If you could have only 10 new features in Live 7...

[Angstrom]

The one feature that would really make my day is

Being able to load multiple sets simultaneously and switch among them with a tabbed-style interface.

not trying to piss on the abes here, but their software has serious issues with ultra complex sets and this doesn't give me much confidence that it will hold multiple instances of sets with any further ease than one complex one.

memory and cpu stuff is hard to deal with and the abes have a challenge ahead of them.

Agreed here also

.

I really like the idea of tabbed sets, it seems so unlikely though that I forgot about it.
I wonder if the popular "folder tracks" wish can be combined with this so that the Abes can continue with their 'merge' methodology - which they seem to prefer.

The potential benefit of tabbed sessions though is the quickness of getting from one gui to another, anyone who has succesfully loaded up two instances of Live on the same machine will know that amazing feeling of power and control you suddenly get. Flipping back and forth, the ability to create seems multiplied by more than 2.

I do tend to struggle with the session grid/mixer once the track count hits around 20 .. scroll, scroll, scroll.

[robbmasters]

I've tried to put these into some kind of priority order...

1. NO NEW EXTRA-COST OPTIONS (especially not instruments)
If I want one, I'll buy a VST(i) that I can use in any host. I'd rather Ableton's development efforts were focused on Live. That way we might be able to get more of the things on everyone's lists. Which is why I've put this as my top priority.

2. High quality offline timestretching algorithm
I normally push for live features rather than DAW features, but warping is so much easier in Live than in, say, Cubase, it would be great to be able to warp in Live, Rewire into another host, and then render at high quality.

3. EVERYTHING to be MIDI (and Key) Mappable
Why, oh why, can't we select the current clip's loop brace by MIDI (for example)?

4. Configurable Track Status Display in Session View
I'd like to see bars and beats played and/or remaining for all clip types. Ideally there'd also be a (MIDI mappable) command to switch from one to the other (for all clips at once).

5. Better automatic warping
The automatically placed warp markers always seem to be late. It's not a big deal to move them. But it'd be even better if they were closer to start with.

6. Track colours

7. DJM500 style flanger
OK, I realise that I'm the only person that wants this. But I still need a flanger where the LFO restarts whenever the effect is enabled. I currently achieve this through a dummy clip and a Simple Delay, but it's a bit of a workaround.

8. Easier MIDI editing
Click and drag to create one long note, not lots of short notes. If I want lots of short notes, I can click once for each. (OK, that's a DAW feature again... I guess I would use Live as my main DAW if I thought it was up to the job...)

Lots of other good ideas in previous posts. But I'm sure I've forgotten something, so I'm going to keep 9 and 10 in reserve.

[Josh Von]

not trying to piss on the abes here, but their software has serious issues with ultra complex sets and this doesn't give me much confidence that it will hold multiple instances of sets with any further ease than one complex one.

memory and cpu stuff is hard to deal with and the abes have a challenge ahead of them.

Agreed here also

.

The potential benefit of tabbed sessions though is the quickness of getting from one gui to another, anyone who has succesfully loaded up two instances of Live on the same machine will know that amazing feeling of power and control you suddenly get. Flipping back and forth, the ability to create seems multiplied by more than 2.

Sounds like a great idea - the problem is, if they cant get a reasonably smooth GUI and audio performance for a majority of users with decent hardware now (after 3 versions that have had some serious problems with this) ..

How will they ever get something like this to practically work. This is what we're saying

.

[Qnnilson]

slice to warp markers

it's getting a pain in the ass to slice them individually

[Angstrom]

The potential benefit of tabbed sessions though is the quickness of getting from one gui to another, anyone who has succesfully loaded up two instances of Live on the same machine will know that amazing feeling of power and control you suddenly get. Flipping back and forth, the ability to create seems multiplied by more than 2.

Sounds like a great idea - the problem is, if they cant get a reasonably smooth GUI and audio performance for a majority of users with decent hardware now (after 3 versions that have had some serious problems with this) ..

How will they ever get something like this to practically work. This is what we're saying

.

My guess is that they work on various strategies in the background, they have to. Perhaps they would love tabbed sessions and have had a small team working on it since they re-worked the underlying code in L5 .. but there would be too much disruption to introduce it for L6.

I do development work myself and often we have something cool to add, but it requires 3 other strands to be altered before it can be introduced. Abletons product cycle is quite short so they are probably quite nervous about 'quickly' introducing these things. Development is more like a tangled ball of string than a straight line.

EG: tabbed browsing might require both a gui alteration to the control hooks, and also an alteration in providing sound to the asio / mac audio driver, which is also required for 5.1 sound - so there are meetings between the guys doing 5.1 and the tab guys, who also have to meet on a committee about user-interfaces, to discuss if- when re-hooking the gui for tabs they could make the controls be accessible for user guis and user hot-keys. Also the tab guys have to meet with the multi-lane automation guys because they are re-writing the controls too, so they have to agree. try different methods, etc.

it goes on, meeting, meeting, demo, scrapped, meeeting. one developer breaks leg, misses deadline, another developer comes in has to get up to speed, suggests alternative aproach.meeting, meeting, demo, scrapped, meeeting

sadly it's never simple. well, not when I do it!
it all just takes time, I guess their year long cycle is partly at fault here.

