Ableton Announces the New Live 9 and Push Instrument/Controller

After three long years of development, Ableton has finally announced the new version of their flagship product: Live 9. The Berlin-based company also introduced a unique grid-style instrument/controller called Push. If you’re unfamiliar with Ableton Live, the hottest new feature in Live 9 likely may not seem too significant, but read more. In Live 9, it’s now possible to record automation into “Clips,” as well as add curves to automation. I’ll explain why this is important, below. Live 9 is a 64-bit application, but Ableton has been beta testing a 64-bit version of Live 8 for some time now, so this was expected. When Live 9 arrives in the first quarter of 2013, it will feature 32- and 64-bit installers.

Ableton Live 9

In addition to the automation features, there’s a great deal of cool new stuff in Live 9. It’s now possible to convert audio into MIDI. It’s been possible to instantly convert MIDI clips into audio for a long time with Live, and this new feature now makes the opposite possible as well. For example, if you have an audio drum loop that you really like, you can now instantly convert it into MIDI and take it where you want to go. This feature also works with melodic and harmonic audio, in addition to rhythmic. The Browser in Live has been greatly improved, the EQ Eight effect has been completely rebuilt with better-sounding filters and a graphical feedback display, and a new bus-compression effect called Glue Compressor is included. Live 9 comes with more than 3,000 sounds and there are multiple  improvements and enhancements throughout the program.   

In order to understand importance of this new ability to write automation into clips, you need to understand a little bit about what makes Live special. There’s a unique component of Ableton Live called “Session View.” This is a grid into which you can drop audio and MIDI clips. Once in Session View, you can play or record into your Clips. It’s similar to a spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel. Any Clips that are in a row can be launched together as a “Scene.” You can easily arrange different parts of songs into these Scenes. You can have Scenes that represent the intro, verse, chorus, bridge, etc. Live makes it easy to create totally new songs working in this manner. Users really like how they can quickly experiment with the arrangement of songs, playing their parts in different orders, swapping out elements of each part of the song, etc. Session View encourages playfulness and experimentation, and it’s likely the most popular feature of Live. In addition to Session View, Live has a traditional timeline based composition area, like you find in every other DAW.

Hardcore users of Ableton Live have wanted the ability to write automation into Clips for many years, and that day is on its way. Making what are called “Dummy Clips” was previously a workaround for this function, but this is no longer necessary with Live 9. Clips can now be used in both the Arrangement View and Session View of Live, and the automation that you write into them will stay with them, no matter which view you decide to use.

Push

Push is a hardware instrument/controller that was designed by Ableton and built by Akai Professional, makers of the popular APC40 controller for Live. Push has 64 velocity- and pressure-sensitive pads that are backlit with multi-colored RGB LEDs. There are also 11 touch sensitive endless encoders and one large ribbon controller. The basic idea of this controller is not only to give you complete control over Session View, but to make the entire process of writing and performing easier, more focused on hardware and less focused on your computer’s monitor.

The main grid of glowing pads on Push can be used in many different ways. One of the templates for Push breaks the grid up by dedicating the 16 pads to the bottom left as traditional trigger pads, the 16 pads next to them on the right are used for navigating Live, and all of the pads above them are used for controlling a multi-layer step sequencer. The pads are also used to launch and control clips, and they’re used for playing melodic instruments—think of the large square grid of buttons as a 64-note piano keyboard that you might find onboard a UFO. The designers at Ableton have taken a decade to decide what the ultimate controller for Ableton Live would be and it appears that they finally made up their minds and had it built. As a Live user myself, I can’t wait to check this thing out.

Even though there are so many illuminated pads and buttons on Push, and it has a generously sized LCD screen, the device is bus powered from a single USB port. A universal AC adapter is included, and when used, the lights and the display get brighter. Push is only a controller, there is no soundcard. It cannot be used as an audio interface. That’s not an issue, however, because most Live users who need an audio interface likely already have one.

Live 9 and Push are expected to arrive in the first quarter of 2013.