Steve Jarvis sets a new speed record for providing impressions of new software. Here’s how Ableton Live 6 is working for him on his Macbook (pictured):
A few impressions from about an hour of playing around with the Live6 beta last night:
It’s BETA. Still lots of bugs (mostly small) and missing features (e.g., no Mackie Control support — or any other sort of control surface support, as far as I can tell). I submitted three things in the first hour, once of which I got a response from Ableton about, so I assume it’s the first time it popped up. Ed.: I’ll be curious to check this out with Novation Remote SL support, which I’ve heard did make it into the beta … more soon. -PK
New algorithms and filters in Operator are great. I really like Operator, so having more options in there is a real treat for me.
Sampler is freakin’ AWESOME! The morphing, the synthesis, just WOW. I can’t wait to spend more time with it.
Racks rule. You knew this as soon as you read the specs, but they really are cool.
Multiple processor/core support is impressive. For example: a set that in Live 5.2 would push my MacBook (2.0Ghz CoreDuo) to about 80% CPU runs at roughly 30%! Wow. 🙂
Lots of SMALL but nice interface tweaks, esp. in the layout of the prefs.
I’ll send more over the weekend, when I have more time to spend with it.
Today’s my birthday, so this was a nice birthday present from Ableton.
Happy birthday, Steve! (You can visit him on his site, Iterate.)
I’m sure a lot of us will be playing with this over the weekend and coming weeks, so feel free to leave your impressions here. There’s the Ableton forum, yes — but I like the refined tastes and thoughts of CDM readers.