Ableton Note for iOS

Tarekith

@Halftone said:

https://twitter.com/sierenmusic/status/1628731438622203908

Why's that man up at 4:20AM posting on Twitter? 😂

Halftone

@Tarekith said:

@Halftone said:

https://twitter.com/sierenmusic/status/1628731438622203908

Why's that man up at 4:20AM posting on Twitter? 😂

Probably was up all night adding features to Note

HotStrange

@mjm1138 said:

@HotStrange said:

@mjm1138 said:

I think economics are in the way. I'm guessing Ableton sees that they're not going to be able to charge $700 for a full-featured DAW on iOS, just as plug-in makers see that they're not going to be able to get $100 or more for a single-purpose AUv3 plugin. Indie developers that (probably) have much lower overhead than the big players can barely make it worthwhile on what they make from their apps from what I understand. So if there's no path to profitability on the platform, the best these big companies can do is publish a lightweight product that's ultimately designed to drive sales of the profitable desktop line. I don't know a solution to that problem.

I agree with all of this. I’m still iPad only but man I’d kill to have Ableton on it. As you said, people won’t pay $700 but honestly if it was fully featured and had everything the desktop does, I’d pay $250 for something like that. It would be insanely useful. That said, it could also pave the way for apps to become much more expensive. So kinda damned id you do damned if you don’t.

Overall I’m pretty happy with what I can do on my iPad and I love the modular approach, but it can be frustrating when you hit that wall.

TBH I use Logic on Desktop and just have Ableton Live "lite". Having Note has made me tempted to invest in a paid version of Live, but my perception is that a lot of the fun stuff in the Ableton ecosystem takes the form of Max for Live add-ons, and by the time you've bought Live Standard and Max for Live you might as well have paid for Live Suite, so that keeps me away. If, on the other hand, I could buy a Live Suite license and have access to it on my Mac and my iPad with one license (similar to how you can install it on multiple computers on a single license) I would buy it in a minute. I would definitely not pay full price for it twice just to have it on desktop and iPad. Since Logic is relatively cheap, I suppose I'd be more inclined to pay separately for an iPad version (especially since I've already invested in the desktop version). But again, shelling out another $199 would be a bit of a bitter pill.

All of that leaves open the issue that the plugin ecosystem on desktop is completely different from the one on iOS. I would remain bummed out that I can't have a lot of my favorite iOS plugins on desktop and vice-versa. So for a real cross-platform workflow one would have to stick mostly to stock plugins. But I do think that if fully-fledged Live and Logic were suddenly available on iPad, maybe more desktop plugin makers would give the platform a second look (and maybe folks would start being willing to pay desktop prices for plugins).

Yeah there’s definitely a lot of nuance to this and so many things to consider. Are we willing to pay desktop prices for apps? Are the devs willing to make them? Who knows.

I’m still happy overall with what I can do with my iPad and it still blows my mind sometimes how good it can be. I do think I’d shell out the money for a full desktop plugin but man it’d be a bummer to see apps go from $5-$25 to $50-$100 (or more). Guess all we can do is wait and see.

BroCoast

@db909 said:
For the record I absolutely love Note. My complaints come from a good place of just wanting it to be all it can be. In general, it just has a fun factor that not many apps have, save for Koala maybe. I mean you can have all the features in the world, but if it takes too many taps to do something or if things are located in strange places, then it can feel like a chore. For example, Drambo, which has always been feature packed, has only recently implemented little bells and whistles that up the fun factor. And good for it

Yeah Note is big fun. I just want midi input so I can lean on it a bit more. Right now I only use it for drum tracks which it’s amazing for.

Danny_Mammy

@mattsieren said:

That's correct. It's there for the in-scale layout but it was hardly usable on the chromatic layout and caused more pain than good for many users.

wasn't painful at all for me and I used it alot, please put it back if you are from Ableton dev team.

