Ableton Live 8 – The Selection Marches On
Ableton Live 8 is an incredibly powerful and intuitive piece of music production and recording software. Since it’s release in 2001 it quickly became and remained one of the most widely used pieces of software for bands and electronic musicians, as well as being used as a primary or secondary tool for DJs to either add samples to their mixes or even allowing them to perform entirely in Ableton. Now in it’s 8th edition it is a very impressive and successful piece of software. Here’s an Ableton Live 8 review.
For the most part, the music production aspect of the program relies on loops, musicians either load pre-made samples onto a track which Ableton then automatically loops, or create their own loops using synthesizers for arrangement. The software includes a number of synths and drum machines that are fairly simple to use, but using 3rd party software is also fairly easy. Hopefully this Ableton Live review will convince you it’s the software for you.
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.
Live is also fully compatible with ReWire devices so can be used in combination with all of the other main music making software either as a host or a slave. It has become one of the industry standards, the wealth of artists who use it both as a performance tool and music recording software is testament to this programs power and versatility.
Recording music is also not only simple but also provides excellent quality playback allowing you to get the perfect take. Sound recordings are quickly and automatically converted into audio files allowing artists to view and record their editing digitally with ease. Recording music or sounds and then arranging them or simply reproducing a live performance and rendering it to a sound file with ease.
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.
One of the features that is developing in a very promising fashion with each new edition is the live performance element. With early versions of the software it was perhaps somewhat neglected, favoring the composition element of the engine, since the 5th edition Ableton Live as a way to use your laptop as an instrument in itself has really come into it’s own. Improvements to the cuing, looping and beat-matching software have finally made it reliable.
Ableton Live 8 continues the series rich tradition of providing excellent all round Best DJ software giving you incredibly intuitive and effective control over your art as a live performance tool or recording studio. You can search online for other DJ equipment.
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