Live 6 review - part 1

sweetjesus · Post by **sweetjesus** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 9:11 am

Hi Guys,

I have had the previlage of noodling around with Live 6 for the last week.

When I started to mess with the new features I had to say that currently I see no end in sight in terms of potential that this software can fulfil.

My gut feeling is that the new features are of massive benefit of everyone especially the live performer.

The way you can arrange and organise and manage your sets and make sets interact is phenomental and I am perplexed as to the level of detail Ableton have managed to add to the application whilst retaining the simplistic overview.

It's been so hard to hold back on you guys for the last week, love you all so much and would have loved to shared with you the nitty gritty, but now that the floodgates are open and Ableton are cool with us speaking to you about it, here is the lowdown.

sampler :The Gift that keeps on giving

The new sampler in live is not just a sound playback engine, but more of a sound manipulation machine. It's the kind of tool that someone with long fuzzy white hair in lab coat made while someone called Igor was watching over their shoulder screaming "ITS aLIVE!"
I've turned a kick drum into a bubbly guitar vs benny benassi bassline sound... i've thrown vocals around and loaded my kontakt kits... im free to do whatever i want in the sampler, i cannot even begin to describe all the features. Fave so far is the resynthesis engine. Gnarles.

deva · Post by **deva** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 9:17 am

sweetjesus wrote:
The way you can arrange and organise and manage your sets and make sets interact is phenomental

can you say more about this?

sweetjesus · Post by **sweetjesus** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 9:23 am

The library has become a lot more helpful in your workflow.

You can store in your library, a channel with all of its effects in tact for immediate recally and combined with Device Groups which I review in depth in part 2, but in short they are wrappers for complex chains of effects manipulated by 8 knobs (macro controls) which can also be combined with the preset you store in the library.

This means that from now on I can create 'toys' which are packages I drop into my set containing clips, an effects rack and an immediate predefined way to use 8 knobs which you would have previously routed in a logical way to provide instant gratification.

Abzurd · Post by **Abzurd** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 9:44 am

You mentioned "sampler :The Gift that keeps on giving".

I take it this is a new sampler replacing simpler. Are their any other new software instruments or mods 2 the old ones?

Also is their going to be an additional price for sampler like operator?

Sounds like it's going to be great for Hip Hop production as well as every other kind of electronic music.

The ability to load kontakt kits is TRUELY EVOLUTIONARY! I use Kontakt with Live in 90% of my music.

Thanks 4 the word on 6

ABZurd

sweetjesus · Post by **sweetjesus** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 9:49 am

Abzurd wrote:You mentioned "sampler :The Gift that keeps on giving".

I take it this is a new sampler replacing simpler. Are their any other new software instruments or mods 2 the old ones?

Also is their going to be an additional price for sampler like operator?

Sounds like it's going to be great for Hip Hop production as well as every other kind of electronic music.

The ability to load kontakt kits is TRUELY EVOLUTIONARY! I use Kontakt with Live in 90% of my music.

Thanks 4 the 1st word on 6

ABZurd

Some words on plugins:

Sampler will be sold seperately. Check out www.ableton.com for details I think.

Simpler will remain. Sampler is a whole new beast. It is also very CPU friendly.

Operator has new filter mode and more FM algorithms.

Saturator has a waveshaper and more curves which allow so many tonal and textural variations it's absurd.

Dynamic Tube is a really nice new vaccum tube plugin. Sounds more natural than Antare's to me personally.

There's a Note length midi plugin.

A new 8 band EQ with a very good sound is also in there.

AdamJay · Post by **AdamJay** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 9:56 am

More on devices (if you don't mind, sweetjesus)

-Utility has a few new additions (DC offset filtering, variable panning)

-Reverb takes up about 80% as much width in the track view as it used to. Which means more plug-ins in track view before horizontal scrolling.

-EQ8 replaces EQ4. no more EQ4. but EQ4 settings are compatible and importable into EQ8.

Pandamonium · Post by **Pandamonium** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 9:59 am

Sweetjesus:-

Is it possible to load the content from the Kontakt 2 Library?

