Three years separate the releases of Ableton Live 11 and 12, during which time the developer released a number of new features and enhancements to the DAW, which has become the most popular among electronic music creators (but not only).
Here in 2024, there’s no need to acquaint users with Ableton Live, which is long established as one of the leading DAWs, as evidenced by it regularly topping the rankings of digital audio workstations preferred or most-used, particularly for sound synthesis or sampling enthusiasts. We’ve tested it regularly during its evolution, like the version 11 scrutinized by newjazz in 2021. As with every review of an existing DAW’s latest release, our readers are mainly wondering whether it’s worth upgrading from a previous version. So, as usual, we’re going to take another look at this DAW, talking about all its new features, its positioning in relation to the existing offering, its various versions, its value for money, etc.
I have a special relationship with this DAW since I currently consider myself self-taught in electronic music creation, and Live (yes, please, we don’t say “Ableton, ” which is the brand name) has become my main workstation along with Cockos Reaper since version 9 or so.
Its interface was quite intimidating at first, as I didn’t understand what I was supposed to do with that famous “Arrangements” view or how to work my way from it to the classic “Session” view within a production. A few experiments and tutorials later, I no longer ask myself those questions. I sometimes use only the Session view throughout a project, and I’m also much more adept at handling clip launches or pad play with my Novation Launchpad Pro. So I’ve got plenty of hours of Live under my belt, notably through the design of the audio demos in my previous tests, with some subtleties or whole sections of functionality that I’m nowhere near deep enough into. But rest assured, I’ll be upfront about the negative points of the new version.
Before getting to the heart of the matter, let’s recall in a few lines that this is a general-purpose DAW, despite appearances, with pretty advanced features in terms of MIDI/MPE (since Live 11), audio-clip editing, integrated content — whether in terms of effects, instruments, packs — and sound material to manipulate in general. While it’s true that it’s often associated with electronic music — because it has a certain amount of associated content and predispositions to live performance of synth-based and sampled sounds — the packs on offer will also cover similar territory to Komplete 15, regarding orchestral instruments or multi-sampled acoustic drums, for example. It’s also possible to use Live with a workflow similar to Studio One or Logic Pro X to record acoustic takes.
But what makes it different and singular, in my opinion, is:
- Its particular ergonomics hide the complexity of the software and bring it out only on demand, depending on the context. It’s a formula in user experience, aesthetic design and information stacking that Ableton has refined since the first versions, especially on the content browser part.
- Its in-depth integration of time-stretching or “Warp” in audio manipulation, as well as all the advanced features available in MIDI clips.
- Its effects and instrument offerings have strong integration at the visual and audio routing level. You’ll notice this from the ease with which you can assign a particular location in the signal path to the sidechain inputs of stock plug-ins.
- Compatibility with an ecosystem of exclusive content in M4L (Max for Live) format, which is relatively easy to use for creating custom modules and which enjoys the integration benefits already accessible in stock content, especially since Ableton acquired Max/MSP’s Cycling 74 content in 2022.
- The highlighting of add-on content under the name of packs, containing presets, samples, loops and even devices, with the plentiful built-in help and “lessons” displayed on the right, giving access to excellent educational information and even tutorials that take you by the hand to show you how to use specific features.
- Its iconic “Session” view. It’s displayed first by default when you launch Live, enabling a “non-linear” mode of composition or cretion, and giving an augmented live orientation that remains virtually unbeaten among electronic music performers, with a plethora of compatible pad controllers, whose functionalities go far beyond simply launching clips synchronized to the beat, thanks in particular to scenes or Follow Actions (such as the emblematic iterations of Push controllers).
With that little aside out of the way, let’s now take a look at what the German engineers/developers have in store for us in Live 12.1, which is a significant upgrade from version 12.0.
Which version?
Ableton Live 12.1 is, therefore, a general-purpose DAW, available for download via the brand’s official website, currently available in 4 versions:
- The rather limited Lite version is frequently offered as a bundle with hardware purchases or available to all users of the Koala Sampler or Ableton Note smartphone apps, which we’ll talk about again very shortly.
- The Intro version has a base price of 79 euros (99 USD) and adds additional tracks and scenes.
- The Standard version costs 279 euros (439 USD) and provides the bulk of the available content.
- The Suite version sells for 599 euros (749 USD). It offers access to all Max 4 Live content, all Ableton synthesizers and effects including Operator, Wavetable, Meld, Roar, spectral effects, additional sound packs, etc.
Ableton also offers specific upgrade rates for owners of versions 11 and below or those upgrading from one edition to another, as well as EDU rates. It’s worth noting that Drift, which appeared in version 11.3, is included in the smaller versions.
