Ableton Live 5 Review - Paul Dailey – February 7, 2006 [Back to HOME page]

I wonder what the conversation sounded like during those early planning sessions at Ableton in Berlin. Since the beginning, Live has been a quality piece of software that was obviously designed by very forward thinking programmers and designers. But I wonder if those initial collaborators had any idea about the impact that Live would eventually have on the production, DJ and dance music community worldwide.

The ability of Live to make quick work of loops, samples and effects has helped it become popular with forward thinking DJs like Chris Liebing and Richie Hawtin. It has become the main ingredient in set from people like Sasha and Gabriel and Dresden, and it has been embraced as an extraordinary studio tool by producers near and far.

You can find a million and one articles online about ways to use Ableton Live, and while the tools have been improved with each new version, the basics of the program remain the same. Therefore, this review will focus on what has been added to Live 5 (the newest incarnation of the popular software suite) and how these additions will help you to work smarter, faster and more efficiently. While there have been over 130 noted improvements to the program, I will focus on my favorites and ones I see as the most useful in this review.

First off, Live 5 introduces a brand-new Auto-Warp algorithm, designed to automatically and perfectly warp absolutely anything your heart desires. Warping is Live’s process for detecting tempo and beats in audio files, and the new Auto-Warp automatically performs this process, which was primarily a manual process in previous versions. Another variation on this same theme is the newly added Complex Warp Mode, a rock solid way to time stretch full pieces of music. Neither of these new features is without minor fault, but they are accurate 99.9% of the time and really take the tedium out of working with longer clips.

Another big advance is the increases flexibility and usability of the Clip View and Clip Loops sections. The Arrangement View has also been vastly improved, with attention paid to improving the overall navigation and expanding your ability to work faster and more judiciously. Track freeze is another add-on of note and helps you conserve CPU usage, by quickly rendering tracks (including all their assigned effects) to an audio file. This helps you to get more processing power from older computers, and improves overall performance by a wide margin.

The most important interface changes involve the enhanced file browser and more efficient file types to help you manage your ideas. A revamped search field enables you to enter keywords to bring up corresponding sounds and sets, really saving time and improving your ability to find sounds and clips in a vast collection, quickly and effortlessly. The Live Library is another innovative feature, housing folders audio files, live sets and clips – a new type of file that allows you to save audio or MIDI, along with all of its associated effect settings, automation, and warping data. This is an amazing development and allows you to experiment till your heart’s content, and even if a piece doesn’t exactly fit in your current production, you can simply drag it into the file browser, name it and from there it will be remembered as a live clip, ready for insertion in your next project. These features may seem simple, but are major developments that make Live 5 a great deal more intuitive than pervious versions.

Another way Live 5 saves you time is through a feature called Device Groups. This is a way to string together multiple effects, or soft synths that you found to work well together, and save them as a preset. Never again will duplicating just the right tone or delay be difficult. Save it as a Device Group and reuse the preset at anytime. The last feature that really impressed me was Delay Compensation, an algorithm that automatically determines the delay caused by all the plug-ins assigned in a Live Set and makes adjustments for smoother playback.

Speaking of effects, this has always been a point of contention with me. Live has always had a few effects, several of which were very solid, but in general, they were rather uninspiring. I am happy to report that with Live 5, Ableton has really stepped things up. New Phaser and Flanger effects lends an amazing retro feel, with all the benefits of six types of LFOs and an great interface for selecting delay time and feedback. A new Auto-Pan can sync to tempo for modulating amplitude and panning, but the crown jewels are the Saturator effect and the incredible, Beat Repeat.

Saturator’s infinitely adjustable distortion offers the gamut from subtle to total destruction of your sound signal. It is the Beat Repeat, however, that really takes the cake. Randomly rearranging drums, vocals and other samples on-the-fly, it gives mind boggling results, with a high level of customization.

Although Live 5 has some multi-track abilities, it is clearly not the aim to replace more elaborate recording software. It can certainly do many of the same things you trust Pro Tools, Digital Performer or Logic to handle, but it is ultimately a tool that works best in conjunction with a more dedicated music production application. In the world of live laptop performance and DJing however, Ableton Live stands alone on top of the heap.

Amazing, stable, efficient, Ableton Live 5 offers a myriad of top notch effects, amazing time-stretching tools and an overall simplicity that makes it a joy to use. This is an essential upgrade.