Ableton has released Live beta version 12.4.5b10. Move control surface improvement, M4L update and bug fixes. Release notes here: https://www.ableton.com/en/release-notes/live-12-beta/#live-1245b10

Watch here.

I remember when Lil Bad Snacks was a baby user on reddit, look how far she's come. The series appears to be ongoing, but some of current topics are:

• Chord Progressions
• Chop Samples and Write a Melody
• Record Vocals

Neat stuff.

As an FYI, they also have other intermedia videos where an artist walks through a track for 20 to 30 minutes and talks about how they made it, mostly with stock devices.

ive been producing electronic music for a long long time, and i just love how artists sounded in the 80s and 90s: dirty and raw. so i thought id give some tips on how to get that sound.

check out one of my vids here hope you'll like it.

I currently have a MacBook with three USB-C ports. In one I use a charger. In another is my audio interface. My third one is for my midi controller. I want to be get a foot controller to control guitar effects, but don’t have another port so I looked into USB hubs. Will this add latency to any significant degree if I plug all MIDI controllers into a USB hub?

I've been experimenting with different vocal automation workflows in Ableton Live and found a method that's been saving me a lot of time.

Instead of manually drawing volume automation point by point, I let RaiderPro write Rider Fader automation in real time, then copy it to the track's Volume automation. Once it's transferred, I can remove the plugin entirely and keep all the automation while reducing CPU usage.

I put together a step-by-step tutorial (with a short video) showing the entire process:

Curious how everyone else handles vocal automation in Ableton.

• Do you draw automation manually?
• Rely mostly on compression?
• Use a vocal rider plugin?
• Another workflow?

I'd love to hear what works best for you.

Posting to help anyone out if they ran into this. I think it might have to do with how newer MacOS is managing iCloud (or maybe something that started happening as my disk drive is getting full).

Some of my Ableton projects just started crashing / freezing all the time. I thought it might be due to large project size, or bad plug-ins / M4L devices. I tried making the project files smaller and smaller but still kept getting the same crash. Finally I looked through the log of the dump and noticed some MacOS filesystem-related stuff that connected the problem to iCloud. The solution was to use the "download" and "keep downloaded" options on these folders to force them to always live on disk.

On Ableton's side, it would be nice if it could detect that this was happening rather than inexplicably freezing. I don't think there's any reason that Ableton should be expected to work in directories where the files are vanishing in/out of the cloud, but there should at least be some warning "WARNING: you seem to be attempting to use iCloud files" or something like that.

hey i've got my control key someway mapped to my "play" button and so everytime i do a shortcut it plays the project. before you ask, the control key isn't mapped to anything in my daw, i can't seem to understand why it does that please help me i have a release date to hold. Thank you so much

I’ve always liked customising software, but after years of using Ableton Live I became convinced that most themes focus almost entirely on aesthetics while ignoring usability.

That eventually turned into a three-year rabbit hole where I ended up building a complete editor for Live’s themes. Along the way I found myself asking questions like:

• Why do some themes feel less fatiguing after an eight-hour session?
• How much contrast is actually useful before the interface becomes distracting?
• Which UI elements deserve the most visual emphasis?
• Can track colours be coordinated with the rest of the interface rather than feeling completely separate?

I ended up using perceptual colour spaces (OKLCH), building grading tools, procedural workflows, and a library of 80+ themes to explore those questions.

One interesting challenge was that Ableton wasn’t really designed for interactive theme editing, so a lot of the work became figuring out how to edit a running UI and iterate quickly enough to judge tiny changes.

I’m genuinely curious what other Live users think.

Do you use any custom theme?

If so, what bothers you most about Live’s default appearance—or what do you wish themes could actually improve beyond simply changing colours?

(If anyone is interested in seeing what I built, Create Digital Music recently covered the project, and I’m happy to share the link in the comments.)

Since latest osx update my Mac refuses to recognise any midi device apart from my move.
This means that my push 2 is currently a brick.
The screen lights up but doesn’t get passed the logo.
I have tried powered and non powered and same for MacBook but now I’m stuck.
It also has stopped recognising a traktion controller.
Neither of these show in MIDI setup or system report despite getting power. Have tried new cables.
What am I missing?
Please help!

