Warp Drive

Decide on the tempo after a recording session. Bend sampled grooves. Correct timing problems in your recordings. Create new sounds by restructuring existing sounds. Time-align tracks for remixes. Fit the music to film cues. Add emotion with tempo curves…
Live will do it all in real-time with superior sound quality. This power is delivered by ableton's Time-Warping Engine, which allows you to manipulate and adjust the timing and pitch of your audio with complete flexibility and fidelity.
No matter what you do and how you work, Live is likely to become your favorite problem solving tool, as well as a never-ending source of inspiration.

Beautiful Simplicity

Every detail in Live has been carefully designed to provide you with intuitive, simple and fast access. The result not only looks good, it feels good as well. Live's single window, clutter-free surface with integrated file and effects browsers, makes creating music a joyful experience, especially in critical situations-- whether in the studio or on stage.
Make your project as complex as you want it, Live remains straightforward. Here is the simplicity and expressive power you can expect from a good instrument.

A Little Song I Wrote...

Live lets you easily construct music by dragging samples from the built-in browser into a timeline. Thanks to the Time-Warping Engine you do not have to worry about their original tempo or key.
Pre-Listen to samples in sync with your song before actually putting them in, apply tempo changes and manipulate the key of your samples any time you like.
Stereo and mono samples with different sample rates and bit depths happily coexist in a project without conversions. Live provides all the tools you need for editing your audio, as well as the possibility to render the result of your work to disk.

...With My Instrument

Live is not only a full-featured audio sequencer; it allows for a previously unimaginable real-time approach to composition and improvisation. Launch loops, phrases, or complete songs in real-time, and have Live’s Time-Warping Engine keep it all in sync.
In the studio, real-time song arrangement provides music and score producers with an abundance of creative possibilities, while saving them a lot of time. Sketch out a rough layout of samples and jam with them to get ideas. Let the music evolve. Live will log your actions for further in-depth editing. Live’s ability to create music on the fly, without being bound to a fixed timeline or tempo, has already revolutionized the way musicians use computers on stage. Along with features like tempo-tapping, these possibilities transform the computer into a musical instrument that actually works in a band context. DJs are raving about Live because it lets them combine music of any style at the press of a button. There is better creative use for your time than pitching disks into sync. Be a DJ, a live act, a remixer or morph between all.

Recording

Live offers traditional multi-track hard disk recording with the familiar monitoring, recording and punch-in/out controls. This is where the tradition ends. Live's Time-Warping Engine transforms your recordings into elastic matter: you can tap to define the tempo for a take, slow down to record a difficult part, speed it up after the fact, combine this take with a slower take from yesterday's session, and so on. In a jamming situation, Live's instant recording capabilities allow you to capture loops on the fly and go directly from recording into loop playback, without interrupting the flow. Create beat-matched loops directly out of Reason or any other ReWire Slave program, or resample Live's own output.

Powerful effects

Live's acclaimed selection of effect devices range from standard studio tools like a Paramtertric EQ, Chorus or Compressor to more exotic things like the stunning "Grain Delay", a vinyl distortion simulator or analog synth filter emulation. You can extend the range of possibilities by incorporating VST plug-ins as well. Effects are inserted, chained, and reordered by drag-and-drop, without interrupting the music. All Live Effects and VST plug-ins can be fully automated and remote controlled via MIDI.

Keyboard & MIDI control

You might be asking how can I play an instrument with the mouse? You don't need to. Almost all of Live's functions can be arbitrarily assigned to computer keys, MIDI notes and MIDI controllers: launching of sound files, transport functions, the tempo (and the Tap button), mixer and effect controls. With Live on a laptop and a MIDI keyboard or fader box, you are the state of the art one-man band. You are in complete control.

Integrate Live into your workflow

Ableton Live is a friendly companion in every environment. Live runs on the Macintosh and PC platforms, follows MIDI sync signals from your hardware sequencer, connects to Pro Tools, Logic, Cubase, Nuendo, Digital Performer, Sonar, Reason, MAX/MSP or any other ReWire compatible application.

From Musicians for Musicians

Live is the result of musicians joining with developers to fulfill their dream. We had been running into walls with the existing solutions, be it hardware or software, and decided to create our own. Live provides you with powerful features, great flexibility and a smart interface. To this day, every detail of what we offer has been painstakingly scrutinized and heavily tested and approved under real-world conditions, on stage and in the studio.

The ableton dream has become a reality not only for us, but for many other musicians as well.