How to Replace Icons

• If you’re using OSX, there’s a great tutorial here.
• If you’re using Windows, you can change the icon for your Live shortcut. There’s a good tutorial here.

Icons (click for a download link)

Don’t forget – if you’ve got a favorite icon of your own, feel free to share it in the comments below!

Bear in mind that the following is purely speculation – although, as a software developer myself, I’m prepared to say that it’s fairly confident speculation.

What We Know

• Before Live 8, Ableton was reasonably efficient at updating Live, almost on a yearly basis. Now it’s getting closer to 3 years without an announcement from Ableton.
• Ableton 8.2 was released however, and while it was a great update, it probably wasn’t the update a lot of people were hoping for. Aside from this, Ableton is only updating Live on a regular basis for bug fixes and small feature additions.
• Ableton Live is missing some great features that it would really benefit from – 64 bit support is the main contender here.
• Ableton’s software team isn’t getting any smaller. While updates and bug fixes do take a massive amount of development time, a couple of updates over 3 years doesn’t match up. Unless the developers are all busy shooting bubbles, that is.
• Ableton said that they’re working on Ableton Live 9.

What Does this Indicate?

Looking at the facts above, I’d say they conform pretty well to the idea that Ableton Live 9 is not just an update – rather, it’s being completely rewritten. Re-writes most definitely take longer than an upgrade does to develop – hence the long wait until Live 9, and continued support/updates for Live 8.

Why would Ableton re-write Live? For a start, additional features may require re-writing large portions of Live anyway. Live 8 also has a bad reputation for crashing at times – something that only a major software restructure may fix. Finally, a re-write would give Ableton the chance to re-imagine what Live could be: how it works, what platforms it’s made for, a complete interface overhaul etc. This isn’t too dissimilar to what’s been done by Apple with the new Final Cut Pro X – a complete retake on how video editing software should work.

Ableton wouldn’t be the only company of late to re-write software from scratch. As mentioned before, Apple just released Final Cut Pro X – a re-write of Final Cut Pro. They’re also rumored to be working on a re-write of Logic Pro and iWork. Looking at Final Cut Pro X, we can speculate on what may be in Ableton Live 9. Unfortunately, complete re-writes don’t always mean perfect software, especially at first. Take Final Cut Pro X for example:

What can we Expect?

• A complete re-write of Live, or at least a re-write of many major components.
• Any major, currently lacking features such as 64 bit support will be included.
• Live wouldn’t be re-written without the future in mind. Whether that means cloud storage/sharing support, a touch interface, Windows 8 or iOS support, we don’t know.
• Final Cut Pro X was not received very well by many critics, mainly due to bugs, speed and lack of support for old features. This may be the case with Ableton Live 9 – hopefully not – however, a complete re-write is not likely to be perfect straight of the bag.

So: a complete re-write of Live, with at least some big changes is on the table. How drastic these changes are is yet to be seen. Personally, I’m hoping for a complete redesign of how audio software should work – even if this makes for a buggy and feature lacking initial release, as per Final Cut Pro X.

Of course, all the above is pure speculation – so if you don’t agree, then say so! That’s what the comments below are for.

I don’t know how he did it – 365 tips is a serious amount – but he did. So read on for a year’s worth a Ableton Live goodness.

After writing 2 books, 20 magazine articles and recording 8 hours of training videos (all about Ableton Live), Jon Marguiles has probably spent more time than most using Live. Hence, he’s written a pretty stunning set of tips – they’re well worth checking out, you’re bound to learn something new.

Read them here: 365 Live Tips

Here’s what sidechaining does and how to use it in Ableton Live.

What Is Sidechaining?

When you’ve got an effect like a gate or compressor, notice how these types of effects work in general:

• First, the effect takes an input sound/channel.
• Here’s the key part: several factors of the input sound (eg volume) determine what the effect is going to sound like. For example, with compression – a loud sound passes through relatively unchanged by the effect, whereas a quiet sound is boosted in volume. The volume of the input sound determines how much volume boost is actually applied.
• Lastly, the determined effect is actually applied to the sound.

But: what would happen if the input sound was different to the actual sound the effect is being applied to? This is exactly exactly what sidechaing is, and it can be used to create some interesting and useful effects.

If you didn’t follow all of that, it’s ok – experiment a bit later and you’ll pick what sidechaining does soon enough.

Sidechains In Ableton Live

Drag and drop a device that supports sidechaining onto a new track (compressor, gate, and autofilter all support sidechains). Now, notice that in the top left hand corner of the plugin, there’s a little triangle – click on this to open up the sidechaining options.

You’ll now see a big sidechain button up the top – this turns sidechaining on/off. Just beneath it are two selection boxes: use the first to select the sidechain source (the channel that will determine what effect is applied) and use the second to select when the audio from that channel is actually sent to the sidechain.

Gain – this increases the volume of the input audio from the sidechain channel. Note that this doesn’t actually increase the volume of that channel, it just changes how loud that channel will appear to be when it is used as an input source for the effect.

Wet/Dry – this is a very cool feature which lets you have a partially sidechained effect. In other words, both the sidechain source and the actual track’s audio will be mixed together, and then used as an input source for the effect.

