So many aspects of music are very annoying or borderline impossible to do in ableton. Yet in all these years, and with so many installations, they just never addressed those issues. Instead they vaguely pretend as if music that would require features they don't have is radically experimental. Which might become true if so many people learn music only through using their software. Seriously, Ableton. Stop pretending making music is clicking on and off in little boxes. It's embarrassing. -- Edited to take out the "art" part and put in a couple of more specific criticisms.

drivers99 9y ago
For those of us who haven't used Ableton yet, what is it missing? Edit: fixed autocorrect typo
- kevinmannix 9y ago
  Not sure if that's a typo or intended...
- Mister_Snuggles 9y ago
  > For those of us who haven't used abortion yet, what is it missing? AutoCorrect fail? Or not-so-subtle criticism of the product? ;)
- G4BB3R 9y ago
  ROFL XDD
- whiddershins 9y ago
  It just encourages so much grid based work that you tend to lose perspective on the fact that most of the music made throughout all of the history of ever wasn't actually on a grid. I love ableton a ton. It just encourages a limited mind set.
maldusiecle 9y ago
I really don't buy this. Ableton was created by an excellent musician (Robert Henke), and its design reflects a musician's perspective. It's intuitive and flexible. It doesn't work for every possible workflow, but no individual piece of software could.
- whiddershins 9y ago
  That's arguing from authority and ignoring the meat of my point. I know Robert Henke created Ableton Live and it was a tremendous innovation when it came out. Over time it gradually expanded features but never dealt with a variety of things that might be development intensive but would in no way break the workflow. For example: Support advanced midi stuff. Like, any of it. Why is it so mind bogglingly inconvenient for me to hook up my continuum or my linnstrument to Live? Loops of arbitrary length/non warped loops, as I mentioned in another comment, are unnecessarily hard to implement. Why can't I midi map to certain controls, why can't I macro map to certain controls. Why can't I easily lock stuff in the arrangement view so I am not terrified to change the master tempo. Why can't I group things in arrangement and edit them together. why can't I intuitively stretch a sample in arrangement view, when the whole sell of ableton is time stretching? None of that would break the workflow.
  - maldusiecle 9y ago
    It's not arguing by authority, it's arguing by counterexample. Robert Henke doesn't represent all musicians, but he is a musician, so it's not possible that Ableton doesn't reflect the perspective of any musician. All the things you mention relate to a certain workflow. It's not my workflow, it's not every musician's workflow. It'd be great if Ableton had good SysEx support, but it's not accurate to say it has a "complete disregard for music" because it doesn't fit your workflow exactly. Ableton is designed to simplify working with repetitive beats. If you don't want any of those, of course it's going to be difficult to use.
    - whiddershins 9y ago
      You are taking a quote out of my sentence in such a way that it changes the point of what I was saying. I am confused about your motivation. Do you think I don't know why Ableton Live is a great tool? I do know it is great. And I feel I understand the tool deeply enough to give real criticism regarding unnecessary limitations.
G4BB3R 9y ago
What DAW you would recommend? And what features do Ableton miss?
- PascLeRasc 9y ago
  Reaper is incredibly full-featured and free/cheap.
  - copperx 9y ago
    Reaper is optimized for live music, and, although it can do electronic music decently, its workflow is not tailored for it.
    - PascLeRasc 9y ago
      That's true. I should have qualified my response with that I pretty much exclusively do live instrument recording.
- whiddershins 9y ago
  I tend to recommend ... Ableton! I think the strengths outweigh the weaknesses, especially for beginners. But they are trapped in a sort of convention that makes my life hell when I want to leave it.
- p0nce 9y ago
  It seems to me each DAW focuses on a particular problematic. - Ableton Live: focus on painless transition between live and written electronic music, quick producing - Reason: focus on modulating everything with a studio feel - Orion: focus on cleanly mixing looping music, slow producing - FLStudio: focus on composing looping music - Reaper: focus on customization and performance - Protools: focus on getting the most money out of the customer - Logic: focus on getting the sound you want and making a song easily, pre-made effect chains - Studio One: a bit similar to Logic in spirit - Cubase: I don't know what it focuses on tbh A major problematic is that the topdown goal of making one song may easily be dwarfed by mixing difficulties that can then capture your focus forever (aka "loopitis"). As an audio plugin developer, I get to know a bit of every DAW out there, for testing. A popular opinion is that tools don't matter for making music, but a more realistic opinion is that they actually do matter, by warping how you think about the problem.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
rmxt 9y ago
Hate to be a pedant... but I'm not sure any one person gets to define what "music in the art sense" even is. Yes, Ableton is rigid. Yes, Ableton favors certain musical styles over others. Yes, Ableton, here and in their design of Live, may just be giving lip service to anything beyond rigid song structure, tempo and dynamic changes, etc. Yes, Ableton loves their little boxes. But, I find it hard to believe that Ableton has a "complete disregard for music in the art sense." If "art" inherently means "unquantifiability" or pure "aesthetics", then sure, session view Live might not be your best bet. Regardless, arrangement view is basically the same as Pro Tools as far as I can tell/remember from what I've used of Pro Tools. What is Live missing for you?
- whiddershins 9y ago
  I think either my phrasing was terrible (likely) or people aren't seriously considering what I am saying. Try just looping a sample that is of arbitrary length, not some multiple of beats. This is something that we could do fairly easily since the 1980s, and with moderate effort before that. Ableton made this in to an unusual technique. The entire arrangement view only superficially resembles protools, the automation, the time stretching, everything really, is completely different.
  - weavie 9y ago
    If it's not a multiple of beats, would it generally sound good in any musical kind of way?
    - edkennedy 9y ago
      A good example of this is polyrhythm.
    - whiddershins 9y ago
      Yes! So many examples of why. What if I want the sound of rustling leaves to come and go across the course of a song? What if I wanted my piece to happen over a drone tone similar in function to a tamboura or a constantly feeding back electric guitar? What if I wanted to have another sort of loop and while playing it back, experiment with different tempos against it to see what sounds right? And a zillion other things.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
kowdermeister 9y ago
Music is made in your head, the DAW is just a tool to get it out. You can turn off grid snapping and use samples the way you like and many more creative methods to do whatever you please. > So many aspects of music are very annoying or borderline impossible to do in ableton. Like what? Scoring music? How about using a proper tool then? Nobody complains that they can't write hardware drivers in PHP. My DAW is Reason and because it sucks in making mixtapes I got Ableton too because it's superior in that use case.
calflegal 9y ago
I feel the need to address some of the typical HN poison floating around. I've got a very expensive music education. It doesn't make me better than an "Ableton clicker". Music is open to anybody, and is defined by what moves one, not by the mechanism of its creation. America really tends to treat it as some exclusive art club (beyond required elementary school classes), and that's really just wrong.
- whiddershins 9y ago
  Typical HN poison? Please refer to my comment history and also please rebut specific things I said. I rarely say negative things and I am a user of this product all the time. I am genuinely frustrated by the lack of progress in recent years, since I use the product literally every day. This is not poison, it is legitimate criticism.
  - calflegal 9y ago
    I didn't mean personal offense in my reply. "Stop pretending making music is clicking on and off in little boxes", is the specific portion I was referring to, but more generally I just aim to promote inclusiveness.
- baldfat 9y ago
  Right on. Anything can be an instrument from a 5 gallon bucket to a $100,000 concert piano. I never understood the snobbery, even among hacker crowds even, for people using certain tools to create music. Heck my C64 made music to the tune of Daisy and it was super cool. If someone wants to produce live music I am all for that. PS Punk Rock and Indie Rock still is better then whatever else anyone else listens to :) Just jokes.

