Ableton Live Use

[Carri Seargent]

Applya variety of simple or complex variations to your MIDI clips with new MIDI Transformations. Add ornaments and articulations, draw acceleration and deceleration curves, connect successive notes and chords, simulate the strum of a guitar, and more.

Conjure up melodies, chords and rhythms with the help of new MIDI Generators. Set constraints and let your chosen Generator create playful and original ideas for you to develop and turn into your own.

Use keyboard and mouse operations to edit MIDI in new ways. Split a note in two, or chop it into several parts. Select a set of notes and join them together, or make them fill a selected time range. Plus, you can access to more tools from the Note Utilities panel on the left, such as Fit Scale, Humanize, Add Intervals, and more.

Perform live more freely with four Max for Live devices from Iftah. Control any part of Live with advanced macros, capture and re-deploy snapshots of your Set, instantly loop your location in Arrangement View, and pre-arrange a song with clips that Live fills as you perform.

Explore the gritty drums of old-school hip hop with the new beat-focused Pack from heavyweight producer Sound Oracle. Get your hands on warm, authentic-sounding kits with built-in effects and enhanced MPE functionality, created especially for Live 12.

Sound Oracle puts the creative power of his in-demand trap beats at your disposal with a Pack of 20 crisp, futuristic kits and clips made for Live 12, loaded with MPE functionality for added expressive control.

In contrast to many other software sequencers, Live is designed to be an instrument for live performances as well as a tool for composing, recording, arranging, mixing, and mastering. It is also used by DJs, as it offers a suite of controls for beatmatching, crossfading, and other different effects used by turntablists, and was one of the first music applications to automatically beatmatch songs.[3]

Live is available directly from Ableton in three editions: Intro (with limited key features), Standard, and Suite (with the most features). Suite includes Max for Live functionality, made possible in partnership with Cycling '74.[4]

Ableton has also made a fourth version of Live, Lite, with similar limitations to Intro, which is only available bundled with a range of music production hardware, including MIDI controllers and audio interfaces.[5]

Live was created by Gerhard Behles, Robert Henke and Bernd Roggendorf in the mid-1990s.[6] Behles and Henke met while studying programming at the Technical University of Berlin, and wrote software in the music programming language Max to perform techno as their band Monolake. Henke and Behles identified a need in Berlin's electronic music scene for user-friendly software for live performances, and worked with local acts to develop it.[6] Though Live was not developed in Max, Max was used to prototype most of its features.[7]

Henke said later of Live's creation, "I think the feeling we had was [that] there was enough like-minded people in our closer community who could appreciate a product like this, and that it could work commercially. That gave us confidence to believe that a small company could actually survive on the market."[6] He said one of the first industry figures to recognize Live's potential was the Hollywood composer Hans Zimmer, who was impressed by Live's ability to change the tempo of a loop without altering its pitch.[6] Roggendorf, another programmer, joined Behles and Henke in the late 90s and helped them turn their Max patches into a general set of software for retail.[6] They released the first commercial version of Live on October 30, 2001.[8]

Unlike Pro Tools, which focuses on multitrack recording, the first version of Live was designed for performing live with loops.[7] It offered sophisticated tools for triggering loops, playing samples and time stretching audio, and was immediately popular with electronic music producers.[7] Live's time stretching algorithm, known as "Warping", was particularly notable and gave DJs greater control over mixing and beatmatching, smoothly blending tracks of different tempos.[7]

In 2010, Ableton introduced Max for Live, enabling connectivity between Max and Live.[7] Live made it easier for musicians to use computers as instruments in live performance without programming their own software, influencing the rise of global festival culture in the 2000s.[6]

Session View offers a grid-based representation of all of the Clips in a Live Set. These clips can be arranged into scenes which can then be triggered as a unit. For instance a drum, bass and guitar track might comprise a single scene. When moving on to the next scene, which may feature a synth bassline, the artist will trigger the scene, activating the clips for that scene.

Arrangement View offers a horizontal music production timeline of Clips that is more similar to a traditional software sequencer interface. The Arrangement View is used for recording tracks from the session view and further manipulating their arrangement and effects. It is also used for manual MIDI sequencing.[21]

Live Intro includes four instruments (Impulse, Simpler, Instrument Rack, and Drum Rack). Live Standard additionally includes External Instrument, with users having the option to purchase additional instruments. By contrast, Live Suite includes all available instruments.

