Ableton Live 12 Beta [WiN-MAC]

• Publisher: Ableton
• Supplier: AUDIOWAREZ & HCiSO
• Product: Live 12 Beta
• Version: 12.0.21 Beta & 12.0b26 U2B
• Requirements: Windows 10 or higher, macOS 11.0 or later (Apple Silicon or Intel Core processor)

Whatever music you make, and whoever you are as a music maker, there’s always more to explore in Live. See how you can go further with Live 12.

Find out what’s possible in Live 12

Reshape MIDI patterns

Apply a variety of simple or complex variations to your MIDI clips with new MIDI Transformations. Add ornaments and articulations, draw acceleration and deceleration curves, connect successive notes and chords, simulate the strum of a guitar, and more.

Generate inspiration

Conjure up melodies, chords and rhythms with the help of new MIDI Generators. Set constraints and let your chosen Generator create playful and original ideas for you to develop and turn into your own.

Do more with Max for Live

Try out additional Max for Live Transformations and Generators that give you deeper ways of working with MIDI, or go even further by building new ones.

Embrace and explore tunings

Follow your preferred tuning systems or try different ones more easily. Work outside the 12-tone equal temperament system, and access tunings with Live’s devices as well as any MPE-capable plugin.

Stay in key

Choose a scale in Live’s Control Bar to see its notes in any MIDI clip you create. Then transform or generate ideas within the confines of the selected scale, or sync the scale of MIDI devices and instruments to the clip being played.

Edit MIDI more easily

Use keyboard and mouse operations to edit MIDI in new ways. Split a note in two, or chop it into several parts. Select a set of notes and join them together, or make them fill a selected time range. And access more tools from the Note Utilities panel on the left.

Modulate more flexibly

Stay in control of a parameter, even after it’s been mapped to a modulation source; Max for Live devices like LFO, Shaper and Envelope Follower now let you freely adjust a destination that’s being modulated.

Surprise yourself with the sounds you create

Lose yourself in Meld

Live’s new MPE-capable synthesizer is designed for sound variety, playfulness and character. Equipped with twin oscillators and an extensive modulation matrix, Meld excels at textural soundscapes, harmonic and atonal sounds, and rhythmic drones.

Add color with Roar

Bathe your sound in subtle warmth – or break it down with wild distortion. Live’s new coloring and saturation device is made up of three saturation stages for serial, parallel or even mid/side and multiband configurations, and its built-in compressor and feedback routing give you even more ways to shape your sound.

Get expressive with granular synthesis

Granulator III, the latest version of Robert Henke’s granular synthesizer, introduces expressive control that lets you bend notes and add vibrato and glissando. Plus, you can now capture audio in real time and start manipulating it immediately.

Lost and Found

A collection of sounds fashioned from unusual materials, percussive trinkets, unique foley recordings and expressive objects to infuse your productions with character and authenticity.

Performance Pack

A set of innovative devices from Iftah that enrich the experience of performing with Live. Capture snapshots of your sets and redeploy them later, create microperformances with multilayered automation, play loops in Arrangement View or prearrange the structure of a performance in real time.

Work more intuitively

Set up to stay focused

Use Live’s Mixer in Arrangement View to get more information and control without moving to Session View and breaking the flow. Toggle the visibility of each Mixer section to fit your needs, and benefit from improved readability and feedback.

See everything you need

Take advantage of Live’s new Stacked Detail Views to see more of what your track’s doing at a glance. Display the Clip Editor or automation and device parameters at the same time as the Device View, so you can work without repeatedly switching between views.

Search with tags

Make sound selection easier with the help of Live’s new tagging system. Sound content now comes labeled in the Browser with instrument categories and helpful musical descriptors – and if you want more tags, you can create your own.

Browse better

Get search results that cover the whole library, rather than being confined to the Browser’s built-in categories. And explore your search history to see sounds or categories you’ve previously looked for.

Sound Similarity Search

Find sounds that fit

Try Live’s new Sound Similarity Search to find sounds with similar characteristics to the one you’re working on. Start with a sample and tell Live’s browser to find comparable sounds and instrument presets, with the help of a neural network.

