Ableton Live 7 Preview on Beatportal, and How Much Slice to MIDI Rocks
My friend Francis Preve has been working on Live 7 through its development, but he’s finally gotten a break long enough to talk about what’s new in this version:
Ableton Live 7 - sneak preview [Beatportal]
Being close to the development, what Fran says has some weight. The preview runs through the features one by one, as you’ve seen before. But there’s good reason Slice to MIDI is right on top.
With a single right-click on any loop in Live, you can automagically slice it into dozens of smaller segments — like individual kicks, snares and percussion — then import these slices into a Drum Rack, which is then played by its own unique MIDI sequence.
The sequences can then be reordered so that you can create entirely new grooves from a single drum loop.
It’s a huge feature. Slicing in this fashion is nothing new, particularly on beat workstation hardware. Doing it this easily — that’s new. On the record, Francis says “Fortunately, it’s so flexible that many producers will approach this tool from their own unique perspective.” And I believe that, yes; I’ve seen other features of Live warped (excuse the pun) to extremes by experimental Live users.
I like how Fran described this feature yesterday over IM, though: “Slice to MIDI will be the drop shadow of 2008.”
Hey, someone has to record this stuff for posterity. I’m working with the Live beta now, and it’s just getting to the point where I think it’s hands-on preview time, so stay tuned. See our previous preview:
Ableton Live 7, Ableton Live Suite: Quick Look at What’s New (and 90-odd comments from you good folks!)
16 Comments
Leave a Commentfoosnark
Sounds like FLStudio’s FruitySlicer… which I use all the time, and definitely can be abused in fun creative ways.
November 7, 2007 @ 10:34 am
Peter Kirn
Exactly. The workflow is a little different, though, because of the way Live handles its new Drum Racks.
It’s funny, though, I definitely see some of the influence of FL in both Live 7 and SONAR 7. A setup that includes all three … well, that just starts to get insane. (Hmmm… and *I’m* insane. What a lovely coincidence…)
November 7, 2007 @ 10:39 am
mad wax | vocode project
*raises eyebrow* first “racks” from the combinator and now this from “recyle”
November 7, 2007 @ 11:56 am
Peter Kirn
I have to disagree.
This isn’t ripped off of ReCycle; it’s using the REX format — and that was the idea, that’s why Propellerheads put it out there. Not to mention, a lot of the ReCycle features have popped up elsewhere. That’s natural evolution. Likewise, the underlying concepts in Racks and Combinator were around long before either of those tools. And each implementation has its own pluses and minuses … there’s nothing like modular patching in Reason in Live, and I think Live does an elegant job of simplifying the interface in a way that Reason doesn’t, not to mention supporting plug-ins.
Reason still supports a unique way of working. Ableton has very much their own twist on these things in terms of design and implementation. So what I see is, a basic idea comes out, and then you see it spun into different contexts.
And I would also add, Propellerheads *hasn’t* done what they could to integrate their own technology with Reason. Don’t get me wrong, I love Reason, but that seems like a real missed opportunity.
November 7, 2007 @ 12:05 pm
mzeal
Looks more like a rip off of FL Slicer or FXpansion’s GURU to me.
November 7, 2007 @ 1:38 pm
brett
i got in on the initial run of beta testing and this thing is amazing. you can slice Rex files automatically. You can slice audio into equal seqments or chop based on highlighted slice markers.
but the real kicker is you can drag and drop vst/au’s instruments and effects onto the individual pads. i loaded up 16 Operators onto 16 pads with different efeects and things when i first tried it out. it’s awesomely intuitive and fun.
November 7, 2007 @ 2:19 pm
Peter Kirn
It’s interesting that these comparisons to other programs keep coming up. I have already heard specific instances of people combining Live 7 with GURU, SONAR 7, FL Studio, or Reason. They wouldn’t do that if these tools weren’t differentiated in some way. I think it’s easy to get into tool overkill, but it means even if you choose just *one* of these, you’re choosing a unique way of doing things, not something that’s been directly ripped off. Once you see the specific implementation here, the integration with the Live paradigm, whether you like the results or not, I think you would see something different about Live.
November 7, 2007 @ 2:35 pm
Phyllis Stein
Good thing ACID’s not all that popular anymore or we’d have to hear about Live ripping off real-time time stretching. Jeez.
And that MIDI sequencing thing? Oh how Ableton has ripped off Roland’s classic MSQ-700.
THIEVES, I SAY! ;)
PS
November 7, 2007 @ 5:19 pm
kelly
this kind of thing has been missing from live for too long. as a FL user, its nice to see this in live, as its something i really miss when using it.
now if only live would rip off FL’s piano roll.
November 7, 2007 @ 7:28 pm
Lost
But what, I must ask, would happen to a non-drum loop when sliced? Would it pick up rhythms in the waveform? Or just not work? If it does work I foresee it blowing my mind repeatedly.
November 7, 2007 @ 8:28 pm
Dave Dri
The talk of “ripping off” is a bit silly. I use the “16 slice” function in my MPC a great deal. I think i can let the function name and the fact im posting here suggest what that function does in relation to this article. “Ripping off” is a silly suggestion. “Incporating successful features” is something all good audio apps should do.
To Lost… buy a new hat, your mind will be blowig repeatedly :P
November 8, 2007 @ 5:19 am
badburt
I hate to say it, believe me I do because Live is all I use to make music, but…so what?
I’ve been doing this in Live for years now, albeit in a more painstaking, non-automated way.
All you have to do is carefully position the beat markers in your sample and then move either the start position marker or end loop point marker about as you record the song. You can also shorten the start and end loop points and drag loop section about as you record. Ok the results can be a bit hit and miss but it sounds far more fluid and naturalistic than trying to play the beat back through midi. Try it!
November 8, 2007 @ 11:28 am
Peter Kirn
badburt, what you’re doing sounds interesting but not the same as what we’re talking about here, if I understand correctly?
November 8, 2007 @ 11:44 am
badburt
Well, yes…and no. My method for beat slicing in Live is completely different but more intuitive and will, some of the time at least, give for more natural sounding results. My experience with beat slicing and resultant midi playback has always seemed to give results that sound too contrived, to my ears at least.
I’m not doubting that this is a fantastic new feature for Live but merely pointing out that it is such a fantastically flexible program that it can be used in a wide variety of ways.
November 9, 2007 @ 8:22 am
Dj_Don Admir
hey ppl i love this programe ill be casting out my album soon and all the thx to Ableton live
November 9, 2007 @ 8:07 pm
Maxim
Russian version of this Preview
Для тех кому тяжко по английски =)
http://maxim-dj.livejournal.com/20584.html
November 13, 2007 @ 9:51 am
Leave a comment
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI