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There is a this live collaboration project: https://api-production-006c.up.railway.app/

https://www.reddit.com/r/ableton/comments/1xrbj82/been_an_ab...

> mainly it uses the underlying control surface layer to receive events with a python bridge then communicates those out to a central server, from there there's a websocket room you have to be invited to and you get all the updates.

> For changes or additions of samples/tracks it sends it to an incoming temp directory and edit's the ALS to read from it instantly

> The git portion is heavily inspired by git lfs, and stores your data in r2's but only diff's between the last version and current version.

It's a hosted product, but self hosting is possible even now. I think the code is up on github.

>Still no built-in way to collaborate with other musicians, it seems..

Asynchronous collaboration, there are a few non-native solutions. Or you can always exchange files via Dropbox or something. Or share screen.

Live playing over the public internet, there's no good way to do it , and can't really be due to latency. Many projects tried, all suck.

Live playing locally, there's Ableton Link.

This is a huge update (ARA alone, the step sequencer, etc) anyway, and many long awaited and several non expected items.

I meant to reply to you here but managed to post a comment of my own

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50441616

I rememeber trying blend.io and Splice studio back in the day, but they weren't too ergonomic due to lack of a 'project package' convention. There also was an inkling of native sharing for a while [0]:

> Officially, it was known as "Ableton Link Share" during early development and then launched as “Ableton Live’s ‘Share’ feature” — introduced around Live 9.1 (2013–2015 era).

> It allowed users to upload their Live Sets directly from Ableton Live to a personal web page (via ableton.com) to share projects with others — including audio previews and downloadable Live Sets.

> Ableton eventually discontinued the Share feature in 2017, citing limited use and the shift in focus toward Ableton Cloud / Splice / Link integration as alternative collaboration tools.

[0]: https://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?t=252909

This is a pain point for me as well, but I'm not sure what solving this would truly look like. At the moment whenever I'm collaborating with anyone else, one of us will have the "primary" project file containing the entire mix/session, and the collaborator will be sent all stems individually, and they'll send their stems back for ingest in to the main project. It's pretty clunky, but it prevents the awkward "I don't have that plugin/VST/etc" issues that passing project files has.

I dream of a git-like workflow for Ableton, ideally with some sort of clever solve for the inevitable missing device issue (maybe freezing could solve this with some tweaks?).

I'm also curious to hear from others on how they solve this, especially when collaborating remotely.

It seems to me that the super customizable, plug-in heavy architecture of modern DAWs.. especially Ableton makes collaboration almost impossible, at least without a change in IP/licensing model.

version control for it hmmmmmmmm

This is the recurrent pain point I have and see my friends have with Live. An exported project always has something missing/blocking.

The procedure to ensure your project is properly fully exported should be one button in a single place, not a 4 steps checklist in different configuration views.

What would you envision?

[dead]

I love that it is not only clean and usable, but also they somehow managed to make it cool in a very minimalist and utilitarian way. It is like a digital version of a sleek physical synth with very raw industrial design. Reminds me of how NAD amplifiers look ugly-beautiful with their greyish chases.

They really do a good job especially considering how much complexity is contained within Ableton.

Dunno... but coming from Studio One, I find Ableton’s interface very off-putting and ugly.

Yeah, I know... personal taste :)

I actually much prefer FL Studio UI over Ableton's

Agreed, it's really intuitive (or it was for me). I feel like it has just the right learning curve, it just makes sense.

100% agreed, gold standard in creative software design

Bitwig.

It is cheaper, supports Linux and I start to think it is also the better DAW.

It's on flathub so you can try it on any distro and see if you like it.

Studio One has Linux support for non-open source and it's been around for longer than Bitwig.

For open source, Ardour but yeah...

Ironically they added linux support... for Live Push 3. It runs an headless x86 version of the desktop suite ported to linux.

There are even projects like this that let you restore the missing parts and use it elsewhere, but it's kinda buggy: https://github.com/velkajelka/linux-native-ableton

Bitwig is the closest (and in many ways superior)

There's also this project:

https://github.com/shibco/ableton-linux

They have a custom wine version that is built specifically to fix ableton issues on linux. I haven't tried this myself but I have heard good things about it on their discord.