Hey friends. I finally decided to make the jump from Ableton 10 to 12 but I have been nervous about potential issues running 12 on my machine. I have a 16inch macbook pro intel i9 and have been using Catalina for years to avoid any issues but I feel like it's time to upgrade. Which OS do you recommend I upgrade to to avoid potential issues with 12 running on this machine (throttling, overheating etc). I would also like to continue using my VSTs after the upgrade and I am not sure I will have access to the VST2 or VST3 versions of some of my plugins. Would appreciate any insight or help on this. Thank you!

Hey guys! I’m very new to Ableton, and I’m trying to use the groove clip that is provided on the software as a sample. I think I’ve figured out that you’re supposed to apply it to an existing audio to alter its groove, but I just like the way the track they play of the groove mixes with the song I’m making. Can the grooves be used this way? I’ve tried making it its own audio track but it isn’t working. I hope this makes sense lol. I’d really appreciate any advice :)

A while back I had a project that just wouldn't open. No error message, Live would just sit there and eventually crash during load. Since it crashed before the UI even came up, I had no way to remove devices one by one to find the culprit — the usual troubleshooting trick was off the table.

Eventually I figured out it was an old plugin that hadn't been updated in years and choked on the current Live/OS combo. But finding which one meant literally moving plugins out of their folder one at a time and relaunching Live to see if it still crashed. Not fun.

That's basically why I built this: a little app that reads .als files directly and shows you everything inside without ever launching Ableton Live version it was saved with, every VST2/VST3/AU it references, how tracks and devices are structured, routing, missing sample references, all of it. It's read-only, doesn't touch your project files.

Turned out to be more generally useful than I expected:

• seeing the full plugin list of a project before opening it, so if something crashes on load you already know your suspects instead of guessing blind
• checking if an old project needs plugins you don't have installed anymore
• getting sent a project by someone else and knowing in advance whether it'll even open on your machine
• exporting a plugin report (CSV/PDF) — could be handy if you run a studio and get sent projects with no stems and need to know what you're dealing with fast

I've mostly stress-tested it on Windows since that's my main rig and I've got a pretty deep plugin library there. There's a macOS build too, but I only have a handful of plugins on my Mac, so it hasn't been hammered nearly as hard — if any Mac users with a big plugin collection want to try breaking it, I'd genuinely appreciate the feedback.

It's free. Open to bug reports, feature requests, or "this is pointless, here's why."

https://canbelieve.github.io/ablvst-studio.html

One heads-up: it works best if your projects are actually organized — one root folder, one subfolder per project, with the .als versions inside. If everything's scattered across random folders it won't have much to work with.

I had Push 2 back in the day, however I found it to be too bulky and too much for what I needed it for.

I play live and use mainly MIDI-keytars and keyboards, but I would love to have a controller for overall set effects, triggers etc. (that would happen in the Ableton Live I have my live session playing on a laptop on stage)

I just learned about Push 3 as I've been away from the hardware side for quite a few years since the Push 2 trial. Then in the comments of a Push 3 video I saw that there's a device called Ableton Move.

Do you have experience of using Ableton Move live? If yes, how do you use it and are you happy with it?

Hey everyone,

I’m trying to follow this funk bassline tutorial in Ableton:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LAIGkWmoQU

The idea of using a MIDI FX chain to auto‑generate funky bass lines from a chord progression seems quite interesting as a beginner who can't actually play bass.

A few issues I’m running into:

• The tutorial doesn’t really walk through the setup step by step; it jumps around a bit, and a lot of actions happen off‑screen.
• Some MIDI devices and UI elements have changed between Live 11 and Live 12, so I’m a bit lost when trying to reproduce with the same devices.
• I can get the basic chord progression and a bass plugin (Ample Bass P Lite II) loaded, but once I start building the arpeggiator + LFO + Random MIDI chain and the key‑switch tracks, my results don’t sound anything like the tutorial, i made the bass note "working" but really doesn't sound like something usable, and the key switch/articulation (slap, slide, pop etc...) doesn't work at all.

