Ableton Live 12.2 is in public beta today, with some major welcome features. Bouncing is easier, Auto Filter gets its biggest update since it came out, and there are new generative harmonic features, Meld and Roar updates, Push enhancements, and more. Here’s your guide.
I’ve been working with a late beta build; the public beta is available now.
Max for Live syncs up with Max 9
This will be the biggest news for many of you. Max 9.0.5 and RNBO 1.3.4 are now the bundled Max version. That means all the live.* UI objects are here, all the new abl.device and abl.dsp objects, the JavaScript LiveAPI call() and set(), and a lot more.
And that’ll mean lots of Max for Live goodies for everyone even if you’re not ready to delve in yourself. But now with that out of the way…
New Device: Expressive Chords
I wasn’t able to test this device, but it’s in the public beta today. (It’s a Max for Live device, but for all Live and Push editions.) It’s built to generate progressions, and it has full MPE support.
Updated Device: Auto Filter
This one is personally exciting to me. Auto Filter dates back to Live version 1.0 – see CDM’s condensed Live history. Live 12.1 has an almost identical UI over two decades later (look closely at 1.0); the big changes have been additional shapes (BP, Notch, and Morph), and the availability of different filter models.
Live 12.2 is the first major overhaul of the UI since then. It doesn’t disrupt anything about the familiar original design, but it looks far more refined and it’s packed with a lot of significant new functionality. This is a great reason to rediscover the device.
New filter types: DJ, Comb, Resampling, Notch+LP, and Vowel.
New filter circuit: DFM, which Ableton says feeds back more of its distortion for some warm and subtle results. This one sounds great and may well become your new default mode. Interestingly, they dropped the SMP mode, which was a “hybrid between” their MS-20 and ladder models. I think I know why: I was caught demoing this in class, and it went something like, “Here’s the SMP, which is a hybrid between the … okay, I can’t hear any reason to use this; I can barely hear any difference, never mind.” DFM, though, you’ll hear a massive difference; it’s the most organic, analog-sounding filter here.
New LFO shapes: Wander, Ramp Up, and Ramp Down join the “classic” variations on the Wave pop-up menu. Oh and you might easily miss this (or just wind up forgetting it wasn’t always there), but S&H now has smoothing.
More LFO timing options. The “vintage” year-2000 LFO design of Auto Filter was out of pace with other LFOs in Live. Now you get the full range of options for quantization, including triplets and and dotted, because maybe we’re not all making really rigid IDM and minimal techno like it’s Berlin 2000. But wait – there’s more:
LFO Quantization Mode: This is a subtle but powerful change. Previously, you could quantize the LFO only to beat division, and that was either on or off. Now, you can still set the LFO mode to synced, but you can choose an arbitrary number of equal divisions (Steps), or a separate division of beats (S&H). I expect that’ll confuse people a little at first, because the “beats” quantization is now labeled S&H, but even that also gives you a greater variety of divisions (now up to 1/64).
Improved signal routing, visualization: Here’s the fun part: even though Auto Filter could already side-chain and perform various other tricks, you would be forgiven if you didn’t fully exploit that. Combining a reorganized UI, real-time visual feedback, and improved signal routing makes this more discoverable and your results likely to be more satisfying.
In brief, you get:
- A dedicated output control
- EQ in the sidechain section
- Envelope Follower now will complete the full attack phase even if you feed it a short transients
- Clip now toggles soft clipping
- There’s a Dry/Wet control
Side note. The ability to manage gain means you can easily overdrive this device. That’s a real sea change in how Ableton’s design philosophy works since Live 1.0. The first version was an absolute digital beast; you overdrive, you clip. Thinking in analog terms isn’t only a matter of emulating vintage sounds but about getting back into a place where you use overdrive for coloration, as you would on analog gear. Even though the circuitry that did that is older, the emphasis on making that part of sound design is arguably more of a viewpoint in the 2020s than in the early 2000s.
Anyway, put them all together and you get some beautiful modulated filter sounds, as I demonstrate here with Analog and Meld:
Updated Device: Roar
This is a big update for Roar, and while I didn’t get to it in time for the public beta launch, I hope to look at it soon. Roar was already a great reason to use Live 12, and it gets even better with 12.2.
At a glance:
- Delay routing in which the second stage processes the delayed signal from Stage 1 (without being scaled by feedback gain) – one distorted repetition or slapback.
- Dispersion filter for frequency-dependent phase distortion.
