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Ableton Live

Ableton Live

Overview

What is Ableton Live?

Ableton headquartered in Berlin offers Ableton Live, the company's flagship digital audio workstation and audio editing suite.

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Learn from top reviewers

Incredibly powerful, intuitive and quality sounding DAW!

Rating: 10 out of 10
May 14, 2022
Vetted ReviewVerified User
I've used Ableton Live since version 4. I'm really impressed with how well it keeps up with the times and continues to further our abilities as producers and engineers. There ...
Continue reading
Eric Fox
Professional - Other
producer/engineer/mastering engineer
eleven.five studios
Ableton Live13 years of experience

Easy and fast from brain to written music

Rating: 10 out of 10
April 12, 2021
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
I use [Ableton Live] for personal use, not organizational use...
Continue reading
Eric Reithler-Barros
General Manager - Corporate
CEO (Chief Executive Officer)
Fold Artists
Ableton Live7 years of experience

Ableton Live is better than you think.

Rating: 10 out of 10
March 12, 2021
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
We use Ableton Live for a lot of our sound editing for videos as well and to make beats for our advertisements. The ability to edit the audio levels for our YouTube channel an...
Continue reading
Dominic Farrow
Employee - Corporate
Graphic Designer
Blkmarket
Ableton Live3 years of experience

Helps Creators Be Creative Through Mix-and-Match Experimentation

Rating: 9 out of 10
June 1, 2020
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
I was an early adopter of Ableton Live, making the switch from MAGIX ACID Pro (formerly Sony, and Sonic Foundry before that) way back in 2002. I have used Ableton Live on coun...
Continue reading
Jonah Dempcy
Employee - Engineering
Web & Mobile Developer
Bluefire Productions
Ableton Live18 years of experience

Ableton Live for Music Teachers

Rating: 9 out of 10
February 24, 2020
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
I use it personally as a music teacher to help work up arrangements.
Continue reading
sam heminger
Team Lead - Other
Teacher
Synergy School
Ableton Live2 years of experience

Ableton Makes Music Easy

Rating: 10 out of 10
October 16, 2019
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
Ableton is the best music creation DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) I've used in 13+ years of scoring films, television and advertising. I've used to to score an Emmy-Winning s...
Continue reading
Rob Gokee
Executive - Professional Services
Podcast Producer & Audio Mixer
Rob Gokee Music
Ableton Live5 years of experience

Make Professional Music in minutes using Ableton

Rating: 9 out of 10
July 6, 2019
IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User
Ableton Live is used for making background music for all the corporate events in our organization. Ableton's amazing features which include session view and arrangement view q...
Continue reading
Jaspreet Singh
Engineer - Information Technology
Cyber Security Analyst
Deloitte
Ableton Live2 years of experience
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Pricing

View all pricing

Live 10 Intro

$79

On Premise

Max for Live - Crossgrade

$79

On Premise

Live 11 Intro

$99

On Premise

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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Product Details

What is Ableton Live?

Ableton Live Technical Details

Deployment TypesOn-premise
Operating SystemsWindows, Mac
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

Ableton headquartered in Berlin offers Ableton Live, the company's flagship digital audio workstation and audio editing suite.

Reviewers rate Support Rating highest, with a score of 9.6.

The most common users of Ableton Live are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(20)

Reviews

(1-7 of 7)

Incredibly powerful, intuitive and quality sounding DAW!

Rating: 10 out of 10
May 14, 2022
EF
Eric Fox
producer/engineer/mastering engineer
eleven.five studios (Music, 1-10 employees)
Vetted Review
Verified User
Ableton Live
13 years of experience
View profile
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
I've used Ableton Live since version 4. I'm really impressed with how well it keeps up with the times and continues to further our abilities as producers and engineers. There are many other DAWs out there, but for me and my studio, I use Ableton. The ability to work with others is unparalleled also. Sounds great. Very Intuitive. And very easy to learn as a new employee.
Pros
  • MIDI
  • Sample Management
  • Sound Quality
  • Overall Usability
Cons
  • Integrated collaborative features
  • Triple monitor ability
  • Mobile support
Likelihood to Recommend
The program allows me to creatively express myself while maintaining professionalism in sound, functionality, and features. It's best suited for MIDI users but certainly can easily handle live audio coming in. In fact, in my studio, I use it with incoming audio consistently. I record guitars, basses, live drums, etc. Ultra-low latency is key when using DAW and a lot of that stems from the computer it's deployed on, but some of it also relies on the audio interface. The program is also not CPU intensive like others I have used.