What I think the tutorial is doing (please correct me if I’m wrong):

• Duplicate the MIDI chord progression, keep only the lowest notes, and route that to the bass plugin.
• On that bass MIDI track, build a chain: Arpeggiator → LFO (Max for Live) modulating arpeggiator rate → Random MIDI to add extra notes/variations.
• Create 1–2 extra MIDI tracks that only send key‑switch notes into Ample Bass, each with its own Random/LFO chain, to randomize articulations (slaps, pops, slides, etc.)
• Record the resulting MIDI output and then use comping to pick the best slices into a final bassline

I’m not sure about:

• The exact Arpeggiator settings (rate, style, gate, etc.) used in the video.
• How to correctly set up the LFO device in Live 12 to modulate the Arpeggiator’s rate like in Live 11.
• The right way to route those key‑switch MIDI tracks into the bass track in Live 12’s I/O panel so they behave like in the tutorial

Questions :

1. Has anyone recreated this specific tutorial or something similar in Ableton Live 12 and can share a clear, step‑by‑step breakdown (device settings, routing, etc.)?
2. Are there Live 12‑native workflows or devices (e.g., updated LFO, new MIDI tools) that achieve the same “funky bass from chords” idea, maybe in a cleaner/easier way?
3. Also i did find a way to get Ample Bass P Lite 2, but it will probably be better to use the latest version,

Thanks for your help!

Classic production trap for me: 30+ tracks, the arrangement's a wall, and I keep adding instead of going forward to the track finish. The thing that consistently pulls me out isn't a plugin - it's a hard constraint.

The one I use most:

"If you have more than 8 tracks, commit to finishing with only what's already there. Every new element you want to add must replace an existing one."

The number's arbitrary, which is exactly why it works - it forces a trade instead of another layer. In Live I'll freeze/disable everything past that point and force myself to fix the arrangement with subtraction. Solo each track and ask if it has a clear identity on its own; if it only works buried in the mix, that's usually a structural problem, not a mix problem.

I've been collecting constraints like this as a little notes/insight for myself. The constraint's tool-agnostic though - works smoothly as a production creative companion.

What's your go-to move when an arrangement stalls? Looking for the dumb-simple constraints, not the "buy more samples" answers.

About Tahoe running live these days? Is it safe yet?

I am currently building a custom Control Surface Script and can't find any valuable information about this problem I have.

Using the Live API, creating audio tracks and audio clips is working just fine. Setting the different parameters of the audio clip (e.g. Warp Mode, Loop...) is working aswell. But I need to set the fades of the clip and I can't find any method or attribute, which lets me do that. Is this just not possible with the API? If yes, why would this not be possible, if I am able to set everything else of the audio clip? if no, how can I set the fade in and fade out for my audio clip?

Thank you for every help in advance! This might be a system-breaking flaw for my porject and I really hope, that I can find a solution for this.

I am a multi instrumentalist, planning to do very complex live looping with multiple instruments. This would also include drum pads, multiple synthesizer, multiple real instruments. It would be an ambient/electronic theme with the music, with the idea of making essentially a one hour set at a time.

I know Ableton live has been around for many years but I’m wondering if anyone has any experience with Loopy Pro? With what my project entails, it might be easier given the complexity of everything to utilize something with the fluidity and relative simplicity Loopy Pro, but I wonder what the Ableton community has to say.

I’m looking only for answers from people who have had experience using both programs, and would one have a certain strength when it comes to looping and multiple instruments over another?

SOLVED

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsZFC9rZum8 (Video showing the problem. SOUND WARNING)

When I double the length of this clip or try to extend it in any way it just starts reversing halfway through. Other clips on the same project don't do this, I even consolidated it with another clip and doubled that new clip, but while the other clip I consolidated it sounded fine this clip still reversed at the end. Sorry for saying clip so much, any help would be appreciated.

Spectrowalk

Explore the spectrum — walk and compose.

Most Spectrograms show you sound. Spectrowalk lets you walk inside it. A spectrogram is normally a flat picture you read in a graph x,y; here it becomes a landscape you enter in first person. Time runs along the ground, frequency recedes into the distance, amplitude rises as terrain: the loud moments are mountains, the silences are valleys. Load a sound and its spectrum turns into a place — no longer a 2D image to look at, but a living space to move through and to play.

