![]() There’s a random button to shift it all around. Inspiration tools! In midi, there’s a probability lane below the velocity lane – you can set probability for playing notes, velocity of notes, and so much more. These are fun tools for messing about with and being judicious about what you throw away, and what you keep. They can be subtle, in humanising drum parts, to totally random, creating new melodies, etc. But they are extremely welcomed on my part. I feel this is following the modular crowd slightly in the addition/expansion of these tools. Probability, Randomisation and Generation A very Ableton style creative way of freezing audio. I liked the freeze mode that can be turned on and off with the tempo. It reminds me of GRM tools, which I use a lot. I also like the vintage button that craps up the tail somewhat, giving it some nice, er, vintage character. Excellent stuff – super useful for sound design. ![]() To sound a bit cliché it’s a creative reverb – alongside the cool algorithms of different rooms and algorithms you can blend between, I really like the way you can import samples, and use the characteristics of those samples to create the reverb. This reverb, while not really replacing the stock reverb, is quite different from the other reverbs. I probably didn’t work it well, but I couldn’t get it feeling like it had any character. I’ve never really got on well with the stock reverb that always sits on the first return track. There are also automation lanes for MPE information, so you can adjust post-playing, or even write in curves yourself from scratch. Ableton have included a couple of midi plugins so you can dive deeper into how the MPE messages affect the parameters chosen. Ableton has made a statement to the importance of MPE with the addition of MPE control for native synths within the software – so you can control several elements of Wavetable, sampler, simpler and arpeggiator with one touch on your MPE controller. The potential for expressivity is too great. This is a very burgeoning advancement in performance expression, and it’s only really at the beginning stages of mass adoption. The list of tools is finally starting to pick up pace in its growth, as are the software applications that support this protocol. Current tools that use MPE are, for example, the ROLI seaboard, the Linnstrument, the Madrona Labs Soundplane, Sensel Morph and so on. MPE enables you to control pressure, slide, and pitchblende PER NOTE – which poly aftertouch cannot do. It’s a method of synthesis that uses multidimensional control from touch – a big step from pressing keys and buttons. MPE – or midi polyphonic expression is an evolution of synth control. I also like how you can also comp midi tracks – so I can just jam over the session loop, and go back over it later to decide what works best. There’s also a cool little drop menu that enables crossfading between selections if you want, so there isn’t incessant clicks and pops. Being able to flick between several different loops to create an entirely new loop is very very quick, and very inspiring. What I actually love about these new elements, is that in typical Ableton fashion, it’s very easy to use the comping tool for non-mix, and more creative methods, which is awesome. ![]() I still don’t think it’s at the same level as other DAWs in terms of tools for mixing. Linked with this (pun intended of course) the Linked tracks update means you can lock tracks together to edit phase-locked audio – useful for drum edits for example. The lack of this is one of the missing elements that has definitely put me off mixing any big projects in Live. This is the big one for me, but perhaps not for the expected reason. I’ll just address the ones that I feel improved my creativity and efficiency as I’ve worked with Ableton Live 11 over the last few weeks. The list is too large to go over in detail in this article. There’s a large list of new additions and upgrades to Ableton Live 11 – including workflow updates, and new tools. Has this changed with the big update to 11? Is this the point where I can finish the mix in the same place, without having to change DAWs? I’ve had the update to 11 for a few weeks now, and had the chance to really dive in and experience the new tools for myself. Typically, if I’m writing electronic-style music, I’ll start in Ableton, and I’ll head over to Logic to mix and finish the track. I consider Live as more of an instrument combined with DAW – somewhere that the process of recording is creatively applied to shape the music more directly and strongly. When I think of Ableton Live, it inhabits a different space in my mind to the more ‘standard’ DAWs for recording, arranging and mixing music.
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