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Just tried it. As someone who has never used Live, I didn't understand anything (I know Logic though, and I'm generally good with figuring how apps work as a de

Just tried it. As someone who has never used Live, I didn't understand anything (I know Logic though, and I'm generally good with figuring how apps work as a dev myself) even after the tour. I believe the onboarding should be interactive and telling the user how things work instead of just putting a sample video which doesn't teach much. That said, from what I see from the results it can be a great tool... if one can figure how things work.

capableweb 4y ago
Judging by the landing page, this app is not meant to be a standalone tool in your music production but a companion tool to Ableton on the computer. You sketch your idea in the mobile app and eventually transfer it off to the computer to finish the track in Ableton. With that in mind, most of the screens seems to be self-explanatory, at least for someone who dabbled around in Ableton.
- milesward 4y ago
  This is wild, because I think of Ableton desktop as a song prototyping environment…
  - sleepybrett 4y ago
    ...but hard to use on the bus or in line at the bank.
  - coldtea 4y ago
    Well, for many other producers, it's both were songs start and end. They might send them elsewhere for mastering, but not for production work. Anything without analogue instruments doesn't need much to be found elsewhere (I'd argue also anything with analogue instruments doesn't either, but many prefer to track vocals, drums, guitars, etc. on Pro Tools or similar) Mostly, though depends on the genre, and the kind of artist. Artists working mostly with analogue instruments, or that have huge sales and production teams, will tend to use other apps, mostly Pro Tools, and use Live as a starting point/sketchpad. Producers and composers of pop and electronic music, that are not on the paycheck level of, say, top-charting artists, even if they still have tons of fans and a good career, do tend to do everything "in the box". It's perfectly capable. Heck, even FL Studio has created tons of "in the box" global hits...
  - capableweb 4y ago
    Not so wild, people use different tools for different needs :) I do my sketching wherever, actual production on bunch of hardware and only use Ableton to record final main output of hardware and do my mastering there, nothing else. Producers be producing in tons of different ways :)
least 4y ago
If it makes you feel any better, Ableton Live's interface is also not particularly intuitive, though at least it has the advantage of tooltips. It does seem like something you have to use for a while to figure out the workflow, though some of it is a bit easier for Live users. I think it is to Live what GarageBand for iOS is to Logic — a stripped down app that lets you build ideas on the go that can be exported to the main application to complete/further flesh out the idea.
- adamhp 4y ago
  Pretty much all DAWs are that way though. They're very feature rich pieces of software. It's quite difficult to design something that can be usable by a layman and professionals at the same time. It's kind of like your grandmother (assuming she's not a developer) complaining that VSCode or a JetBrains IDE is confusing. Of course it is. She doesn't know what half of it does, not because it's poorly laid out or designed, but because she doesn't have the domain knowledge. She's not the target audience.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
    There's an even bigger (or at least, more on-point) problem with the audience though. In the pre-DAW days, "audio engineering" was a specific task and skill set that was quite distinct from "playing music". Many DAWs were created to assist with audio engineering, assuming usage by someone who understands that domain. Fast forward to recent times, and there's some widespread belief that a DAW should be a tool for musicians, even for musicians who don't know anything (or at least, not much) about audio engineering. "I just want to record my ideas". So then someone cooks up some relatively simple DAW-like application for such people. They start using it, and within a few weeks or months, they find themselves unavoidably learning something about audio engineering. They want more from the application, and within a relatively short period of time, they need and/or want the full DAW. The same thing is happening, to a lesser degree in the podcasting/radio production world.
    - bryans 4y ago
      Every audio engineer is also a musician. Every DAW has been developed by audio and software engineers who are also musicians[1]. Every professional musician understands the basic concepts of audio production. DAW UIs mimic the interfaces of real world devices, of which all musicians interact with on a regular basis. Suggesting that musicians weren't meant to (and shouldn't even be allowed to) use DAWs is beyond nonsensical. This holier-than-thou argument you're trying to make is baseless. [1] https://twitter.com/JustinFrankel/status/1582430125941198848 https://twitter.com/JustinFrankel/status/1582430125941198848
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
sleepyfran 4y ago
I'd recommend to watch the Learn Note video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjjMEZburmQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjjMEZburmQ It was really cool to see all the things you can do with it.
TomSwirly 4y ago
Live is such a terrible program. Oh, it's great if you want to do 4/4 dance music centered around samples but for all other purposes it is incredibly painful. As a classic example, I play a midi wind instrument which sends notes and breath control and pitch bend. If you use "scale time" on the midi track, it moves the notes and leads the breath control and pitch bend where it was, silently breaking the track. This is true also of pitch bend, modulation, and volume controls. I contacted them well over 10 years ago with a polite and careful bug report. Their original response was, "That is what it is supposed to do". I said "But all other sequencers stretch all the MIDI, not just the notes! And it breaks my tracks. Isn't there some way I can just stretch all the midi?" "No, why would you want to do this?" "Because I want to stretch existing MIDI tracks to match other tracks." "You should record with a metronome so that the tracks are already in sync." "But I already have these tracks. And also, when I am composing, I prefer to just play without a metronome, and then select the parts I like." "You're just being difficult." And they refused to respond after that. Years went by, and every year I saw some other sucker complaining about the same thing. Well over a decade later, they finally implemented it - _except_ it's only for three MPE controllers, so it doesn't deal with breath control, classic pitch bend the way it has been sent by every single controlled before around 2021, modulation, or volume. I have dozens of similar bugs. Now I use Reaper. What a difference!
- bambax 4y ago
  Interesting. I use Reaper and love it, but sometimes I feel "ashamed" of not using Live like everyone else. Of course when listening to a finished track nobody cares what it was made with, but for collaboration the choice of Reaper seems a little limiting. Yet it's so powerful. That said, there must be reasons why Live is sooo popular...?
  - PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
    Essentially by default, Live can take any material and automatically ensure that it matches the tempo (and key) that you're working in. Clip launching is a very powerful way to play around with musical ideas, even if it is not necessarily the best way to produce finished pieces of music (though it can be). Reaper doesn't have this workflow (at least, not builtin). It is this "I can goof around with almost any material and it almost always sound good, or at least interesting" element that I believe made Live so popular.
coldtea 4y ago
>I know Logic though, and I'm generally good with figuring how apps work as a dev myself Me too (knew Logic and Cubase, and am dev and good with figuring how apps work). Ableton Live (desktop edition) still took a while, and checking some onlive introductions (which I never needed for a new DAW in 20 years). It just has a different model (Logic's new clip launching abilities are somewhat similar, but Live also does makes several other things in its own unique way). That said, in the end, it's a DAW with audio and MIDI. A lot of things will be common too. But the workflow part can be tricky to grasp just by using.

