Ableton

This video, via Tom Cosm, is the first of a series of three tutorial videos on track construction in Ableton Live.

It’s designed to teach you ways you can approach writing a track, from start to finish. It covers topics such as Sound Design, Building Loops and Section Construction, Arrangements and Progressions, and Mixing.

Explains Cosm:

In this video, I start by writing a loop, made up of pads, playing a chord progression, then percussion, bass and finaly a lead instrument. This loop becomes my first hook. From there I strip it back to create a progression from intro, to a groove, then into the first hook.

Max4Live takes a look at the Novation Launchpad, a new $199 controller designed to “put Ableton Live at your fingertips.”

In addition to Ableton’s announcements today about Ableton Live Intro and their giveaway of 10 free Live Packs to celebrate Live’s 10th anniversary, it announced the release date for Max For Live and the beta release.

Max for Live will be available on November 23rd, 2009. It will cost USD 299/EUR 249. If you already own Max 5, the discounted price is USD 99/EUR 79.

If you’re a Live 8 user already, you can join the Max For Live beta. Read more…

Ableton has announced Ableton Live Intro – their new entry-level version of Ableton Live.

Live Intro has the same basic features as Ableton Live at a lower price and comes with 7 GB of Sampled Instruments, Drum Loops, Beats and Breaks, 200 Audio and MIDI Racks and Effects and 500 Instruments and Drum Kits from the Ableton Live Suite library.

So you’re probably wondering what the differences are between Ableton Live Intro and Ableton Live.

The biggest differences are:

• Live Intro is limited to 2 stereo inputs and outputs
• It’s limited to 8 Ableton instruments per project
• Live Intro doesn’t include the Looper or the Vocoder
• Live Intro is limited to 4 VST/AU instruments and effects per project
• Live Intro is limited to 8 scenes per project
• Live Intro doesn’t support External Instrument and Audio Effect devices
• No video import/export

Full details on the differences are available in chart format at the Ableton site.

Ableton is celebrating the 10th anniversary of Live by giving away 10 free Live Packs for Ableton Live 8 and up.

The Live Packs feature the work of 10 top Ableton Live artists, and let you look inside their songs and see how the artists work their magic.

The Live Pack artists include:

• Adam Freeland
• Apparat
• Brian Ales
• Covert Operators
• Junie Morrison
• Martin Gretschman, aka Acid Pauli
• Micah Frank
• Mum
• Swayzak
• Thavius Beck

Note: The free Live Packs will work in Live Intro or Live Lite, but will be read only.

No registration or email mumbo-jumbo is required – just go to Ableton’s site and start downloading.