With the arrival of version 10.5 (now updated to 10.6), Apple made serious moves into Ableton Live’s turf. While the key features weren’t lifted from Live wholesale, it doesn’t take a DAW connoisseur to see similarities between Logic’s Live Loops and Live’s Session View, or between Apple’s new Sampler and Quick Sampler combo and the Sampler/Simpler counterparts in Live. Clearly, the free 10.5 update was aimed at winning over electronic producers who might previously have leant more towards the nontraditional, loop-based workflows of Live or Bitwig Studio.
Now, as 2021 rears its head, we’re greeted with the imminent arrival of Live 11. While it certainly wouldn’t be accurate to say this latest update is a direct response to Logic 10.5, one of its core additions – recording take lanes – does see Live playing catchup to Logic (amongst others), by adding a key feature beloved by more traditional studio musicians. So where does that leave Logic and Live as we move into 2021? Let’s put them side by side and see what’s what…