drivers99 9y ago

For those of us who haven't used Ableton yet, what is it missing? Edit: fixed autocorrect typo

kevinmannix 9y ago
Not sure if that's a typo or intended...
Mister_Snuggles 9y ago
> For those of us who haven't used abortion yet, what is it missing? AutoCorrect fail? Or not-so-subtle criticism of the product? ;)
G4BB3R 9y ago
ROFL XDD
whiddershins 9y ago
It just encourages so much grid based work that you tend to lose perspective on the fact that most of the music made throughout all of the history of ever wasn't actually on a grid. I love ableton a ton. It just encourages a limited mind set.

maldusiecle 9y ago

I really don't buy this. Ableton was created by an excellent musician (Robert Henke), and its design reflects a musician's perspective. It's intuitive and flexible. It doesn't work for every possible workflow, but no individual piece of software could.

whiddershins 9y ago
That's arguing from authority and ignoring the meat of my point. I know Robert Henke created Ableton Live and it was a tremendous innovation when it came out. Over time it gradually expanded features but never dealt with a variety of things that might be development intensive but would in no way break the workflow. For example: Support advanced midi stuff. Like, any of it. Why is it so mind bogglingly inconvenient for me to hook up my continuum or my linnstrument to Live? Loops of arbitrary length/non warped loops, as I mentioned in another comment, are unnecessarily hard to implement. Why can't I midi map to certain controls, why can't I macro map to certain controls. Why can't I easily lock stuff in the arrangement view so I am not terrified to change the master tempo. Why can't I group things in arrangement and edit them together. why can't I intuitively stretch a sample in arrangement view, when the whole sell of ableton is time stretching? None of that would break the workflow.
- maldusiecle 9y ago
  It's not arguing by authority, it's arguing by counterexample. Robert Henke doesn't represent all musicians, but he is a musician, so it's not possible that Ableton doesn't reflect the perspective of any musician. All the things you mention relate to a certain workflow. It's not my workflow, it's not every musician's workflow. It'd be great if Ableton had good SysEx support, but it's not accurate to say it has a "complete disregard for music" because it doesn't fit your workflow exactly. Ableton is designed to simplify working with repetitive beats. If you don't want any of those, of course it's going to be difficult to use.
  - whiddershins 9y ago
    You are taking a quote out of my sentence in such a way that it changes the point of what I was saying. I am confused about your motivation. Do you think I don't know why Ableton Live is a great tool? I do know it is great. And I feel I understand the tool deeply enough to give real criticism regarding unnecessary limitations.

