Ableton Live V2

Ableton Live V2
Reviewed by: The Puppeteer
Platform: Windows and Apple OS 9 and OS X

Recently Ableton released Version 2 of their innovative loop composition program called Live. The package promises a simple to use and very powerful interface that enhances the process of Live performance from both PC's and Macs.

Sonikmatter have spent the last couple of months rigourously testing every aspect of Live to see what it really is capable of and have come away quite impressed. To see what to expect with Live, and just what it can and can't do - read on.

Installation

Ableton Live came packaged with a CD-ROM and a spiral-bound manual. Installation was a breeze, just pop in the CD and follow the instructions. A challenge/response copy protection scheme was in place, but with an internet connection the authorization process was as good as invisible. Authorising the software manually is just as easy with an authorization key being displayed immediately for entry into the software. For those without web access, email, phone or fax registration are available as an alternative.

The software version initially sent for review was V1.5, and an update to V1.5.2 was immediately available on Ableton's website. Shortly after, V2 was announced and the software was again updated via Ableton's website. The update was seamless, though a new authorization key was required to unlock the program.

Manual

The Live manual is a small spiral-bound volume of 130 pages. The spiral binding is a welcome change to perfect bound manuals, where you can leave it open flat while experimenting with the program rather than having the manual slam shut on you.

The language of the manual is easy to read and simple concepts are explained in a no-nonsense manner. More advanced concepts are explained with step by step examples so that the concept can be easily demonstrated. The entire manual can be read cover to cover in 2-3 hours, though the program itself is so intuitive that a quick glance through the manual will be sufficient to get you going. The manual itself is well organized and looking up new or seldom used functions is quick and easy.

One small criticism of the manual is that many of the pictures are quite blurry, which detracts from an otherwise very well written manual.

Included on the CD-ROM is a flash tour of Live that explains most of the features by clicking on elements of the screen. A few minutes in this tutorial and you will be a Live maestro, though it's a pity that there is no way to exit the tutorial. No exit, quit, minimize or "Dammit, I've had enough already" buttons to be seen. I had to Taskkill Flash to get my primary monitor back.

The CD-ROM also contains a manual addendum in PDF format that outlines additions to Live since the writing of the manual. The addendum for V1.5 includes Rewire functionality and troubleshooting, render to disk, MIDI and sync, the use of multiple I/O audio busses, new effects, key commands and other new features for V1.5. This is an essential read for those updating from earlier versions of Live.

The Version 2 update includes a full HTML format user manual including a "what's new" section for Live veterans. Some of the additional features provided with V2 are the Cross Fader, better MIDI controller support and the use of project folders.

Making Some Noise

Setting up the audio within Live is fairly painless (except for a peculiar problem where the outputs aren't opened with my DSP Factory). Live 2 can use DirectX/MME drivers or ASIO drivers. The latency handling is probably the best of any that I have seen, with options for manual entry of latency components outside of what can be calculated by Live, if required.

The Audio Preference window from Ableton Live V2.0.1

The routing options at the bottom of this screen are quite useful and actually vary a couple of Live's features. If the pre-listen is set to the same audio outputs as the master, then pre-listen mode for each of the sound clips will route the sample directly to the master output. This is useful for dropping off vocal samples into a song. If this is set differently, as in the image above, then these previews are routed to a separate bus, which can be set to headphones (for example) to preview samples before dropping them into a mix, similar to how a DJ will preview and sync a song ready for mixing.

This setting also affects the solo busses. Setting the Pre-Listen bus to a secondary audio output gives the option of soloing tracks or sending a track to the pre-fade listen output (ie headphones). The Solo/PFL button located in the master track (to the left of the screen below) is also very useful when you want to drop a mix to a single sound, using a channel solo, and then slowly adding tracks for a build. When you want to the whole mix back at the end of the build, just hit the Solo/PFL button and the whole mix is back on the master outs.

The Solo button can be seen in the screen shot of the Session View below.

Recording new sounds is also very easy. Click on the arm track icon (the little circle with a triangle in it below the microphone) in a track and select a slot. Recording will begin on the next cycle and can be halted by playing the recorded clip, or another clip on the same channel (in which case the recorded clip will be in loop mode), by stopping the track or global playback, or by stopping the track monitoring by clicking the arm track icon again (in which case the sample will be set to one shot mode.)