Instantly replace drums

Swap all the samples in your Drum Rack for similar ones to quickly try out new percussive textures – like a drum machine with seemingly-infinite kits.

Live 12 Beta v12.0b21 Release Notes

Live – New features and improvements:

• Accessibility: It is now possible to tab to some links in Live’s UI. Note that currently, focused links do not appear focused.
• Added a similarity sound analysis section to the Status Bar that is displayed when background scanning and analysis is running to provide information on the current analysis tasks in progress. The Pause button next to the analysis state can be used to stop the analysis for sound similarity. While it is a paused, the Resume button can be used to start the analysis again.
  
  There are a few different states that are shown:
  – Analysis: Scanning – This is shown when new unanalyzed files are detected.
  – Analysis: Pending – This displays the number of queued tasks.
  – Analysis: Processing – This shows the number of tasks left.
  – Analysis: Paused – This is shown when the process has been paused.
  – Analysis: Done – This is shown when the analysis has finished.
  
  Also, fixed a bug where the Indexer might continue to analyze files even when the “Enable Similarity Search Analysis” option is switched off in Live’s Preferences.
• In the browser, Rack device presets are now also shown in the device category of the corresponding device in the Rack. For example, an Instrument Rack preset containing Drift will be shown in the Drift folder.
• Updated some software texts for Live 12 features.
• In Clip View, the Transformation/Generator Selector menu now contains two template devices that can be used as a basis for creating custom Max for Live MIDI Tools.
• Accessibility: Added some context menu and accessibility improvements:
  – When opening a context menu via keyboard, the first item now always gets selected.
  – It is now possible to navigate between all items in the CPU Load Meter context menu independently of their state.
  – Also in the CPU Load Meter, the Average and Current values can be announced by screen readers.
  – Grid menu items now behave like radio buttons for screen readers.
• Added keyboard shortcuts for Similarity Swapping for Drum Racks, Drum Rack pads, and Simpler:
  – Next Similar: [CTRL] (Win) / [CMD] (Mac) + left arrow key
  – Previous Similar: [CTRL] (Win) / [CMD] (Mac) + left arrow key
  – Make Similarity Reference: [CTRL] (Win) / [CMD] (Mac) + up arrow key
  – Return to Reference: [CTRL] (Win) / [CMD] (Mac) + down arrow key
  
  These shortcuts are also accessible from the Drum Rack, Drum Rack pads, and Simpler context menus.
• – Persian tuning files have been added to the Core Library.
  – Core Library content is now pre-analyzed for Sound Similarity features.
• Updated the bundled Max 8.6.0 version to beta 1f48202

Live – Bugfixes:

