Ableton Live is a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation). It is primarily used for producing music – but it can be used in many ways! It can also be used to route MIDI devices, edit audio, create custom devices using Max for Live, and it is an excellent tool for live performance. It’s available on MacOS and Windows.
The full version of Ableton Live is £599 (Ableton Suite, 07/05/26) and is (notably) not a subscription. There are also standard (£259) and Lite versions available (£69). If you are a charity, school, or in education, there are various discounted versions (https://www.ableton.com/en/shop/education/) or free Live Intro licenses available (https://www.ableton.com/en/classroom/live-intro/).
Pros
Ableton is relatively cheap (for standard), powerful, and has a huge user base, making learning and inding help easier. The Intro version contains enough functionality to produce complex music. The user interface is colourful and has themes for different visual needs. The interface has many modern features such as search bars and an info view (bottom left).
Cons
If you are coming from a traditional DAW, Ableton can take a little getting used to, due to it’s separate session and live/mix views. There is no way to manually edit MIDI mappings, which may be a problem on more unusual MIDI devices (like the ODD Ball).
Quick Start Guide
The following guide is for Live Intro, but will likely apply to all versions of Ableton Live.
Ableton Live Intro can be purchased at https://www.ableton.com/en/shop/. Omnimusic have a multi-seat license, so if you work for us you can get it free.
Once you have downloaded and run the installer, you can open live. Live will usually open a demo session on the first run – this just shows the many features available to you. Press the space bar to play/pause the track.
Hear nothing? You likely have to set up your audio device first.
Go to Options -> Settings and then click on Audio to check if the settings for your sound device and inputs/outputs are correct. If you are on Windows, and using a built-in sound interface (i.e. what’s built in to your PC) we recommend installing ASIO4ALL to replace the standard windows sound drivers.
A common task we have is taking a MIDI input (from, e.g. a keyboard) and using it to control a software synth. To do this, create a new set (Ctrl-N, or Cmd-n on MacOS). On the left side there is a search bar for finding instruments:
type “piano” into this bar. Choose one of the instruments (ending in .adg) and drag it over to one of the MIDI tracks:
Plug in your MIDI keyboard, and ensure it then appears in the “MIDI From” list. You should then be able to play the piano sound you’ve chosen. You can browse more instruments and try them using the panel on the left side.
Further Reading
A much more thorough “getting started” guide: https://www.ableton.com/en/get-started-with-ableton-live-am/
A summary of Ableton Live’s Accessibility features: https://help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/articles/11550373507868-Accessibility-in-Live-Overview
Having other issues? ask a question