capableweb 4y ago

Judging by the landing page, this app is not meant to be a standalone tool in your music production but a companion tool to Ableton on the computer. You sketch your idea in the mobile app and eventually transfer it off to the computer to finish the track in Ableton. With that in mind, most of the screens seems to be self-explanatory, at least for someone who dabbled around in Ableton.

milesward 4y ago
This is wild, because I think of Ableton desktop as a song prototyping environment…
- sleepybrett 4y ago
  ...but hard to use on the bus or in line at the bank.
- coldtea 4y ago
  Well, for many other producers, it's both were songs start and end. They might send them elsewhere for mastering, but not for production work. Anything without analogue instruments doesn't need much to be found elsewhere (I'd argue also anything with analogue instruments doesn't either, but many prefer to track vocals, drums, guitars, etc. on Pro Tools or similar) Mostly, though depends on the genre, and the kind of artist. Artists working mostly with analogue instruments, or that have huge sales and production teams, will tend to use other apps, mostly Pro Tools, and use Live as a starting point/sketchpad. Producers and composers of pop and electronic music, that are not on the paycheck level of, say, top-charting artists, even if they still have tons of fans and a good career, do tend to do everything "in the box". It's perfectly capable. Heck, even FL Studio has created tons of "in the box" global hits...
- capableweb 4y ago
  Not so wild, people use different tools for different needs :) I do my sketching wherever, actual production on bunch of hardware and only use Ableton to record final main output of hardware and do my mastering there, nothing else. Producers be producing in tons of different ways :)

least 4y ago

If it makes you feel any better, Ableton Live's interface is also not particularly intuitive, though at least it has the advantage of tooltips. It does seem like something you have to use for a while to figure out the workflow, though some of it is a bit easier for Live users. I think it is to Live what GarageBand for iOS is to Logic — a stripped down app that lets you build ideas on the go that can be exported to the main application to complete/further flesh out the idea.