The samples are automatically named with the name of the Live set, the track and scene name and also an incremented take number. These can be saved to any directory as set in the preferences Misc Tab.

One feature that would have been nice for live performances is to be able to preset the length of the recording so that you can keep your hands on the controller keyboard for the entire recording process. You can get around this by setting a sustain pedal to trigger the particular clip and use your feet to punch in and out the recording, though being able to preset, say, a 4 bar record length would make this process much quicker than remapping the MIDI controller for each recording.

Session View

The Session View in Live is where sets and arrangements can be built in real time and really is the heart and soul of Live. Dragging a sample from the file list in the left frame to a vacant slot and hitting the play button will get a sample playing. Repeat the process to your hearts' content to get the music happening.

Yes Live really is that simple, though of course it helps if your samples are trimmed and looped perfectly beforehand. If your samples aren't perfect though, the built-in clip editor can be used to set loop markers and warp markers (more on these later) to allow you to sync the clips to each other.

One other function that should be mentioned here is the clip preview fuction. Clicking the headphone icon above the file browser allows a clip to be played back, in sync, when it is selected in the browser. If a second output buss is selected for pre-fade listening, then it will be played there for previewing (in headphones for example). If no second output buss is selected, then the clip is previewed over the master outs, which is great for dropping on-off vocal samples into a mix very quickly. This function is an awful lot of fun, and will be the focus of alot of attention for DJ's.

The image below shows the session view with an effect loaded into one of the tracks. The window at the bottom left is an interactive help menu (currently showing the entry for the Solo/PFL button mentioned above) that shows help for the element that the mouse pointer is currently positioned on.

The Session View, showing a VST effect in expanded mode. Click for full size image (85.7KB)

The clip pool is made up of Tracks (vertical columns) and Scenes (horizontal rows). Each track plays back through the same mixer channel and Effects Insert Bus, hence only one clip on each track can be playing at any one time. The scenes allow a number of clips to be triggered simultaneously. Clicking on the scene (numbered 1 to 12 above) triggers all clips in the same horizontal row, allowing introductions, verses, choruses, etc. to be easily set up and triggered.

Clips can appear in more than one place in the clip pool if it needs to be available to two tracks or two scenes.

Clips can also be triggered by assigning keys from your computer keyboard or a MIDI event. Assigning this key or MIDI event to trigger a clip could not be easier. Click Key or MIDI and then select the item that you wish to assign to the trigger and the trigger is set. Continuous MIDI controllers can be assigned to faders and effects parameters as well to triggering clips. In the case of triggering clips, the clip will be started once the controller has moved above half way.

The session view of Live V2 also features the new cross fader. The bottom region of the session view, located above the effects section, shows a series of "A" and "B" boxes. By assigning a track to "A" the cross fader (positioned below the master fader) will fade the track as it is moved to the right, in the same way that a DJ mixer can fade between tracks. At the extreme left of the mixer, only unassigned or tracks assigned to "A" will be heard, while at the far right unassigned and "B" tracks will be audible.

This feature is a remarkably useful tool in Live and can be used for applications such as DJing from the computer with pre-warped tracks (see below for a description of warping tracks) or for fading between elements within a more complex arrangement. As a live performance feature it can be used very effectively to create slick sounding performances.

Effects

Ableton Live supports the use of VST effects and native format effects, created by Ableton. The effects can be used as insert effects (on a per track basis) or by assigning them to auxiliary busses. There are 2 aux busses available using send parameters on each track. The auxilary sends appear as separate tracks to the left of the master track and can have effects assigned in the same way as the track insert effects.

The insert effects are accessed using the frame at the bottom right of the session view which can change between the effects bus, the clip view, and the input and output busses. Effects can be chained by dragging additional effects into the effects bus (which will affect the entire track). Each effect can have 2 parameters set to the X-Y controller displayed on the screen, or all available parameters can be displayed in the extended view as shown in the screen shot above.

At the bottom of the effect tab is an incredibly useful feature that is common throughout Live. The overview, which shows the area currently visible in the window. Selecting the little black box on the diagram next to "Track 3" allows you to scroll the window across to access different parameters.

Of course, you could just hit edit to show the VST graphic window of the particular plug-in and play with the effect as you can in other VST hosts, and all parameter changes can be recorded in real time for later playback in either view.

