While I have used multiple other DAWs for recording, none of them were able to provide the flexibility to use in a live performance environment. This is where Ableton Live comes in. It has one of the most useful sets of built-in features and instruments that taking production to a whole new level. Not only does it take care of the audio side of things, but it also helps us automate/live-sync multiple other devices - in live video production, lighting, lyrics and cues. Overall, it replaces the need for multiple pieces of software which for our use case, is a BIG WIN!

Our biggest advantage is in terms of automation. Instead of having 6 different people-dependant processes, taking up manpower and adding points of failure, we now need only person to take care of the entire production. It's not just cutting down on wasted resources but also helps streamline the entire process of live media production.

The biggest con with Live is that it has a steep learning curve. After having used multiple DAWs over the last couple of decades, it still took a while to catch up and use Live to its full potential. There are however tons of resources online to help along the way.

I love tracking in live I’ve been using it as an artist for over two years now. I’ve learned so much using live about mixing music

Personally I think live would be a big recommendation for EDM or hiphop music

It has lots of tutorials online and good for sound design

Confusing to look at and to understand compared to studio one

This is an awesome electronic music lab for today's creators. This is a must for any involved in beatmaking, urban generes, and any other style that requires looping and virtual instruments programming. I have been using for years and last version is so powerful.

Works on Mac and PC. Plenty of resources such as loops, and patches for the included virtual instruments. Very CPU friendly.

Lacks of in deep and very precise digital audio editing tools

Pretty much the best that has happened to me, i use this DAW and I will still use it for quite a bit

The viriety of tutorials and videos that you can find in order to learn about this progrma is great, pretty much you can find a good start up with the comunity that this daw has.

Maybe the cost and the way that it may seem at the beggining with is pretty arcaic for my taste but with the time you get used to it and realize that it is indeed the best program that is out there.

Excellent.

Working with clips is a great way to create music.

I prefer the stock instruments in some other DAWs and the interface of plugins and instruments could be more user friendly at times.

Easy to manipulate audio, sketch ideas, compose and arrange

Not convenient for mixing and mastering, other DAW do it better

I have used a few music production programs before Ableton Live and now after 2+ years of using Ableton almost on a daily basis, I can confidently say that there is no other music software that I would use. Ableton meets all of my needs with ease of use with plugins and midi, live recording, and collaborating with other artists. Despite the minor bugs that are here and there, Ableton keeps improving and I'm looking forward to Ableton Live 11 when it releases.

Ableton Live's ease of use with a variety of genres and production processes is one of the most impactful features. Some DAWs such as FL Studio are great for techno/hip hop music, while others like Garage Band are great for singer/songwriters, but Ableton Live is the DAW for anything. Recording instruments and vocals can be seamless and the same goes for anything MIDI related. Ableton Live is very convenient in relation to collaborating with other artists and producers since it is an industry standard.

There are not many things I dislike about Ableton, but the biggest problem I have that I deal with on a regular basis is something very simple: my audio input and output glitch to the point where I have to save and exit out of the program to fix it. If I switch from my headphones to my studio monitors, Ableton will say it doesn't recognize my monitors. I exit the application, open it back up and it recognizes my monitors. It's a minor bug but extremely inconvenient if you're in the middle of some creative energy. The most negative aspect of Ableton Live would be the price. There are many free music production software that are half the price or free that offer many features that Ableton has, but still nothing comes close to Ableton. I understand the price difference but I hope in the future the company takes their extremely high prices into consideration, especially since it is the most popular production software and an industry standard.

The session view is a great way of writing music

Maybe an additional mixing view might be nice to add as well

Overall I find Live is the best option I've found for live tracks playback and manipulation on the fly. Its a steep learning curve but well worth the time and effort.

The flexibility and adaptability for live workflows is outstanding, the warp and transpose features, plus the auto trigger functions are something I can't do without!

The interface isn't great, and depending on your sample structures the requirements on disk and memory are a bit overblown.

In the context of music production Live is unbeatable. Features like "Audio-to-midi" conversions and almost perfect speed/pitch manipulation make it easy to experiment with sound in a way that no other DAW comes close. Its set of midi effects lets you lock in to the key of the song you are writing as well as automate stuff like synth layering for a particular melody. It also helps with writing songs since it's ALWAYS recording what you play, no lost melodies because you forgot to play record. The "Live" grid is also a big help when trying to figure out the structure of your song but its mostly useful for heavy loop-based stuff like house music. The "piano roll" for a lack of a better word, where you edit your midi, is excellent. Both for recording from a midi instrument as well as for building stuff from scratch with a keyboard and mouse. It has a great set of features for transforming that midi like doubling/halving the time or flipping it upside down.

There's no M1 support, at least at the time of writing this review (About 1 year after release). Also, most "good" updates only come to the newest version which is a paid update, not particularly bad but it is something to consider. Feature wise it's got everything you need for music production, although it lacks some features for mixing. For example, you can't do vocal pitch correction very easily, you will most likely need to get a plugin for that. It's also not that great for recording, it lacks features like vocal comping that other DAWs do have, which is not a big deal since you can do it manually but it's something you'd expect to be there coming from other DAWs. In conclusion, it feels like an instrument, it's excellent for making demos and working out ideas and it CAN be used for building the final product but you'll need the help of some plugins.

has helping with great music production as a whole. I was able to complete a whole album and. many other projects while using this system. We were able to find the specific sounds that we wanted and was able to piece tracks together with little effort and they sound great.

Very well designed program that allows you complete control over your creative process. Recording tools and functionality is perfect for the program that it is trying to be. It allows for custom plug-ins and has a wide variety of tools and presets that are available right when you purchase. Very good for mastering and finding your perfect sound as well as importing already using tracks or audio samples. Easy to drop in sounds and samples from other sources. Exports sounds great and come in a WAV format.