G4BB3R 9y ago

What DAW you would recommend? And what features do Ableton miss?

PascLeRasc 9y ago
Reaper is incredibly full-featured and free/cheap.
- copperx 9y ago
  Reaper is optimized for live music, and, although it can do electronic music decently, its workflow is not tailored for it.
  - PascLeRasc 9y ago
    That's true. I should have qualified my response with that I pretty much exclusively do live instrument recording.
whiddershins 9y ago
I tend to recommend ... Ableton! I think the strengths outweigh the weaknesses, especially for beginners. But they are trapped in a sort of convention that makes my life hell when I want to leave it.
p0nce 9y ago
It seems to me each DAW focuses on a particular problematic. - Ableton Live: focus on painless transition between live and written electronic music, quick producing - Reason: focus on modulating everything with a studio feel - Orion: focus on cleanly mixing looping music, slow producing - FLStudio: focus on composing looping music - Reaper: focus on customization and performance - Protools: focus on getting the most money out of the customer - Logic: focus on getting the sound you want and making a song easily, pre-made effect chains - Studio One: a bit similar to Logic in spirit - Cubase: I don't know what it focuses on tbh A major problematic is that the topdown goal of making one song may easily be dwarfed by mixing difficulties that can then capture your focus forever (aka "loopitis"). As an audio plugin developer, I get to know a bit of every DAW out there, for testing. A popular opinion is that tools don't matter for making music, but a more realistic opinion is that they actually do matter, by warping how you think about the problem.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

rmxt 9y ago

Hate to be a pedant... but I'm not sure any one person gets to define what "music in the art sense" even is. Yes, Ableton is rigid. Yes, Ableton favors certain musical styles over others. Yes, Ableton, here and in their design of Live, may just be giving lip service to anything beyond rigid song structure, tempo and dynamic changes, etc. Yes, Ableton loves their little boxes. But, I find it hard to believe that Ableton has a "complete disregard for music in the art sense." If "art" inherently means "unquantifiability" or pure "aesthetics", then sure, session view Live might not be your best bet. Regardless, arrangement view is basically the same as Pro Tools as far as I can tell/remember from what I've used of Pro Tools. What is Live missing for you?

whiddershins 9y ago
I think either my phrasing was terrible (likely) or people aren't seriously considering what I am saying. Try just looping a sample that is of arbitrary length, not some multiple of beats. This is something that we could do fairly easily since the 1980s, and with moderate effort before that. Ableton made this in to an unusual technique. The entire arrangement view only superficially resembles protools, the automation, the time stretching, everything really, is completely different.
- weavie 9y ago
  If it's not a multiple of beats, would it generally sound good in any musical kind of way?
  - edkennedy 9y ago
    A good example of this is polyrhythm.
  - whiddershins 9y ago
    Yes! So many examples of why. What if I want the sound of rustling leaves to come and go across the course of a song? What if I wanted my piece to happen over a drone tone similar in function to a tamboura or a constantly feeding back electric guitar? What if I wanted to have another sort of loop and while playing it back, experiment with different tempos against it to see what sounds right? And a zillion other things.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

kowdermeister 9y ago

Music is made in your head, the DAW is just a tool to get it out. You can turn off grid snapping and use samples the way you like and many more creative methods to do whatever you please. > So many aspects of music are very annoying or borderline impossible to do in ableton. Like what? Scoring music? How about using a proper tool then? Nobody complains that they can't write hardware drivers in PHP. My DAW is Reason and because it sucks in making mixtapes I got Ableton too because it's superior in that use case.

calflegal 9y ago

I feel the need to address some of the typical HN poison floating around. I've got a very expensive music education. It doesn't make me better than an "Ableton clicker". Music is open to anybody, and is defined by what moves one, not by the mechanism of its creation. America really tends to treat it as some exclusive art club (beyond required elementary school classes), and that's really just wrong.

whiddershins 9y ago
Typical HN poison? Please refer to my comment history and also please rebut specific things I said. I rarely say negative things and I am a user of this product all the time. I am genuinely frustrated by the lack of progress in recent years, since I use the product literally every day. This is not poison, it is legitimate criticism.
- calflegal 9y ago
  I didn't mean personal offense in my reply. "Stop pretending making music is clicking on and off in little boxes", is the specific portion I was referring to, but more generally I just aim to promote inclusiveness.
baldfat 9y ago
Right on. Anything can be an instrument from a 5 gallon bucket to a $100,000 concert piano. I never understood the snobbery, even among hacker crowds even, for people using certain tools to create music. Heck my C64 made music to the tune of Daisy and it was super cool. If someone wants to produce live music I am all for that. PS Punk Rock and Indie Rock still is better then whatever else anyone else listens to :) Just jokes.