ABLETON LIVE: "The Little App That Could" Reaches 2

I reviewed Ableton Live version 1.0 when it came out for the Mac and it was a stunning program for its ease of use, intuitive GUI, and ability to function as a loop based production tool that could be used live. Since it’s introduction, Live has become a de-facto program for DJ’s, live performers, laptop artists, and anyone who wants to work with loop based audio.

Recently, Ableton released the highly anticipated version 2 and this review will focus on what’s new and what still might be lacking. Also, as with any major update Live had some bugs with the 2.0 version, but they already have a 2.02 update that addresses most of these. This review was done with the current 2.02 version running under OS X. For a general overview of Live check out my original review here. Also, look for an upcoming tips and tricks article in the Cutting Edge section.


What’s New in Version 2

Multitrack Recording

One of the biggest developments for Live 2 is multitrack recording. Recording in Live is pretty straight forward. You select an input from the Live In mini-menu, monitor the track by clicking on the headphone icon, then record enable the track. Once a track is record enabled the individual clip play icons turn to little record buttons. In the picture to the right the third clip down has been set into record.

Punching and Taping


Live 2 now provides for Punch In/Punch Out recording and the tempo can be set by clicking the Tap button. As seen above both the Punch In and Punch Out points are activated as well as Loop mode. The green icon in the screen shot below toggles the Metronome on or off. Incidentally, you can “tap” the tempo during playback, or automate the tempo changes -speeding your entire song up or down.



Live Recording?
Of course, Ableton wasn’t satisfied with just adding “traditional” recording to their live, performance based software. You can record into LIVE while it is playing back an arrangement and if you hit the Clips record button to stop recording it will immediately start to playback/loop what you just recorded. Of course, you can simply stop recording like you would stop the playback of any clip and then trigger what you just recorded whenever you want.


Crossfading


Cross Fading is another new feature in Live 2. On the bottom of each track (including Send tracks) an A/B icon can be selected and then the X-Fader at the bottom of the Master track (shown above with the arrow pointer) will cross fade DJ-style between the two selected sounds. My only problem with this function is that it wasn’t easy to control with a mouse and the arrow keys moved the fader too slowly. You’ll definitely want to hook this up to a physical MIDI control fader or knob to make it more useful.

Warp It
Ableton has introduced different Warp methods for changing the tempo of your loops and samples. I really liked being able experiment with different warp methods and since the Warp methods utilize granular re-synthesis for time-stretching you can get some musically interesting results from making the “wrong” Warp settings. Here’s a quick overview:

Beats -for rhythmic samples
Tones -for “clear” pitch structure/monophonic sources (solo instrument and voice)
Texture -for complex noise and atmospheric sounds
Re-Pitch -no time stretching, adjusts the sample playback rate. If your loop is at 80bpm and you double it (160bpm) you’ll actually hear the sample playback one octave higher.

You can also bypass Warping altogether in Live 2, but not if you plan on looping the sample as this only works if the clip is set not to loop. Also, if you completely mangle a clip by messing with it’s Warp markers and Warp settings you can save the clip with those particular settings for use in other projects. Of course, this doesn’t change the actual sample on your hard disk and you can get back to the original settings by clicking the Reset button.

A Couple of Plug’s

Gate is a new plug-in that does what it says -gates a signal. If the signal doesn’t break the threshold setting it won’t be heard. Traditionally, gates are used for multi-tracking stuff like drums to eliminate bleed -but they can also be used for musical effect (think stuttering)

Redux is the other new plug-in. It’s a simple Bit Reduction plug-in. If any of your samples and loops are just too clean, or you want some NIN inspired guitar distortion throw out this plug-in and add some noise.

Some Pro’s and Con’s

I really like the automation available in Live2, especially being able to automate the song tempo. I do wish the program had different “curves” available for the automation of data points though -like sine, smooth curve, etc.

It’s great that a program like Live 2 incorporates Rewire technology for streaming audio into and out of other software programs. Unfortunately, under Mac OS X Live can only function as a Rewire Master so I can’t pump Live tracks into another program like Cubase SX. This however, is not an issue in OS 9.

I wish the Crossfade speed could be varied. Using the default controller -the arrow keys - it’s just too slow, and the mouse doesn’t work that well with the X-Fader either.

A great thing about Live 2 is that you can organize a number of samples to play together -a Scene. These Scenes are then available for individual triggering in the Master fader making it easy to switch from one section to another. It would be nice though if a modifier key allowed you to layer Scene’s as you trigger them, rather than just A/B switching from one to the other.

Live has a great Pre-Listen function that could come in very handy during live performances. it allows you to pre-listen on a different output source than your master -provided your hardware has more than two outputs -a great feature for DJ’s.

Another great feature of Live 2 is that once you make a song you can save it as a Self-Contained Project -linking your sequence, analysis files, and samples all together.

A small but great new addition is the Bus view. This view allows you to control the levels of the live signals coming into and out of the program.

If I had any one personal gripe it would be that the Mac version of Live is not as CPU savvy as the PC version -usually taking up 10-15% more CPU power for the same song. Hopefully, this disparity in efficiency will disappear with updated versions.


And the Beat Goes On
The Ableton team has managed to pack some very big and useful new features into Live 2 without taking away the simplicity, functionality, and fun of the program. The initial 2.0 release was a little rocky for some users but Ableton's was quick to the draw with updates and the 2.02 version has worked out great for me. With it’s multitrack recording capabilities and decent automation Live can serve as a scaled down digital audio recorder for more “traditional” music recording but still give you flexibility in Live performance as well as a very intuitive and simple arrangement tool. Live 2 is definitely a winner in my book.

For more information about this or any other product on our site, please write us at:
sales@audiomidi.com

Or to be kept informed of all the latest news, reviews, articles, and more, click here to subscribe to the audioMIDI.com newsletter.