At first it is a bit confusing to use. You will be stuck for a little bit and not know what to do or how it works. Sometimes it seems like you have to go digging for what you want and specific tools aren't always there for you to use. Personal setup ca take some time and you need to always be aware of where your audio sources are exporting to.

Ableton helps my make short work of week to week projects. The pitch and tempo shifting capabilities, the customization of sounds with Mac for Live effects, and the simple bus routing make it a joy to use.

The overall customizability of Ableton is amazing. Especially, when used in combination with Max for Live plugins. It’s almost like working with a modular setup.

Comping multiple takes is a clunky process in Ableton, compared to something like Logic (my old go-to DAW).

All the tools , all the option make you the possibility to create magical sounds

The interface is a little bit to dark for me

It has been awesome working with this software and it has changed my sound from amateur to pro

[1] The software has got high quality sample sound [2] the provision to convert audio file into piano role [and this has been a prayer answered to beat makers.... sampling has not been difficult anymore

[1] It has got profession sound [2]you use one tool whether live or recording session [3] the color is perfect for eyes

i love working in LIVE it takes a little getting use to but just spend time in the tutorials going through all the features

super user friendly i also like the way you can go into preferences and change the look and color or you work view both session and arrangement view

well again this software needs a step by step book with pictures , configurations, more of a 1. 2.3. approach

Live is indeed a great tool, but be sure to understand beforehand it’s philosophy (use a demo or look on YouTube videos). If that’s what you’re looking for, it’s an amazing tool used by many professionals. If you’re looking for a more classic audio editing, recording and mixing app, I would personally look elsewhere, especially since Live middle and top tier are priced as much

Live’s best features, other than it’s reliability, are all catered towards live performances and real time playing and editing. This is a really unique way of operating, if that’s what you’re looking for, it’s powerful, effective and funny to use. Instead, if you’re looking for a more traditional audio editing application, in my opinion it is still lacking a few notable features and the interface is clunkier and less pleasant than other alternatives, especially at the beginning

Pretty much the other side of the pro’s: Live is catered towards live performances of electronic music, which it does in a pretty unique and creative way (look for live track creation videos with Live on YouTube!), but is lacking behind when it come to more usual audio recording and editing on a track by track basis. To each his own, and it very much depends on your activity and objective

I have been using this program for a long time, and it has been a great benefit throughout my music career to share my music with others.

I loved how there are so many sounds and gadgets you can use to produce many songs and samples to share throughout the world. It is a great program to use when I want to edit a certain song and create many remixes and sounds.

I wish there was a more descriptive tutorial of how to use all of the programs and details of how to create sounds and edit songs and etc.

Use of Ableton for creating song ideas, recording, mixing, viewing, adding effects to tracks has always been interesting to me as I'm in that field and is a must buy if you want to. Students get a 40% discount on the website.

1. Can create patterns of any kind really quick 2. Ease of access 3. Can access the DAW with Ableton Push controller or other controllers too 4. Can convert MIDI to audio and audio to MIDI

1. Ableton push controllers only work with Ableton 2. Even though it runs low on CPU, there are times when it gets high 3. The sounds or notes of the song change in the exported file at times

I can’t believe I was ever intimidated by it and thought Logic was really my only viable option

The amount of built in functionality and the ease of workflow (once you get used to the interface) is astounding. Logic’s built in effects are amazing, but they don’t export. Ableton on the other hand allows you to export a track exactly as it sounds when yr recording it. The export utility in general is amazing. The built in effects, instruments, and packs are all wonderful.

There’s definitely a learning curve. It looks like a nightmare at first glance, definitely not automatically intuitive like some DAWs. But once you get used to it, you wonder how you ever used anything else.

I had trouble getting used to its more pattern-based approach, but I LOVE how everything is all in one place on the screen. I can easily see why users adore this software, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking to start out, or make electronic music.

Live is one of the lightest, fastest, coolest DAWs out there, especially of you want to perform DJ/dance sets live (as the name implies). The interface was a big shift from traditional DAWs like Pro Tools and Cubase, and allowed producers to create looping content on the fly, while inserting and deleting effects in realtime. It fully deserves its growing place in the upper echelons of digital audio workstation glory.

For some (myself included), the flat, blocky interface—designed for primarily loop-based music—to be a little confounding. It's a DAW best for people to start off with, not to switch to.

My experience with Live is absolutely positive and has allowed me to learn a lot about computer production

Ableton Live is a powerful daw, with many features already available with the intro version. It is a home recording studio where a lot can be produced with little.

There are no aspects that in my experience can be classified as weaknesses. More likely the difficulties may arise due to personal lack of training and education in some areas (e.g. Max for live)

The onboarding guidelines are pretty simple and you can start learning and using the tool and make some music in one single day. A lot of plugins and different sounds available to start composing your music with synths and drums being really great Session view is simple, easy to compose, create your music loops and start jamming.

limited to 16 audio tracks if you want to use Ableton's full potential prepare yourself to pay 650€.

Best DAW I have used so far.

The way you work with ableton is significantly different to all others DAWs I've tried. Especially if you combine it with ableton push, the ease of use by having all possibilities intuitively available is just awesome. The only downside is the price, but I've never regretted buying it about 8 years ago and doing all the upgrades. Since about a year I haven't used it anymore because I travel and have no equipment.

I found it sometimes hard to deal with external devices if you record the output. There is a latency which needs to be properly configured. There is a setting for this on each track but I haven't figured out how to configure it correctly that it works all the time.

I like how simple and easy to use it is and the efficiency of the workflow.

It is still a little pricey at close to $1000 for the full Suite and LIVE plug-ins and Live packs.