Ableton Live is about making music; for composition, songwriting, recording, production, remixing and live performance. Live's nonlinear, intuitive flow, alongside powerful real-time editing and flexible performance options, make it a unique studio tool and a favorite with live performers. If you'd rather be "making music" than just "using music software," Ableton Live is for you. Live 8, the latest version, includes a wealth of new techniques and improvements with a new groove engine, revamped warping, live looping, new effects, crossfades in the Arrangement View and a reworked MIDI editor.
Session View
Live is the only music production software with the "Session View": a unique grid for recording and playing musical ideas and phrases. The Session View is non-linear, so you can record and play back your ideas in any order you want. When you're working on a new track, this is a smart, flexible way to write and record. If you're performing music live, it gives you complete flexibility and freedom to improvise.
Arrangement View
Live also has a second view: the "Arrangement View," a complete music production environment. This is the linear counterpart to the Session View and is well-suited to "traditional" recording, arranging and mixing. These two views interact with one another, each with its own strengths and intricacies. Both views are based on the single principle of creative, intuitive music-making.
Uninterrupted creative flow
In Live, you never have to stop the music. Record audio and MIDI on the fly, drop in loops and samples, add effects and swap sounds without ever hitting the stop button: everything happens in real time. You're free to improvise and the computer actually becomes a musical instrument—an expressive and creative tool, perfectly at home on stage or in the studio.
Record perfectly cut loops on the fly, mix and match audio of any tempo, and add effects, all without ever stopping the music: Everything happens in real time. Follow your inspiration and use your time more creatively, instead of spending it converting sample rates, calculating tempos, editing loops and routing complicated effect chains. Live keeps the music flowing and gives you back your creative time.
Browsing Ideas
Live's drag-and-drop interface makes it easy to realize your ideas and experiment. Just browse and instantly preview audio files at the project tempo, and then drag them in to mix and match while the music plays. No need to think about tempos, file formats, sample rates or bit depth—Live takes care of it all in real time.
Drag and Drop Effects and Instruments
Effects and instruments are also drag and drop, just like your files. Simply browse, drag and drop, and reorder Live's wide array of creative devices, all in real time, and without so much as a hiccup. Live also offers full support for your favorite VST and AU effects and instruments.
Random Access Loop Recording
Live's unique performance-oriented Session View offers new ways of working with your music. Capture those quick riffs and other ideas on the fly with quantized loop recording, and go directly from recording into looped playback with the press of a button. No editing required, just continue on to the next idea.
Deep Freeze
Even if things get a little heavy, with numerous tracks full of massive effects chains and virtual instruments, Live's freeze function keeps things flowing. Just deep freeze your track and retain the ability to experiment with editing, automation and more without unfreezing it.
Beats made easy
Live's unique Drum Rack combines drag-and-drop simplicity in a familiar pad-style interface. Each of the 128 drum pads can have its own instrument or sample plus effects. Slice beats, loops or REX files to MIDI for additional control options and use the new groove feature (which includes grooves from the legendary MPC and SP1200 machines) to add swing to your beats.
For Beat Creators
Live's unique Drum Rack combines drag-and-drop simplicity in a familiar drum-centric pad interface with unprecedented depth and control. Each of the 128 drum pads can have its own instrument or sample and your choice of effects, and then appear in the Session mixer for easy mixing. Drum Racks even allow you to slice and dice loops and import REX format files.
Drag. Drop. Simple.
Drum Racks are seamlessly integrated with Live's workflow. Drag any sample, virtual instrument or anything that makes sound onto a pad. It'll be automatically mapped to MIDI notes, and your pad controller will always match—ready to play. This makes it easy to swap drum presets and customize kits. For instance, replace a sampled kick drum with a synthesized kick from Operator or your favorite sampled break—simply drag and drop.
Unprecedented Depth
Each of the 128 pads has its own device chain, including instruments and effects. For deeper tweaking of each drum, double-click its pad to reveal its device chain. Drop effects behind the Drum Rack to process the whole kit or onto the pads to process individual drums. In the Session View mixer, unfold the drum track to reveal individual channels for each drum, for easy mixing.
Slice and Dice
Ableton Live's slicing feature fills a Drum Rack with the individual hits from REX files or your audio loops. The original groove is represented as a MIDI clip with individual notes for each slice, making it easy to replace, reshuffle or re-record the events and process them individually.