[SubLik]

Next features wishlist for Live 7.

1) : Being ABLE (ton) to set FX post or pre-fade on each individual channel, instead of just globally on the returns channels themselves.

2) : Someone has already mentioned this & I think It would be great if you could view all fx inserts simultaneously like in Cubase/Logic on the mixer itself.

3) : A compressor with true side-chaining.

That's it for now.

[feyshay]

Hmm.
I would like the option of being able to ping external effects to check for delay.
A lot of good suggestions above.
Track folders.
Better audio editing.
Group tracks. I get lost with all the tracks. Total disorganization.

[lesterdiamond]

ability to have session view on one monitor and arrangement view on another monitor at the same time.

LFO plugin

more innovative slicer

[DJThis]

I want everything on the Session view to be MIDI Assignable.

[nihad]

1) Multi monitor support, session on one and arrangement on the other as an example

2) More than one automation lane on a single channel

3) Remove the 128 parameter limit and a script to be able to choose which parameters to show ..

4) REX2 Support!

5) Better track grouping, with group solo, etc ..

6) Channel colors, and auto clip color with user defined criterias, like a certain color scheme (nuances of red on channel 1, nuances of blue on 2, etc). Ability to have one certain color on all clips imported onto a track. Should be set up in Look/Feel pref.

7) Modularity, internal midi and audio routing (maybe through a midi and audio utility device that you can insert anywhere in the effect chain.

8.) File browsing and browser commands midi mappable

9) Improved Impulse with more settings per slot and that doesn't mess up the transients. Listen to the click of a clicky 808 bassdrum, it wont sound the same triggered in Impulse and Simpler.

10) Individual PRE/POST send switch on each channel ..

11) Pre and Post fader effects (especially on the master)

12) Step sequencer midi plugin

13) Envelopes and loop without Warp!

14) Ability to design midi control software surfaces to enable easier control and parameter automation of external gear ..

15) Sampler Free!

[eamoon]

1. Consistent input latency correction -- when I record in the arrange view it seems to be much more solid than in session view. Can't believe it took me 'til now to notice this. Of course, my definition of "consistent" probably differs from others'. Besides recording, there's another area where this bites me: monitoring input through effects that are automated or that pay attention to time (like Beat Repeat) gets a bit glitchy.

2. MIDI mapping templates of some sort, and/or OSC support. Right now it's very hard to put together a set based on individual "song" .als files that each have some MIDI remote control set up. This is more MIDI's fault than Live's, which is why OSC would be very nice (basically, mappings could be named rather than numbered and thus more easily portable, and control precision would be much better).

3. Never thought I'd say this, but some kind of beat slicing would be nice -- both a way to define regions to bulk-dump into Sampler/Impulse, and a way to shuffle sections of a clip. I think the latter would be more useful, really (I find myself copying a recorded clip into the arranger, chopping/rearranging, consolidating, and moving it back to session view pretty often -- and that takes a lot of manual work.)

4. Allow envelopes/automation to be routed and processed like audio and MIDI. Allow envelope-only clips without the need for "dummy files". Add a few automation filters to make this worthwhile: LFO, generic utility (multiply by X, add Y, subtract from Z), envelope follower.

5. Per-track CPU load display, for those of us with sad old machines. This wouldn't need to be in my face all the time (and it would probably be CPU-expensive to do so anyway) but it would be nice to see it in the devices view for a given track so I know what to "optimize" first when putting together a live set.

[Shoma]

Please make it work on old laptops.....without crashes all the time

[mbenigni]

This one's really, really easy: export to MP3.

[moogers street]

Tabbed sets would be such an innovation, I can't believe I never thought of that, its simplicity at the highest level.

I'm not sure what it would be like to code but I am guessing it would more than quite an achievement, but if you look at live in a logical manner it basically two apps within one as it stands.


I Freaking love the idea of tabbed sets, and with the newer hardware I'm sure it could set up in way where sets are distributed across cores etc.

I would love if it worked in such a way where I had an option of midi tab, there I would be working with vsti's etc, and an Audio tab which I could record into from the midi tab and still maintain the track number, rather than creating a whole mess off audio tracks relating to a midi track... and the live potential is nothing short of amazing.

and best of all it keeps within lives tradition of meaning so many different things to different people.

[hoffman2k]

Somebody change the thread title to "If you could have only 10 new features in Live 8..." please.

Last years wishes are september's features

I hope they just drop this whole "xxxxxx has this feature so Live should have it too..." nonsense.
Or "since the dawn of ages, DAWs have had xxxxxx. Get it in the next live update...".

At least the Cycling news is a good sign.

Imagine that Ableton had teamed up with Steinberg and brought us "sequel'.
You'd see an army of geeks riding in DIY tanks down shonhauser allee.
La resistance