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What's new in 12.1
Ableton Live 12.1 introduces powerful new tools and enhancements for music creation. The Auto Shift device offers real-time pitch correction, MIDI sidechain harmonisation, and modulation with MPE or LFOs. Drum Sampler combines essential one-shot sampling controls with built-in effects like 8-Bit, time stretch, FM, and more for quick, creative beat manipulation. Sample management is faster with auto-tagging for samples under 60 seconds and metadata-based tagging for VST3 plugins. Upgraded Limiter features smoother release curves, Mid/Side routing, and new modes like True Peak and Maximize, while Saturator gains a Bass Shaper curve and streamlined UI. MIDI editing gets a boost with toolbar filters for precise note selection and new MPE Transformations – Glissando and LFO – for advanced parameter shaping. Push 2 and 3 users can save Default and Template Sets, use Macro Variations, and enjoy integrated filtering and auto-tagging. Additionally, Live 12.1 includes MIDI Tools by Philip Meyer, providing creative rhythm and melody generators, and Sequencers by Ableton, offering innovative step sequencing with tools like StepArp, SQ, and Rhythmic Steps for evolving patterns and polyrhythms. This update empowers users to work more intuitively, creatively, and efficiently.
What's new in Live 12
- MIDI Transformations and Generators: Ableton Live 12 introduces groundbreaking MIDI Transformations and Generators, offering unprecedented control over your music. Add intricate ornaments, articulate acceleration, and simulate guitar strums to breathe life into your compositions. These tools, along with Max for Live's expanded capabilities, empower you to craft unique musical ideas waiting to be explored and developed into your signature sound.
- Sound Similarity: With Sound Similarity, Live 12 pioneers a new approach to sound design and selection. Utilizing advanced machine learning, it identifies and suggests comparable sounds and presets, streamlining your creative process. This feature not only enhances efficiency but also inspires new sonic directions by effortlessly swapping samples in the Sampler or Drum Rack.
- Tuning systems and Scales: Live 12's innovative tuning systems and Keys and Scales functionalities encourage experimentation beyond the conventional 12-tone scale. These features allow for seamless integration with both Live’s native devices and MPE-capable plugins, inviting you to venture into uncharted musical territories with your chosen tunings and scales.
- New devices: create everything from subtle and precise mastering-grade warmth to wild and unpredictable sound degradation with Roar, Live’s new saturation and colouring effect. Explore new textures and timbres with the twin sound engines of Meld. Or get even more expressive with the latest iteration of Robert Henke’s granular synthesis device, Granulator III.
- MIDI Editor and Workflow improvements: Improvements to the MIDI Editor in Live 12 facilitate a more intuitive and efficient workflow, enabling complex note editing with ease. The suite's workflow enhancements, such as the streamlined Clip and Device Views and the Arrangement View Mixer, offer a more cohesive and uninterrupted creative process. Moreover, the browser's new tagging system and search history significantly improve sound discovery and organization.
- Accessibility and navigation improvements: Live 12 also makes great strides in accessibility and navigation, ensuring visually impaired musicians can fully engage with the software through screen readers and comprehensive keyboard shortcuts. This commitment to inclusivity opens up the world of music production to a broader audience.
- New Packs: The latest addition of Packs in Live 12, including the Performance Pack, Lost and Found collection, and exclusive drum Packs from Sound Oracle, enriches your library with unique sounds and instruments. These Packs not only provide fresh inspiration for on-the-fly performances but also introduce authentic hip-hop and trap beats, expanding your creative toolkit for any genre.
Unlock Your Musical Imagination
Live 12 Suite turns your musical imagination into reality with its dual workflow modes, vast array of creative tools, and limitless sound combinations. Whether you're swiftly drafting ideas in Session View or meticulously arranging them in Arrangement View, Live adapts to your creative process without skipping a beat. Capture everything from the nuances of hardware synths to the spontaneity of vocal takes, then perfect your creation with Live's innovative comping feature and MIDI enhancements.
With its extensive sound design capabilities, including wavetable, FM, subtractive, granular, and analog-modeling synthesis, Live 12 Suite invites you to explore a full spectrum of sonic possibilities. Roar and Meld, two of the suite's newest devices, offer everything from multi-stage saturation to expressive synthesis, complemented by an array of sampling devices and effects. Live's Core Library, enriched by the unique Lost and Found collection, Performance Pack, and Sound Oracle's drum Packs, ensures your sound palette is both rich and infinitely expandable.
Live Performance Reimagined
Live 12 Suite elevates the art of performance, allowing you to manipulate your music in real time on stage. Its flexible MIDI mapping and up to 16 Macro knobs provide total control over your sound, enabling you to create dynamic builds, drops, and variations. Whether integrating outboard gear, remixing on the fly, or adjusting tempo in response to live audio, Live serves as the heart of your performance, ensuring seamless interaction between you, your instruments, and your audience.