• Fixed the following issues in the tuning systems panel:
  – The “Degree” column is now named “Note.” This change also applied in the custom controller layout dialog, as well as their respective software text, where degrees were mentioned.
  – Added Info View headers for individual controls which previously had unique text for a set of controls.
• In Clip View, fixed an issue where vertical text in a collapsed clip title bar would sometimes be displayed with a colored frame that could render the text barely legible.
• Removed the outline and rounded rectangular in the Audio Device Input/Output window so that now it conforms to Live 12 UI design.
• Improved keyboard navigation in Clip View:
  – In MIDI clips, using tab in the Envelopes view mode navigates from the end marker to the envelope editor, then to the controls in the MIDI Note Editor footer.
  – In audio clips, using tab in the Sample view mode navigates from the end marker through all the warp markers to the timeline.
• When using tuning system files, the octave and index for the reference pitch are now limited to the valid frequency range (4 to 21000hz).
• In Session View, double-clicking a volume slider in a track that is part of a multiselection will reset volume in all the selected tracks to 0db. This behavior is currently implemented for track chain mixers and rack device chains.
• When MIDI Note Preview is on, changing chord root in the Stacks generator will now result in an audible preview of the chord as expected.
• The undo text used for an action performed in a MIDI Tool will now always include the name of the MIDI Tool.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the [M] key from being used to toggle the Computer MIDI Keyboard option on French keyboards.
• Fixed a bug that resulted in erroneously marking Scala files as incorrectly formatted in the log file.
• When keyboard focus is placed on the Preferences window, it is no longer possible to start or stop playback using the spacebar or other common keyboard shortcuts.
• On Windows, fixed an issue where the Preferences window would have no visual boundaries when the operating system’s “Show shadows under windows” option was turned off.
• When zooming into a frozen audio clip, the indicators showing which elements are frozen now move as expected.
• Live no longer generates unnecessary undo steps when an action in a MIDI Tool results in no actual change, for example when repeatedly splitting notes at the same position.
• Fixed a crash that could occur when changing the type of an automated Max for Live parameter belonging to a device on the Main track.
• Made the following changes to the clip title bar in Clip View:
  – Fixed an issue where the title bar would not get selected by clicking, if the clip name was the clicked area.
  – Clicking on the title bar now focuses the clip in Session or Arrangement View regardless of where the title bar is clicked and whether it’s in a folded or unfolded state.
  – The Clip Activator switch is now accessible via keyboard when the title bar is folded.
  – Accessibility: The title bar is now correctly identified with a “group” role during screen reader announcements.
• Fixed the following issues the occurred when using tuning systems with Simpler and Sampler:
  – Closely-tuned notes no longer cut each other off.
  – It is no longer necessary to set the note pitch bend range to 48.
• Fixed a crash that sometimes occurred when changing the tuning system during playback.
• Presets using Drift’s mono mode now work with tuning systems as expected.
• Made the following UI improvements:
  – Adjusted the lightness level of disabled transport controls, so that they are easier to distinguish from enabled controls.
  – Adjusted the lightness level in the MIDI Note Editor, so that the difference between playable area and non-playing area is more noticeable.
  – In the browser, adjusted the lightness level of the Show Similar Files button to make it more obvious when similarity searching is unavailable.
  – Removed the Apricot and Plum theme due to its unsatisfactory level of contrast.
• When opening a new Live set, the Device View is now visible by default.
• The probability value of a note probability group will now be preserved if the group type is changed, new notes are added to the group, or several groups with identical probabilities are merged.
• In Meld, LFO 1 Generator Parameter 2 is now listed correctly as “LFO 1 Macro 2” instead of “LFO 1 Macro 1” in the Modulation Matrix and the automation lanes.
• Fixed a crash that occurred when opening a new Set or closing Live while certain plugin UIs were visible.
• Fixed a potential crash that could occur when attempting to load the Electric device by double-clicking it in the browser.
• Fixed inconsistent behavior in the Filters View in the browser, which resulted in displaying misleading states of possible filters.
• Fixed an issue where resizing the Tuning column would result in the Octave, Degree and Reference Pitch/Frequency columns being misaligned for Lowest and Highest Note rows. As a result, it is no longer possible to manually resize the Tuning column. The tuning system name will include an ellipsis if the column size is insufficient to display the full name.
• Push 2’s user port is now available in Live’s Preferences again.
• Fixed a bug where the Info View text would be misaligned when viewing information about a tuning system with a name that did not fit the Info View header. The text will now be aligned properly and the header will contain an ellipsis if the tuning system name exceeds the header size.
• Accessibility: Live no longer crashes at startup if the JAWS screen reader is running.