- External sidechain which feeds the envelope modulation (ooh!)
- MIDI sidechain (control the pitch of feedback in Note mode)
- Envelope Hold toggle
- LED indicators for modulation
Sidechaining and sidechained MIDI control and a new filter and a new routing.
Let’s put it together and hear how it sounds. So that Auto Filter is already brutal. Here is some inadvisable sound mangling adding both the Delay routing options and the Dispersion filter.
Performed by a professional driver on a closed course. Do not attempt. I think your neighbor and mastering engineer won’t be amused, either. I’m sorry, Ableton.
Tuning, Scale support: Resonators, Spectral Resonator
Both Resonators and Spectral Resonator add Scale Awareness, and – the one I’m even more excited about – Tuning System support. I’m just waiting on greater support for Max for Live users for all of this functionality on the Tuning System side, though I expect that’s coming.
New Meld Chord Oscillator; Scrambler LFO FX
Meld gets two very cool updates. One is a Chord Oscillator, which is doubly fun in that it follows the default Scale.
Scrambler is a new LFO FX type that modifies the amplitude range of the input modulator, through a series of permutations. (pictured, above)
Say what?
Let’s just show it in action, because it’s not so necessary to understand that beyond “it gives you cool LFO shapes”, which you can use at higher rates for West Coast-style modulation or lower rates almost to make the LFO into an interesting envelope generator:
Any mention of “The Scrambler” takes me back to this classic midway / State Fair ride.
Updated for Push, Move, and Note
Auto Filter is available on Move and Note for the first time (and updated for Push with the new UI).
Expressive 16 Pitches lets you play Drum Rack samples melodically in an all-new mode – with Push’s MPE-enabled pads adding extra expression.
Follow Actions support is on Push (finally), across clips and scenes.
Bounce to New Track and the Groove Pool are accessible.
Live 12 Tuning Systems support is now on Push.
Workflow: Automation breakpoint shortcuts
Finally! There are a ton of new keyboard shortcuts that make adding breakpoints short work. If you’ve ever been annoyed watching friends user other DAWs breezing through this, now is your chance to bring it home to Live. (See the shortcuts in the release notes.) Speaking of which:
Workflow: Bounce to New Track, Bounce Track in Place
YES.
Yes, you can Bounce to New Track.
Yes, you can Bounce Track in Place.
Before every developer and user of every DAW on the face of the Earth starts explaining to me that they could do this already (I know), I will instead read from the Parable of the Prodigal DAW:
“And the DAW user was angry, and said, Lo, these many years do I bounce tracks in place, neither transgressed I at any time thy long rambling blog stories, and yet thou never gavest me a CDM news piece to talketh about it;
But as soon as this thy Abeton was come with this oft-foretold overdue feature, though hast written for them the fatted article I’m sure no one readeth to the end.
And CDM said, cough Cubase, thou art with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad, for this my DAW was absent this essential part for so long and is now bouncingeth a Live again; and my wasted time was lost, and is found.”
Okay, that should appeal to veteran DAW users who are also fans of the King James Bible; what were we talking about again? Oh yeah…
Workflow: Quick Tags, Filter View
Let’s just leave it at this: Quick Tags and Filter View make your life easier in the Browser. (Quick Tags show up above previews, as pictured above.) Filter View is finally redesigned the way I think you wanted it in the first place – no more of the experience of a bunch of expandable areas getting in the way so you can’t see content. Quick Tags make tagging into something you’ll actually use. The whole thing is redesigned. I liked where the first feature was going, but now it actually works properly.
Ableton produced a very nice, clean screenshot showing a near-empty Browser I think to prove a point. But if it works in my overcrowded plug-in folder and even with multiple windows open or a low-res external display, it works anywhere:
Plus – icons! This makes my inner Susan Kare fan really happy. So, for whatever reason, you can’t apply custom icons to labels. But you can rename labels/collections and apply custom icons to everything else – including labels and, surprisingly, even default Ableton Browser sections.
12.2 is go
There are plenty of other fixes and enhancements (lower memory consumption in big Sets sounds good), not all of which I got to test. So have at the release notes.
As usual, public betas can be installed alongside your existing Live installation. I keep critical work (like live performances) in the stable version and get creative in the beta.
But 12.2 looks great. Those little details in Meld, Roar, and Auto Filter are serious. The workflow stuff is going to make you want to never look back.
Anyone with a Live 12 license can sign up for the beta. It’ll be a free upgrade for Live 12 users when released.