The use of the DAW is articulated around the Session view with clips, scenes (to launch all clips on the same line) and follow actions (to trigger actions at the end of clip playback), tracks arranged vertically, and the Arrangement view with one horizontal line per track. Each track can play either Session clips or the content visible in the Arrangement view, depending on what the user is doing. And the rest of Live’s functionality, which you can extend across multiple screens, can be accessed via menus, but above all, with the various tabs that can appear and disappear around the main views with a click on buttons, such as the content browser on the left, integrated lessons on the right, clip content or list of devices associated with a track at the bottom, transport bar and navigation data at the very top and very bottom, etc.
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On this specific theme, we also quickly notice a few differences between Live 11 and the new version: some buttons are placed in different locations. You now can display mixing information in the Arrangement view and not just Session. Ableton also added new color themes, and a new menu entry.
Above all, there are significant improvements to the content browser. These include the new modulator category and advanced search functions by tags, effect type, and builder, with a scan of your content library of all kinds to assign tags on the fly, search for content similar to something you’ve already selected, and even the ability to save a search for later retrieval. It’s interesting to see how the design and ergonomics have evolved without abandoning the spirit of the original design by Robert Henke and Torsten Slama.
Long live rock and roll
By the way, since the release of Live 11 and before the official release of Live 12, the Ableton team was not idle. Via updates, Live 11 received improvements to the graphics engine, notably on Mac OS, and added native support for the AU v3 format and Silicon processors, a redesign of the reverb, Shifter, new packs, new Cytomic filters all over the place, an M4L device dedicated to microtunings, updates to Max, and above all the Drift instrument, which joins the rather extensive list of Ableton Live synthesizers. Drift is an MPE synthesizer designed by Marc Resibois, influenced by the analog world, with Cytomic’s MS-20 filter, another filter called DFM1 from SuperCollider, and a “Drift” parameter that gives the synthesizer its name acting randomly on the phase shift of the three oscillators. This one seems pretty close in spirit to Ableton Live’s Analog, but it has different options, a slightly more simplified interface. It also the advantage of being available in all versions of Live unlike Analog, which is exclusive to the Suite version.
Operator has had its share of improvements with each version of Live, such as additive synthesis or virtual analog filters. In addition, Robert Henke and Christian Kleine have offered a free pack of 100 presets to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their FM synthesizer, whose aim has always been to make this type of synthesis more accessible since the first “Onyx” version, and which, unfortunately, still isn’t full MPE, unlike other stock instruments. In any case, there’s enough to make drones with the right pack, as well as Drift and all those new FM presets :)
- Drones01:01
- Operatures02:36
Speaking of Drift, it also happens that Ableton released an app for iOS at the end of 2022 called Note. This, in addition to having one of the most original names for a smartphone app, allows you to have at your disposal up to 8 tracks of 8 patterns (with 8 scenes), in a Live-compatible project, each containing one instance of your choice of drum pads, melodic samples, Drift and the Ableton Wavetable instrument. Accessible sounds are only those from a fixed preset list, with sound design limited to the use of macros. However, it remains possible to record a sound on the fly with the smartphone’s audio input and use it in the dedicated instrument.
The application also features two effects per track to choose from among some of Live’s content, as well as the master bus. And best of all, using Ableton Cloud technology, it can be saved in a dedicated space for each user’s Ableton account, so that it can then be accessed in Live 11/12 on a machine just connected to the internet, and continue to work on it, provided you have the Suite version if there’s a Wavetable instrument in the project. The step sequencer and touch pad management are pretty good, and this application provides an original way of working with Live by making short music sessions on iOS away from your computer, which is pretty interesting to try out. It’s a shame, however, that it’s not yet possible to send a Live project to Note or create new presets from Live, for the time being anyway.
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And you’re gonna hear me Roar
When it comes to the pure new features of version 12, in addition to the proliferation of MEP or user experience improvements, we’ll also be talking about all the new devices, starting with the Roar effect. This isn’t yet another saturation tool that does things you’ve heard 100 times before, but a sound design tool dedicated to saturation that offers a best of all tools and modulations seen in Fabfilter Saturn, for example, with several waveshaping algorithms and filtering options. Above all, it has a streamlined interface as we’re used to seeing in Live, the ability to display all settings and animations in separate tabs, fairly intensive modulation possibilities that allow you to play with the shape of saturation functions like on a Bluecat Destructor (LFO, envelopes, noise), several stages that can be in series, in parallel, on several frequency bands or in a closed loop, with additional feedback and a dedicated compressor, etc. It proves particularly interesting on electronic drums, by the way.
Ableton Live 12 also features a nice new synthesizer, called Meld, designed by Christian Kleine and Rob Tubb, around the concept of bi-timbrality and macro oscillators. Two modules, A and B, feature an oscillator, a filter with several twists, envelopes and LFOs (which can be assigned to things like MIDI and MPE data via a big modulation matrix) with global spread/stereo control. Then all this beauty is mixed together to go into a distortion and a limiter.
