Is Ableton Losing Their Touch?

So Ableton has dropped news of a Live 12 update, some are excited, others not so much.

What’s up Forum,

So Ableton Live has dropped some news of their upcoming release of Live 12.

While some people are raving about its features, other creators are not so enthralled with the current release.

I think that Ableton has just gone through a major overhaul. However, For those looking for more ‘intuitive’ features you may be in for a disappointment.

Let’s take a look at some of the more powerful features that will be released in the upcoming months.

Ableton Live 12 New Feature Roundup

• MIDI Note Generator ䷀

  Not being so fond of pattern generators, I kind of like the idea of turning a few knobs and getting REAL MIDI notes inside of the piano roll.
  
  I’ve dealt with rhythm plugins in the past and for the most part, they deliver results inside of the plugin.
  
  There seems to be a lot of room for creative expression given there are steps, patterns, and density (I’m assuming this is an amount of note information ) that you can easily dial in.

  

  
  

  
  Inside the dropdown menu, there’s an option to draw in the MIDI shape that you want. This seems kind of wonky but the results in the demo sound pretty usable.
  

  

  
  I imagine these would be locked to a certain key or grid ensuring that the notes would sound good together.

  if you want to drop chords in there is another setting called ‘stack’ which enables you to drop in chords, create progression, and adjust the timing or performance values of the notes..
  

  

  They have even added the ability to add Max for Live Transformation’s lie Euclidean pattern generators.. This is honestly beyond what I normally do with Live, however, Max for Live is starting to remind me of Logic Pro’s environment and Scripter. Very powerful tools

  

  Euclidean Pattern Generator patched in Max 4 Live. Courtesy Ableton.com

• Snap/Quantize or Fit to Scale 🫰🏽💢
  
  This is one of those features that at first doesn’t seem like a big deal, however, I want you to watch this feature promo from Ableton.

  
  In addition to the ability to build chords from one note by simply adding an interval (that snaps to the selected scale)
  
  now you can set a project key globally and snap all notes into place with the click of a button.
  
  This was a feature I thought would be a main staple of my Akai Force, the ability to snap notes into key
  
  nonetheless,

  
  For those who get writer’s block fairly easily the combination of piano roll modifications and scale modifications seems the easiest way of creating chord progression, riffs, and rhythmic patterns without really having an idea of your destination.

  The fact that you can start with one note and start to create chord progressions by just adding intervals is one of the biggest cheats in the game.
  
  Essentially you can hum, play, or draw your melody in and then create the chord progression underneath based on the notes,
  
  Transposing to major or minor is just the click of a few buttons. MAJOR.
  

• Retrace Your Steps in The Browser 🔍

  So Ableton has added a “Browser History” function, which essentially enables you to “Retrace your steps, and see and hear the sounds or categories you’ve previously searched for”
  
  I think this is a smart function as many of us have extensive libraries with thousands of sounds accumulated over the years. Now if you’re just clicking or navigating and you preview something you like, you’re tablet to retrace your steps to the file like you would in a web or file browser.
  
  

  I like Ableton’s approach here, i think in a marketplace where everyone seems to be chasing the next ‘intuitive’ or ‘intelligent’ algorithmic solution, Ableton is still allowing for users to be ‘intelligent’ and ‘intuitive’ while generating ideas with software.
  
  There is a large sect of the creator community that is ‘DIY’ for lack of a better term and I think most of the new features cater a bit to both crowds, but ultimately extend the capabilities of producer’s creativity beyond their current potential without sacrificing the integrity of software assistance.
  

• Finally, the ability to split, repeat, stretch, or join notes 🖖🏽
  

  

  
  The thing that drew me to Ableton initially was the ability to draw notes quickly in the piano roll, and the simplified approach.
  

  One of the first complaints I had about Ableton was the limitations of the piano roll.
  
  honestly, this feature is long overdue. Having had one of the best audio engines on the market the lack of a full-featured piano roll has frustrated me to the point of downloading and learning FL studio JSUT for its piano roll.
  
  super long overdue IMHO…
  
  I’ve personally been waiting for this for over a decade.

• Modulation that makes sense for music production ∿

  This is a nice little feature update, now we can adjust modulated parameters after they’ve been assigned to an LFO or envelope.

  

  I’m assuming that the automating of these changes is also possible.
  
  if so I’m sure many DJs will be happy to give the shaper box or LFO tool a rest now that the DAW comes natively with some of these features.

In Conclusion

I think while other companies have chosen to provide more ‘intuitive idea generators’ or solutions into their DAWs and plugins, it’s refreshing to see Ableton providing its users with idea-generating tools that we can use intuitively.

Ultimately this means that how each works with the DAW will determine their sound, rather than the other way around.

In this era of plugin wars and rapid software development, it seems Ableton still has the musicians in mind, to an extent, and is reinforcing the theme that you don’t need fancy plugins if you truly understand your DAW.

I’d argue though, that if you want to fully capture the essence of musicians, it might be time to drop the price on Ableton as Logic Pro and Bitwig Studio are still hefty competitors with more affordable solutions.

And with that keen eye, I can also spot some things that have been copied from the Akai Force environment, and am interested in what Akai has in the works for the near future.

Things like global scale, note probability, and randomization aren’t quite missed by me. Some of the new features released in Ableton have been staples in the Akai Force environment.

If Ableton wants to get in the hardware market, they are going to have to compete hard with the Akai Force, and if these new features line up with their current offering, the Push 3 standalone unit will be quite impressive.

But strumming midi notes and OTT is all the Akai Force is missing currently as it comes with AirMusicTech plugins pre-installed.

speaking of plugins,

their Roar plugin with envelope follower is reminding me of Air Vintage Filter a bit.. just saying..

I think the Akai Force has created a big wave in the music development community and these companies are scrambling to get a DAW that can also match with a hardware device.

The ultimate in portability.. on the road or in the studio.

So is Ableton losing its touch with the modern music production world? Or do you value their approach to focus more on the musician and less on Artificial Intelligence?

LMK in the comments