ableton announces world dominiation
omfg. last year was the first year in the ableton history without a new major release – now the information about live 8 has finally gone public during the NAMM and even for me it is just breathtaking to see all the stuff that has been cooking during the last year in the headquarter over at the schönhauser allee.
the result is just unreal. seeing all the new stuff nicely wrapped up and tied together in the videos and the announcements for the first time and just realizing how this all fits together makes even me frightened. it’s just unbelievable and i don’t know where to start… believe me, there’s nothing out there now that even comes close to what ableton is turning live into.
first very obvious thing: the result of working together with akai – a brilliant controller design for the session view:
this thing does not only feel sturdy like all the akai stuff already does, it features led rings for the 16 rotary encoders – something that akai somehow refused to put in the rest of their controllers – but we got it now!
the 8×5 button matrix features 3 color led buttons and it actually talks to live and reflects the state of the session view.
on the other hand, live indicates what part of the session matrix is shown on the controller by drawing a red frame around this focus section on your computer screen – this way you can navigate through really big sessions without loosing the big picture.
blinkenlights galore, this thing is sex on a stick.
check out the video: Touch!
and it doesn’t stop here. since its announcement 2 years ago everyone was wondering what this cycling74/ableton collaboration is about.
now the result of this is finally there: max for live. maybe you heard about max/msp already, which is nothing less than a complete graphical development environment for audio/video tasks. think of it as NI reaktor on steroids. this thing always has been the tool of choice for crazy freaky stuff you want to do – but can’t, because there’s no product out there that fits your need. with max/msp you just build it yourself – and since people are doing that since two decades there’s already a really great max/msp scene out there.
so, what happened? max for live is just max/msp thrown at live. nicely integrated, the possibilities seem to be endless!
you want to build your own ableton effect? do it. using the same gui elements that live made so famous.
you can see the effect in the live plugin view and it just works in live WHILE you’re changing the internal guts of it in the usual max/msp building window. this takes the live realtime approach to the next level, you can develop stuff WHILE you’re using it in live. in realtime.
and there’s still more, you can also build your own instruments, midi effects, stuff like step sequencers etc. etc.
not enough? ok, live opens up the internals of the application by letting you address live parameters. you want to access, set or modify midi notes in a midi clip? no problem. you want to change live-project parameters like tempo and stuff – just do it baby. you want to poll session clip playing states, names whatever? here we go. fuck, if you want to, build your own spielberg “close encounters of the third kind” audio/light communication device to talk to aliens – you can just do it. this is magic. the future is now.
ok, with this in mind let’s take a look at the apc again. whoooheeee, rotaries with led rings? 3 color led matrix and there’s max/msp in between now? KILLER! at the end of the day this means you can now do with the APC 40 what you want. it becomes what you want it to be. session controller? roland style led button drum sequencer? pong or snake game console? an alarm clock? porting monome apps?
my head is spinning.
and then there’s the big announcement number 3: share.
using ableton live you will be able to share your sets over the net. automatically, with the press of a button.
this means not only working on the same set, globally, if you want to, this means you can share all the crazy stuff that you come up with using max for live, the apc 40, whatever. this will be huge. and clever: you can even share stuff with people who don’t own live – they will get a two weeks time trial automatically. it will spread like a virus, this is the monkey from “outbreak”…
what i didn’t talk about yet is all the nice stuff part of the “normal” version number increase to live 8. features that would justify a new version alone, but they somehow fade away a bit due to the unbelievable new weapon of mass construction i just talked about.
so what we’ve got? it’s just what all the people where screaming for during the last major updates. audio crossfades in the arrange view, a totally brilliant groove quantize implementation that seems to blow everything else out of the water, new effects like multiband dynamics, brickwall limiter, vocoder, new warping engine, transient detection, new complex timestretch algo, warping by moving the waveform itself now instead of stretching the timeline, a looper pedal style looper plugin, a new physical modelling plugin in collaboration with AAS again, new features for operator, the list ist just endless.
i am so stoked, i’m feeling dizzy for two days straight now. this has to be such a big slap in the face for all other daw and plugin manufacturers i don’t dare to think of it. i remember how people tried to put live in the loop-toy corner when the first versions came out – but this max thing, the sharing stuff and everything else was the goal since the very first day. ableton got a vision, from day one. and an incredible amount of work went into this vision. now the day arrived that people have to start to realize what this is really about, it is shaking earth right now.
world domination in the digital audio scene.
now if i only could take a year off and use this fucking thing on a sunny island instead of working. someone told me this is actually what robert henke is planning to do right now…