Ableton Live 8 on Microsoft Windows 7 |
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| Developer(s) | Ableton |
| Stable release | 8.2.6 / September 9, 2011 |
| Written in | C++ |
| Operating system | Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X |
| Type | Digital Audio Workstation |
| Website | www.ableton.com |
Ableton Live is a loop-based software music sequencer and DAW for Mac OS and Windows by Ableton. The latest major release of Live, Version 8, was released in April 2009. In contrast to many other software sequencers, Live is designed to be an instrument for live performances as well as a tool for composing and arranging. It is also used for mixing of tracks by DJs, as it offers a suite of controls for beatmatching, crossfading, and other effects used by turntablists, and was one of the first music applications to automatically beat match songs. It does not support traditional musical notation.[1]
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Ableton Live is written in C++, with the first version released in 2001 as commercial software, by the German company Ableton. Contrary to popular belief, Live was not prototyped in Max/MSP, although Max/MSP was used to model some of the audio devices. [2]
| Version | Date |
|---|---|
| Live 1 | 30 Oct 2001 [3] |
| Live 1.5 | 28 Apr 2002 [4] |
| Live 2 | 22 Dec 2002 [5] |
| Live 2.1 | 24 Jul 2003 [6] |
| Live 3 | 10 Oct 2003 [7] |
| Live 4 | 28 Jul 2004 [8] |
| Live 5 | 24 Jul 2005 [9] |
| Live 5.2 | 10 Apr 2006 [10] |
| Live 6 | 29 Sep 2006 [11] |
| Live 7 | 29 Nov 2007 [12] |
| Live 8 | 02 Apr 2009 [13] |
| Live 8.2 | 22 Sep 2010 [14] |
Much of Live's interface comes from being designed for use in live performance as well as for production.[15] As such the interface is more compact than most sequencers and clearly designed for use on a single screen. 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).
Live is composed of two 'views' – the arrangement view and the session view. The session view is primarily used to organize and trigger sets of MIDI and audio called clips. 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. As of Live 6, "device racks" have been implemented which allow the user to easily group instruments and effects, as well as map their controls to a set of 'macro' controls.
The other view is the arrangement view, which is used for recording tracks from the session view and further manipulating their arrangement and effects. It is also used for manual MIDI sequencing, something for which a classical composer would have a greater affinity. This view is fairly similar to a traditional software sequencer interface.
Clips may either be an audio sample or MIDI sequence. MIDI triggers notes on Live's built in instruments, as well as third party VST instruments or external hardware.
By default, Live comes with two instruments – Impulse and Simpler.
Akai Professional makes the APC40, a MIDI controller designed to work solely with Ableton Live. A smaller version, the APC20, was released in 2010. Though there are hundreds of MIDI controllers compatible with Ableton, these Akai units try to closely map the actual Ableton Live layout onto physical space. Novation Digital Music Systems has created the "Launchpad" which is a pad device that has been designed for use with Ableton.
There are a number of additional instruments which may be purchased separately or as part of the Ableton Suite.[16]
They are as follows: Orchestral Strings, Orchestral Brass, Orchestral Woodwinds and Orchestral Percussion. The Orchestral Instrument Collection is not included in Live Suite.
Most of Live's effects are already common effects in the digital signal processing world which have been adapted to fit Live's interface. They are tailored to suit Live's target audience – electronic musicians and DJs – but may also be used for other recording tasks such as processing a guitar rig.
| Audio Effects | MIDI Effects | ||
|---|---|---|---|
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Live is also able to host VST plugins and, on the Macintosh version, Audio Unit plug-ins.
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.
Some artists and online stores, such as The Covert Operators and Puremagnetik, now make available sample packs that are pre-adjusted, with tempo information and warp markers added. The audio files are accompanied with an "analysis file" in Live's native format.[17][18]
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 or track panning, but envelopes are also used in Live to control parameters such as the root note of a resonator or, more commonly, a filter's cutoff frequency. Clip envelopes may also be mapped to MIDI controls.
As of version 6, Ableton also offers a stripped-down version of Live targeted at the non-professional market. It has limitations on the number of audio channels and effects and does not feature some of the synchronization (MIDI Clock, ReWire) utilities the full version has to offer. The current Live LE version is 8.1.4.[19]
As part of the Able10 celebrations, Ableton introduced Live Intro as an effective replacement to LE. Registered users of Live LE can now receive a free upgrade to Live Intro.[20] The current version is 8.2.6.
On January 17, 2009, Ableton announced version 8 of Live. Live 8 includes a wealth of new features, including an integrated Max/MSP platform, internet collaboration features, and many new effects and workflow enhancements, as well as a refined piracy protection system. Also announced was a dedicated hardware controller developed in collaboration with Akai, called the APC40. Live 8 was released on April 2 of 2009.[21] Max for Live was released on November 23 of 2009.[22]
Suite 8 includes all the features of Live 8 plus a new Library with new sounds and resources. Suite 8 contains 10 Ableton instruments including synths, a sampler, electric and acoustic drums, mallets, numerous sampled instruments, reworked Operator and two completely new instruments, Collision and Tension.
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