• Fixed a crash that could occur when using custom MIDI controller layouts.
• Fixed the following issues that occurred when using colorful themes:
  – When the Show Scroll Bar option in Display & Input Preferences is set to When Scrolling, scroll bars will now only appear when scrolling as expected.
  – Colorful themes now use the same meter colors as Live’s Default themes.
• – Fixed an issue with browser labels not displaying contents when they are unchecked in Edit Mode.
  – Fixed a bug where the browser label selection would jump when checking or unchecking labels.
• Last modification date and file size for Live’s .amxd files are now shown in the browser again.
• Fixed a bug which prevented Live from being closed when the Preferences folder was missing.
• Fixed a crash that could occur when installing a pack while another instance of Live was running.
• Fixed an issue that could lead to unexpected behavior when saved searches used similarity search based on a file which no longer existed.
• Accessibility: Added the following improvements:
  – Added basic accessibility support for warp markers, loop markers, and clip markers.
  – Added basic screen reader announcements for the Sample Editor.
  – Improved screen reader experience when navigating clip title bar contents.
  – It is now possible to focus the Optimize Arrangement Height and Width buttons with a keyboard.
• On Windows, Live no longer crashes when a video window is opened at startup, or when using the [CTRL][S] or [CTRL][Q] keyboard shortcuts when a plugin window is in focus.
• The Clip View and Device View Toggle buttons now use the same color names as other view toggle buttons. This change will only have a visible effect when using a custom theme.
• On macOs, context and dropdown menus will no longer lag on certain devices using the Apple M2 chip.
• Fixed an issue that could prevent users from deleting tag groups in the browser.
• Made the following updates to Max for Live devices:
  – In all modulators:
  – Updated the Info View headers for Modulation Amount and Polarity.
  – Added software text to the Map button, noting the introduction of latency.
  – When mapping fails, the Mapped state is now turned off, also for remote control.
  – Changed modulation color back to Control On variant.
  – In LFO:
  – For the bipolar Offset parameter, arc is now drawn from the center.
  – The minimum required version of Max for Live to use LFO is now 8.6.0.
  – Fixed the Phase parameter.
  – In Expression Control:
  – Fixed a bug where incorrect text color was used for some toggles in dark themes.
  – Fixed a bug where the clickable area of the Map toggle was smaller than the toggle itself.
  – Fixed an issue where thin sliders incorrectly worked as bipolar instead of unipolar.
  – Fixed a bug where thin indicator colors were not updated after changing Live’s theme.
  – DS devices:
  – All automated parameters are now exposed to modulation.
  – In DS Sampler:
  – Fixed an issue with unpredictable velocity.
• Live no longer crashes when changing the scale on Push.
• Fixed an issue that could result in the background analysis for sound similarity being enabled after starting Live even though the option was disabled in Preferences.
• Fixed the following bugs on Windows:
  – Using the [CTRL][D] keyboard shortcut will now trigger the Duplicate action as expected.
  – Opening a context menu in the MIDI Note Editor using a keyboard shortcut (e.g., [Shift][F10]) will no longer change note selection and will show menu items relevant to the current selection as expected.
  – Using the Set 1.1.1 Here option through a keyboard shortcut will now set 1.1.1 at the insert marker position as expected.
• Horizontal sliders (e.g., Follow Action Chance or sliders in the Seed generator) now work in pen tablet mode. The value range is now preserved when dragging with a mouse.
• Fixed a bug which allowed overlapping notes from MPE to play in Analog, Electric, Collision, and Tension.
• Drop down menus in MIDI Tools should now open faster.
• Fixed an issue where the track I/O controls, hidden when there was not enough space and a tuning system was enabled, failed to reappear once the tuning system was disabled.
• Fixed a bug that caused user-assigned tags to be removed from factory content when Live 12 was reopened after an older version of Live was run.
• Push 2 users can now use polyphonic aftertouch as expected.
• Fixed crashes that occurred in several different scenarios when using the Stacks MIDI Tool.
• Fixed two issues in the Note Length device:
  – Fixed a bug where the Latch switch setting would not be saved in a Set.
  – The “On/Off Balance” control is now consistently named “Release Velocity”.
• Fixed a bug that would sometimes make Clip View controls appear to have a context menu with a single “Copy Max for Live Path” entry.
• Dragging devices from the browser or a track and hovering over another track will now highlight the target track as expected.
• Tags assigned to items in the browser will remain assigned to those items, even if the items are moved to a new location.
• Fixed the following issues in Max for Live devices:
  – In all modulators, the controls in the mapping lane are no longer disabled when no parameter is mapped.
  – Fixed a bug where Note Echo would not work if the transport was stopped.
• Fixed an issue that occurred when trying to freeze and unfreeze the Euclidean and Velocity Shaper Max for Live MIDI Tools.
• Splitting, reversing, and stretching MIDI notes now works as expected when using Focus Mode with multiple Arrangement clips selected.
• In the Velocity or Chance Editor, when at least one note is selected, hovering over an unselected note will no longer highlight that note.