Any parameter that is altered is highlighted by a small red dot (such as that on the green effect activator in the diagram above). This extends to the mixer and pan controls as shown in the mixer section of the main window above. All of this automation data can be edited in the arrange view, as well as clip triggering, in a style similar to that used in Sonic Foundry's Acid program.

In addition to the VST effects used under Live, Ableton also provides a number of customized effect plug-ins that work exclusively with Live. These effects can be accessed by clicking on the Ableton logo in the extreme left margin.

A range of efficient and useful effects is displayed with a compressor, reverb and delays being available as well as the more unusual 'Redux' (a bit reduction effect), 'Grain Delay' (a granular synthesis plug-in) and 'Erosion' (which introduces aliasing type artefacts to the sound.)

Ableton's effects will work alongside third party VST effects, integrating both into the effects chain at the bottom of the screen. Ableton effects, in contrast with the VST effects, have no popup user-interface, and instead have a more powerful interface accessible directly from the plug-in window.

An example of a VST plug-in, Velocet's VFilter, is shown in the session view in the picture above, while the Ableton Filter Delay plug-in is shown in the effects window of the arrange view, below.

Arranger View

The arranger view in Live is quite similar to working in Sonic Foundry's Acid program and as such, past users of acid will be able to make a nearly seamless transition to working in Live by using this mode.

The arranger mode can be selected by clicking on the icon with three horizontal lines in the top right of the session view window.

One welcome feature of Live that many Acid users will notice when they start working in the arrange view is that Live isn't limited to having a single sample on a track. The tracks can change between samples, which saves an awful lot of scrolling around the window, though of course two samples can't be played on the same track at the same time.

One minor complaint about the arrange editor is that the split command isn't available from a right-click context menu, and that a region needs to be selected to split the region. Simply placing a cursor where a split is required and right clicking onto a split option would be a useful way to split the audio region. Splitting of regions is great when a small subloop is required, but it's a bit of pain to select a region to the start off the sample in order to chop the audio region into two portions.

The easiest way to build an arrangement is to click the record button in the transport bar in the session view of Live and start triggering samples. The arrange view will capture all of your triggering and fader movements for playback or editing at a later stage.

You can also change views without affecting the playback of your performance, and can interrupt arrangement playback by triggering samples or moving faders in the session view. To return to the original playback click on the "return to arrangement" button (the button with 3 bars and an arrow, next to the record button in the transport bar.)

As users get used to working with Live they will realize that the arrange view and session view are not separate applications, but different ways of viewing the same piece of music. The arranger view is shown in the screenshot below.

The Arranger View, showing a native Ableton Effect. Click for full size image (96.0KB)

In the image above, the automation data can be seen as red lines on the individual tracks. The data in Track 1 was recorded during the performance and results in dense regions of control dots, which can be time-consuming to edit.

The other tracks show automation data that was drawn in manually. To select the parameter to vary the two drop down menus under the track names are used. Double clicking on the automation line will insert a new control point that can be dragged and dropped both vertically and horizontally using the mouse. The automation isn't limited to a single parameter, but only one can be displayed on each track at any one time.

This can make it a little difficult to keep track of what automation is engaged on a track, but with the automated parameters being highlighted with the little red dot, this doesn't prove to be a major problem.

Sample Management

The recording of samples into Live, was discussed above, briefly. Once a sample is in Live, whether recorded or dragged from the hard drive, many options are available that affect how the sample is treated.

The image below shows the clip view of a sample of some duct tape being torn.

The Sample View. Click to show full size image (25.9KB)

Starting from the left, the loop button selects whether the sample will loop indefinitely, or whether it will play as a "one-shot" loop, stopping after a single loop has been played.

Enabling the Warp button will allow the tempo manipulation magic of Live to be used. With the Warp button off, the clips will play back at their original tempo, which can be useful for arrhythmic sound effects and vocal samples, though for loops the Warp button will almost universally be engaged.

The trigger mode can be set to 4 different modes:

• Trigger - this is the default mode, and allows clips to be started when the mouse button is clicked down.


• Gate - only plays the clip while the mouse button (or MIDI note) is held down. When the trigger is released, the clip stops.