Designed not just for electronic musicians but for any live performer, Live's tempo-following and FX capabilities make it an indispensable tool for DJs and bands alike. Its ability to resample and process sounds in real time opens up new avenues for improvisation and collaboration on stage.
Expand and Integrate Your Creative Environment
Ableton Live 12 Suite is more than a DAW; it's a bridge to a world of musical possibilities. Connect it to any MIDI controller, including MPE-compatible devices, for nuanced, expressive performances. With Ableton Link, you can sync Live with countless other applications and devices for collaborative sessions that are always on time. The accompanying Note iOS app allows you to capture ideas on the move and flesh them out in Live.
Through Max for Live, Live 12 Suite transcends its boundaries, letting you tweak its inner workings, create custom devices, and connect to a universe of visual and interactive elements. This integration not only amplifies Live's versatility but also connects you to a community of creators, offering endless inspiration and tools for your music-making journey.
Instruments, effects and sounds
- 20 instruments: Wavetable, Operator, Analog, Meld, Sampler, Simpler, Granulator III, Drift, Electric, Tension, Collision, Bass, Poli, Drum Rack, Drum Synths, Impulse, CV Instrument and CV Triggers, Instrument Racks and the External Instrument device
- 58 Audio and 14 MIDI effects, including Roar, Hybrid Reverb, Spectral Time and Spectral Resonator
- 14 MIDI Tools
- 71+GB of loops and samples
Features
- Multitrack recording up to 32-bit/192 kHz and MIDI sequencing of software and hardware instruments
- Automatically sync music and loops, regardless of tempo with real-time audio warping
- MIDI-mappable controls for hands-on creation onstage or in the studio – plus automatic mapping for popular hardware controllers
- Select and combine the best of multiple passes of an audio or MIDI performance with Comping
- Audio-to-MIDI conversion tools: extract harmony, melody or drums from an audio sample and convert it into MIDI
- Tempo following: Live adjusts its tempo in real time based on an incoming audio signal
- Instrument and MIDI racks to combine multiple instruments and MIDI devices into a single track
- Comprehensive selection of built-in audio effects for creative sound design, mixing or mastering
- MIDI Polyphonic Expression: allows MPE-capable devices to control multiple parameters of every note in real time for more expressive instrumental performances
- Built-in Max for Live software with more instruments, audio and MIDI effects, and the ability to customize Live
- Automatic plug-in delay compensation
- Unlimited Audio and MIDI tracks, 12 send and return tracks with configuration for 256 Audio inputs, 256 outputs
- Complex MIDI transformation possibilities, adding deceleration and acceleration curves, connecting successive notes and chords, simulating the strumming patterns of guitars and more
- Create new melodies, chords and rhythms with new MIDI generators
- MIDI tool implementation into MAX environment
- Stretch, split, chop or join notes, shape velocity curves and change the musical intervals of MIDI notes with new editing tools
- Key and Scale highlighting for MIDI notes lets you scale and transform ideas to a chosen scale
- Probability triggers can be assigned to a group of notes or a single note
- Adjust global tunings to explore scales outside of traditional 12-tone scale and access tunings with Live devices or MPE-enabled plugins
- All-new instruments include Meld, Roar and Granulator III
- New modulation behaviour ensures you can continue to adjust modulated parameter evening after assigning to a destination or source
- New sound packs; Lost and Found and Performance Pack
- Stack multiple detail views together to view Clip Editing, Automation or Devices simultaneously
- Upgraded aesthetic strips back complexity for better focus on your workflow
- Mixer window can now be viewed inside of the Arrangement View as well as Session View
- Refreshed Mixer view provides a cleaner and sleeker interface for more detailed mixing
- Powered by a Neural Network, the Sound Similarity search automatically finds comparable sounds within Live's sounds and instrument presets to your chosen sound
- Instantly swap out entire drum sounds with Drum Rack Swapping
- Retrace your steps with the Browser History search function
- Screen Reader support for the visually impaired
- New keyboard shortcuts
- Cool, Neutral, Warm and High-Contract themes
Specifications
- Operating system:
- Mac: macOS 11 Big Sur or higher
- Windows: Windows 10 (version 22H2) or Windows 11 (version 22H2 or higher)
- Processor:
- Mac: Intel Core i5 processor or Apple Silicon
- Windows: 5th generation Intel Core i5 processor or AMD Ryzen processor
- RAM: 8 GB RAM
- Display resolution:
- Mac: 1280x800
- Windows 1366x768
- Product code: 89146