Theres an early Ableton Live 8 review at Zettt.de, focusing on what’s new in version 8.

Of Live 8, Zettt says:

The new version feels very snappy. In older versions you always had to wait a little until something has happened. Live 8 seems to react much faster to user input.

No Sidechain for AU Plugins. Even Ableton tells that they have added a hundred new implementations for all the third-party Plugins the Sidechain for AU Plugins still doesn’t work. (Tested with Sonalksis’ Mix Essentials)

Vocoder is a killer! We have been waiting for that thing sooo long. It seems to fit perfectly into Ableton’s workflow.

For me the best newly added feature is the “Slice to New MIDI Tracks by Transients” feature. When Live 7 came out i was complaining it wasn’t possible to Slice via Transients. There’s this little workaround, you can use Warp Markers instead…but who want’s to work like this?

At first sight Live 8 seemed to be a “not so much stuff added” Update but underneath there has changed a lot. The new Plugins, Instruments and the workflow additions really pay off the price for the Update (in my case 175€ for Ableton Live 8 Suite Download Education Version).

There’s just one that really disappoints me. I would have bought Live 8 much faster, without even less thinking, when Max for Live would already be implemented in the program. But in fact it isn’t.

Zettt’s also not impressed with the new Groove Engine – but this is a feature that other musicians may really love.

Check out the full review here.

Are you using Live 8? If so, leave a comment with your thoughts on it.