Why Use Ableton

Here at Production Music Live we work hard to stay ahead of the curve, so we can provide you with the most practical and cutting edge EDM production tutorials on the market. With Ableton Live 10 being released early 2018, we’re working even harder to make sure we’re all up to date and ready to seamlessly teach with the new and improved Ableton. We’ve all been waiting a long time for this update, 5 years to be exact…so yeah, its a big deal…Continue reading to find out why Ableton is still the industry standard DAW (digital audio workstation) and learn about some of the most exciting features being released in live 10.

Our industry is music, but our field can be found in a bedroom, on stage, the studio or any amount of space musical ideas can be made.

The reason people love Ableton and why we’re so excited for Ableton Live 10 is because it was programmed and designed for producers by producers. Here is a list of the most fundamental features separating the latest Ableton 9 from other DAW’s.

1. Session View

As you can see in session view the workflow is vertical and you can arm and trigger tracks in real time to either jut down a quick inspiration or perform live with full automation.

Session view allows you scratch out your basic song structure quickly with audio and midi clips. Also, session view can be used as a full blown live dj set but its still not robust enough to our liking to replace our Djing software. We Whatever the purpose session is great for quick idea scratching and descent at live performing.

2. Arrangement View

In arrangement view you can arrange, mix, master and automate nearly anything on the fly.

the arrangement view is the layout most DAW’s use. What separates Ableton is the ability map any knob or automation as well as the capability to switch back and forth between arrangement and session view.

3. Nondestructive Editing & Real-Time Time Stretching

As a producer, we know how important sampling audio is and with Ableton’s advanced time stretching and warping features, any sound can fit the mix. As Picasso says, “Good artists copy; great artists steal.” — Pablo Picasso

If their is one thing Ableton is best at its sampling audio and fitting it into the mix. With real time time stretching and quick adjustments, Ableton allows you to quickly slice audio and re structure your sound anyway you see fit. Unfortunately you can only perform these edits in the sampler and simpler. Keep reading to find out if Ableton 10 will include this highly needed feature.

4. Industry Leading Instruments

One of Ableton Lives most exciting synthesizers is Operator. This synth is Jam packed with 4 oscillators, draw in velocity mapping and enough effects to make a wide range of sounds.

The layout for the ever famous Operator synth in Ableton

5. Uber Supportive Community

For being a loyal member of Ableton you gain access to a gold mine of support groups, forums and contacts. Everything from a full online support team to local Ableton team groups in a city near you. Here is our Ableton course video for beginners along with our other tutorials here. Production Music Live

Also, check out your local Ableton community here.

Ableton Live 10 Must Know Features

As some of you may know, Ableton’s current version 9 was released all the way back in 2013 when Avicii was touring Ibiza and gave Mike Posner a pill. We’ve long moved forward since then and its about time Ableton has too. We’ve been waiting a long time for Ableton 10. Even if you are brand new to Ableton or a seasoned veteran, you’re going to love the new design, features, instruments and abundance of improvements across the entire platform.

So without further ado here is a list of our most anticipating features being released in Live 10 along with some super cool improvements you’re going to love.

Revamped Design & Performance

Ableton live 10 includes an all new vector knobs and design layout and new Sans font. You can now zoom in deep into Ableton and the screen will stay crisp all the way through. Also, the new live will include 4 new layouts lite, dark, Darker, and the Live 9 Theme. Live 10 will now have 10x the closing speed and 60 frame per second notion so everything will work smoother and faster.

Zoomed in photo of the Ableton 10 effects rack. As you can see the utility now has a bass mono setting. You can’t see it here but the gain knob can now go down to infinity where before it would only go down to -35db.

Edit Multiple Midi’s

Editing multiple midi tracks enables faster editing and new ways to compare different melodies and ideas in real time.

Here multiple midi’s are being edited in time. Just double click on a midi note and edit up to 7 midi tracks at once.

Midi Capture

Remember when you were just playing the keys or pads and made and awesome melody but realized you weren’t recording and you could never quit capture and recreate that idea?

Well now with midi capture you can play your instruments without ever arming record. Live 10 will cache the midi notes in your computers memory, so you can recall them if you liked it without ever hitting record.

Chase Midi Notes

Have you ever been working in a small section of your song and your long chords don’t because they started a bar ago or longer?

With chase midi notes selected in the options drop down menu, you can now have the chord play even after its starting point, so you can hone in on the select piece of the song, without replaying it from the beginning of the bar.

Chasing midi notes enabled allowing to play a chord even after it starts.

Grouped Tracks Collection

Here is the new feature everyone has been waiting for!

You can now look at groups that are in your track in the browser window. It has been a pain staking process to try and recreate groups. Now with Ableton 10 you can save groups and drag them into the arrangement all while maintaining the groups structure. For example, if I had a group of drums that I wanted to use on a different track that I had already created, I can save them and drag the group directly into the new mix. Also you can now create groups within groups to keep your structure tightly organized.

Ableton Live 10’s new feauture allowing you to drag groups into new tracks without having to open multiple windows of live.

Furthermore, you can now set all grouped tracks to the same color just by right clicking and selecting the groups color of choice.

Automation Mode

Before in Live 9, if you wanted to automate a parameter you had to click on it and then the automation line would appear. Now in Live 10 that feature is still available but you can now press the A key and you enter automation mode.

Editing the automations in automation mode in Live 10.

Within automation mode you can now click and create an automation point wherever you clicked without snapping the whole line with the point. Even better, if you drag the point along the track the point automatically snaps to each column along the grid. Many more features are included in automation mode. Continue reading for the link to all the features.

Enhanced Audio Editing

Now editing audio in Ableton Live 10 is even easier.

Stretching audio within the arrangement view in Ableton 10 live.

To copy a piece of audio from a track all you have to do is select it and drag it to a new destination. Also, you can select a chunk of audio and drag it to scrub through the audio at its selection point. You can also stretch the audio within the track just by clicking and dragging.

Conclusion

We covered the multiple design features in Ableton live 10 spanning from fonts to speed increases. We dived deep into the new midi features Ableton added to keep your ideas flowing steady. The long been waiting for grouped collections feature will enable everyone to save their groups and easily drag them into their arrangement or session view. The new automation mode will be a game changer in the speed or automation and the audio editing features will make audio slicing a breeze. All in all the new Ableton Live 10 looks to be one of the best updates Ableton will release for the sake of speeding up the process of audio production and organization.

Stay tuned for more articles regarding audio production and an in-depth article when Ableton Live 10 is officially released.

If you want a chance to produce commercial songs from scratch click our tutorial links below and subscribe to our youtube channel:

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For a full list of Ableton Live 10 features click here. Ableton Live 10