Ableton Live 12 is a music production and performance software that is speedy, fluid, and adaptive. It offers a wide range of effects, instruments, sounds, and creative tools, allowing you to create any style of music you desire.
With Live 12, you can easily create your own unique sound by using the enormous library of instruments and effects, or you can remix a variety of well-selected Packs to create something truly unique. The software allows you to do everything in real-time and is completely adjustable, making it perfect for live performances and hands-on play, regardless of your setup. You can sequence your music in Live 12's linear Arrangement View or use the Session View to improvise and experiment with ideas outside of a timeline. Live's warping feature allows you to change the speed and timing of any audio in real-time without disrupting the flow of your music.
Whether you're recording MIDI or live instruments, vocals, or other sounds, Live's creative features can enhance your performance, produce new ideas, or turn spontaneous moments into music. You can use MIDI Transformations to modify your patterns, and MIDI Generators to generate new ideas that you can easily incorporate into your own compositions. Sound Similarity enables you to find presets and sounds that are similar to the ones you're working with.
Live 12 also comes with an array of new features, such as enhanced MIDI Transformations and Generators, Sound Similarity, adaptable Tuning Systems, improved Keys and Scales, and new devices like Roar, Meld's Twin Sound Engines, and Granulator III. Additionally, Live 12 offers MIDI Editor enhancements, Workflow enhancements, Accessibility and Navigation enhancements, and new Packs like the Performance Pack, Lost and Found collection, and two drum packs from Sound Oracle.
Live's synthesisers offer a diverse spectrum of sounds using wavetable, FM, subtractive, granular, analogue, and physical modelling architectures. Every Live edition includes the Core Library, which incorporates vintage synths, analogue drum machines, keys, multi-sampled drums, and much more.
On stage, you can perform, resequence, and remix your song in real-time with Live. You can use flexible MIDI mapping to configure almost any aspect of Live for hands-on control with your controller. You can create your own unique combinations of instruments and effects, as well as control any number of parameters with up to 16 Macro knobs. Find your favourite settings and save them as Macro snapshots, so you can create builds, drops, and immediate variations while performing.
Live also enables you to control external hardware, such as outboard effects and mixing desks. You can improvise your own sounds, resample them, or process audio from others in real-time.
You can connect Live to any MIDI controller, including MPE-compatible devices, to apply bends, slides, and pressure to individual chord notes, change subtle expressions, and use your hands to build dynamic audio tapestries. You can extend your setup using Ableton Link, a Live feature that keeps many devices in sync across a network connection. It's straightforward to utilise alongside other music applications like Reason, Serato, and an ever-expanding number of iOS apps and Link-enabled hardware.
Instruments, effects and sounds: