FM REVIEWS
v12 introduces some major changes but, Si Truss asks, does it risk wrong-footing long-time users?
CONTACT WHO: Ableton WEB: ableton.com KEY FEATURES DAW update adding new tools, sound content, UI and workflow changes. Pricing: Live Suite: £539, Live Standard: £259, Live Intro: £69. Check site for upgrade offers
Most DAW updates are sold on the back of flashy new features, but really what a DAW lives-or-dies on is consistency. Whether used in a professional or hobby capacity, these are foundational platforms for modern music makers. A transition from one version to another needs to be as seamless as possible. While the promise of exciting new features might be what sells a user on paying for the latest updates, it’s the small, incremental enhancements to an application’s workflow that make them stick around for the long term.
Traditionally, this is something Ableton has been good at. For all of the devices added in the 22 years since it launched, Live’s overall design has remained remarkably consistent. So much so that it would be possible to skip several versions when updating and still encounter few unexpected roadblocks, since most elements will be where you’d expect them: the browser to the left, devices down the bottom, clip launcher and arrangement living in their own individual UI views. Version 12 is arguably Live’s most significant update in over a decade because it’s the first time that Ableton has risked messing with this familiarity.
This is most evident in the layout of the UI. Previous versions of Live have maintained fairly rigorous constraints on how its workspace can be arranged. While it’s been possible to resize certain elements to an extent, and hide/show others, there have always been hard-and-fast rules about how Live is laid out. The clip launcher an