More Beats
Need drums? Ableton Session Drums is an add-on collection of acoustic drums that give you full mix control of the close mics for each drum as well as the overheads and room mics. Drum Machines is a choice selection of classic drum machines, meticulously sampled to faithfully reproduce the original sounds. Session Drums and Drum Machines include MIDI grooves in various styles and are programmed as Drum Racks so you can customize, tweak and abuse them as much as you like.
Creative expression for DJs
Mix and match tracks and loops automatically, remix on the fly, capture audio loops in real time from decks and other external sources, incorporate your own productions into the mix, and much more. Whether it's the centerpiece of the DJ rig or just a creative sidearm, Live gives DJs entirely new worlds of creative expression.
For DJs
Thanks to its unique real-time features, Live opens up entirely new worlds of creative expression. Mix any number of tracks and loops, remix on the fly, capture audio loops in real time from decks and other external sources, incorporate your own productions into the mix, and much more. Whether it's the center of your Djing rig or a creative addition to your existing setup, Live brings fresh possibilities to Djing.
Powerful Real-Time Remix Features
Live's Elastic Audio engine allows for real-time remixing and endless experimentation. Mix as many tracks or track elements as you want, Live keeps everything in sync all the time. Create remixes on the fly by reworking song structures and mashing up beats and a cappellas from different tracks. Play the loops and tracks you produce in your sets.
Infinitely Effective
Find your own sound with Live's uniquely creative effects. Live's effects are easy to use, yet allow you to dig deep and experiment. Create your own custom effects and assign the key effects parameters to a simplified, performance-friendly interface for quick tweaking. Or choose from Live's studio-proven palette of Eqs, filters, delays and more. Full VST and AU plug-in support opens up even more possibilities.
From Djing to Production
Take your DJ skills to the production realm with Live's powerful production tools and inspiring workflow. Live makes it easy to create your own loops, customized remixes, rearranged songs and unbelievable mash-ups, and incorporate them into your DJ sets. Before you know it you will be producing completely original tracks within Live.
At Home in the Booth
Live integrates easily into existing DJ setups and brings new creative possibilities along. Simply plug your audio interface into your DJ mixer and add Live to the mix. Mixing from decks to Live and back is as simple as mixing with two decks. Live also acts as a powerful effects box, sampler and, of course, recording device for capturing and mastering your mixes.
Looping with Live
Not only for guitarists, the Ableton Looper gives you classic sound-on-sound looping without the limitations of a hardware device. Looper is set up for remote operation, so you can record, overdub, undo and more without touching the computer.
Totally compatible
Live works seamlessly with controller hardware and assigning custom MIDI controls is simple. Live supports AIFF, WAV, MP3, Ogg Vorbis and FLAC files, VST and AU effects and instruments. Live can handle REX files and runs as a ReWire Master or Slave, so it works nicely alongside other DAWs like Pro Tools, Logic, Cubase or Reason. And if you have a multicore or multiprocessor system, Live supports that, too.
Key features
Multitrack recording up to 32-bit/192 kHz
Nondestructive editing with unlimited undo
Powerful and creative MIDI sequencing of software and hardware instruments
Advanced warping and real-time time-stretching
Supports AIFF, WAV, MP3, Ogg Vorbis and FLAC files
A comprehensive selection of built-in audio and MIDI effects
Built-in instruments: Simpler for sample-based synthesis, Impulse for sampled drums
Instrument, Drum and Effect Racks
New groove engine; apply and extract grooves in real time
VST and AU support; automatic plug-in delay compensation
REX file support plus built-in audio to MIDI slicing
Video import and export for scoring, video warping
Simple MIDI mapping plus instant mapping for selected hardware
Full ReWire support; runs as Slave or Master
Single-screen user interface for simple, creativity-focused operation
Multicore and multiprocessor support
Also includes
- A selection of loops
- Essential Instrument Collection 2: a wide range of sampled instruments
- Printed reference manual in English, French, German or Japanese
- Built-in interactive lessons
- Localized software menus, tutorials and PDF reference manuals in English, Spanish, French, German and Japanese
What is the difference between Ableton Live and Ableton Live Intro?What are the differences between Live and Live LE?
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