Does sampler allow using as a drum sampler ie:- Choke groups for hhats etc?

Have there been any changes to Impulse?

Silicon/Silicium · Post by **Silicon/Silicium** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 10:01 am

Q: can you record automations in session clips now??
this one is realy needed for me, the only reason I could leave live4. I really hope it ll be possible, as it's a major feaure for impovisation.

sweetjesus · Post by **sweetjesus** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 10:04 am

Pandamonium wrote:Sweetjesus:-
Is it possible to load the content from the Kontakt 2 Library?

Please send me an example file and I will confirm, but I'm fairly sure that this would be the case.

Pandamonium wrote: Does sampler allow using as a drum sampler ie:- Choke groups for hhats etc?

Apart from the choke hats thing, the sampler is more than capable of handling drum sounds, I do feel it's true power is shown on non percussive stuff which leads me to...

Pandamonium wrote:Have there been any changes to Impulse?

The impulse itself hasn't been changed but you can use impulses in a multi timberal way using device groups and also you can stack impulses to get a track with 16 or more slots for drums using a few plugin tricks. These will be most likely be included as presets in the final product to save you guys the effort.

John Sweet · Post by **John Sweet** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 10:17 am

Is the input source and output destination for each audio channel MIDI assignable, for eample, toggling a track to "sends only," etc?

AdamJay · Post by **AdamJay** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 10:20 am

John Sweet wrote:Is the input source and output destination for each audio channel MIDI assignable, for eample, toggling a track to "sends only," etc?

No.

deva · Post by **deva** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 10:21 am

sweetjesus wrote:
Pandamonium wrote:Have there been any changes to Impulse?
The impulse itself hasn't been changed but you can use impulses in a multi timberal way using device groups and also you can stack impulses to get a track with 16 or more slots for drums using a few plugin tricks. These will be most likely be included as presets in the final product to save you guys the effort.

So you can have two impulses side by side and drag and drop into both?

Silicon/Silicium · Post by **Silicon/Silicium** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 10:43 am

Q: can you record automations in session clips now??
this one is realy needed for me, the only reason I could leave live4. I really hope it ll be possible, as it's a major feaure for impovisation.

anyone can reply??

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 10:49 am

[quote="Abzurd"] Are their any other new software instruments or mods 2 the old ones?/quote]

Simpler now has a syncable lfo in it - lovely. Operator has more filters. All of them load in device racks though, and this totally changes the way you work with the sounds.

Pandamonium · Post by **Pandamonium** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 10:52 am

sweetjesus wrote: Apart from the choke hats thing, the sampler is more than capable of handling drum sounds, I do feel it's true power is shown on non percussive stuff which leads me to...

Pandamonium wrote:Have there been any changes to Impulse?
The impulse itself hasn't been changed but you can use impulses in a multi timberal way using device groups and also you can stack impulses to get a track with 16 or more slots for drums using a few plugin tricks. These will be most likely be included as presets in the final product to save you guys the effort.

I'm pretty impressed with all the announcements so far, though leaving out choke groups in Sampler is a fairly major omission, a drum kit without HHats is fairly useless

Having to do it the way you mention in impulse is a far from elegant solution. It would be great to have realistic sounding drums within live without using BFD or god forbid, Battery 2 (ugh!).

Is there going to be a new preset library for Operator? Operator is great, but I think people new to it are put off by the sucky presets that come with it.

Has the ability to comp vocal/audio takes in a reasonable way been intoduced in 6?

with the new deep freeze, does it still try and load the original plugin when you move the set to a different machine that does not have the plugin that the frozen clip was made with?

Probably related to the last question, Can you "Unflatten" Flattened tracks?

I have a day job in a very large music shop, I have sold 3 copies of live this week alone, I suspect I am going to be dealing with irate customers next week who "got screwed" by missing out on their free live 6 upgrade

Looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of 6 to run it through it's paces!

Live 6 review - part 1

Live 6 review - part 1

Re: Live 6 review - part 1