I have been using DAW sequencers and "trackers" since 1996 and before discovering Fasttracker II through a school friend the image of owning software for creating music was one reserved only for the real professionals. Pro Tools and Cubase were the leading Mac and Windows software for producing music electronically but these were targeted at professional studios with price tags to match. For hobbyists and experimenters like myself you were limited to what was known as "Trackers" which were much more simple sample players often operating in DOS but also Free to use. 

Without rerunning over the history of DAWs we can now see almost a complete saturation of choice for a home producer with many users (myself included) owning several different software titles for different uses. Live is by far my most used and loved production tool because it helped me easily migrate from the older tracker style software to a modern sequencer. 

Quick Glance

Price: $90-$1400
Pros: Very flexible, wide variaty of devices, MAX can expand on capabilities, API allows users to integrate almost anything
Cons: Some functions are missing which exist in other DAWs, company communication to users is somewhat poor.
Rating: 9/10
Manufacturer: Ableton 
Version: Live 9.1 
Link: http://ableton.com

Features

The software has a massive list of great features but here are some of the main features as listed by Ableton:

• • Unique Session View for quick, intuitive composition, flexible performance and improvisation
  • Multitrack recording up to 32-bit/192 kHz
  • Nondestructive editing with unlimited undo
  • Powerful MIDI sequencing of software and hardware instruments
  • Advanced warping and real-time time-stretching
  • Unlimited Instruments, Audio effects and MIDI effects per project
  • Group tracks
  • VST and Audio Unit support
  • Time signature changes
  • Multiple automation lanes
  • Track Freeze
  • Automatic plug-in delay compensation
  • MIDI remote control instant mapping
  • MIDI output to hardware synths
  • MIDI Clock/sync
  • ReWire
  • Multicore/multiprocessor support
  • Dual monitor support
  • WAV, AIFF, MP3, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC file support
  • Dedicated hardware controller options integrate tightly with software (Launchpad, APC20/40, Push)
  • Live performance and Studio production features for flexible wide usa

Choosing A DAW

I started my introduction into computer based production in 1997 using a DOS based program called Fasttracker II. In 2002 I outgrew the limitations of that tracker and upgraded to another free windows based tracker called "Buzz Tracker" (which is still available and a great option for cash strapped users). This software introduced me to my first softsynths and plugin based architecture. It was now possible to create sounds using plugin devices and not rely purely on WAV audio samples.

Buzz tracker was such a great program and was able to work with VST plugins which is where I started to get a taste for "professional" sound. The problem with Buzz was because it was a free program created by just 1 person it was not as intuitive as modern DAWs and development had stalled because of the loss of the source code. It was very prone to crashing and often there was a lot of time spent troubleshooting or working around crashes. I lost a number of projects due to crashes during the save process which was probably a good thing as it taught me early on about incremental save versions. 

By 2008 I started to look at other more commercial DAW software solutions. I looked into Fruity Loops, Reason, Acid and Cubase and while all of these certainly presented themselves as more professional solutions than my older tracker solutions I did not feel inspired or drawn to want to use any of them and the cost of the full featured versions and very linear workflow of them all had me feeling less inspired. I was starting to think that perhaps I had reached the end of my creative road.

In 2009 I happened across Live 8 after watching a youtube video of someone using the Launchpad. I decided to download the demo of the program and was instantly impressed. It took just 1 day for me to integrate my controllers and start experimenting with all kinds of different techniques and instantly bought fun into the process. I was pretty much sold on the spot and decided to order a Launchpad which came with a lite version of Live. After playing with the lite version of Live for about 2 months I decided to invest in the full Suite version of Live.

Initial Impressions

When I first installed and loaded Live I had a mix of first impressions. Testing software such as Cubase and Reason which had very stylish and "3D" graphics with a sophisticated look, Live appeared to be a flat and almost minimal interface with no raised dials or fancy looking sliders. This almost instantly threw me off the program because using bland looking trackers for so many years I was looking forward to a real eye candy interface.

Pressing on past this initial appearance I started to discover this works very well because it helps you to see more important things such as the layout of the such as the main focus "Session View" which I will discuss shortly.

The feature set is pretty on-par with most DAWs with the stand out feature being the Session/Arrangement views. The software is actually very simple to use but hides a lot of really useful features within many of the Live Devices. There is a Help box that can be displayed in the bottom left of screen that will detail any control or feature you hover your mouse over which is great for a new user and gets you going quickly (even showing what the keyboard shortcut is for controls).

I have to say that after test driving many DAWs over years I personally found Live to be a very nice fit with my workflow and was very impressed with the way it all seemed to work.

