Live 8 is now officially out – for download versions, that means you can go grab the thing right now; retailers are also offering the software in boxed form today. See my previous look at top features.
The sorts of things that might make you like this new version:
- Groove extraction and dynamic groove quantization
- Live loop recording instrument (this one with the ability to set your tempo based on your loop length, for what’s called “first loop capability” a la the LoopStation)
- Some lovely new effects — Vocoder and Frequency Shifter being my two favorites
- Collision, a physically-modeled percussion instrument
- Lots of improvements to Operator
- A cleaned-up, expanded, improved sound Library
And quite a few other things, as well.
Curiously, I can’t find any information on what Share, the file sharing feature, will cost. I’ll try to find out.
For those of you eagerly awaiting Max for Live – the environment that lets Max/MSP/Jitter patches appear natively in Live – that’s a separate release, expected later in 2009. (No beta is yet available of Max for Live, either.)
Update: Bits of the Ableton site haven’t been updated as I write this, but we do have the previous download/upgrade page (thanks, @plasticsounds on Twitter)
http://www.ableton.com/live-8-upgrades
Updated Ableton did update their site and the upgrade is now available for purchase and download.
I won’t comment yet on pricing as it’s a bit complex, but see some discussion in comments.
I’m finally editing some videos we have of tips for using the new version, so stay tuned right here.
Now, everyone go and write about / link to Live 8, as it’s getting really close to beating out the Live 8 concert event on Google (pictured at top).