Are Linux audio drivers good enough? At one point they were not reliable enough from a timing perspective but I have no idea if that's been fixed or not.

Reaper

Ardour

It's very likely that you already have some version of Ableton together with your audio interface. Make sure to register your product to see if you have any redeemable downloads.

If I'd be starting now I would rather try Bitwig first, I made music with Live from Live 8 until Live 11 but switched to Bitwig afterwards and, to me, it's a better DAW in general (except if you really need Max devices [look up Max4Live, it's a node-based DSP creation tool]) and even better for a beginner to get going with.

I would start with Ableton's lessons, they're delightful.

https://learningmusic.ableton.com/ https://learningsynths.ableton.com/

Not Ableton Live specific, more general knowledge for music production: I can highly recommend the courses from Audible Genius: Syntorial and Building Blocks.

Keep an eye out for their black friday deal(s), usually they have a really good package deal on BF (when I got it too).

Then Seed to Stage on YouTube has amazing videos on a bunch of topics, all very much focused on Ableton Live.

Part of this answer depends your specific budget/financial situation. I've been an Ableton user since 2014. I bought Live 9 Lite at the time (probably came included with a midi device I bought), because I was still in undergrad and wasn't sure if I was going to stick with it. Looking at my order history, I later bought Live 9 Standard and used that until 2018 when I upgraded to Live 10 Suite (I've since upgraded to every new version of Suite on release, including 13).

My advice, if you have the budget, get Standard and upgrade to Suite later (at a discount). Suite is _nice_ but it's really mostly bells and whistles that you don't "need" to get from Ableton. Suite has a ton of included sound packs and instruments that are certainly useful but may not be useful to you.

As for the Akai MPK Mini, that's going to be entirely subjective IMO. I've bought several midi controllers over the years, and I've settled on a few key pieces that I'm happy with. The Arturia KeyStep 37 is the perfect keyboard for my desktop. It has enough range in a compact form factor and doesn't have any features I don't need (I'm not affiliated with Arturia).

If you don't already have a midi keyboard, I would suggest grabbing an affordable one!

Get the basics of the software and basic music theory, then search your questions online as they come up.

The hardest part when I was starting was finding genre-specific advice on music production. It really took digging to get the nuggets of what felt like a trade secret. Now, though, there is a massive flood of video tutorials for just about any niche of music.

For music theory, flip through The Jazz Language by Dan Hearle. You may not need everything in there, but it will get you up to speed on contemporary music vocabulary.

Iirc lite was free. I think thatd be a good start. Only limitation (iirc) was that it gave you only 8 channels which as a beginner should be more than enough. Has stock instruments that also should be more than enough. And there are loads of free VSTs, software instruments and effects

I would start with intro. Lite is only offered bundled with certain hardware products.

The biggest difference with intro is that you are limited to 16 tracks, and some of the software plugins aren't present. If you are new to music production then this should hardly matter to you. You will be able to get a good sense of whether you enjoy working with Ableton or not, and you can always upgrade later.

akai mpk is great! On tuts and such; I really enjoy "You suck at music production" youtube channel, who happens to use Ableton. Overall with music though, imo it's often time trying out combination of effects/instruments/midi that makes for the best learning.

Good luck with the music!

I personally bought a midi keyboard that included some free starter stuff including a limited version of ableton mine is https://www.arturia.com/products and works well with mac osx and all the mainstream DAWs .

It's made in Berlin and I guess you can see that on the page.

I think Real Time Audio is hard to get right. Creating a Digital Audio Workstatio (DAW) was what inspired the creation of Zig - the creator felt that it was such a difficult problem that current languages weren't sufficient. I bet it will be less trivial for AI to clone Abelton than the Adobe suite.

FL Studio is the most ethically licensed software I've ever used. In 2002, I paid $150 and have received lifetime updates since then. No ads, no renewal fees, no nerfing of my license to push me into a higher tier. Just the latest version every time it came out, from v3.4 to v26.

