Ableton Live 6

You could say that the Ableton Live series maintains the middle ground between entry-level music makers such as Apple’s Garage Band and high-end professional products such as the venerable Logic Pro, but Live got there through countless trial and error and by making its own luck. Ableton Live 6 is an excellent music editing, remixing, and tweaking application that has earned its top spot by forging its own path and catering to a high-end hip and creative following of producers and DJs. However, it expands its lead with version 6, offering a dripping handful of new goodies to all its followers - whether they're pros looking for a light application to have fun with or newcomers trying to join the ranks of sample/loop infused beats.

Like no prior Ableton release, Live 6 opens itself to new creative communities - offering QuickTime video support, a professional multi-sample library, and customizable racks of instruments and effects. Live 6 also satisfies frequent user requests by delivering multicore support, enhanced project management tools and improved MIDI control

Ableton CEO and co-founder Gerhard Behles states, "Live 6 upholds Ableton's tradition of responding to and respecting our vocal user base while maintaining our vision for the program. The results are exciting—Live 6 is our most versatile and powerful version to date. We also spent significant development resources on workflow improvements to make sure Live continues to feel good as the functionality grows."

FEATURES
With QuickTime video support, Live 6 enters the world of post-production. Drag and drop movies directly into Live's Arrangement View, and monitor the result on a video window or second screen. Then, align music to visuals, and process the movie's audio signal within Live. It has never been easier to improvise, compose and warp music to picture. For Mac users, Live 6 works similar to iMovie.

The Essential Instrument Collection provides Live 6 users with a comprehensive library of multisampled instruments. The included instruments cover the entire musical spectrum, from orchestral strings and brasses, to classic guitars and electric keyboards, to instruments like the harp and the glockenspiel. Using Ableton's Simpler instrument, which is included with Live 6, the Essential Instrument Collection is ready to play right out of the box.

Instrument and Effect Racks offer a new level of depth to Live 6 without sacrificing accessibility. Use Racks to create, save and control customized groupings of multiple instruments, effects and plug-ins. Then distribute your creations online. Use the Rack's included knobs to adjust any number of parameters with a single knob or fader. Live 6 comes with many preconfigured racks with both instruments and common processing tools like guitar and bass distortion, drum processing, and mastering.

Multicore and Multiprocessor support allow the computational workload from instruments and effects to be distributed to other processors or cores, speeding up system performance.

Deep Freeze expands editing functionality with frozen tracks (temporary rendered files created to free system resources). Cut, copy, paste, duplicate and consolidate clips without having to re-freeze. Automate mixer and clip envelopes, record frozen Session View clips into the Arrangement, and drag frozen MIDI clips into audio tracks, all without missing a beat.

New and Improved Devices add to Live's palette of creative tools:

• EQ Eight has replaced EQ Four, with improvements that turn it into both a sound shaping and a mastering tool.
• Add analog richness with the warm distortion of Dynamic Tube. Like many of Live's effects, it can be used for subtle coloration or drastic sonic manipulation.
• Saturator has been improved with the addition of a true analog saturation curve, a user-definable wave shaper, and an optional second output saturator stage.
• Automate and "play" incoming MIDI notes with Note Length. This MIDI effect can generate new notes when incoming notes are released, emulating the release behavior of instruments like the piano or the harpsichord.
• Operator has been augmented with a set of 24 dB filter modes, as well as new FM algorithms, giving users more sonic possibilities than ever.

Conveniently organize collections of Live Sets, Live Clips, presets, samples, and movie files with Live 6's new Project Management Tools. Self-contain a project and pack it with lossless compression for archiving or transfer using Project Folders. Search for missing files and purge the disk of unused files with ease.

In July 2006, Ableton, premier provider of music software, announced a technology licensing partnership with leading soundware provider SONiVOX (formerly Sonic Implants). Under the terms of their agreement, Ableton will incorporate a selection of premium SONiVOX instruments into Live 6, adding a comprehensive instrument collection to the award winning music creation, production and performance suite.

Gerhard Behles, Ableton CEO, comments: "With the SONiVOX instruments, Ableton Live will become an even more responsive and musical tool for the composers, musicians and producers that have come to rely on Live for innovative solutions to their creative needs." Additionally, SONiVOX President and Founder Jennifer Hruska agrees: "We are extremely excited about this partnership and the contribution it allows us to make toward enriching the full musical experience of Ableton's creative community."

CONCLUSION

The bottom line: Ableton Live 6 is a worthy and hefty upgrade to the trusted beat-tweaking program. It's well worth the $599 price for a high-end package with this many eyebrow-raising abilities and effects.

 

 SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Operating system:                     Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft ...................................Windows 2000, Mac
Min processor type:                  ..600 MHz
Peripheral / Interface devices:    .CD-ROM, Sound card
System requirements details:      Microsoft Windows 98/2000/XP 512 MB, Mac 512 MB

LIVE 6 PRICING AND AVAILABILITY
Live 6 is scheduled for release in September 2006. It will be available for EUR 549/USD 599 (MSRP) from dealers worldwide and from the Ableton website. Users who do not need the Essential Instrument Collection and Live 6 box can purchase a downloadable (serial only) version for EUR 469/USD 499 from the Ableton website.

For more information on Live 6, please visit www.ableton.com. Information on SONiVOX’s sound library can be found at www.SONIVOXrocks.com

By Thomas R. Filippi