Ableton Live 11 Suite Review | Biggest upgrades explained | Audioplugins

Ableton Live 11 Suite:

As Ableton Live 11 Suite Review release version finally goes to 11 in its 20th year, what improvements, refinements, and additions does it deliver? There’s no major visual overhaul as we saw in the upgrade from Live 9 to Live 10, and it’s hard to tell Live 11 visually from its predecessor unless you know where to look. But this visual similarity hides some significant structural improvements: specifically MPE support, more versatility inside clips and device racks, and multiple take lanes in the Arrangement. Ableton has also had the builders in to work on the instruments and effects, with some upgrades to existing devices and some intriguing new additions.

Once you’ve assembled a number of takes, you can start assembling your final track from them, and there are convenient keyboard shortcuts for selecting regions within takes and copying them into the track. Although the obvious use of take lanes is to assemble the best possible track from distinct takes of the same musical phrase or section, there’s nothing to stop you creating takes from completely different material and slicing them together creatively. Selection and editing is quantised to the grid by default, as you’d expect, and take fragments are sliced into the track with short crossfades to eliminate clicks or glitches. There’s nothing special about take lanes compared to the main lane of a track: they contain clips, and you can cut, copy, paste and edit Arrangement clips whether they are in take lanes or not.

What’s new in Live 11?

Comping: combine the best of multiple passes of an audio or MIDI performance into your perfect take. Or approach sound design in a new way by splicing together random samples from your library.

MPE compatibility: get your hands on an MPE controller and add bends, slides and pressure for each individual note in a chord, make subtle expression variations, morph between chords, and create evolving sonic textures.

New devices: stretch, shift and blur signals with Spectral Resonator and Spectral Time. Put sounds in any real or unreal space with the Hybrid Reverb. Generate ideas with Inspired by Nature – six devices based on natural and physical processes – or add jittery glitches, delayed digital shimmers and more with Pitch Loop89.

Features for the stage: with tempo following, Live adjusts its tempo in real time based on incoming audio, making it a dynamic part of your band. Create builds, drops and instant variations to sounds during a performance using Macro Snapshots. Racks now offer between 1 and 16 Macros, and you can randomise their states with the push of a button.

Tools to add chance: note chance and velocity chance features let you define probability of notes and velocity values, generating surprising variations to your patterns, or humanised variation in their dynamics.

New sound packs: Voice Box for experimental vocal manipulation, Mood Reel for modern narrative-setting, and Drone Lab for sustained tones and textures. Plus the three new Upright Piano, String- and Brass Quartet Packs – created in collaboration with Spitfire Audio – capture popular orchestral instrument combinations in intimate, expressive detail.

Features of Ableton Live 11 Suite Review:

Multitrack Audio recording and MIDI sequencing of software and hardware instruments
Unique Session View for nonlinear composition, flexible performance and improvisation
Real-time warping of audio: automatically sync music and loops, regardless of tempo
MIDI-mappable controls for hands-on creation onstage or in the studio – plus automatic mapping for popular hardware controllers
Comping: select and combine the best of multiple passes of an audio or MIDI performance.
Linked-track editing: link two or more tracks to edit their content simultaneously.
Group tracks: use multiple levels of groups to mix with greater flexibility and manage detailed arrangements more easily.
Audio-to-MIDI conversion tools: extract harmony, melody or drums from an audio sample and convert it into MIDI.
Tempo following: Live adjusts its tempo in real time based on an incoming audio signal
Note chance and velocity chance: set the probability that a MIDI note or drum hit will occur and define ranges for velocity probability to generate pattern variations and humanise dynamics.
Combine multiple instruments and effects into a single device with Instrument Racks
Combine MIDI effects into a single device with MIDI Effect Racks
Comprehensive selection of built-in audio effects for creative sound design, mixing or mastering
Advanced sampling and slicing tools
VST2, VST3 and Audio Unit support
MIDI Polyphonic Expression: allows MPE-capable devices to control multiple parameters of every note in real time for more expressive instrumental performances.
Groove engine to apply swing to audio or MIDI, or extract rhythmic feel from other audio files
Import video as a clip and save modified video and audio
Time signature changes
Built-in Max for Live software with more instruments, audio and MIDI effects, and the ability to customise Live

ableton-live-11-hybrid-reverb

Instruments, effects and sounds:

17 instruments: Wavetable, Operator, Analog, Sampler, Simpler, Electric,Tension, Collision, Bass, Poli, Drum Rack, Drum Synths, Impulse, CV Instrument and CV Triggers, Instrument Racks and the External Instrument device
59 audio- and 15 MIDI effects, including Hybrid Reverb, Spectral Time and Spectral Resonator
5000+ sounds
70+GB of loops and samples

Technical feature compatibility:

Nondestructive editing with unlimited undo
Multitrack recording up to 32-bit/192 kHz
Automatic plug-in delay compensation
Ableton Link integration
MPE support
MIDI remote control instant mapping
MIDI output to hardware synths
MIDI Clock/sync
Generate or receive Pitch, Control, Clock and Trigger CV
Multicore/multiprocessor support
WAV, AIFF, MP3, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC file support
Unlimited Audio and MIDI tracks
Unlimited Scenes
12 Send and return tracks
256 Audio inputs, 256 outputs
Rex file support
POW-r dithering
Groove Pool and extract groove
Capture MIDI

Try Live 11 free for 90 days

Ableton Live 11 Suite Review | Biggest upgrades explained | Audioplugins