You’ve got to love the way Ableton release big Live updates. It announces it and then spends months tweaking, opening up the beta for all sorts of feedback so when the final build is released, it should be damn near perfect. Which is great news for everyone, but it does feel like we’ve been talking about Ableton Live 12 for ages, and have certainly spent an inordinate amount of time with these various Beta builds. So, is the final (final) version worth your wonga?
What’s all the fuss about?
Like many DAW users, we tend to get a bit too excited about big instrument additions when faced with a major point update, and largely go ‘meh’ to the smaller stuff, but Live 12 kind of turns that on its head. It has lots of both big and small extras, and in opposition to our normal upgrade use, we’ve actually been enjoying more of the less obvious stuff. But there’s a lot to love overall, so let’s try and give you an overview.
The big plugin headlines are the new Meld synth and Roar effect. Meld is a bi-timbral macro oscillator synth that has two selectable engines in which you can load very different oscillators, from basic VA to fairly obvious Bitgrunge to ‘not immediately obvious’ Tarp. Honestly the best first thing to do is load up one of the many excellent presets and just step through the oscillators; you’ll soon get the Meld drift, and understand that it’s hugely flexible because of varied macro oscillators and their many combinations. But there’s a lot more.
Roar has to be heard to be believed, and looks set to be an Ableton Live classic in the future
To the right of the oscillators, the controls will vary depending on which macro oscillator you have loaded in. Next to these controls are amplitude envelope, modulation envelope, and a couple of LFOs plus 17 filter options for each engine. So already you have a lot to play with within the bi-timbral setup, but the big theme of both Meld and Roar is modulation, and here’s where it gets really good.
On a basic level, you can shape the two envelopes and LFOs directly, and a Matrix tab reveals them as simple sources which you can connect to common destinations. It’s really easy to scroll up and down, click on a destination control and assign it to an envelope or LFO. But click on the top left arrow in Meld and you open up a much larger modulation matrix (see the bottom right pic) which opens up every control on the synth, adds MIDI and MPE sources, and even allows cross modulation between both macro oscillators. OK, it’s not the prettiest way to take up more screen real estate, but it’s one of the easiest modulation systems you could wish for, almost daring you to be more dynamic and creative with your synth sounds.