Live Versions

Depending on your bank balance or requirements Live is offered in 3 different versions: Lite/Intro, Standard & Suite. The comparisons of all versions can be easily found on the Ableton website but basically the Intro is limited to only 8 tracks and has no included instruments or content. It is designed to appeal to users interested in loading a heap of MP3 tracks and mixing these together as a DJ performance. The Standard version has unlimited tracks and all features available but only includes the core instruments (such as a sampler, drum rack etc) but no synth instruments or sample librarys. Suite is the full blown version with everything included and a heap of sample librarys, instruments and effects to play with. A great choice for anyone who needs some content to get started.

I don't like being limited so I chose Live Suite which I have maintained an upgrade. Users that may have a selection of VST\AU instruments or large sample librarys already may not be too impressed with Lives instrument and content selection but if you have a few $$$ to spare it is a nice toolbox. 

Installation / Registration

Installallation is straight forward. You can oreder online, download the program and install it. Live 9 is offered as 32 & 64 bit so it is recommended to install the one suitable for your needs. Keep in mind that this will affect which VST plugins you can use so if you plan to use the 64 it version you need to have all your plugins as 64bit compatible. 

After installation you can set the location of where you want to store your Live packs and (if applicable) the Live 8 library content. The Suite version allows you to download about 20+ content packs of drum loops, instrument presets, sampled loops and all kinds of useful content. These are available as seperate downloads from your account on Ableton. 

Before being able to acces any further content you first need to create an account on the Ableton site. Once created this will be your license account so be sure to keep the details safe. In Live you go to the Authorisation section in the software prefferences and choose to authorise Live. This will connect to your Live account and if all is good your software will be activated without fuss and all your software, plugins and packs license keys will be registered. You can then access "Your Packs" and download all the gigs of content. For standard and Intro users you won't have any packs listed but you can purchase whatever you like seperate or upgrade to Suite down the track. 

Setup With Controllers & Audio

One of the great parts of Live is its strong gearing towards having physical controllers. Most of the top MIDI devices have pre-built scripts ready to go so it is a case of connecting your controller and selecting it as a "control surface" in Live. A controller configured as a "Control Surface" will integrate automatically to many controls and functions allowing you to tweak a selected plugin without needing to map any controls at all. In the case of a Live spcific controller such as a Launchpad, APC or Push controller you can also trigger clips, record, tweak and adjust many things without any mapping required. This helps to pt hardware control in front of you without complex setup. 

Any MIDI device can be connected to Live and mapped using traditional midi mapping direct to controllers or Live also offers users the ability to create their own "control surface template" using a text editor to set the CC numbers of your controller so that you can have the first 8 controls auto map to any selected device which can significantly increase productivity. 

Live goes even further for the technically minded with the ability to use Python programming to create interface drivers for any MIDI connected device. For users that know what they are doing here this opens up a huge amount of possibilities which can allow very feature rich controllers. 

If all that still was not enough, Live also allows users who own Max4Live to create their own devices that can interact with controllers. This can be done within Live and can allow a user to create custom plugins and devices that can accept and transmit MIDI soignals from controllers which can affect the way a controller works within certain projects or globally. 

The audio setup is very straight forward with Live detecting your audio interfaces and allowing you to select which inputs and outputs are being used for your setup. This will help on larger interfaces to leave out any I/O connections in direct use for other functions youdon't want Live to access. Audio can be set to whatever your audio interface will allow. Within each track in Live you can select where to receive audio from (audio input or another audio track) and where to send audio too (such as the master output or a separate audio output from your interface. 

The Interface

Live has a unique interface which is "split" into 2 halves (Session and Arrangement). 

Session View

As pictured to the left, session view is like a sample and pattern matrix board that allows the user to create "clips" where each of the coloured clips is either a single one-shot sample, or a looped sample or a MIDI pattern or drum pattern. All of these can be created, grouped and setup in "scenes" where you could load in hundreds of complete songs to "DJ" or create patterns and ideas and mix them together. This is a very fun and intuitive way of producing as it allows you to load up an instrument and play along to anything you like and simply record what you are doing all in real time without having to stop playback. You can then easily move to a new take and keep recording different variations as ideas. When you have a session full of loops and ideas you can then focus at turning it into a proper arranged song. This is where you can switch to "Arrangement View" which is more like a typical DAW.

Session view is also designed to allow performers to load in tracks, loops and effects for triggering and playing back "Live" which is where Live gained its main popularity. I personally like it for the fact you CAN create all your ideas like on a notepad, play around with launching them in different ways and then record your "performance" direct to the arrangement where you can then get into the fine tuning of the track. The process is always a lot of fun.

