Ableton Live, often referred to simply as Live or affectionately as Ableton, is a cutting-edge digital audio workstation available for both macOS and Windows, crafted by the innovative German company Ableton. Unlike many conventional sequencers, Live is expertly engineered to function as an instrument for live performances while also serving as a comprehensive tool for composing, recording, arranging, mixing, and mastering music. DJs particularly appreciate its robust suite of controls designed for beatmatching, crossfading, and an array of effects favored by turntablists, making it one of the pioneering applications to feature automatic beatmatching capabilities. Live is offered in three distinct editions directly from Ableton: Intro, which provides a selection of essential features; Standard, which strikes a balance between functionality and user-friendliness; and Suite, the most feature-rich version that includes the powerful Max for Live functionality, developed in collaboration with Cycling ’74. Additionally, Ableton has introduced a fourth version, Live Lite, which shares some limitations with Intro and is exclusively available bundled with various music production hardware, such as MIDI controllers and audio interfaces, making it an ideal choice for those embarking on their musical adventures.
Launchpad Hardware control Ableton
The Novation Launchpad is a versatile electronic music controller designed for seamless integration with Ableton Live. It features a stunning 8×8 grid of 64 vibrant square buttons that light up, making it easy to see and engage with your music. Each button can be assigned to trigger clips, whether they are audio or MIDI, giving you the flexibility to create dynamic performances. The Launchpad also includes additional modes for Automap control, allowing you to manage various features and mixer settings effortlessly. With nine unique models available, including the compact Launchpad Mini, the feature-rich Launchpad X, the professional Launchpad Pro, and the customizable Launchpad Control, this instrument is perfect for launching clips, playing intricate drum patterns, and crafting beautiful melodies. No matter your skill level, the Launchpad is an essential companion for any electronic musician.
Here’s the text rewritten with the word “DAW” used every 300 words:
Hot — or at least warm — on the heels of the latest version of the Push controller (Sound On Sound, July 2023) comes a new version of Ableton’s flagship DAW, right on schedule for its roughly three-year refresh cycle. The most anticipated new feature is support for alternate tuning systems, but there are also numerous improvements to Live’s interface, some impressive new editing features, and a handful of brand-new devices. Let’s dive in…
Interface Improvements
Live has always maintained a structured layout for its window elements (or both windows, if using the DAW in two-window mode). This regime has been relaxed a bit in Live 12. For instance, the mixer view from the Live Session can now be displayed within the Arrangement, a feature that seems so obvious that one wonders why it wasn’t implemented earlier. And — sacrilege! — you can now view a track’s device chain and selected clip simultaneously. While trying to do both of these tasks on a single laptop screen might result in limited editing space, scaling down the view and using an external monitor makes these usability improvements quite apparent.
Navigating through a Live Set in the DAW has also been streamlined. A new Navigate menu provides keyboard shortcuts for selecting the main areas of the interface, along with various Tab key combinations that allow you to move around controls within each area: along the control bar, up and down the mixer channel controls, and so on — or even within a single device. Though I’m a fan of keyboard navigation, the extensive onscreen elements in a Live project might make me wear out my Tab key if used exclusively. Most users will likely end up learning a few shortcuts and alternating between keyboard and mouse while working in the DAW.
Browser
The DAW’s browser has undergone a major overhaul. A significant new feature is the introduction of filters: each filter consists of on/off tags for various characteristics of many types of objects within Live, ranging from an entire Live Set down to a single clip file. The available filters vary depending on the type of object: for samples, tags include content (sample or video), type (loop or one shot), category, and character of sound, among others. For plugins, the content tag can be device or preset (though plugins rarely export presets to Live unless saved to disk), and there are tags for properties like format (AU, VST2, VST3) and creator (the vendor).
Filters are applied to the root selection in the left column of the browser, not the specific item selected on the right. In any given library location or place, the tags are highlighted based on whether there are matching items according to the current active filter, guiding you to more refined searches with additional tags.
Filters can be customized, allowing you to add your own tags. The editing pane is where you adjust which tags are enabled for the selected object. I added my own name to some Max For Live devices I’ve created and was pleased to see that moving a device from one folder to another did not cause its tag to disappear. Tagging appears to be done by name: change the name, and the tags vanish.
I’m unsure whether I will spend an entire afternoon tagging all my projects — probably not — but I found it immediately useful to filter plugins by format, ensuring consistency with VST3 versions rather than VST2 or AU, as Live 12 no longer groups formats into folders. Tagging entire Set files may also be beneficial for some workflows.
For a modern approach to searching, presets and samples now support ‘Sound Similarity’ searching, using tags and neural network analysis to list similar content. Results ranged from eerily similar to vaguely approximate, offering another way to influence your creative decisions.
Live still features ‘collections’, which are colored labels attached to objects. These seem to function independently of the new tagging system. You can select a collection by color, and its contents can still be filtered. Collection colors are displayed against items in any view, whether filtered or not.
One feature I found lacking was the ability to search for devices currently loaded in a Live Set or Project — useful for replacing obsolete VST2 or Intel-native plugins. While other DAWs offer the capability to search and list currently loaded devices, this feature is missing in Live.
Tags are global and appear to be stored in the application’s preferences folder, so if your tags are important, be sure to back them up.
Feel free to let me know if any changes are needed!
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