Live 12.3 is coming – with Stem Separation and more

Ableton Live 12.3 is now in public beta. Brimming with creative possibilities, the next free update to Live 12 brings major new ways to work with samples, along with new expressive features for Push 3, plus a new audio effect for Move, Note and Live Lite. 

Stem Separation

Live 12 Suite and Push 3 Standalone can now split vocals, bass, drums and other sounds from any audio clip in Arrangement or Session View, or in the Browser, with just a couple of clicks. 

Powered by algorithms from Music AI, creators of Moises, Stem Separation opens up a ton of new options for sampling, reworking and inspiring ideas. Create and chop up acapellas, extract percussion parts then build new drums from your favorite sampled hits, or separate a bassline then rework it with audio to MIDI conversion.

Splice integration 

Splice users now get direct access to Splice’s full library of royalty-free sounds inside Live’s Browser – making it easier to filter, search and audition Splice samples in sync and in key with your project. 

With the new Search with Sound feature, you can also capture audio from your project, or drag and drop a clip into the Splice panel, and Splice will find samples that fit the rhythms and harmonies of your track. Once you land on something you like, drop it into your project and see what ideas the new sound sparks.

Bounce Groups and Paste Bounced Audio

Live 12.2 saw the introduction of Bounce to New Track. With 12.3, you can now bounce an entire Group track in place – or bounce a portion of a Group track, including all its processing, to a new audio track.

The all-new Paste Bounced Audio feature allows you to paste a copied clip or selection as bounced audio into any track or take lane. Just hit cmd/ ctrl + opt/ alt + v and whatever you’ve copied can be pasted as bounced audio multiple times, even with tweaks to the clip and processing between each paste.

Experiment with updated devices 

Add spatial movement or new rhythmic dimensions to any static sound with the reimagined Auto Pan-Tremolo: from head-spinning panning effects to sidechain-style pumping, to stuttering trance gates or polyrhythmic patterns. 

The device’s new tabbed layout lets you switch instantly between panning and tremolo effects, and each has deeper modulation controls and a wider range of time modes for greater rhythmic control. It comes as an important addition to Ableton Move, Note, and Live Lite.

With the 12.3 update, all built-in instruments, audio and MIDI effects in Live have the ability to set and quickly compare two parameter states with an A/B feature – accessible by right-clicking the device header.  

Explore new and improved Packs

Generators by Iftah is a new Pack of intuitive and immediately musical MIDI Tools for Live 12 Standard and Suite. Sting is an acid bass pattern generator, adapted from the most popular Max for Live device of all time, while Patterns creates new percussive rhythms at the click of a button. 

Live 12.2’s Expressive Chords Pack gets a new Chord Edit mode – letting you transpose selected chords, and even input your own with the ‘Learn’ function, while Live 12.1’s Sequencers Pack adds support for reproducible arrangements. 

To see the full list of updates, head to the Live 12.3 beta release notes*.

What’s new for Push?

In addition to Stem Separation, Bounce Groups, and the updated devices and Packs – all of which are coming to Push 3 Tethered and Standalone – Live 12.3 gives Push 3 users new ways to play with the instrument’s expressive pads.

With the new XYZ layout, Push’s pads transform into an expressive touchscreen for your racks, instruments, and effects. Slide your finger across Push’s pads to shape the sound in complex ways, and press to trigger punch-in effects – all while playing notes with the other hand. Every device comes with bold, musical pre-mappings to get you started right away, but you can go deeper by creating racks and assigning your own custom macros.

Rhythm Generator is a new Drum Rack layout that makes one of Live’s generative MIDI Tools playable on Push 3. Designed for everything from sparking ideas in the studio to shaking up the rhythmic feel of a live performance, the layout gives you four vertical pad sliders to shape your beat, while the grid above visualizes changes as they happen.

There’s a new, more intuitive way to humanize your beats too: touch sensitive step editing lets you adjust the velocity of notes individually or in bulk, by holding the Accent button and sliding on Push 3’s pads. 

Live 12.3 also makes Push Standalone even more flexible as a music making hub – adding support for class compliant audio interfaces. This allows you to expand Push’s inputs and outputs, record using your interface’s mic preamp, perform live with DJ mixers, and more.

For more details on what’s new for each version of Push, see the release notes for the Live 12 beta on Push*.

What’s coming to Note and Move?

Alongside the opening of the Live 12.3 public beta, today marks the release of new updates for our iOS app, Note, and Ableton Move.

Access to all of Drift’s parameters is now available as an in-app purchase for Note. The 1.5 update lets you take full control of the characterful synth’s sound – from its two analog-modeled oscillators, to its filters, envelopes, and powerful modulation matrix – so you can enjoy deep sound design sessions on the go. 

After the introduction of sample slicing in Move 1.5, today’s 1.6 update brings new Sliced Loop presets, including drum breaks, guitars, pianos and more to the Move library. You can also reverse Drum Rack samples via the Sample Options menu, and upload Move and Note sets to Move via Move Manager. 

If you own a Live 12 license, you can sign up for the Ableton beta program to try Live 12.3’s new features now.

*Note: Release notes and the Ableton Beta program are only available in English