Arrangement View 

The arrangement view is a more farmiluar layout where the tracks are displayed horizontal with musical content sequenced out along the timeline. Some people may never work at all in Session view while others may never open the arrangement view. The great thing is that these are completely independant views allowing you to sketch out ideas in session view while leaving the arrangement view for your actual project.

One great thing is the ability to play your arrangement while overriding a selected track by playing clips in the session view. This is a simple way to test a new idea without disrupting the work in arrangement view. The arrangement track is muted while the session track is played. 

To enter content into the arrangement you can simply create a blank MIDI pattern and enter notes in manually, copy audio direct to an audio track, play and record live to a track, play any clips in Session view while recording to record the clips (with any control movements) or just grab a clip, press TAB to switch to Arrangement view and drop it in place. 

With all this flexibility it can be hard to know what is the "correct" process to use which there is no straight answer. The tools are there to be used how the user sees fit and this can take a bit to find a comfortable groove since you can get lost just experimenting. 

The Mixer

The mixer section is pretty typical and straight forward. The minimal look means you really notice the peak meters more over the controls which I like when mixing and the meters are very quick and responsive. I'm not a fan of the tiny volume sliders as these can make adjusting the volume of a track fiddly at times especially if you don't extend the height of the volume section (which you can do). I use a Mackie MCU so this is a non issue for me now but still not as nice as a slider knob that you can click better with a tiny mouse pointer. 

The mixer tracks can contain either a MIDI instrument device or an audio source or sample. If you have a VST device that has multiple audio outputs available (such as a large drum machine like Battery or a massive synth instrument like Omnisphere or Kontact) then you need to have a midi track for your midi data and multiple audio tracks. You can easily rout midi or audio out of any track and into another track, to a send or to the master using the I/O routing settings on every track. You can also choose to hide I/O, Sends, Returns if you rather have more space on screen.

MIDI \ Audio Chain Editor

The lower section of the Live interface is a 2-Tab interface that can switch between the MIDI\Sample data on the track and the audio chain devices and effects. The lower editor section of the screen can be resized when working with MIDI for a complete piano roll when required. When viewing the audio chain you can place effects anywhere in the chain, move them and edit them all very easily. You can group devices together creating a "rack" which adds macro knobs to allow common or multiple controls from multiple devices to be mapped to simple control knobs and you can even choose to save the rack for future use. 

The ability to create these custom racks is a very powerful feature which is even further extended by the ability to group multiple tracks together and save this as a "clip" which means you could create a complete multi-output drum kit with separate channels per drum hit and recall this for any project. 

Live in Use

Live started its life as a "Live" performance tool and really had not much to offer studio musicians except loop management. This has changed with each Live release and more and more features are being included as time goes on. I have dabbled with mixing music and loops but my main use of the software is as an ideas sketchpad and arrangement sequencer. 

Using Live is really not much more difficult than any typical DAW though some functions can be obscure and tucked away out of sight. One of the nice features for a new user though is the HELP box that you can choose to open in the lower left of screen. This will display help about the current control or feature in Live that your mouse is over along with a keyboard shortcut if available. This can be very handy to get instant help without having to open the manual. 

On the subject of the Live manual, it is actually well written and easy to follow. I have it on my ipad and read it whenever on a flight or when I have spare time just to keep the info fresh in mind. 

When I first opened the demo of Live after watching some youtube videos I was impressed by the simple ease of dragging in a music file and then chopping and mixing this on the fly as I added more elements. This is probably one of the most inspiring parts of the software since it does make the process of making music fun.

Loading a music file will allow Live to "warp" the file which is done by the software finding transients in the audio and placing markers throughout the file. These markers can then be used to sync the track to the BPM of the project or change things completely. It's not always perfect first time but you have full control of how it works so even a track that has very loose timing can be "tightened" to fit a steady dance beat quickly and while you are playing your tune. 

Loops are great to play with but instruments and MIDI is where I like to play. Live's own instruments have a clean and sophisticated sound that can fill a broad range of tastes. The Suite version includes a host of presets to get you going and the simplified and easy to follow interface of each instrument makes it easy to get going. I did find using instruments less inspiring though than something like Native Instruments Massive or Zeta mainly because the Live instruments live in the audio chain section of the lower part of the screen and cannot be pulled out on their own. This can make it a little fiddly but also makes it quite seamless. I personally just don't find inspiration with the bland small instrument interface. 

