Almost five years since the release of their Live 9 software, Ableton has just announced that Live 10 will arrive in early 2018. The most significant update to the industry-standard DAW in close to a decade, Live 10 introduces new sound libraries, new effects, and a new ‘analog-derived’ synth called Wavetable that manipulates waveforms from various instruments. New all-in-one effects like Drum Buss, Pedal, and Echo help streamline what once required serious processing power into something lighter and easier to use on a home setup.
Beyond new plugins, Live’s interface workflow has been completely overhauled. Inputs and outputs can now be renamed to better organize your studio, and individual tracks can be linked and mixed together as a group, which hopefully helps when mixing the 80+ vocal takes common on modern pop records. MIDI files can now be edited in groups, which can be helpful when transitioning from live MIDI renditions to mixed audio. Live also now allows users to export audio as individual MP3s, as well as introduces features like note chasing, which has long been available from competitors Logic and Pro Tools.
Live 10 also adds a new features to the Ableton Push hardware controller to help users get away from the computer screen. With the lighter update, the Push controller can now be used in real time to sequence notes in MIDI, and input and output information can be viewed directly on the Push controller while playing.
Also announced with the update, Max For Live will built natively in the program, giving it faster load times that use less CPU. “During the Live 10 beat period, we chose to provide Ableton with a preliminary version of Max 8 whose user-facing features are identical to Max 7 but which contains many changes under the hood,” Max developers Cycling ’74 shared in a statement. “By doing this, we hope to get a lot of testing on these changes as part of our Max 8 development project.”
Though no formal date has yet been announced, Live 10 is expected to be released in the first quarter of 2018. For now, the company is taking 20% off all versions of Live 9, with the option to upgrade to Live 10 at no extra charge when released. Watch a trailer for Live 10 below.