What makes the instrument so interesting, in addition to its uncluttered interface, is that among the filters you can find some fun stuff such as virtual analog, resonators, modulation or bitcrushing effects and comb filters. All are sometimes sensitive to the range setting. But above all, the oscillators offer “engines” in the manner of a Mutable Instruments Plaits in Eurorack format or even a Befaco Noise Plethora, with just two control parameters each time and some variety, from the classic wavetable doing sine to square to some very complex FM-based internal stuff to generate chords, sequences, risers, crackles, and noises of all kinds (from white noise to bubble generator).
The usability of the instrument is top-notch, the presets show just how varied results can be achieved with it, Meld for my part promises hours of fun in store for generating the very classic, sound texture, or crazy noise…
- the appearance of Ableton Live’s pitch quantizer (a la Auto-Tune), which is called Auto-Shift. It offers all the classic features of this kind of tool, including MIDI input to specify target notes, scales, and formant settings, as well as nice additions like latency-free mode and vibrato
- the MPE-compatible Granulator III from Robert Henke lets you play with granular synthesis on short-duration sounds, with new modulation and grain playback possibilities
- the new Drum Sampler is dedicated in particular to percussive sound playback, which extends sound design possibilities on electronic drum sounds thanks to exclusive FXs. It comes with dedicated presets, such as granular, bitcrusher, pitch envelope, ring modulator, frequency modulation, and subs generator.
It’s worth noting, by the way, that some devices in Live have hidden settings accessible by right-clicking on the title bar, including one found in some effects called “High Quality, ” which I only recently learned about. This setting has a dramatic impact on saturators, as it activates an oversampling feature that is not always turned on by default. In the case of Roar and Saturator, the opening behavior of those effects is conducive to creating a considerable amount of aliasing, which can cause a number of problems on a master bus or elsewhere where clarity is required. I think it’s a mistake not to have made this parameter more visible.
Generally speaking, I also think that the design paradigm of stock devices, which pushes for simplicity but also for not having a lot of space on the screen to manipulate the tool, has many advantages for clarity’s sake. But it also has disadvantages, such as the lack of visual feedback that can have an impact on creativity, despite the possibility of using more space with the little arrows to the left of the device name.
- Démo Golden Era Drums01:09
- Démo Trap Drums01:02
- Démo Lost and Found01:48
Max For Live
Speaking of Shaper, Ableton Live 12.1 offers its share of new features concerning devices in Max for Live format, and the application of the latest additions in Max regarding the possibilities for creating these little toys, which we tend to look at from a distance even though they’re part of what makes Ableton Live unique and interesting. For those of you involved in electronic music, I’d advise you to familiarize yourself with them as much as possible, especially as they have a new category in the content browser entitled “Modulators” (hello Bitwig Studio), in addition to the existing “Max for Live, ” as well as other categories that integrate both native and M4L devices. These offer unique features, such as sequencers and note generators, MIDI and MPE parameter mapping, interaction with a modular setup via CV tools (for those with an audio interface that allows it), and modulators of other devices’ parameters, all for an additional loading time.
The Shaper device, by the way, can replace a sidechain compressor with a mapping to the gain of a “utility, ” which reminds us a lot of what we’re doing with the modulation multieffects of the moment, such as Cableguys Shaperbox, Devious Machines Infiltrator, Arturia EFX Motions, Baby Audio Transit obviously, etc.
Digging into the packs supplied with the Suite version of Live, which is needed to access all the dedicated features, we’ll also find a number of fun M4L devices, such as the one designed for microtunings that’s very Moogesque, Junoesque Bass and Poly instruments, convolution modules, a boatload of percussive sound synthesizers, the famous pack dedicated to probability sequencers, and even tutorials for making your own plug-ins in M4L format with examples and built-in help.
But a new Live 12 pack that caught our eye is one designed by Iftah Gabbai and Matthew Jackson (who we also know from Sting in M4L, which is a great TB-303 like sequencer) called the Performance Pack. It provides tools dedicated to the preparation and playing of live sets, with Performer allowing you to create a control surface in an external window to control anything and everything easily with the mouse or MIDI. Prearranger lets you manipulate MIDI and audio clips from the Arrangements view. Variations can create snapshots of anything in Live and re-run them on the fly. The Arrangement Looper allows you to loop in screen arrangements at the click of a button, like on a DJ controller.
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Have you heard of these?
To conclude this non-exhaustive and already rather long tour of the new Ableton Live, let’s finally talk about little features that don’t get much attention but are super interesting to use. First up is scale management, with the little colored button that’s on the top bar with the name of a scale and a tonic to specify. When the function is activated, selected clips get the status of “associated with scale”, which is only of visual interest for displaying highlighted indications, or entering new notes more easily, but has no influence on the nature of the notes or sounds that will be played with existing clips. What can have an influence is the presence of MIDI effects or instruments that display scale sensitivity like Meld, or anything to do with arpeggiators, chord generators or, of course, the MIDI Scale effect. Again in Meld, resonators have a behavior that varies with the selected scale, to bring out resonances that aren’t too noisy.
