Ableton Live 11 is coming soon…

This morning, November 10th 2020, Ableton have officially announced the next version of industry standard DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), Ableton Live.

Ableton Live 11 brings many new features, sounds, instruments and effects, that will massively expand on the already wide range of compositional tools that Producers, Artists and DJs have grown to love and depend on over the last two decades.

Here’s everything you need to know about Ableton Live 11

Ableton Live 11’s Release Date

Ableton are being tight lipped about the exact release date for Ableton Live 11, however they have tentatively said it’s long awaited arrival will be “first quarter of 2021”.

Until then, we’ll have to suffice with the still amazing Ableton Live 10 and all of its sweet sweet features!

Pricing

New Buyers:

Ableton are currently advertising 20% off all versions of Live 10, and within that price, you get Live 11 for free!

This is great value, and means that you could now get Live 11 for as little as £55 if you buy Live 10 Intro

Full Pricing is as follows:

• Live Intro 10>11 £55 (from £69)
• Live Standard 10>11 £255 (from £319)
• Live Suite 10>11 £431 (from £539) 

Upgrade Pricing:

If you already own a version of Live, you can also log in to your account on the Ableton website, and get a quote for your upgrade to Live 11.

The exact price will vary, depending on the version of Live you own.

Ableton have quoted me £143 to pre - order my upgrade from Live 10 suite to Live 11 Suite, which I think is excellent value.

What’s New About Ableton Live 11?

In short - quite a lot!

There’s a lot to get through here, so we’ll break it all down piece by piece, and highlight the most relevant and exciting new developments.

1. Vocal Comping:

This has been an ultimate Ableton Live power user wish list item for many years, and Ableton have finally pulled the trigger.

What is Comping?

For those of you who aren’t sure what ‘Comping’ is, it’s a technique of creating a ‘Composite’ performance from a variety of different recordings.

Think of it as the perfect vocal performance, spliced together from the best of multiple recorded takes

Is Comping a brand new thing?

This has long been available in other DAW’s, and to be honest, on first glance, Live 11’s new comping system looks rather similar if you’ve been a long term Logic Pro user, like we at MYT are.

Logic Pro X has had ‘Quick Swipe’ vocal comping for over a decade, so whilst it’s nice to see Ableton finally get up to speed in this area, let’s not get it twisted - this isn’t exactly an earth shattering new feature, and it’s not exactly been unique to Logic Pro over the years either!

Nontheless, it’s very pleasing to see such a development, as it shows Ableton’s renewed vigour for product development, after taking what seemed like a lifetime to get form Live 9 to Live 10

In terms of the actual features, Live 11’s comping allows for both audio and MIDI tracks to be comped, as well as comping multiple tracks simultaneously, which is ideal if you’re editing a group of musicians playing together and need to keep everything in sync.

2. MPE (MIDI Polyphonic Expression) Support:

This is another long time power user feature request - support for the next generation MPE control protocol, made popular and famous by companies like ROLI and their range of Seaboard and Blocks controllers.

Previously, we have had to rely on individual instruments and plugins to support MPE (such as Arturia Pigments), but now Live 11 itself will natively support MPE

What does this mean? Being able to access and edit all of the performance data that MPE creates for a start, which will be hugely useful, and bring about an entirely new world of possibilities for jamming, live performance, arrangement and automation.

Ableton have also announced that select instruments, such as their Wavetable synth, will be MPE compatible in Live 11, and I imagine you can expect MPE support across the board for all appropriate instruments in the long term.

This could be the one new feature that changes the game for Ableton users in a very real way.

3. New Effects, Instruments, Devices!

This is where Live 11 gets chunky with the new features.

Hybrid Reverb

first of all, the much maligned (and for me, underrated) Reverb gets an overhaul, and is now known as Hybrid Reverb.

This essentially looks like a combination of both the traditional stock Ableton reverb, which i’ve loved for years (and have a very popular Rack you can download for free by the way), and the excellent Convolution Reverb Pro from Max 4 Live’s suite of effects.

Hybrid Reverb will allow you to combine elements of both Algorithmic and Convolution reverbs together in the same setting, which could make for some very tasty sonic landscapes. Could be amazing for Ambient, Drone and Organic, Textural producers

Spectral Time & Resonator

Ableton are leaning into the granular processing realm heavily with these two new devices - a Resonator that can give some really interesting metallic, angelic yet robotic tones.

The Spectral Resonator also features a MIDI sidechain, which allows users to play the effect in key, essentially turning it into a hybrid polyphonic synth.