Akai Professional makes the APC40 mk II, a MIDI controller designed to work solely with Live and closely maps the layout of Live's Session View onto a physical control surface. A smaller version, the APC20, was released in 2010.[23] Novation offers the Launchpad, a pad device that has been designed for use with Live.

Ableton has also released their own MIDI controller, the Push, which is the first pad-based controller that embraces scales and melody.[24] In November 2015, Ableton released an updated MIDI controller, the Push 2, along with Live 9.5.[25] Push 2 features a new color display, improved buttons and pads, and a lighter frame.[26] In May 2023, Ableton released the Push 3 as Controller and as Standalone-Version.[27][28]

In addition to the instruments mentioned above, Live can work with samples. Live attempts to do beat analysis of the samples to find their meter, number of bars and the number of beats per minute. This makes it possible for Live to shift these samples to fit into loops that are tied into the piece's global tempo.

Additionally, Live's Time Warp feature can be used to either correct or adjust beat positions in the sample. By setting warp markers to a specific point in the sample, arbitrary points in the sample can be pegged to positions in the measure. For instance a drum beat that fell 250 ms after the midpoint in measure may be adjusted so that it will be played back precisely at the midpoint.

Live also supports Audio To MIDI, which converts audio samples into a sequence of MIDI notes using three different conversion methods including conversion to Melody, Harmony, or Rhythm. Once finished, Live will create a new MIDI track containing the fresh MIDI notes along with an instrument to play back the notes. Audio to midi conversion is not always 100% accurate and may require the artist or producer to manually adjust some notes.[29]

Almost all of the parameters in Live can be automated by envelopes which may be drawn either on clips, in which case they will be used in every performance of that clip, or on the entire arrangement. The most obvious examples are volume and track panning, but envelopes are also used in Live to control parameters of audio devices such as the root note of a resonator or a filter's cutoff frequency. Clip envelopes may also be mapped to MIDI controls, which can also control parameters in real-time using sliders, faders and such. Using the global transport record function will also record changes made to these parameters, creating an envelope for them.

Much of Live's interface comes from being designed for use in live performance, as well as for production.[30] There are few pop up messages or dialogs. Portions of the interface are hidden and shown based on arrows which may be clicked to show or hide a certain segment (e.g. to hide the instrument/effect list or to show or hide the help box).

LinkedIn and 3rd parties use essential and non-essential cookies to provide, secure, analyze and improve our Services, and to show you relevant ads (including professional and job ads) on and off LinkedIn. Learn more in our Cookie Policy.

Record music in Ableton Live with our professionally taught video tutorials. In these courses, youll explore how to connect audio hardware and controllers to Live 9, create loops, make beats, perform live using Session view and software instruments, and produce music of all styles.

The new APC Key 25 mk2 is a versatile and compact MIDI keyboard controller that seamlessly delivers the power to perform and create anywhere, for the perfect combination of clip launching and composing in Ableton Live. Bring your original melodies, chord structures and layered harmonic ideas to life with APC Key 25.

APC Key 25 mk2 features 40 new RGB-backlit pads for a brilliant and precise representation of your Ableton Live session clips. Whether in the studio or on stage, the scrollable RGB enabled pad matrix will boldly shine through. In the heart of your most creative moment, launch and activate loops, instruments, vocals, and more with confidence.

APC Key 25 allows you to trigger loops, samples, Ableton Scenes and melodies for the most imaginative and inspirational music creation performances. 40 RGB-backlit pads on a customizable 5x8 grid accurately reflect clips from your Ableton Live Session and are always in reach for the ultimate navigational experience, even with large sessions.

APC Key 25 features 25 keys with the Gen 2 Dynamic Keybed for melodic and harmonic music creation. Play your own chords, arpeggios, solos, and soundscapes with the incredibly versatile keys. Use the Octave Up/Down buttons for expanded note range. The dedicated Sustain button adds space and dimension to your playing, ensuring the APC Key 25 is ready for any musical moment.

3a8082e126