Ableton Live is better than you think.

Rating: 10 out of 10
Incentivized
March 12, 2021
DF
Dominic Farrow
Graphic Designer
Blkmarket (Design, 1-10 employees)
Vetted Review
Verified User
Ableton Live
3 years of experience
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We use Ableton Live for a lot of our sound editing for videos as well and to make beats for our advertisements. The ability to edit the audio levels for our YouTube channel and to create the music all in one place has been an awesome feature for our company.
Pros
  • Edits audio levels.
  • Composition.
  • Detailed automation.
Cons
  • I would like to see more automation capabilities for already recorded tracks.
  • Cleaner UI.
  • Better lessons.
Likelihood to Recommend
Ableton Live works great for any serious producers who have a small understanding of production. It could be confusing for a beginner, so it would be helpful to provide more in depth tutorials for the user. Ultimately, Ableton is a great program for anyone; producer or sound engineer or just someone who needs to fine tune some audio levels.

Easy and fast from brain to written music

Rating: 10 out of 10
Incentivized
April 12, 2021
ER
Eric Reithler-Barros
CEO (Chief Executive Officer)
Fold Artists (Hospitality, 1-10 employees)
Vetted Review
Verified User
Ableton Live
7 years of experience
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
I use [Ableton Live] for personal use, not organizational use...
Pros
  • Fast workflow, can go from idea in mind to actualy music in short time
  • Big community, always easy to find an answer
  • 3rd party bolt-ons like Max4Live
Cons
  • Version 10 chews up all my CPU but prior versions didn't
  • Midi channel automation isn't intuitive, have to make an instrument group
  • New version install should overwrite older versions
Likelihood to Recommend
[Ableton Live is] perfect for all applications of music production! Can't think of where it would be less appropriate...

Helps Creators Be Creative Through Mix-and-Match Experimentation

Rating: 9 out of 10
Incentivized
June 01, 2020
JD
Jonah Dempcy
Web & Mobile Developer
Bluefire Productions (Computer Software, 1-10 employees)
Vetted Review
Verified User
Ableton Live
18 years of experience
View profile
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
I was an early adopter of Ableton Live, making the switch from MAGIX ACID Pro (formerly Sony, and Sonic Foundry before that) way back in 2002. I have used Ableton Live on countless projects, both personally and professionally, including my electronic jazz music project Revolution Void as well as producing many other artists. Additionally, I use Ableton Live in a professional capacity to produce interstitial music and when I need to do multitrack audio for such applications as advertisements, film and video game soundtracks, and now, for rich media ebooks to show off EPUB3 capabilities. It is my preferred Digital Audio Workstation, although I have used just about every DAW there is at one time or another. Ableton Live is simply the easiest, quickest and most conducive to creative experimentation that I have found. Most DAWs are full of menus within menus, and countless windows, while everything in Ableton is available within a single window that has expandable and collapsable tabs. Fantastic!
Pros
  • User Interface - Instead of countless windows and menus, everything in Ableton Live is readily available in expandable and collapsable tabs.
  • Grouping and Routing - Easy and intuitive multitrack grouping, routing, and effects buses.
  • Creative Experimentation - This program is designed for experimenting and helping producers and composers come up with new combinations and variations of sound. Intuitively integrates with a workflow based on experimentation and loop-based iteration.
  • Automation - Ability to copy-and-paste automation envelopes, along with expected features like recording automation, makes it a breeze to modify effects sends and VST settings on the fly in realtime.
  • Bouncing to WAV - The "Freeze" option is invaluable for bouncing tracks to WAV, either to save precious CPU resources or because you want to edit the WAV itself rather than the computed track.
Cons
  • VST Plugin Management - Once you get 100s of VST plugins, it is a major pain to keep them all organized.
  • Replacing Moved WAVs - When you move the WAV samples, there is the ability to auto-search and replace, but it rarely works. Most often, you have to manually replace the WAVs.
  • Latency - The ability to autocorrect sync issues due to sound card latency is supposedly a feature offered by Ableton Live, but I have not been able to get it to work correctly, and often have to fix the latency issues myself.
  • Freeze Occasionally Doesn't Work - Theoretically, you can freeze any track to bounce it to a WAV, but sometimes these WAVs end up blank. This happens with the Access Virus TI-2, for example.
  • Clicks at Loop Points - Due to quickfades, loops sometimes have clicks in them, particularly if they have a lot of bass frequencies.
Likelihood to Recommend
Ableton Live is a perfect fit for loop-based music like electronic music of all varieties. It is especially suited to minimal techno and IDM, but is really suitable for any style of music that relies extensively on loops and samples. Ableton Live is also well-suited for sequencing out loop-based music through its Live view, while the Composer view allows for enough arranging features that you can take a song from concept to completion fairly easily.