How To Set Up A Simple Sidechain

To set up a simple sidechain effect, you’ll need two tracks with audio on them. A good combination to hear a sidechain in action is the combination of a kick drum track with a matching music track.

Add a compressor to the music track, and set up a sidechain so that the kick drum is being used as an input source for the compression.

Adjust the compressor as needed, and with a bit of adjustment you should be able to notice a commonly used effect: whenever the kick drum is heard, the music will fade out slightly. A lot of dance/electronic music uses exactly the same effect, made by using a sidechained compressor.

Compressors are often used with a sidechain, but don’t forget you can do the same with some other effects (i.e. gate and auto filter). Try the sidechaining feature on these devices too for some interesting effects!

Here we go again, the infamous debate: Mac vs PC…

Firstly, I used Ableton Live on my old Windows PC for the best part of a year or two, before getting a MacBook Pro. That doesn’t mean I’m biased towards Macs – in fact, Ableton Live ran perfectly well on Windows. After using Live on both platforms, here’s some of the main differences I’ve noticed (by no means a complete list, if you’ve got more then share below!)

Ableton Live

The actual application itself is very much alike on both platforms. There are some very slight differences, for example the Windows version exports mixes as .wav files, whereas the OSX version exports as .aif (with the option to export as .wav). Also, the Mac version supports Audio Units as well as VST instruments. No biggies here – there are no major features that are left out of Live on either platform.

Audio Drivers

If you’re using Windows and running the default sound drivers, don’t – download ASIO4ALL and your latency will drastically decrease. If you’re using an external sound card though, you should be fine (these have their own drivers). If you’re running OSX then no need to worry, CoreAudio is pretty good in terms of latency.

So in terms of sound drivers, Windows takes slightly more effort to set up (if you need ASIO4ALL) but once everything’s running smoothly then there’s no advantage either way.

MIDI

Windows: Start Live, and then plug in a MIDI interface. It won’t be recognized until you restart Live.

Mac: Start Live, and the plug in a MIDI interface. It should work straight away.

VSTs

There is a much bigger range of VSTs (and free VSTs) available for Windows, so PC owners are the winners here. If it’s a popular commercial VST though, it will probably be available for Mac too.

Hardware/Reliability

When it comes to using a computer/laptop for performing, then the actual hardware should be almost ‘transparent’. What I mean by transparent: it shouldn’t get in the way of the performance or cause any problems – instead, it should sit there reliably, letting you create music without thinking about the hardware/set up in between.

My MacBook Pro does exactly that – I’ve never had a single glitch performing with it, so I can just make music without caring about the technical side of things while playing. I can’t say that for my old laptop however: a few times the CPU randomly was throttled back to 1/4 speed while performing – I still don’t know why, it used to randomly do that occasionally – but that’s really not cool in a live situation.

As far as I’ve experienced, Macs seem to be reliable for the most part. When it comes to PCs, it really depends what you get – if you pick the right model, there’s no reason why it can’t be just as reliable (or more reliable) than a Mac.

Performance

So what does Live actually run best on? Thanks to everyone over at the Ableton Forum, there’s a pretty in depth list of stats for different computers. Results are found by running a standard test inside Ableton Live – here’s the link, it’s worth a look!

Ableton Forum: Live 8 Performance Test

In Conclusion

Mac: runs Ableton Live well, reliably and relatively little set up required.

PC: depends what computer you have and how well it is set up for Live. There’s absolutely no reason why Live can’t run reliably and well if you have a good PC and set it up well for audio.

If you want orchestral sound sets to use in your music, don’t waste your cash on expensive sound libraries – check out this great free alternative.

Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra features the full range of orchestral instruments – wind, brass, string and percussion sections. It really does sound good too, if you’re not convinced then check out a demo: Orchestra Demo

Download and info page: Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra
Alternate download: Orchestra Download (.rar)

How To Install Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra

The sample library comes in the format .sfz – what’s that? It’s a type of sample known as a soundfont, and luckily it all works pretty swell with Ableton Live. You may need to download a VST plugin to play it through though, for the full rundown of how to get it working then read here: how to set up soundfonts in Ableton Live.

Live betas are announced on the Ableton forums every once in a while, so if there’s a bugfix or feature you’re desperate for, then keep an eye out! The latest beta is Live 8.2.2 b2 and contains a handful of bug fixes – if Live seems to be crashing a bit too much, then this beta could be a worthwhile download. Check out the latest beta at the forum page: Live 8.2.2 beta

Here’s a rundown of the latest bugfixes and features:

——
8.2.2b2 Release Notes

Improvements and feature changes
—-
- the “Peek” button on the Axiom Pro now works as a momentary control

Bugfixes
—-
- updated Complex Pro libraries to prevent a potential crash
- fixed Transport button behavior for the Akai MPK61 and 88
- fixed a crash that could occur when opening very large Live Sets
- fixed a crash that could occur when a clip referencing a sample was in the clipboard and when pressing the Edit button (in the File Manager or Clip View) to set the sample offline and then on again
——