adamhp 4y ago
Pretty much all DAWs are that way though. They're very feature rich pieces of software. It's quite difficult to design something that can be usable by a layman and professionals at the same time. It's kind of like your grandmother (assuming she's not a developer) complaining that VSCode or a JetBrains IDE is confusing. Of course it is. She doesn't know what half of it does, not because it's poorly laid out or designed, but because she doesn't have the domain knowledge. She's not the target audience.
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
  There's an even bigger (or at least, more on-point) problem with the audience though. In the pre-DAW days, "audio engineering" was a specific task and skill set that was quite distinct from "playing music". Many DAWs were created to assist with audio engineering, assuming usage by someone who understands that domain. Fast forward to recent times, and there's some widespread belief that a DAW should be a tool for musicians, even for musicians who don't know anything (or at least, not much) about audio engineering. "I just want to record my ideas". So then someone cooks up some relatively simple DAW-like application for such people. They start using it, and within a few weeks or months, they find themselves unavoidably learning something about audio engineering. They want more from the application, and within a relatively short period of time, they need and/or want the full DAW. The same thing is happening, to a lesser degree in the podcasting/radio production world.
  - bryans 4y ago
    Every audio engineer is also a musician. Every DAW has been developed by audio and software engineers who are also musicians[1]. Every professional musician understands the basic concepts of audio production. DAW UIs mimic the interfaces of real world devices, of which all musicians interact with on a regular basis. Suggesting that musicians weren't meant to (and shouldn't even be allowed to) use DAWs is beyond nonsensical. This holier-than-thou argument you're trying to make is baseless. [1] https://twitter.com/JustinFrankel/status/1582430125941198848 https://twitter.com/JustinFrankel/status/1582430125941198848

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

sleepyfran 4y ago

I'd recommend to watch the Learn Note video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjjMEZburmQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjjMEZburmQ It was really cool to see all the things you can do with it.

TomSwirly 4y ago

Live is such a terrible program. Oh, it's great if you want to do 4/4 dance music centered around samples but for all other purposes it is incredibly painful. As a classic example, I play a midi wind instrument which sends notes and breath control and pitch bend. If you use "scale time" on the midi track, it moves the notes and leads the breath control and pitch bend where it was, silently breaking the track. This is true also of pitch bend, modulation, and volume controls. I contacted them well over 10 years ago with a polite and careful bug report. Their original response was, "That is what it is supposed to do". I said "But all other sequencers stretch all the MIDI, not just the notes! And it breaks my tracks. Isn't there some way I can just stretch all the midi?" "No, why would you want to do this?" "Because I want to stretch existing MIDI tracks to match other tracks." "You should record with a metronome so that the tracks are already in sync." "But I already have these tracks. And also, when I am composing, I prefer to just play without a metronome, and then select the parts I like." "You're just being difficult." And they refused to respond after that. Years went by, and every year I saw some other sucker complaining about the same thing. Well over a decade later, they finally implemented it - _except_ it's only for three MPE controllers, so it doesn't deal with breath control, classic pitch bend the way it has been sent by every single controlled before around 2021, modulation, or volume. I have dozens of similar bugs. Now I use Reaper. What a difference!

bambax 4y ago
Interesting. I use Reaper and love it, but sometimes I feel "ashamed" of not using Live like everyone else. Of course when listening to a finished track nobody cares what it was made with, but for collaboration the choice of Reaper seems a little limiting. Yet it's so powerful. That said, there must be reasons why Live is sooo popular...?
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
  Essentially by default, Live can take any material and automatically ensure that it matches the tempo (and key) that you're working in. Clip launching is a very powerful way to play around with musical ideas, even if it is not necessarily the best way to produce finished pieces of music (though it can be). Reaper doesn't have this workflow (at least, not builtin). It is this "I can goof around with almost any material and it almost always sound good, or at least interesting" element that I believe made Live so popular.

coldtea 4y ago

>I know Logic though, and I'm generally good with figuring how apps work as a dev myself Me too (knew Logic and Cubase, and am dev and good with figuring how apps work). Ableton Live (desktop edition) still took a while, and checking some onlive introductions (which I never needed for a new DAW in 20 years). It just has a different model (Logic's new clip launching abilities are somewhat similar, but Live also does makes several other things in its own unique way). That said, in the end, it's a DAW with audio and MIDI. A lot of things will be common too. But the workflow part can be tricky to grasp just by using.