Spectral Time is a very interesting delay effect, that creates incredible metallic sounding echoes, and possesses a Freeze option which is bound to end up being part of every Techno drop for next 2 years

Vector Suite

These new effects and synths are ‘inspired by nature’ and have physics at their heart. They mostly centre around various physical objects interacting and bouncing off each other, and in various environments, to create generative musical and audio effects. Great if you want to introduce some randomness into your music.

Other instruments, such as Tree Tone, look to take natural processes from the tree and plant worlds, and apply them to generative music production….although I can’t think where I’ve seen something like this before

Pitchloop 89

Robert Henke, the Godfather of Ableton, is back in the fold, and has developed a really interesting looking new Max 4 Live effect for Live 11, which allows you to create pitch shifting carnage, from the glitchy to the shimmering, the stuttering to gliding. This is bound to be a new go - to for those dedicated to pushing the boundaries of Sound Design.

4. Stage Performance Enhancements

Tempo Following looks to be a massive new feature and will be of interest to anyone using Ableton Live on stage as part of their performances.

Live 11 will be able to listen to the tempo of incoming audio, and adjust its tempo in real time to keep everything in sync between what’s what’s going on both inside the box and outside on the stage!

This is huge, because now live performers can play with confidence that their performances, with all their subtlety and groove and feel, will be reflected by Ableton Live 11 actively listening and responding.

For DJs, this is also massive news, as tempo’s can now fluctuate as needed for the energy of the moment and the crowd (when crowds are allowed!) and Ableton’s use as a giant FX unit is greater enhanced.

5. Macros

I bloody love a good Rack.

A love a good Macro even more.

So it’s tremendous to see that Live 11 will boast much more flexibility in this department.

For a start, we’ll now have access to up to 16 Macros in a Rack, which will save having to make Racks within Racks to get the extra functionality we’ve needed to do more complex control and sound design tasks.

Not only that, another feature which will be amazing for both live musicians and studio producers alike, Macro Snapshots are now a possibility, meaning we can smoothly move between entire Macro settings, both on stage, and in the studio. Hopefully this can be automated, which will be a total game changer if so!

On first look, the new Macro controls will clean up and enhance workflows beautifully

6. Note Probability

The theme of a lot of the new features in Ableton Live 11 seems to be adding in more generative, unpredictable, randomness into the production, compositional and sound design process.

This extends into the realms of MIDI and globally with Ableton Live 11’s Follow Actions.

With Note Chance, Live 11 will allow you to set a probability that a note will trigger, which will lead to some very interesting creative possibilities for subtle (or not to subtle) variations to Drums, Arpeggios ad Melodic sequences

The long overlooked Follow Actions function also gets a new lick of paint, with new features that allow for Actions to be linked to clip length, so they behave differently depending on how long they are. Specific clip scan now be sequenced together through Follow Actions, as well as being globally activated and deactivated, giving a huge range of control for live performers, and could open the door to tracks pretty much arranging themselves automatically (that’s me out of a job!)

7. New Instruments!

This is where it gets really interesting, as Ableton have pulled off something of a surprise, partnering with industry leading creator of Orchestral Instruments, Spitfire Audio.

Ableton isn’t know for being a standard tool in the world of film scoring, which is very much Spitfire’s home base. However, they’ve created 3 new instruments for Live 11, an Upright Piano, Brass Quartet and String Quartet, which will no doubt carry the same guarantee of quality as Spitfire’s own line of top of the range instruments.

A fantastic addition to Live, and no doubt music to the ears of Organic House producers everywhere.

There’s also 3 other new Live Packs to use based on Vocals, Organic Instruments and Drones

Conclusion: We're Excited!

That’s about all we know at the moment, but there's bound to be loads more to come, as there's quite a bit hinted at in the video Ableton have released that they haven't directly referenced...yet ;)

Ableton have announced they’re doing a public beta test, as they always do, and anyone with a valid Ableton Live 9 or 10 license can participate.

A word of warning though, from someone who has done these in the past - the software isn’t stable or to be relied upon, as it’s still in development (hence the word beta providing a bit of a clue) and should be approached as fun experiment, rather than making it your workhorse DAW.

We’ll be keeping you updated with more information as we get it, and bringing you what you need to know, so keep an eye on the MYT Blog, and our YouTube channel where we’ll be dropping regular videos in the run up to the launch.

Also, we’ll be updating our ‘Getting Started in Ableton Live’ course on MYT so it’s fully Live 11 ready from Day 1, so keeps your eyes peeled for announcements on that in early 2021, or whenever Ableton finally drops the full release version!