• Toggle - clicking down with the mouse or a MIDI note once will start the clip. Triggering it again will stop the clip


• Repeat - holding down the key or button will repeatedly trigger the clip at quantization rate, which is set in the box below the Launch Mode box. This can be used to do the Max Headroom effect, and for stuttering type effects. When you release the key/button, the sample will continue playing normally, though unfortunately reclicking the sample retriggers it from the start rather than repeating the currently playing measure.
  

The quantization determines which measure division Live will wait for until the clip is started, as well as being used for repeat mode.

The sample setting section of the clip editor, shows information such as the sampling rate and bit depth and provides a number of file management parameters.

Clicking on the Edit button launches an external audio editor, defined in the Preferences section, under the Misc tab. Launcing the editor will stop the output from Live, but at least it displays a warning box stating this before this happens, giving you the opportunity to cancel the action.

The Repl (Replace) button allows you to select another clip to replace the current one, while the Save button allows you to save the current sample settings, such as the position of the all-important Warp markers.

Hi-Q gives you the option of using a more processor-intensive and better quality pitch-shifting algorithm for sample transposition. The transposition in Live allows you a ludicrous plus- or minus- 32 semitones of pitch-bending. Of all the programs I have heard that allow real-time independent pitch and tempo manipulation, Live gives the best transposition, even giving usable results at extreme ranges.

The Transpose and Detune parameters are used to do this transposition, and clicking on the arrows on the relevant control returns the transposition to 0 on that control, which is extremely handy. The Mode selected under the Warp heading will also influence how the transposition sounds for Warped clips. See the "Warp Mode" box for more information.

The fade button introduces a short fade at the ends of the samples to eliminate the loud click often heard if samples aren't trimmed at zero crossings.

Finally the Res button, will restore the default Warp settings, in case you totally mess them up, and the gain parameter adjusts the gain of the sample. Unfortunately this is also the only way to vertically magnify the sample, if you are trying to precisely place warp markers and you need more vertical resolution.

In the Loop section the start, end and length markers can be entered manually rather than dragging them on the sample display in the right part of the window. An interesting and useful feature of this window is that you can manipulate these parameters in real time while the clip is playing, and Live will automatically update the sample in a musical manner.

I found it fun to trigger two identical loops and to change the length and offset of one of the loops to create unusual and evolving textures and patterns. I did find that phase effects did occur on occasions while doing this, which is unfortunate, but the phasing seems consistent, indicating that this could be a bug with the software. Launching two identical clips in the session view, however, does appear to be sample accurate and such phasing doesn't occur.

The little arrows will center the sample display around the chosen setting, while the Pos/Start button alters whether the start point or the loop length is kept constant, when moving the end point, which again is another useful feature for syncing up loops.

The Warp window allows you to insert the original loop BPM with buttons to quickly double or halve the BPM to get it to match. Also provided are a time signature, the Warp mode (see the Warp Mode Box for more details), and the Transients box.

The Transients selector allows a range of transient "start points" to be selected. A setting of 1/16, for example, tells Live to resync the loop at sixteenths. This will ensure that transients on 16ths will hit at the same time on different loops, regardless of how the tempo shifing is done. This can be varied for different loop types, and generally one setting appreciably reduces any audio artifacts. Generally it should be pretty clear from the loop which setting should be used. Having said that though, some interesting effects can be achieved by setting this to a "wrong" setting and messing around with transposition and the Warp Mode. The transients box is only available in Beats mode. Changing to another mode will present different controls related to that tempo-stretching mode.

Moving now to the sample display in the right most section of the clip viewer a waveform display is shown as well as the time and a bunch of different markers. It is in this part of the view where all of the Warping of samples happens. This is the window where you can make your samples all sync up, which is in many ways the very heart of Ableton Live.

The topmost marker, the blue line with grey arrows, is the loop marker of the sample. When the sample is playing, and set to loop mode it will play the audio in between these two markers. Both markers can be moved at once by selecting the blue bar, or the end points can be moved individually, by selecting each one.

On the next level down is a single blue arrow that represents the sample start point. As demonstrated in our duct tape sample, this does not need to be set to the start of the sample, or even the loop start, but can be independently placed within the loop.

The clip playback will ALWAYS start at this point, which means that in order to play back parts of a long sample while warping it, this marker will need to be moved. This is problematic because the Live engine always syncs with reference to this marker. The ramifications of this is that while adjusting warp markers, the sample start needs to be set EXACTLY on the previous warp marker, or one of the synced points in order for the following Warp markers to be in time. This isn't immediately obvious, and allowing the sample start marker to be set independently of the synchonization would be a far more logical approach.