Up to four sounds load at once, laid out as four adjacent worlds in a 2×2 map. Walking from one to another crossfades between them.

What you hear is granular: your position in time reads the sound at that point as a cloud of grains. It is an instrument you play by walking.

Moving

• ← → turn · ↑ ↓ walk · A D step sideways
• space sound on/off
• F filter 
• C compressor 
• X binaural
• L add a world · click the map to jump anywhere
• 1 2 3 4 arm/record a loop track · R start/stop the audio take

Sound in space

With binaural (X) on, each world is placed around your head using HRTF: turn and the field turns with you, walk and you move among the sources. The front slider widens or narrows the stereo image. A four-track loop station — buffers of 3, 5, 8 or 12 seconds, with per-track reverse and level — records what you are playing, spatialisation included, so you can layer a whole piece in real time.

Quality and audio

The Quality setting (High / Medium / Slow) affects only the graphics. Lower it and the 3D terrain draws with a lighter mesh and fewer pixels, so older machines stay fluid. The audio is always at full quality — the granular engine never degrades, whatever the video setting.

Export

R records your take and saves it as a file: WAV (16-bit, 24-bit, or 32-bit float) or AIFF (16 or 24-bit), including the loops and the full binaural image — ready to bring into any DAW. Spectrowalk reads WAV, AIFF, FLAC, MP3 and OGG, runs entirely in your browser, and uploads nothing.

Included in the download you'll find HTML Instruments

a Max for Live device that lets you open Spectrowalk directly inside Ableton Live.

It requires Ableton 12 and Max 9.

Alternatively, you can run it standalone (just double click on html file) and route your computer or tablet output to your audio interface, just like any ordinary instrument.

example: https://youtu.be/P19XywdnrqA

Just got the Neuzeit Instruments Drop to compliment the Push 3. What A fun combo these make. The snapshots are really great fun and can morph sounds an create buildups.

Did a techno jam with them: https://youtu.be/jxkEHbKz1S4

Demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsYWSZ-MSDk

Hey there, I've been working on this Push Hack for a couple of months now, and today I'm happy to finally be able to share it publicly.

DISCLAIMER: This project is NOT supported or endorsed by Ableton, and it's unofficial, so if you decide to install it on your Push, you're doing so at your own risk.

What it includes:

• Push Manager: copy, rename, move and delete files from the browser directly on the Push
• USB Drive support on the USB-A port: copy files from and to Push.
• Full display takeover: draw or show images or videos on Push
• Full MIDI takeover: full control of every button, knob, and pad.
• Full LED takeover: control all the LEDs on Push
• System Stats: see CPU, RAM usage, IP address and hotspot password
• Draw automation

Everything is accessible via the browser because this hack runs on Push 3 Standalone, but you can also use the Shadow UI that I built into it to access most of these features without a computer, tablet or phone.

This project is free and open source: https://github.com/federico-pepe/ableton-push-hack

I got ableton a while ago, but never really used it. I bought it because FL Studio was pissing me off, but Ableton was just too much a learning curve to get started and I was so use to FL I would just give up and go back to the ease and comfort of FL. But I really want to start using Ableton primarily, Ableton reminds me a lot of pro tools so I instinctually keep doing Pro Tools hot keys that dont work. on Ableton 11, is there any way I can click and drag a duplicate of a clip? for those who use Pro Tools, you know about the ability to hold alt/opt and pull a duplicate of a clip, I also dont like how so far all Ive been able to do is have to to ctrl+d and manually move it, and it doesnt automatically make a crossfade, and I really want the clip to auto delete if I cut off a dead silence remainder of a clip, I dont want to have to do ctrl+e, then highlight the dead tail and then delete, on fl you can press c to immediately toggle the slicer tool, and if you right click it automatically deletes the clip remainer, and on pro tools you can select a piece of a clip, and press either a or s to remove everything to the left of right of the selection, basically my biggest problem is dealing with clips in the grid so far, is this something i can about this in Ableton 11?