Will you be adding back the velocity for chromatic touch keyboard you removed? I miss this feature.
will midi input have MPE also? thanks

I mention MPE as the strength of Ableton is both wavetable and simpler are MPE enabled and iOS devices can be used as a MPE control surface, also small MPE controllers like seaboard block and k-board/QuNexus are a perfect fit for iOS devices.

krassmann

@mjm1138 said:

@krassmann said:
Ableton Note is a really cool app, but I find it remarkable that a sketchbook app for a desktop DAW is praised as if it is the salvation from the shortcomings of iOS music making. But hey, it’s fun to use and why not?

I really haven't heard it referred to in that way, though maybe the implication is there. I think it has taken on outsize importance given what it does (basically it's a groovebox), but I think that's mainly because it represents one of the major DAW makers entering the iOS market (an unalloyed good in my opinion). Perhaps that's what has lead to great expectations and great frustration when it doesn't fulfill all of those expectations.

Interesting and I perceived it as a sketchbook for Ableton Live from day one. Note‘s instruments are preset player versions of Ableton Live device chains. You can record stuff in Note on the go, then sync it to Live and then tweak the sound to your needs and arrange it into a full track. I think that is the whole intention of the app. It’s stripped down with the purpose to take musical notes. That doesn’t mean that the purpose can not change along the way.

mjm1138

@krassmann said:

@mjm1138 said:

@krassmann said:
Ableton Note is a really cool app, but I find it remarkable that a sketchbook app for a desktop DAW is praised as if it is the salvation from the shortcomings of iOS music making. But hey, it’s fun to use and why not?

I really haven't heard it referred to in that way, though maybe the implication is there. I think it has taken on outsize importance given what it does (basically it's a groovebox), but I think that's mainly because it represents one of the major DAW makers entering the iOS market (an unalloyed good in my opinion). Perhaps that's what has lead to great expectations and great frustration when it doesn't fulfill all of those expectations.

Interesting and I perceived it as a sketchbook for Ableton Live from day one. Note‘s instruments are preset player versions of Ableton Live device chains. You can record stuff in Note on the go, then sync it to Live and then tweak the sound to your needs and arrange it into a full track. I think that is the whole intention of the app. It’s stripped down with the purpose to take musical notes. That doesn’t mean that the purpose can not change along the way.

Yeah, I agree with this take, but I think it's not going to stop folks from wanting it to be more. There's such a hunger (I feel it too) for a real DAW on iOS. People keep expecting Loopy Pro to become a fully-fledged DAW (don't think it's happening), or AUM (not gonna happen). It is going to take someone with the bench and the resources of an Apple or an Ableton (or maybe a Steinberg) and again, I don't think the economics line up even for those big players.

Tarekith

I think it’s UI issues as much as monetary. Trying to scale a desktop DAW down to say the size of an iPad Mini probably isn’t going to work too well.

db909

I’m not a huge fan of full blown DAWs, but I can always use another groovebox that has just enough capabilities to produce a complete instrumental track.

mjm1138

@Tarekith said:
I think it’s UI issues as much as monetary. Trying to scale a desktop DAW down to say the size of an iPad Mini probably isn’t going to work too well.

I guess I make an implicit assumption that someone wanting to run a full DAW on an iPad is going to purchase at least an iPad Air to do it on. But you're not wrong, there are non-trivial UI challenges. Heck, running Logic on my 14" MBA is kind of annoying without an external monitor plugged-in.

Tarekith

I think the biggest hurdle is that Apple doesn't let developers pick and choose what iPad sizes their apps support, they have to work on all the current ones.

Something like Electribe Wave on the iPhone shows how just because you can, doesn't mean you should I guess.

cokomairena

@Tarekith said:

@Halftone said:

https://twitter.com/sierenmusic/status/1628731438622203908

Why's that man up at 4:20AM posting on Twitter? 😂

They were adding nite length 😅

mjm1138

@Tarekith said:
I think the biggest hurdle is that Apple doesn't let developers pick and choose what iPad sizes their apps support, they have to work on all the current ones.

