After a few years in which Ableton has worked on a variety of extra-curricular projects – launching Push and Move hardware, updating its Note app – the past 12 months have seen the Berlin brand turning the bulk of its attention back to its flagship DAW. Case in point: Live’s 12.2 update is only a few months old, but Ableton is already launching its next free ‘point’ release, Live 12.3 – which enters public beta today.
Scanning the release notes for 12.3, it quickly becomes clear why Ableton is keen to turn this update around quickly. Its two most significant new features both see Ableton addressing areas where Live was notably a step behind some of its key competitors.
The first big addition is AI-powered stem separation. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, it’s highly likely you’ve encountered similar functionality over the past few years.
While the ability to divide fully mixed tracks into component parts has been around for a while via dedicated tools such as Hit’n’Mix’s RipX, the technology has come on in leaps and bounds over the past couple of years, and is increasingly becoming integrated into mainstream music making software.
Real time stem mixing is now standard in most DJ software, and stem separation is already a feature embedded into production tools including Serato Sample, FL Studio and Logic Pro.
Live’s version is provided by Music AI and it can be accessed in Live’s audio clips, either in Session or Arrangement view, or within the browser. The separation works in the now-standard manner of dividing the audio file into stems labelled drums, vocals, bass and other, which appear as their own individual audio clips that can be treated like any other audio within Live.
In our early tests the quality seems on a par with similar functionality in Live's rivals. It's certainly a welcome addition, although its application is likely to be most useful for those regularly making remixes or DJ edits.
Perhaps more immediately useful for a lot of Live users is Splice integration within the DAW’s browser. Again, this isn’t unique to Live – similar functionality is already part of the workflow for Studio One and Pro Tools – but for the ever-growing amount of producers who regularly use Splice’s library of sounds as part of their production process, the drag-and-drop functionality is likely to be a major time-saver. What’s more, the ‘search with sound’ feature promises to help find sounds within Splice’s online library based on the rhythms and harmonies already present in your project.
But there's more...
As is often the case with these ‘point’ updates, however, some of the most exciting features are those lurking beyond the headlines.
Following the refresh of Auto Filter in Live 12.2, another of the DAW’s workhorse devices gets an overhaul here. This time it’s the turn of Auto Pan, which now becomes Auto Pan-Tremolo. The addition of tremolo functionality is essentially acknowledging the way in which many users were making use of the device anyway – by aligning the phase of Auto Pan’s left and right channels, it was already possible to use it to duck the volume of audio and create tremolo-style effects.
As well as introducing the dedicated tremolo mode, the new Auto Pan-Tremolo adds some really handy new features, including the ability to fade in the attack of the pan/tremolo effect as well as have it respond dynamically to the level of incoming audio.
It’s not quite an upgrade on the level of Auto Filter’s radical overhaul, but it does make one of the DAW’s most useful tools significantly more versatile.
Another significant new feature, somewhat hidden at the bottom of the press release, is the ability to set A and B states for every instrument and effect in Live. This is potentially incredibly useful, as it allows the users to experiment with two radically different sets of settings for any device and flip between them with a click of a button of the keyboard shortcut ‘p’.
There are improvements to the way in which Live bounces audio too. With 12.3 the DAW introduces a new Bounce Group functionality, which lets users bounce an entire group of tracks down to a new audio file with all its processing applied – which will prove handy for any users turning their projects into stems for mixing or live performance.
There are some cool new Packs and Max for Live tools added as part of the update too. In the new Generators Pack, users of Live Standard and Suite get access to a new percussive MIDI tool named Patterns, along with Sting, an acid bassline generator based on the popular Max device of the same name.
The excellent Sequencers Pack – full of great tools for generative creativity – adds the ability to create reproducible arrangements. The recently-added Expressive Chords gets updated too, with tools to make it easier to customise and transpose its bank of chord shapes.
Push it
There’s a lot of great news for Push 3 users in the update too. For one thing, the big headline features – stem separation, Patterns, Sting, group bounce – can all be accessed from Push in both tethered and standalone modes.
Push also gets some excellent upgrades all to itself though. The first of these is the ability to use class compliant audio interfaces with Push 3 in standalone mode. This means it’s now possible to vastly expand the amount of ins and outs available beyond those featured on the hardware itself. This could already be done via the use of the ADAT connection, but hooking up a standard audio interface is undeniably an easier and more convenient option.
The latest firmware update also adds a new XY control mode where Push’s expressive pad grid can be used to control effects Kaos Pad-style as well as apply punch-in effects by pushing an individual pad. There are also upgrades to Push’s sequencing workflow, allowing for touch sensitive control over velocity levels while step sequencing, as well as introducing a new Rhythm Generator layout for sequencing percussive patterns with Drum Racks.
Both Live 12.3 and the accompanying Push update are out in public beta today. Head to the Ableton site to read more and join the beta program.
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