Developer(s) Ableton License Proprietary | Written in Qt Based C++ | |
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Stable release 9.7.1 / 6 December 2016 (2016-12-06) Operating system Type Digital Audio Workstation | ||
Ableton Live is a software music sequencer and digital audio workstation for macOS and Windows. The latest major release of Live, Version 9, was released on March 5, 2013. 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 effects used by turntablists, and was one of the first music applications to automatically beatmatch songs.
Contents
History
Ableton Live is written in C++, with the first version released in 2001 as commercial software. Live itself was not prototyped in Max, although most of the audio devices were.
Features
Much of Live's interface comes from being designed for use in live performance as well as for production. 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 now supports latency compensation for plug-in and mixer automation.
Views
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.
Built-In
By default, Live comes with two instruments - Impulse and Simpler.
Dedicated hardware instruments
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. Ableton has also released their own MIDI controller, the Push, which is the first pad-based controller that embraces scales and melody.
Add-ons
There are a number of additional instruments which may be purchased separately or as part of the Ableton Suite.
Effects
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. The effects featured in Ableton Live are grouped into two categories - MIDI effects and audio effects.
Live is also able to host VST plugins and, on the macOS version, Audio Unit plug-ins.
Working with audio clips
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.
Ableton 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.
Envelopes
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, which can also control parameters in real-time using sliders, faders and such.
Live Intro and Live LE
As of version 6, Ableton also offererd a stripped-down version of Live called Live LE targeted at the non-professional market. It has limitations on the number of audio channels and effects MIDI channels and does not feature many of the capabilities of the full software.
As part of the Able10 anniversary celebrations, Ableton introduced Live Intro as an effective replacement to LE.
Ableton Live 8 Launchpad Edition and Ableton Live 8 Akai Professional APC Edition
Specially packaged versions of Ableton that are custom-tailored for the controllers they are bundled with. (Novation Launchpad, Akai APC20/40) These versions of the software are less limited than the LE and intro versions but still don't have all the features of the full version. This version is known as Live lite.
Live 8
On 17 January 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. Max for Live was released on November 23 of 2009.
Suite 8
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.
Live 9
On October 25, 2012, Ableton hosted a preview event for Live 9. New features such as integration of Max for Live and the Push hardware controller were announced and demonstrated. Later announced features in Live 9 include a Glue Compressor as well the ability to add curves and shapes to track automation among many other updates. Live 9 and the Push hardware were released on March 5, 2013.
Suite 9
A major addition to the Live 9 suite offering was the inclusion of Max For Live for all Live 9 Suite customers. This dramatically increases the size of the Max for Live community and holds significant promise toward grass roots enhancements in Live by community members creating their own Max For Live devices. Live 9 Suite also expanded the "sound-ware" included over Suite 8.