Ableton AG is a German music software company that produces and distributes the production and performance program

Ableton Live Ableton Live is a digital audio workstation for macOS and Windows developed by the German company Ableton. In contrast to many other software sequencers, Ableton Live is designed to be an instrument for live performances as well as a tool f ...

and a collection of related instruments and sample libraries, as well as their own hardware controller Ableton Push. Ableton's office is located in the

Prenzlauer Berg Prenzlauer Berg () is a locality of Berlin, forming the southerly and most urban district of the borough of Pankow. From its founding in 1920 until 2001, Prenzlauer Berg was a district of Berlin in its own right. However, that year it was incorp ...

district of

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, with a second office in

Pasadena Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district. Its ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

History

Ableton was founded in 1999 by Gerhard Behles and

Robert Henke Robert B. Henke (born 1969) is a German computer music artist working in the fields of audiovisual installation, music and performance. He was born in Munich, Germany, and lives in Berlin. Coming from an engineering background, Henke is fascinat ...

, who together formed the group

Monolake Monolake is a German electronic music project, initially consisting of members Gerhard Behles and Robert Henke, Monolake is now perpetuated by Henke while Behles focuses on running music software company Ableton, which they founded in 1999 tog ...

, and software engineer Bernd Roggendorf. After Behles' work on

granular synthesis Granular synthesis is a sound synthesis method that operates on the microsound time scale. It is based on the same principle as sampling. However, the samples are split into small pieces of around 1 to 100 ms in duration. These small pieces ar ...

for

Native Instruments Native Instruments is a German company that develops, manufactures, and supplies music software and hardware for music production, sound design, performance, and DJing. The company's corporate headquarters and main development facilities are lo ...

Reaktor Reaktor is a graphical modular software music studio developed by Native Instruments (NI). It allows musicians and sound specialists to design and build their own instruments, samplers, effects and sound design tools. It is supplied with many r ...

, as well as earlier software using a

Silicon Graphics Silicon Graphics, Inc. (stylized as SiliconGraphics before 1999, later rebranded SGI, historically known as Silicon Graphics Computer Systems or SGCS) was an American high-performance computing manufacturer, producing computer hardware and soft ...

workstation at the

Technical University of Berlin The Technical University of Berlin (official name both in English and german: link=no, Technische Universität Berlin, also known as TU Berlin and Berlin Institute of Technology) is a public research university located in Berlin, Germany. It was ...

, Live was first released as commercial software in 2001. Behles remains the chief executive officer of Ableton. In March 2007, Ableton announced it was beginning a collaboration with

Cycling '74 Cycling '74 (also known as "C74" and stylized as '74) is an American software development company founded in 1997 by David Zicarelli, headquartered in San Francisco, California and owned by Ableton. The company employs the digital signal processi ...

, producers of

Max/MSP Max, also known as Max/MSP/Jitter, is a visual programming language for music and multimedia developed and maintained by San Francisco-based software company Cycling '74. Over its more than thirty-year history, it has been used by composers, per ...

. This collaboration is not directly based on Live or Max/MSP, but rather combines the two companies' strengths in a new product. In January 2009, the Ableton/Cycling '74 product "Max for Live" was announced. "Max for Live" makes it possible to create Max/MSP patches directly inside of Live. The patches act like other plug-ins in Live do, supporting preset saving, automation, and other features. It is possible to create both customized hardware plug-ins and patches as well as actions within those plug-ins that control every aspect of Live, essentially anything that can be clicked with a mouse. Ableton holds many music production sessions and seminars to learn to use their software, and licenses "certified Ableton trainers." In April 2015, Ableton published the hardcover book ''Making Music: 74 Creative Strategies for Electronic Music Producers'' written b
Dennis DeSantis
who is the Head of Documentation at Ableton and formerly a sound designer for Native Instruments. The work is organized according to three main categories: Problems of Beginning, Problems of Progressing, and Problems of Finishing and aims primarily to address "the non-technical aspects of the process of making music." While it shows images only of Ableton Live, the information is not specific to Ableton Live. In June 2017, Ableton acquired

, developers of the

digital signal processing Digital signal processing (DSP) is the use of digital processing, such as by computers or more specialized digital signal processors, to perform a wide variety of signal processing operations. The digital signals processed in this manner are ...

environment Max/MSP and its integrated version Max for Live. In the first quarter of 2018, Ableton Live 10 was officially released, and the release of the new version added some new features to Ableton Push 2, including a new melodic step sequencing layout and MIDI note view. In late 2020, Ableton officially announced Ableton Live 11 for 2021 Q1 and was released on 23 February 2021.

Products

Ableton Live

Ableton Live is a

digital audio workstation A digital audio workstation (DAW) is an electronic device or application software used for Sound recording and reproduction, recording, editing and producing audio files. DAWs come in a wide variety of configurations from a single software pro ...

developed by Ableton and is currently in its eleventh version. There are four versions of the software, of which three are available for purchase: Live 11 Standard (the core software for music performance and creation), Live 11 Suite (Ableton Live, Max for Live + all of Ableton's software instruments/effects), Live 11 Intro (an introductory version of Live with track and effect limitations), and Live Lite (currently at version 11) that comes bundled free with a number of hardware and applications but is not available to buy separately. Ableton Live is designed to be used with a wide range of USB and MIDI controllers, as well as instruments and virtual instruments.

Ableton Push

In March 2013, the company released the Push controller for Live 9 in cooperation with

Akai Professional Akai ( ja, 赤井, ) is a Hong Kong manufacturer of consumer electronics. It was founded as Akai Electric Company Ltd in Tokyo, Japan, in 1946. Grande Holdings in Hong Kong purchased the Akai brand, and now distributes various electronic produ ...

. It gives access to most performing elements within the digital audio workstation from the one unit, playing notes on a device or instrument, sequencing melodic notes and parameters, and triggering clips via a 64 pad matrix. In November 2015, Ableton released the second iteration of the Push, Ableton Push 2, which features an onboard display and better integration with the Live software.

Ableton Operator

Operator is a

software synthesizer A software synthesizer or softsynth is a computer program that generates digital audio, usually for music. Computer software that can create sounds or music is not new, but advances in processing speed now allow softsynths to accomplish the sam ...

developed by Ableton, first released in 2005. It runs exclusively in Ableton Live, and is included with the Suite version of the program; Live Lite users can purchase Operator separately for 99 USD. It uses a hybrid of

frequency modulation Frequency modulation (FM) is the encoding of information in a carrier wave by varying the instantaneous frequency of the wave. The technology is used in telecommunications, radio broadcasting, signal processing, and Run-length limited#FM: .280. ...

(FM), subtractive, and

additive Additive may refer to: Mathematics * Additive function, a function in number theory * Additive map, a function that preserves the addition operation * Additive set-functionn see Sigma additivity * Additive category, a preadditive category with f ...

synthesis with four oscillators, and has been used by artists including

Skrillex Sonny John Moore (born January 15, 1988), known professionally as Skrillex, is an American DJ and music producer. Growing up in Northeast Los Angeles and Northern California, he joined the post-hardcore band From First to Last as the lead sing ...

and

References

{{reflist

Articles

* The MusicRadar Team (Production Expo). "The 19 best DAW software apps in the world today
Archived
(September 2014). * Golden, Ean. "Ableton Push: New Hardware Controller for Live

(October 2012)

External links

Ableton Homepage
Companies based in Berlin German brands Software companies of Germany Music equipment manufacturers