The Live drum rack is a very well designed drum rack with loads of hidden features. It appears as a basic 4x4 drum pad interface that you can load samples onto pads (duh) but it goes much deeper. Each pad can have any instrument assigned to it such as one of Lives samplers to play an audio sample but you could also load an instrument such as Lives Operator or a VST and trigger a note from these via the pad. You can also load in a single VST and map the pad range to the instrument range allowing you to use the Live drum machine as a trigger for instruments like Battery or EZ Drummer. Further to this you have individual tracks for each drum pad which can have effects placed on each one OR you can create internal and external sends and returns for routing audio. You can keep digging into even more features but this is where I would suggest watching some tutorials as there is a lot of good stuff within drum racks. 

Recording & Automation

You can record audio into Live just like any other DAW as you would expect but Live has a performance background and one of the great and inspiring things about Live is the way you can compile ideas into clips and loops and then "perform" these into an arrangement. Typically when working in a DAW you have a blank page and build each element piece by piece testing and sequencing ideas as you go. I often found I would start to get a bit lost as to where my idea was heading and when to implement automated effects and other ideas in this way. 

The clip view can help here by holding each piece of your song from intros to verses to choruses as separate blocks for all your instruments and then you can play these piece by piece and test things out without making a single sequence or recording. Once you have an idea how you want the elements to build and shape the song you can either drag the clips onto the arrangement page or I prefer to just press Record and play each clip to build the song. Live will record all midi, audio and automation data into the arrangement allowing you to "record" a complete multi-track arrangement from your ideas. You can then switch to arrangement and start the tweaking and editing. Further to this you can still test new clips and tracks either separately or along with your arrangement. This all can be done without knowing half of what Live can do and is one of the things that really drew me to iots workflow. It's up to the artist to find their own method rather than accepting that the DAW works in a certain way. It is still possible to simply use arrangement as you would in any other DAW if you wanted.

Coming from a background in trackers and also using the older Cubase SX3 it was always a complex task to automate parameters on devices. In Live I really don't think it could be any simpler. Pretty much any control in Live itself (including all Live instruments and effects) can be automated just by moving it. No mapping or controller tables to worry about. Just arm automation, hit record and start moving things. All parameters are recorded to separate automation tracks within their channels. Often when you have a lot of parameters automated it can be a challenge to find the correct one to edit once recorded. Live again makes this easy by displaying the parameter data of the last touched control so to find the one you need just touch a control to display its data.

Automating 3rd party devices such as VST plugins is also just as simple. The only difference is you need to select which controls in the plugin you would like to automate. Live can automate up to 128 parameters for each plugin device and it simply requires you to use the Configure button for the plugin host container and then click the parameters in  the plugin to learn them into Live. From there you can then make changes to these and have it recorded in the same way as any other Live control. 

Live also allows for overdub, overwrite, copy, duplicate and a host of useful editing features that allow a user to make any changes to recorded data and automation. All edits performed to audio data are non-destructive meaning you can change or undo anything you are not sure of and the original audio will always stay in tact. 

Samples, Instruments & Effects

Depending which version of Live you choose will depend what content and devices are included. Live offers your typical effects as native devices such as EQ, Reverb, Delay, Chorus, Compressor, Amp Distortion, Limiter. Many of these have been improved over time and offer low CPU use and great quality. Some effects such as the reverb allow you to choose the "quality" of the effect which is basically how accurate it processes the audio. this can allow you to choose a low quality when mixing to save power and increase it when you need to export.

The instruments in Live range from the standard Samplers and Loopers to soft synths such as Impulse and Operator which can be used to create a huge array of sounds. For anyone getting started the full Suit of Live could offer enough samples and instruments to really get started.

Of course you are free to use your own VST/AU instruments and effects and Live was designed with the use of WAV and MP3 files in mind. A powerful part of Live is it's ability to work with loops and sample material allowing you to very quickly chop and edit samples. Warping allows you to make any sample loops fit with material and the features such as "Slice to drum track" and "Audio to MIDI" can sample the audio content and create drum kits or whole melodies ready to be tweaked.

Conclusion

To me Live was something that introduced the fun I first found with DAW software that I was starting to miss. Whereas some software such as Pro Tools and Cubase are fantastic quality workstations they can sometimes lack the ability to spark creativity. Live seems to focus on this first where it's possible to load up some sounds and just play away to learn new tricks and techniques and with everything being modular it's so easy to save setups as kits for use within different projects later on.

While there are still some features lacking and it can be a gamble if a new release is better or worse for your performance I still believe Live is a great fit for anyone that is not a dedicated professional and likes to have the option for either serious business or just flat out fun. In my 4 years of using Live I have found it to be quite solid and reliable with both most of the ableton community and ableton support to be helpful. I couls not see myself still being dedicated without Live today.