A Trip Down Memory Lane

One of my first experiences with sequencing software was in the late eighties with a piece of shareware DOS software that I vaguely remember as being called Lighthouse. The unique thing about this software was that it allowed one to move around blocks of MIDI data with preset info in the header allowing the user to block out a song bar by bar and switch around song elements. More than a couple of times I stumbled upon a juxtaposition of elements that gave the composition a completely new feel I likely never would have dreamed up if it hadn't been for that easy ability to swap those blocks of music around.

Alas in short order the program disk corrupted on me and in my efforts to replace it I found and purchased the DOS version 1.0 of Cakewalk. It was a much better constructed piece of software but used the multitrack tape approach that has continued on and still reigns as the standard interface metaphor for the big league sequencing/recording apps. Sure I could cut/copy/paste/insert within a track but it was never a cinch easy and it seemed like a definite step back from the compositional nirvana I had glimpsed with that original buggy little gem.

As time went on I graduated through a series of Cakewalk upgrades ending with Pro Audio versions. With Pro Audio 9 I could block out MIDI and Audio data but at that point I was starting to bonk at the limitations of quantized MIDI Drum tracks. The thrill of perfectly synced drums had worn off and maybe it was just me but I started to wonder if sampling synth based drum fills could ever sound natural. After playing around with some of the first loop based software like Acid I succumbed to the lure of full sample based drum loops. Man-o-man these babies sounded good, and by recording the rest of my work into similar sound blocks I could start to regain that flexibility to move large song elements around. It was wonderful, at least until you wanted to cut a clip to an exact time interval or alter your tempo and then you were screwed - the synchronization problems were horrendous. So I had traded off endless tweaking of MIDI events for endless editing of sample loops. I watched as friends went through similar arcs, creating massively complex MIDI/Soundfont/loop/softsynth/plugin/DSP- based monsters that if left for - say a month would challenge you to even recall your own signal routing scheme. Needless to say not much music was being created.

Back to the Future!

I first heard of Ableton's Live in 2001. Given my experience the appeal was huge. A media industry type was commenting that it allowed him to work very quickly which was something many of the recording apps are not at all good at. All parameters of the system could be automated or recorded, and it was not just loop oriented but auto time adjusted those loops. So here was a program that held the possibility of flexibly and spontaneously working with large compositional elements. The idea of working in the immediate is was what Live by definition seemed to be about. But the question remained for me what exactly was Live, the ultimate remix tool? A super fast recording/composition environment? A freakish sampler? And who should be using it? Read on and hopefully I'll sort this all out for you.

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