Ableton Live 11
It’s been three years since Ableton Live 10
was released, although in some ways it feels
longer. The world’s cluttered with ever more
hardware synths, beatboxes, samplers, and
sequencers, we’ve got MPE (MIDI Polyphonic
Expression) threatening to inally go
mainstream, and Ableton’s competitors haven’t
been idle. Logic Pro has got Live Loops, which
provides a very familiar Live-like loop jamming
experience, Bitwig Studio has beaten Ableton to
embracing MPE, and the old favourite Reason
can now run as a plugin, which makes it much
easier to integrate into our projects. Now, after a
public beta, already reviewed in Computer
Music, we have the inal release of Ableton Live
11, and there are still things to talk about.
When opening Live 11, the irst obvious
changes are in the Browser, with two new
categories available. The Grooves category
contains the .agr groove iles from your library,
while the Templates category represents Live
projects saved using the new ‘File/Save Live Set
As A Template’ command – quite an
improvement over the previous one-size-its-all
template, as is the new, easy-access, ‘Save Live
Set As Default Set’ command. Audio efects are
now organised into categorised folders, like
Drive & Color, and Pitch & Modulation, and Max
For Live instruments and efects are also now
found in the standard Live content categories.
Ableton
Live 11 £539
Following on from the public beta, Ableton Live 11 is here in all its full
release glory. Is this an update to get excited about?
“Comping is the other
contender for ‘best
new feature’; people
have been asking for
it for years”
NICE AND TIDY
Live’s audio effect devices
are now categorised into
convenient folders
NEW EFFECTS
Live 11 has new effect
devices including the
Hybrid Reverb
MAX MIDI
MAX FOR LIVE
Send MIDI to/
from MFL
audio effects
LIVE IS LISTENING
Tempo follower adjusts
Live’s BPM according to
incoming audio signal
MORE TWIDDLING
There are now up to 16
macros available per rack
MORE MIDI EXPRESSION
Selected instrument devices,
such as Wavetable, feature
MPE support
THAT’S SO RANDOM
MIDI note velocity and
probability changes provide
new randomisation options
FOLLOW
THE SCENES
Follow actions
are enhanced,
and they’re
now applicable
to scenes
LIVE IS WATCHING
CPU load meters in each
track for more detailed
performance information
DON’T START
FROM SCRATCH
Save Live sets in
the Templates
category for
faster setups
NEW HOME
FOR GROOVES
Updated
Browser factory
content, with
new Grooves
category
The fun stuff
Looking beyond the thrills of ile management,
Live 11 can receive MPE messages from a
suitable controller, but even if you don’t have
one of those, the Clip View has an expression
tab, where MPE parameters can be entered
manually, these being pitch, slide, pressure,
velocity, and release. MPE support has also been
added to racks, MIDI efects, Wavetable, Simpler,
and Sampler. We’re hoping it’ll make it to
Operator in due course. The addition of MPE to a
popular DAW like Live is bound to help it gain
wider popularity, and encourage more hardware
developers to create controller products.
Comping is the other contender for ‘best new
feature’, we’d say, given that people have been
asking Ableton to add that for years. Comping is
when you can record multiple passes of a MIDI
or audio track, in a continuous cycle, without
having to manually arm further tracks for each
pass. Once recording’s inished, you can
highlight the best sections from each lane to
72 / COMPUTER MUSIC / May 2021
> reviews / ableton live 11
CMU294.rev_Ableton_11.indd 72 09/03/2021 14:22