In the same series of features, microtunings show up with the M4L effect we talked about, but also with the new “Tunings” category in the Content Browser, which delivers a list of scales and tunings that can be double-clicked to replace the global scale setting with that of the tuning. New options then appear by track, to consider the setting or not, and the grid on the MIDI clips starts displaying the various notes of the selected microtuning.
Some instruments are compatible with this data (Meld again, for example), but unfortunately not all. All this may seem a little confusing at first, especially in view of all the instruments that are not compatible with scale and microtuning sensitivity, or because you expect playing with the scale name in the middle of the interface to have an immediate effect on what is played. But as you read the manual and experiment, things start to make sense, and you pay less attention to anything that doesn’t work straight away. I can imagine all this becoming more intuitive in future versions of Live, and that we might, for example, be able to change settings during playback in the Arrangement view, as with tempo and rhythm signature.
Let’s now turn to all the improvements on MIDI event editing and creation. The new category of modulators, together with what already existed in MIDI effects or M4L packs, now gives us a number of ways of interacting with the information transmitted to instruments. That includes envelopes, effects, various ways of creating randomness, chord generation, and velocity control, and also with sequencers, which are sometimes a little hidden.
Supplied with Live 12 and its packs, you’ll find, for example, Melodic Steps, Mono Sequencer, Step Sequencer, Dr Chaos, Rotating Rhythm Generator. These tools are great to manipulate but, unfortunately, rather complicated to locate if you don’t know where to look. That difficulty is the fault of a too recent tag system (which nevertheless provides tags like Sequencer or Generative) and available content not yet properly annotated. There’s also some pretty interesting third-party content on there, such as analog sequencer clones of the Moog Subharmonicon or the Roland TB-303, and the brilliant Snake, which is available in two formats, including the new Live 12-exclusive MIDI generator format!
In addition to the refinement of basic MIDI clip editing functionality, the new version of Live now incorporates two features integrated into the clip interface that allow you to perform transformations or create content on the fly in the clip. Select notes already entered (or not), select an algorithm from the stock or third-party/custom content (the feature is M4L-compatible) in the Transform and Generate tabs, and your clip fills with new notes and/or transforms existing ones. For example, it’s possible to create arpeggios from a played chord, add MIDI/MPE information, replay the chord with a different rhythm, create a new chord progression, and add random notes within a given frame.
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Ableton Love?
In any case, Ableton Live 12 is still Ableton Live. Although you may or may not like its particular ergonomics, Ableton has made progress over the years when it comes to user comfort and stability. Today, we know that there are no “Ableton Live audio engine” problems or sounds, contrary to what we’ve regularly heard (it was the panning rule that was the culprit), even though we’ll inevitably end up with a certain type of rendering when making intensive use of Live’s audio effects.
Two recurring problems remain, however, in certain situations. Because I don’t have an audio interface that’s Thunderbolt (on Windows 10), I find that the number of tracks and plug-ins quickly reaches the limits of CPU load, whereas with other DAWs I use a lot, such as Cockos Reaper, that doesn’t happen as quickly. Of course, we can’t stress enough how demanding all this software is, and you shouldn’t hesitate to upgrade your configuration to be comfortable with the available power. There are also quite a few tricks to know to get the most out of Live, in addition to increasing interface latency, having your laptop in high-performance mode, etc., Live is not really comparable to some other DAWs because of everything that happens on screen — even more so for computers with graphics cards integrated into the processor —and also all the processing that is applied by default to the sound material such as Warp.
The other problem is synchronization with the outside world. I’ve noticed that Live has long had trouble hanging on to tempo information when external synchronization is displayed. To avoid problems, we’d therefore have to advise you to continue using it as a master clock rather than synchronized in classic “wired” hybrid setups, until Ableton addresses this issue. However, thanks to the Ableton Link technology that has been present since 2016, it’s still possible to synchronize your machines over WiFi when possible, which seamlessly transmits tempo and position information in the measure to all the machines connected on your network. This sometimes requires you to manually specify negative latency values to correctly synchronize all audio sources. By the way, Ableton Live 12 offers a new “Keep Latency” setting that can be disabled to correctly set the latency level regardless of the status of the input audio track at the monitoring level.
In any case Koala Sampler works very well for example in synch with Live (to record the neighbor’s cat), but I don’t know if it’s a good idea to let me play with it, or with Drift/Opal/random rhythm generators. Incidentally, I’m discovering that I’m having a lot of fun with the Shaper+Utility to do sidechain compression like, or the LFO in S&H mode to modulate various and sundry parameters.
