Ableton Live 7 is your companion during every stage of the musical process, from creation to production to performance.
The Live Concept
Live offers two main views—the Session View and the Arrangement View—that interact in a powerful and unique way, allowing you to create, produce and perform your music all in a single application. Here is the principle behind each view:
Session View
Live's unique Session View acts as a powerful musical sketch and launch pad, allowing you to try out new ideas easily and improvise freely. Each cell in the Session View grid can hold a recording, MIDI file, or any other musical idea. These ideas can be recorded on the fly or dragged in from the Browser and played in any order and at any time you wish.
Arrangement View
The Arrangement View offers a timeline-based approach for traditional multitrack recording, MIDI sequencing and other music production tasks. You can even improvise in the Session View, and all of your actions will be recorded into the Arrangement View, where they can be edited whenever you like.
Elastic Audio
In Live, tempo is completely fluid. Throw in whatever you like—from single drum loops to multitrack creations—and Live keeps the groove locked down tight. Match the tempo to a new mood, tie it to a movie's key frames, or keep up with your jamming partners—all without stopping the music. Live also lets you fix timing errors and continue tweaking after the fact, making it simple to repair that near-perfect guitar riff, abuse the groove of a drum loop, or get creative in a hundred ways we haven't even thought of yet. Audio is now a rubber band!
Uninterrupted Creative Flow
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.
Defy the Timeline
Live defies the boundaries of traditional timeline-based applications. Drag and drop, record new ideas on the fly, play back your ideas in any order and at any moment you wish, all without the restrictions of a linear timeline. Live's escape from the timeline-only paradigm is the original concept that brought it such renown as a stage-performance tool. And Live's unique nonlinear approach has made it a staple in studios of all sizes around the globe.
For Studios
Producers, engineers and musicians around world have discovered the value of Live as a creative partner in the studio. Whether it's your studio's main DAW or serves as a skillful production assistant to your primary application, Live delivers the professional features you need to record, produce and perfect your music.
For Players and Composers
Live comes with a versatile, comprehensive collection of sounds ready to play and inspire—from faithfully sampled acoustic and electric instruments to unique and impressive electronic creations. The sounds come with pre-configured controls for expressive play, which can be easily mapped to your favorite hardware controller. You can effortlessly shape sounds without being concerned about technical intricacies, but if you like to dig deeper, you will find myriad possibilities for creating unique, personalized sounds.
For Sound Designers
Whether you're making slight adjustments or shaping new, radical variations, Live is a sound designer's dream. Draw effects automation, pitch changes, volume and pan envelopes, and more over the top of your samples—all without stopping the music. When you've got your sound perfected, just drag it to the Browser and it will be saved for future use.
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.
No Idea Lost
Live is a musical sketch pad that quickly and easily lets you try out new ideas and capture those you like for later use. From Live Clips to Racks and its powerful browsing capabilities, Live encourages experimentation and makes sure that no good idea ever gets away.
Hands-On Control
Live's controls are always at your fingertips, or your toes, with the use of any MIDI controller. Assign Live's playback, recording, clip and scene launching, effects controls, tempo, and just about any other feature to your favorite MIDI controller. Live is so expressive that it even allows you to improvise complete performances with the computer. Your computer actually becomes a musical instrument—an expressive and creative tool perfectly at home on stage or in the studio.
Features
- Multitrack recording up to 32-bit/192kHz
- Complete nondestructive editing with unlimited undo
- Powerful and creative MIDI sequencing of software and hardware instruments
- Real-time time-stretching and warping of AIFF, WAV, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC and MP3 files, for improvisation and instant remixing
- A comprehensive selection of built-in audio effects, including a host of creative delays, filters, distortions, studio compressors and EQs
- Built-in software instruments: Simpler for creative sample-based synthesis, Impulse for sampled drums
- Instrument-, Drum-, Effect Racks for creating and managing complex performance setups, drum kits and multi-effects
- VST and AU effects and instruments support; automatic plug-in delay compensation
- REX file support and native sliced audio file creation
- Video import and export for scoring to picture or warping picture to music
- Real-time control of parameters with any MIDI controller—just MIDI-map it or choose from a list of popular supported controllers for instant mapping
- Full ReWire support
- Single-screen user interface for simple, creativity-focused operation
- Multicore and multiprocessor support
Also Includes
- Essential Instruments Collection 2 — A multi-gigabyte library of meticulously sampled instruments providing a choice selection of acoustic and electric pianos, guitars, bass, drums, orchestral strings, brass, woodwinds and more. (boxed version only)
- Loops and construction kits: Unnatural Selection by (boxed version only)
- Printed reference manual in English, Spanish, French, German or Japanese (boxed version only)
- Extensive built-in step-by-step tutorials
- Localized software menus, tutorials, and PDF reference manuals available in English, Spanish, French, German and Japanese
System Requirements
Mac
- Any G4 or faster (Intel Mac recommended)
- 512 MB RAM (1 GB recommended)
- Mac OS X 10.3.9 (10.4 or later recommended)
- QuickTime 6.5 or higher
- DVD-ROM drive
Windows
- 1.5 GHz CPU or faster
- 512 MB RAM (1 GB recommended)
- Windows XP or Windows Vista
- Windows compatible sound card (ASIO driver support recommended)
- QuickTime 6.5 or higher
- DVD-ROM drive
