1 - “Drum rack pads are monophonic.” Yes, polyphony is limited to 8 voices per drum rack. So 64 voices across 4 tracks. Not a big deal to me. Maybe a $2500 MPC is capable of more polyphony. I would sure hope so.
2 - “You have to upload your samples to Ableton’s website to transfer them.” Absolutely false. He doesn’t understand that the Move Manager is just an interface between your computer and the Move and you’re transferring the files directly.
3 - “Only one choke group”. How many hi hats do you need in a track?
4 - “Why can’t I simultaneously play another pad so I can layer stuff together.” You can. Don’t know what he’s talking about there.
5 - “No bandpass, only one filter per pad”. True. Maybe they’ll add a bandpass. Not a big deal to me, but again, feels like he’s comparing it to a much more expensive MPC.
6 - He seems completely confused by the automation. He does essentially a parameter lock (not really automation imo) with only one trigger put in place and then is surprised at the behavior. Why not make your beat first and then p lock or automate parameters after the fact. That’s how automation works when you’re mixing. You record first, automate after.
7 - As to resampling a pad he says “you can’t do it” and seems confused why it starts the transport. Resampling is obviously meant to be a bounce type feature where you make a loop with 4 tracks then resample the whole output to a new loop and you can keep adding to it. But you could definitely just resample a single hit if that’s what you wanted. Just mute everything else and put a trigger on the first beat, then resample.
Also annoyed that he called a cross stick a snare.
I got mine last Monday but had a crazy week and not much time to dive into it. But I filled up a drum rack with a bunch of one shots from an analog monosynth and tried making something from it. I chose one of the sounds that I wanted to play polyphonically and loaded it into a sampler on track 2 and recorded an 8 bar loop. Then I sequenced 8 of the sounds from the track 1 drum rack, panned things, added fx, and some automation. It was already pretty full but I added some of the preset CR78 on track 3 and an extra preset bass sound on track 4, then resampled everything into an empty pad while muting and unmuting stuff to make a quick little arrangement. And then downloaded it with Move Manager.
The first 8 bars are just one clip on one track using 8 drum rack pads. Then the polyphonic sampler comes in, then the extra bass, then the drums.
I also loaded up 4 drum racks on 4 tracks with a bunch of orchestral one shots for some cheesy rompler vibes and made a little thing that maybe uses a quarter of the samples. Nothing great but it was fun. Then I duplicated the set and added a bunch of playback effects, mostly ring mod and fm, and lots of fx and made it weird.
Personally I don’t feel limited at all by the track count, polyphony, or fx. The only limitation is that you can actually make things so dense that you don’t have the eq flexibility to mix it on the Move. If I was doing things in Live I would have an EQ8 on every track and carve out frequencies to make everything fit, but it’s easy to build up so much stuff on the Move that it gets muddy. But that’s when you move it over to Live to mix.
It’s really my dream portable laptop writing box that I’ve been waiting for!
the impression I got was that he’s talking about the lack of basic sampling standards in samplers that happen over and over again and are constantly being disguised by limitations as if that is a feature…
I think he thinks, if it’s a sampler it should at least sample, chop samples, filter samples… but these days alot of people look at sampler basics as ‘too much to ask for’ like you’re asking for the whole kit and kaboodle… for example, if the Move had the features he describes as omission in this clip the Move would still be leagues away from what an MPC is…
when it comes to synths, synthesis, and people who love them the most basic synth standards that are always present far exceed their Sampling beatmachine counterparts… like think of any synth that you might call bare bones or basic and the basics are at least there… but with samplers people are like hey actually sampling is too much, editing samples is too much, sample organization is too much
I will say however though that with the Move synths they don’t have panning and that is a nono in this day and age, I’m confident they’ll add it.
anyways that was my take on the clip and I can relate, I don’t think he was expecting it to be an mpc, I know I wasn’t, but I understand how those things don’t affect people who bought the Move primarily for it’s other features.
Sounds nice and lush!
I have zero worries about the 4-track limitation. The messaging is clear: it’s meant to be a work-flowy place to begin tracks. If I need much more scope, precision with the attached complexity, there’s Push and Live.
That said I do hope Ableton don’t feel a basic EQ is outside the scope as that’s so useful to make sounds sitt better together. Seqtrak has one per track and one on the master if I remember correctly and I used the per track one on every thing I did on that box.
The work-flowy part never clicked for me though and for that there’s no easy fix.
If you work offline I suggest making a copy of the set on the Move before powering down. That way if the first is integrated with Cloud and gets written back to what it was you still have the copy.
