We still don’t have a release date, but a leaked video of Live 9 reveals some of the new features in store for Ableton users.
Accidental leaks are as much a fixture of the internet these days as celebrity sex tapes or condescending Wonka memes. Quite how accidental some of these leaks really are is debatable given how much free publicity they generate, but we still love a sneak peak at something which isn’t meant to be quite ready for public consumption.
If you subscribe to Ableton’s YouTube channel and you reacted quickly enough, you may have seen a video which appeared on their account briefly on Saturday night before being hastily withdrawn. The six minute video appeared to highlight some of the new features which are to be introduced in the latest update of the company’s DAW. Luckily for those of us who missed it, a quick-thinking YouTuber ripped the video and re-uploaded it:
The video focuses on a few new features which admittedly don’t look particularly groundbreaking but will surely improve Live’s sound and workflow. The Glue Compressor device, based on Cytomic’s outstanding The Glue plugin, looks like a great addition.
The Glue is a bus compressor which emulates the SSL G series console’s classic dynamics section and for our money it’s one of the best options on the market for tightening drums or subtly helping a mix to gel. If Live’s version sounds as good it’ll be a staple on our mix buses.
The upgrades to the EQ Eight device might not get the pulse racing but should make life easier in a few ways. We’ll reserve judgement on the sound of the filters, but Ableton promise much smoother EQ thanks to fully redesigned code. It’s good to see the long-awaited introduction of a real-time spectrum analyser in the EQ device itself (rather than a separate analyser device).
The ability to expand EQ Eight’s analyser window and EQ curve into a larger view is also an interesting development. We hope a similar feature will be introduced for other devices, allowing easier access to parameters and clearer visualisations of each device’s operation.
Despite the lack of major new feature announcements in this sneak preview, it looks as though Ableton’s designers and developers are moving in the right direction. New features such as the wet/dry settings for compressors and FL Studio-style waveform view for compressor gain reduction are small but significant changes which will improve Live’s workflow dramatically.
Whether the leak was really accidental or not, it’s certainly got us excited for the new version of Live. Release date, price and full spec are still unknown.
Does this sneak preview whet your appetite for Live 9 or are you underwhelmed by the relatively small changes on show? Spotted any other cool features in the vid? Let us know your thoughts…
03.16 PM
Eh, their main competition is going to be Bitwig, so they’ll have to match and/or exceed the features that they’ve announced, as well as a timely release of it. These new effects are nice and all, but it’s not what users have been long time requesting. So we’ll just have to wait to see how it pans out.
11.05 AM
I actually managed to see this before it was removed, then I noticed it had gone and i guess it was either a clever ploy to raise some traffic, or was a genuine mistake.
Either way it looks like some nice features are coming to Live.