Fynn's House and Audio Tech Notes

A few weeks ago, Ableton announced the latest update to their Live studio and performance DAW, Live 9. Having  been a Live user since version 1.5, I am always interested in the latest update to the DAW I find most inspiring; although, after all the bugs and issues I had with Live 8, I might wait for a dot update before upgrading. Anyway, I’m sure you’ve all seen the new features, but I thought I might list a few of the things I’d like to see in the next update…

I’m aware that I do not know Live as deeply as I possibly should, once I find a way to do what I need -no matter how convoluted- I tend just to use that rather than look for alternatives. So, if there are things in my wishlist that I Live can do already, please comment and let me know!

The wishlist:

While all these updates are nice, there are a few things that I’d like to see in forthcoming releases:

Mono tracks. I don’t need all my tracks to be stereo. I’d like to select whether a particular channel is mono or stereo so that I’m not using twice as much processing power when I’m running effects on that channel.

Groups within groups. Yes, there are ways to route things, but I’d like to be able to nest a few things. For example, I often use two or three different tracks for the bassline. I’d like to be able to group those, then have that group in another group with the kick drum so I can compress the low end together.

An easier way to turn clips into songs. I always start out in session view, separate channels for different sounds and instruments, then a few variations within each channel. Once I’m there, I’d love to have an easier way of getting those variations into the arrangement view would be nice. A ‘paintbrush’-style tool in the arrangement view that allows me ‘paint’ sounds down on the timeline from the ‘palette’ of sounds that are available in the session view of that channel would be absolutely fantastic.

‘Pinging’ an external effect to set up device latency. How fantastic would it be if the external effect device just had a button that said ‘ping’ or similar, which would then send a test tone to the external effect and learn how long it takes for the audio to make the round trip, ideally to within a tenth of a millisecond or better. Perfect.

There are a few more little niggles, but that should cover it for now. As for what is in Live 9, I bought the full version of Cytomic’s The Glue quite a while ago (excellent plugin, can’t recommend it highly enough!), so the new Glue compressor is just typical of my musical investments, but reassuring that I backed a winning horse I suppose! The audio to MIDI feature is what I think will make the biggest difference to my workflow though: looking forward to recording those solos and ear candy ornamentations with the guitar, changing them to MIDI and playing about with synths, electric pianos and anything else I’m not very good at playing! Bring on the release of Live 9!

Oh, and Push as well, that looks handy…