Contrast w/ Ableton, where you pay about that much every upgrade. Or something egregious like Adobe.

I'm actually rooting for FL Studio to NOT be cloned, respect to the way they ran their business, hope people pay them their money.

I think DAWs at the level of Ableton live are going to be hard to replicate, and at best, they will be a toy for not serious producers... Imagine working for 80 to 120 hours into a project that has 120 tracks and then the whole thing crashes on you. Not saying this cannot happen with Live (that's why it does backups on the background). What I'm saying is that companies like Ableton earn me more trust because I know they are serious about their work and more reliable.

I mean, vibecoded apps can be fine if you are editing just an image, or a small video you are editing for nothing serious, as a beginner, etc.. but for people that is serious about making videos or making songs that take a lot of effort and time, paying 159 euros to upgrade every 3 to 4 years is a no-brainer (I already pre-ordered it).

The hard part will be getting the sounds right. There are some that are public domain but to reach parity would need someone who knows audio.

same here, it's kind of crazy that Ableton hasn't had a good option for shaping transients out of the box until now!

Same in Chromium on Debian, tab dies completely with "Aw, Snap; error code 4", whatever that means

Had the same problem on Firefox on Android: I think the page may just be that heavy...

If they like Garage Band already, why not Logic Studio which is a “grown up” version of Garage Band?

If you buy them a midi keyboard or controller it will usually come with a lite or introductory license. The push is fun but a real keyboard feels special and the pads and sliders and knobs really make Live feel like a real instrument rather than just a piece of software

That said you do get a ton of cool stuff with the higher editions

A subscription to splice or other sample/preset libraries opens up a world of possibilities as well

Having the full edition also makes it possible to use more of the example projects and templates out there, and you can follow along with the tutorials from Mr Bill too!

Lite is the "free" version, the first real edition is called "intro".

You get lite with hardware purchase or in some magazines.

https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/articles/209775685-Get-a-L...

I'd say Ableton lite is still a step up, and gives you familiarity with the Ableton interface, which means you are primed for using one of the bigger editions. However, if said 16-year-old does not currently have a midi keyboard / controller I would look at buying one that includes bundled Ableton Lite as the gift. Something from the Novation Launchkey range would fit the bill.

Ableton suite is amazing because of all the content you get with it (instruments, effects, samples), but lite comes with enough to get you going and you can always add vsts and samples from 3rd parties.

You don't usually purchase the Lite version, you get it with like a $50-100 worth of hardware from the likes of AKAI or Novation or whatever.

It has a hard limit of 8 tracks, Intro doubles that to 16, while Standard is the first version without limitations. Intro should be more than fine for most beginners.

Lite is far too limited and you can't buy it on its own anyway, it only comes included with various hardware. Intro is limited to 16 tracks, Garage Band to 32 tracks. There's various other limitations too. Ableton has generous educational pricing though (50% off).

+1 to the other recommendations to get them Standard, Intro is pretty limited for an "upgrade" (coming from a daily user of Suite).

rutracker.net

I'm personally glad to see they didn't add anything AI. Suno already exists for that market, IMO.

Can you elaborate on the AI powered workflow(s) you'd like to see in Ableton? As a creative I'm quite averse to AI integration in tools like this but as a technology enthusiast I do see a future where AI can be employed here for efficiency without compromising creative integrity.

opposite feeling here.

There's a JS SDK which would probably be enough to DIY it

Is there even any such software?

Go on then. If it's that easy, do it, sell it for 1/10th of the cost and make millions.

Not my creation but have a look: https://seditiondaw.com/ - in browser Ableton "clone"

We're trying to build DAWs in ArtCraft. Folks are working on apps inspired by FL Studio and Pro Tools.

This stuff is extremely hard and it's going to take quite a long time to get even close to functional.

These apps are far more than just their UI/UX. The audio drivers alone for real time audio present an incredible challenge.

We're not building this in a week, let alone a month or several months. This will require domain experts to rigorously design and test. Even with the best AI assistance, there's no way you can build this without experience in the domain.

Waiting on your Show HN then or larping