Ableton Live is less well-suited for fully recorded music that has no sample-based or looping components. It is less well-suited for non-electronic genres, although it is perfectly fine, but many of the features would not be useful or necessary in these cases.

Ableton Live for Music Teachers

Rating: 9 out of 10
Incentivized
February 24, 2020
sh
sam heminger
Teacher
Synergy School (Education Management, 11-50 employees)
Vetted Review
Verified User
Ableton Live
2 years of experience
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
I use it personally as a music teacher to help work up arrangements.
Pros
  • Great ability to "play" music software like an instrument.
Cons
  • User interface could be more intuitive.
Likelihood to Recommend
Ableton live is great for anybody who wants to perform their personally produced music live. It allows you to have a lot of freedom. It has a bit higher of a barrier to entry than some other music production softwares so it isn't as well-suited for beginners.

Make Professional Music in minutes using Ableton

Rating: 9 out of 10
Incentivized
July 06, 2019
JS
Jaspreet Singh
Cyber Security Analyst
Deloitte (Management Consulting, 10,001+ employees)
Vetted Review
Verified User
Ableton Live
2 years of experience
View profile
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Ableton Live is used for making background music for all the corporate events in our organization. Ableton's amazing features which include session view and arrangement view quickly helps us produce background music for corporate events and then we can embed the music in the music video before publishing it.

This software is being used by very limited departments in our organization which deal with the music and video productions.
Pros
  • Session View: This is the biggest advantage of Ableton. It provides you this view in which you can create different tracks for the same part of the song. For example:- If you are making the chorus of the song, you can save one thread. Now if you want to try and listen to a different drum set in a new thread, you can simply do that and listen to the new track while preserving the older one. Once you are satisfied with what you're listening, simple record the same in arrangement view and you are done. You can switch to the arrangement view and listen to the final song.
  • Pre-installed instruments and loops:- Ableton's library which is included with the software itself while you purchase it is amazing. I bet you will ever need third-party plugins for it. It comes loaded with hundreds of loops and number of instruments which are completely professional and free to use.
  • Amazing Graphical User Interface:- Even if you're a beginner in this field, Ableton can be learned within a few hours. The basic functionality of this software is very easy to understand and use. Of course, advanced stuff comes with practice but the basic functioning can be learned and within a few hours you are producing your own music.
Cons
  • Price Tag:- Ableton is one of the expensive Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) in the market. You can find many DAW's at a lesser price tag and pretty much same functionality. However, the quality that this software produces is unmatched which is the sole reason why professional music produces prefer Ableton.
  • High computer specs:- You will need good computer specification for running this software smoothly else it brings lags and ultimately the experience becomes not so very good. So this is one of the important points before considering this software for production.
Likelihood to Recommend
Ableton can be used in all the scenarios where music production is required. Whether it be professional studios or if it is home productions. It can be used almost anywhere as the features of this software can fit almost in any place. It is also used by professional teams in big companies for marketing and presentation music.

I cannot think of any scenario where this is not well suited. If you're making music the professional way, Ableton is the ladder to success.

Ableton Makes Music Easy

Rating: 10 out of 10
Incentivized
October 16, 2019
RG
Rob Gokee
Podcast Producer & Audio Mixer
Rob Gokee Music (Entertainment, 1-10 employees)
Vetted Review
Verified User
Ableton Live
5 years of experience
View profile
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Ableton is the best music creation DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) I've used in 13+ years of scoring films, television and advertising. I've used to to score an Emmy-Winning show for Amazon called "After Forever," and I've also used it to create, edit and mix podcasts for myself and for others. It's easy to learn, the shortcuts are amazing, and it's got a fairly light footprint for everything it does!
Pros
  • Writing with MIDI
  • Shortcuts
  • Implementation of plugins
  • Audio Mixing
Cons
  • Writing music to video
  • Price is a bit higher than competitiors
Likelihood to Recommend
Ableton is most known for being used by DJs and producers for live production, but it's excellent at all levels of music production, including video import and scoring to scene. I've used Ableton to write songs, score television and feature films, create podcasts from scratch, mix and master podcast audio for others, and record voiceover.
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