ABLETON Live 1.0
Apr 1, 2002 12:00 PM, By Dave Hill Jr.
At first glance, Ableton's Live 1.0 may appear to be heavily influenced by Sonic Foundry's Acid Pro software. After all, both arrange time-synchronized loops with deft precision. Both allow for live loop previewing (at any project tempo), a concept foreign to the big digital audio workstations (DAWs). Finally, both are inspiring, fairly intuitive, musical applications. But where Acid Pro leaves you hankering for a true (or at least a virtual) channel mixer, VST plug-in ability and parameter automation, Live 1.0 delivers. When you figure in Live's MIDI and Key sample-triggering ability, live-to-disc recording functionality and real-time resampling, Live 1.0 is really a different concept in audio software — a next-generation, live-performance “sequencing instrument.”
GOING LIVE
I installed Live by placing the CD in my drive and following the typical instructions. Upon my first launch of the program, I was asked to unlock the program and given a challenge code. As directed, I visited the Ableton Website (www.ableton.com) and generated the necessary response code by entering in the challenge and the serial number to the Website computation engine. You do not have to do this the day you install Live. The software allows several days of full operation in which you can e-mail, fax or phone Ableton to obtain the needed code. Although the initial license is per machine, Ableton can provide additional licensing to the same owner (for, say, a second laptop) for about $175.
After launching Live, you will be struck immediately by its starkly efficient and slightly sterile-feeling, green, gray and white interface. Although the view is user-controllable (but not user-configurable), the windows are set at a predetermined size and can only be opened or closed. At first, this felt a bit limiting, but after creating my first session with Live, I found its rigidity a powerful creative ally. Instead of becoming frustrated with the view, I began to work with it, which proved to be a better way to get to the task at hand.
COMPOSING ON THE FLY
When making music in Live, you have only two main screens to navigate. The horizontally structured Arrange window, which looks something like most DAW software, and the vertically integrated Session view. To learn the interface, I relied heavily on the handy (and optional) Info screen, which flashes explanations of each icon, button and control when the mouse pointer hovers over them. Because the manual is a little incomplete, this option is indispensable.
In both the Session and the Arrange views, Live sports a file-folder explorer ready to preview loops in real time at the current project's tempo (yes, like Acid in this regard).
You can customize as many as three separate shortcuts to jump to your favorite sound banks. When you find the loop you want to use, simply drag and drop. Also located there are Ableton's effects buttons and the VST plug-in folder icon. In Live, you may chain as many effects as your computer can handle on any individual track, pre- or postfader, on a total of four aux buses or on the master mix.
Perhaps the most unique aspect of Live is the matrix-style Session view (see Fig. 1). From there, you can trigger samples as loops or one-shots via MIDI, the mouse or the computer keyboard. To take advantage of that, I copied the contents of two Sonic Foundry loop CDs to my hard drive and began to drag and drop samples into the gridlike playfield. Every sample in the Session matrix has a Play button. Clicking on that button makes the sample play in sync with the current project tempo. A user-definable launch quantization can be set to one bar, for instance, to ensure the sample starts at a bar boundary. Per sample, you can select a launch mode to define how you want it to be played: Trigger, Gate, Toggle or Repeat.
Because you can launch the samples in arbitrary order (like on a sampler), there really is no sense of composed time in the Session view; it's for improvisation. There is, however, a simple rule for laying out the samples in the grid. Because every track (column) can play only one sample at a time, you arrange alternatives in a vertical manner. Samples that you want to play simultaneously must be put into different tracks (the number of tracks being limited only by computer performance). A row might represent a musical section — for example, verse, chorus or intro. You can launch all the samples in a row, or Scene in Live parlance, at the same time by clicking on the Scene button in the master strip.
By triggering a couple of samples one sample at a time, or a complete row of samples for a section, it is easy to arrange a track by starting with a couple of loops, pressing Control + D (to duplicate that portion of the arrangement) and then gradually adding more complicated parts. As I triggered different successions of loops and sections, I took advantage of Live's record feature and recorded my first live track, which can be viewed and edited in the Arrange window (see Fig. 2).
It took me a few tries to get the latency-offset correct in the Preferences dialog, but, eventually, I was able to get Live to start loops exactly as I triggered them. You can also run audio outs from Propellerhead's Reason through Live's mixer channels. This is a cool way of making samples of a recorded Reason tune by using some Live or VST effects and combining the results. However, it can be fairly resource intensive. To give you an idea, my 800MHz Athlon just barely kept up.
GREEN IS GOLD
Live sounds awesome. I tested Live's loop-stretching ability against Acid Pro 2.0 and discovered Live could slow a 120 bpm groove down to about 100 bpm before any degradation was heard. Acid Pro, which is one of the best real-time tempo- and pitch-stretching apps out there, could go as low as 108 to 110 bpm with little or no degradation. The pitch-shifting, however, is what really got me excited. Harmonizing synth loops (by placing the same loop on different tracks and altering the pitch) or even pitching down whole tunes generated no real audio artifacts or phasing unless the shifts were extreme (well over an octave). What's more, Live gives you the option of transposing one half step at a time or detuning ±50 cents for any individual sample occurrence.
Live also makes waves in the effects department (see Fig. 3). In addition to an excellent Compressor, four-notch parametric EQ and smooth-sounding Chorus, Ableton has added four different delays (Filter Delay, Ping-Pong Delay, Grain Delay and Simple Delay) and a couple of cool sonic-degradation effects. Each effect can be dropped in without any interruption in playback and easily bypassed. All effect parameters (including VST) are automatable. By the way, all VST plug-ins should be tested in a safe (nonperformance) environment. It is next to impossible for small software manufacturers such as Ableton to individually test the flood of freeware and shareware VST plug-ins found on the Internet.
LEAN, GREEN, LOOP-WRECKING MACHINE
Live is one of those unique applications that will entertain both amateurs and pros alike. The program is fairly easy to use yet packed with possibilities. I can imagine studios taking the time to use Live as both a pre-production and compositional tool. The real-time tempo sync alone has been coveted by Mac users since the dawn of, well, Mac-based audio. Although I doubt the classic vinyl DJ could be replaced by an army of laptop loopists, Live might be the perfect tool for the digitally minded to get into the club and shake a few rumps. For that reason alone, I would love to see Ableton add support for MP3s. I also crave support for VST Instruments and find Ableton's great complement of effects lacking one crucial toy: reverb. But I don't want to overhype my selfish desires; after all, Live 1.0 is born not only from advanced audio software engineering but also from artistic vision. And you didn't hear it from me, but Version 1.x should be out — with some hefty additions, bug fixes and possibly even some more cool effects — right about the time you read this.
Product Summary
ABLETON
Live 1.0
$299
($175 for additional licenses)
Pros: Revolutionary integration of sample playback and audio editing. Good audio time-stretching and previewing. Available for Mac (OS X already) and PC.
Cons: No Piano Roll, MIDI editing or VST Instruments. Interface can feel constrictive. Skimpy manual.
Overall Rating (1 through 5): 5
Contact: tel. 49-030-288-7630
e-mail contact@ableton.com • Web www.ableton.com
MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
MACINTOSH: G3; 128 MB RAM; CD-ROM drive; Mac OS 9.0 or later; 256-color monitor; OMS 2.3.8 or later
PC: 300 MHz; 64 MB RAM; Windows 95/98/NT 4.0/2000/XP; CD-ROM drive; 800×600, 120Hz resolution; 256-color monitor; sound card (w/DirectX or ASIO drivers preferred)
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