Recording - January 2021 - 10

FIRST LOOK!

Ableton Live 11
This popular DAW now goes to eleven!
BY DAVID BLASCOE

ew editions of Ableton Live are always
eagerly anticipated. Ableton Live 11 is
scheduled for an early 2021 release. I
played around with an advance copy of Live 11 for
a few months, and here are some of my favorite new
features and first impressions.

Take Lanes

There are many new top-line features added to Live this time
around. First and foremost, comping is now built into Live 11.
Dubbed 'Take Lanes', Ableton worked hard in developing this
popular and often-requested feature, and it shows, in its simplicity and ease of use.
For those unfamiliar with comping, an example is to loop a segment of your song, let's say the verse, and record multiple consecutive takes. Once finished, all takes are indexed below your audio
track in a convenient dropdown menu of sorts for you to store and
organize. From there, you can audition each take, choose your favorite bits, and integrate them to arrive at a master take containing
all the best moments. You go through each of your take lanes and
highlight each favorite segment with the Draw tool. The top audio
track automatically populates with your selections, and you're left
with a perfectly edited final take in little to no time at all. This works
with both audio and MIDI, and with the new linked-track editing in
Live 11, you can even comp things like a multitrack drum session
so it will select the same take on every drum microphone at the
same time. Beyond your average comping and editing abilities,
there is a pandora's box of creative potential, such as when I lined
up multiple drum loops in Take Lanes all in the same BPM and randomly selected bits from each. Instantly, I had this changing and
morphing drum pattern that was something I would never have
come up with on my own. The possibilities are endless.
10 RECORDING January 2021

Link It Up

Another new feature is Linked-Track editing. Much of what I
do in Ableton Live is editing and mixing drum sessions that I've
tracked, and I love this new workflow. The ability to split, copy
and paste, and adjust fades on all my drum tracks at the same
time has sped up my workflow. Also, being able to arm all the
linked tracks simultaneously for recording without having to select them all and hold shift was something I found very helpful.
I have also found Linked-Track editing useful for quickly making
arrangement edits to an entire session. I had one instance where
I wanted to shorten the bridge of a song by 4 bars. I temporarily
linked all my tracks together, split them all, deleted the unneeded
audio and was done-a beneficial and powerful addition.

Sounds

Live 11 includes a ton of new stock sounds. I'm excited about
the Upright Piano, String Quartet, and Brass Quartet, developed in
collaboration with Spitfire Audio. Spitfire has an impeccable reputation for stunning and lifelike playable software instruments. Voice
Box, Mood Reel, and Drone Lab are some other newcomers that I
very much look forward to exploring. None of these were available
yet in my advance copy so expect a deep dive in the future.

Follow the Leader

Live Tempo Following is a new feature that I've never seen
before, and I think it's a game changer. It can intelligently adjust
project BPM to the performer, instead of the performer having to
follow a click as the tempo source. [wait...what? -Ed.] You assign
an audio source for Live to follow; I found the snare drum mic to
be an excellent place to start, and the session will follow you instead of the other way around, making your loops and backing

Recording - January 2021

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