Ableton Live 8 – Top Notch Music Software

Ableton Live 8 – The Brand Marches On

Ableton Live 8 since it’s birth in 2001 has been something of an enigma in the world of music production software. It has long been accepted as one of the most reliable and efficient tools for professional quality music production, but it has somehow managed to evade the notoriety that is so often afforded to many of it’s competitors. Some have questioned whether this almost flawless record has come at the cost of some of the bite of the others, the ghost in the machine as it were.

Initially designed solely for music recording, the production aspect of the software has perhaps been the surprise package of the series, coming into it’s own and arguably overshadowing the recording studio aspect. The loop based synthesizer system very much represents this some would say paradigm changing development. It could be argued that it represents a mechanization of the music.

The fact that it is probably the market leader in terms of compatibility has helped promote this aspect of Ableton Live 8 a great deal. Third party synths from both independent developers and the bigger names of the industry are easily plugged in and loaded onto the software using a Windows style drag and drop method, again demonstrating the incredibly intuitive nature of the controls.

The versatility of the software with regards to plugins is also taken care of automatically with no need for previous knowledge of music software or even computers users can learn how to make and record their music in a matter of hours. The interface has managed to main it’s simplicity despite the ever increasing number of features is a testament to the software.

As a complete studio this piece of software also delivers excellent results, allowing musicians to easily record and edit their work. Much easier than a 4 track or analogue recording device, the incredibly intuitive interface makes it a matter of childsplay to record and edit your work. Sounds are automatically converted into easily editable files which can be edited and played around with just like you would with any digital file.

Perhaps the main strength of Ableton is it’s incredibly simple interface allowing users to learn the basics in under an hour even without any experience of music software. The tutorial is very well put together and it will only take a couple of afternoons to learn all of the basics of recording and editing.

As a tool for live performance it is also developing into a serious option which can be used by DJs simply to mix music or as an instrument itself with specialized controllers which allowing fast access to hundreds of samples which can be mixed and edited on the fly producing some incredible sets and pieces of music. It is also a fairly safe platform with crashes and bugs incredibly rare. This was a complaint often made about earlier versions but with this edition they seem to finally have all of the crashes and bugs ironed out of the system.

Ableton Live keeps up the series rich tradition of providing incredibly intuitive DJ Software for a wide range of purposes. It remains and will for some time one of the leaders in it’s field. You can search online for other DJ equipment.