Bit of an (annoying) extra step, but doesn’t it come with a free Ableton lite?
Import it there and you have all the samples, MIDI and can render the synths.
Import to Logic, done.
Anybody has a inconsistent behaviour, when pressing the selection knob? When i press it, it always clicks, but sometimes does what its supposed to - f ex, entering the browser to replace a instrument- and other times nothing happens, so i have to press harder, or on a different place on the knob, or both.
Yeah look, not trying to be argumentative but fwiw on about 5 of those 7 points I fully see where he’s coming from, e.g. it might be ok to only have one choke group if you’re just using drums - although fwiw I tend to have 2 or 3 in most drum racks I build in Ableton - but not so much if you’re trying to do a full sample-based composition across four tracks, layering by copying steps rather than setting pads to trigger together is fine if you’re happy to go into two tracks and mirror any changes all the time, etc.
I don’t think it’s knocking Move to say that it’s not really trying to be a “sampler” right now and the drum tracks are mainly calibrated for … drums. If you’re pretty much trying to play it like an MPC/SP there are things you’ll miss. But the basic foundations are there for a sample-based powerhouse, I have no doubt that in about six months to a year’s time it’ll be way beyond where it is at launch on a lot of fronts. If they add even a super cut down version of simpler rather than just drum sampler it will be game over.
Yeah, the “only one choke group” per drumrack limitation is a bit eh. I can’t imagine choke groups being ressource hungry lol.
Have you guys tried to pair it with an Sp404mk2? I was wondering if the Sp was capable of getting midi from it via usb, since it seems to be hit or miss.
And another (maybe stupid) question: I like using the Sp as my audiointerface, and if I’m not mistaken it operates at 16bits, 48khz. Is it possible to use Move as Ableton midi controler and the Sp as my audiointerface? Since Move operates at 16bits, 44.1khz, are my Move Sets gonna sound fucked up if I switch to 48khz in ableton?
You know as soon as the set gets anything like looking like a complicated project, you are supposed to move it into Live.
I honestly don’t really understand any complaints about limitations. One of the first things I heard when the unit was being demoed by the team was that the device is intentionally limited to promote focus, and it is absolutely amazing at that. (I’ve just finished my first Move track in Ableton, and it was insanely quick - a huge huge workflow enhancement and creative ideas engine).
I see complaints about panning, number of effects, mixing, it being only presets, limited choke groups.
By design, if you’ve got that far into a project, you’re supposed to take it into Ableton. It’s not designed to be a standalone box to do any meaningful level of actual detail in. You generate a few (2 or 3) really catchy clips and upload them! That’s the workflow and it already has everything to do that, right? (not saying they shouldn’t add anything, just saying they don’t necessarily NEED to).
No, you’re completely wrong. If it doesn’t do everything Ableton does, plus the Push, and also work as a replacement for an Octatrack-based DJ set, and integrate with a Eurorack setup in the exact same way as the box I’m already perfectly happy using in that role, then it’s an utter failure and Ableton has frankly lost it.
Obviously they only designed this immediate, fun, well-thought-out device to make money.
On a serious note, I find the idea that design limitations are artificially put in place just for the sake of it, to “promote focus” is a load of bunk. The act of designing could also be called “deciding what to leave out.”
If you want a laptop to have a huge screen and battery, it can’t be the size of an iPad. If you want to add all the extra features everyone wants in the Move, you can’t do that without extra buttons, or lots of menus that would ruin the experience.
It seems that everyone simultaneously wants Homer’s car, and also the perfect, cut-down device with exactly the features they want, and nothing else.
Fortunately for some of us, the Move is exactly the latter. It’s pretty much exactly what I have wanted for years, including the ability to bail out and jump to Ableton as soon as things get to complex for a hardware box.
I think with the Move, Ableton have shown just how much they understand their product, Live, and all the drawbacks it has. Fear of the blank canvas is such a huge issue for any DAW user, and with this device they have totally dealt with that problem.
It is a design choice. Intentional limitation to combat the often debilitating “endless possibility” of the DAW space. And all in a really well built, affordable little device. The best thing is, once you get past the problem of starting, and you no longer “need” Move, it then becomes the controller you need in Live. Incredible!
Since Move uses samples at 16bits / 44.1khz, won’t it sound all wonky if I open a set in Ableton / Controller mode, but with a different samplerate? My SP operates at a different samplerate it seems.
Might seem stupid, but I’ve never use a DAW or an audiointerface before. :I
