It is also used for manual MIDI sequencing. The Arrangement View is used for recording tracks from the session view and further manipulating their arrangement and effects. 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.Īrrangement View offers a horizontal music production timeline of Clips that is more similar to a traditional software sequencer interface. For instance a drum, bass and guitar track might comprise a single scene. These clips can be arranged into scenes which can then be triggered as a unit. Session View offers a grid-based representation of all of the Clips in a Live Set. MIDI information received by Live can trigger notes on Live's built in instruments, as well as third party VST instruments or external hardware. 'launched') or played back in a pre-arranged order. Live utilizes audio samples or MIDI sequences, referred to as Clips, which are arranged to be played live (i.e. Live's user interface is composed of two 'Views' – Session View and Arrangement View. In 2016, Henke left Ableton to concentrate on his artistic project Monolake. Live made it easier for musicians to use computers as instruments in live performance without programming their own software, influencing the rise of global festival culture in the 2000s. In 2010, Ableton introduced Max for Live, enabling connectivity between Max and Live. In 2004, Live expanded to become a DAW with a MIDI sequencer and support for virtual studio technology (VST). Live's time stretching algorithm, known as 'Warping', was particularly notable and gave DJs greater control over mixing and beatmatching, smoothly blending tracks of different tempos. It offered sophisticated tools for triggering loops, playing samples and time stretching audio, and was immediately popular with electronic music producers. Unlike Pro Tools, which focuses on multitrack recording, the first version of Live was designed for performing live with loops. They released the first commercial version of Live on October 30, 2001. Roggendorf, another programmer, joined Behles and Henke in the late 90s and helped them turn their Max patches into a general set of software for retail. That gave us confidence to believe that a small company could actually survive on the market.' He said one of the first industry figures to recognize Live's potential was the Hollywood composer Hans Zimmer, who was impressed by Live's ability to change the tempo of a loop without altering its pitch. Henke said later of Live's creation, 'I think the feeling we had was there was enough like-minded people in our closer community who could appreciate a product like this, and that it could work commercially.

Though Live was not developed in Max, Max was used to prototype most of its features. Henke and Behles identified a need in Berlin's electronic music scene for user-friendly software for live performances, and worked with local acts to develop it. Behles and Henke met while studying programming at the Technical University of Berlin, and wrote software in the music programming language Max to perform techno as their band Monolake. Live was created by Gerhard Behles, Robert Henke and Bernd Roggendorf in the mid-1990s. History Ableton Live co-creator Robert Henke Ībleton has also made a fourth version of Live, Lite, with similar limitations to Intro, which is only available bundled with a range of music production hardware, including MIDI controllers and audio interfaces.

Suite includes Max for Live functionality, made possible in partnership with Cycling '74. Live is available directly from Ableton in three editions: Intro (with limited key features), Standard, and Suite (with the most features).

It is also used by DJs, as it offers a suite of controls for beatmatching, crossfading, and other different effects used by turntablists, and was one of the first music applications to automatically beatmatch songs. 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. A screenshot of Ableton Live 9 running on a Windows operating system, with a project open in Arrangement ViewĪbleton Live, also known as Live or sometimes colloquially as 'Ableton', is a digital audio workstation for macOS and Windows developed by the German company Ableton.

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