Something like Electribe Wave on the iPhone shows how just because you can, doesn't mean you should I guess.

Right. I assume a Logic UI on iOS would probably combine ideas from Logic Remote and GarageBand, and it would not be a pleasure to use on an iPad mini I think. Possible, but pretty clunky.

db909

If you read that tweet thread, the dude says that odd loop lengths are definitely coming but not for the next update, so that’s definitely gonna be a big one there.

HotStrange

@Tarekith said:
I think it’s UI issues as much as monetary. Trying to scale a desktop DAW down to say the size of an iPad Mini probably isn’t going to work too well.

I feel like I’ve actually read a couple developers say the reason they haven’t ported certain things is because they won’t work on an iPhone/iPad mini screen. Good point there.

Mowag

quick question: Is midi support confirmed and is there a timeline? (same question for auv3 input but less important to me)
Thank you!

BroCoast

@Mowag said:
quick question: Is midi support confirmed and is there a timeline? (same question for auv3 input but less important to me)
Thank you!

It’s coming but there is no timeline.

I am not sure if AUv3 input/hosting will ever be supported.

Mowag

Thanks for the answer! I‘m new to ios music making and on the fence in investing time into loopy pro when midi input in note would be enough for my needs.

Auv3 hosting would just make sense for people who use ableton on a m1 mac anyway. I can see the huge technical problems by wanting to sync a plugin that’s not installed on your mac…

GrimLucky

@Mowag said:

Auv3 hosting would just make sense for people who use ableton on a m1 mac anyway. I can see the huge technical problems by wanting to sync a plugin that’s not installed on your mac…

On good workaround for iOS plugins not being available on M1 Macs is to sample them into AudioLayer, this works well when transferring GarageBand projects to Logic.

Danny_Mammy

@Danny_Mammy said:
@mattsieren said:

That's correct. It's there for the in-scale layout but it was hardly usable on the chromatic layout and caused more pain than good for many users.

wasn't painful at all for me and I used it alot, please put it back if you are from Ableton dev team.

Will you be adding back the velocity for chromatic touch keyboard you removed? I miss this feature.
will midi input have MPE also? thanks

I mention MPE as the strength of Ableton is both wavetable and simpler are MPE enabled and iOS devices can be used as a MPE control surface, also small MPE controllers like seaboard block and k-board/QuNexus are a perfect fit for iOS devices.

@mattsieren

any news? been a while

db909

Yeah this is starting to feel like one of those “I hope we get an update this YEAR” type apps. Oh well

Jumpercollins

I Hope they properly integrate Note into the iOS music ecosystem by making it a AU app at some point so we can use it inside AUM or a DAW. It’s great having midi but has limited use with Note being standalone only. Spent 5 minutes trying to hook Scaler 2 up to it. Gave up in the end.

Danny_Mammy

@Jumpercollins said:

I Hope they properly integrate Note into the iOS music ecosystem by making it a AU app at some point so we can use it inside AUM or a DAW. It’s great having midi but has limited use with Note being standalone only. Spent 5 minutes trying to hook Scaler 2 up to it. Gave up in the end.

if you look at what Ableton note is designed for it doesn't make sense for it to be Auv3. it just designed to integrate with Ableton live.

Danny_Mammy

@mattsieren @Tarekith

will MPE midi input be added to Ableton Note? makes sense since the wavetable synth is MPE enabled.

Tarekith

Can’t discuss potential planned or unreleased features due to NDA, sorry.

cyberheater

Time to download the app again.

zzrwood

Finally, midi input from controllers (including Bluetooth) and iOS/iPadOS apps…

cokomairena

Midi in = Fun!

BroCoast

Well that’s nice but doesn’t receive pitch/mod wheel?

Danny_Mammy

no midi pitch /MOD or sustain pedal!!

Sorry I have to moan here. These three midi controls are like midi 101. I can't believe this wasn't noticed or address at all.

frankly poor and disappointing. any basic midi app has this baked in.

maybe comes in a future update..... poor