This also makes it difficult if the first downbeat is not at the start of the sample, because normally the first Warp marker will be set on this first down beat, with the tempo adjustments synchronizing to later beats. The earlier beats then have negative values, but Live insists on using the sample start point as the trigger point, so in order to play the lead up to the first down beat on a song with a long intro, quite a bit of effort needs to go into setting additional warp markers to make the song sound natural when it is triggered.

In this case it would make more sense to "anchor" the sample around the first downbeat using a reference marker, calculating when, during a measure, the sample needs to be triggered to ensure that the reference marker falls on a quantized division and automatically triggers the sample.

Fortunately Ableton provides key shortcuts to advance the loop and sample start markers one loop length, so that the next region can be Warped, but this doesn't solve the problem of playing a song intro.

The third level at the top of the sample display shows the Warp markers themselves. Warp markers are highlighted by using the green numbering. Double-clicking on a marker (such as 1.2.2 in the screenshot above) will create a warp marker. Warp markers can be dragged, the same way as markers not between established warp markers, to adjust the synchronization of the sample. The easiest way is to set a warp marker on a down beat and then adjust the next bar marker to appear on the next down beat. If the song is at a constant tempo, then the rest of the markers should line up. If they aren't, then drop another warp marker and resync the remainder of the song.

Using the shortcut keys to advance the loop markers can also be used creatively in real time. Playing back a long clip that has been synchronized, a loop can be moved forwards and backwards, while maintaining sync. On the review system, attempting to do this in the middle of loops resulted in audio glitches, though moving the loop markers while the playback position was near the ends of the loop was flawless.

It's a pity that shortcut keys can't be assigned to Warp markers to allow the user to jump all over the clip while maintaining sync. This could be used to do some inspiring DJing, with song length clips, especially if two clips could be displayed and manipulated in real time.

One item that I would miss from Acid if I used Live exclusively would be the Chopper, where beats can be quickly and easily rearranged to form new loops. In Live this would need to be done in an external editor.

Apart from these gripes, the Warp markers work like a charm. Using the up and down arrows to advance the loop and setting Warp markers from beginning to end make it quick and easy to sync up a song to allow playback alongside other songs and audio loops. It took me a few tries to get the hang of this, but once you get the hang of "Warping" a song, it's really quite intuitive.

MIDI Support

Live doesn't currently support playback of MIDI tracks, like the current versions of Sonic Foundry's Acid do, which is a pity because with MIDI playback and composition I could probably shut down all the rest of my composition tools.

The MIDI support for sample triggering and controller manipulation however is second to none, and the inclusion of triggering from the computer keyboard will be a welcome addition for laptop warriors everywhere.

Live will also synchronize to external MIDI clock messages and MIDI Timecode, which is extremely useful, and goes a long way to overcoming the lack of MIDI playback, as the composition functions on MIDI modules and workstations can be utilized for MIDI triggering duties. Alternatively, Live can be used as the master device and send sync out to a MIDI port for other devices to sync to, depending upon how you wish to work.

Another big bonus for Live users is the Rewire 2 support allowing Live audio streams to be routed through Rewire to applications such as Steinberg's Cubase. A test of Rewire through Cubase showed it to work well.

Conclusion

Ableton Live really have hit the nail on the head when it comes to providing a program for Live manipulation of audio loops. Creating original and dynamic musical works in real-time is almost too easy with this program and a decent sample library. The session view is an innovative new way of organizing music that takes full advantage of a computer environment.

The other tools provided with Live, such as the arranger, effects support and audio warping complement Live's session view perfectly, allowing complete works to be composed quickly and easily. There really is no other product in the current market that achieves the flexibility and functionality of Ableton Live. Sonic Foundry's Acid would probably be the closest competitor, but it does not offer anything comparable to Live's session view, though it does include a MIDI arranger and supports playback of MIDI tracks, which Live doesn't currently offer.

The pitchbending and tempo stretching capabilities of Ableton Live are fantastic, with several alternative algorithms available to ensure that your samples sound good, regardless of whether they are beats, pads, vocals or noise.

Overall Ableton Live is great product that sets new standards for loop-based composition.