Ableton has announced it’s opening a new office and handling its own US distribution. Ordinarily, this kind of news would be pretty boring, but this particular announcement is important for several reasons:
1. It means Ableton is going to have a bigger presence in New York, home city of Create Digital Music (just 15 minutes from CDM World Headquarters, no less).
2. It means Ableton is growing. Handling their own marketing and distribution in the US and investing in a bigger way means Ableton is spreading the gospel of Live.
3. U.S.A.! U.S.A.! Well, hey, people in Berlin can’t have all the fun. And we have much milder winters. Ableton are apparently excited, because the above (unofficial) logo is not my creation and appeared in my inbox. I think a sportswear line or US Olympic Team sponsorship is obviously next.
Also, I wanted to mention this just to clear up an apparent misconception. This is not a “divorce” with previous Ableton distributor and Avid subsidiary M-Audio, as suggested on Music thing. Ableton will evidently continue to have the OEM relationship with M-Audio, by which copies of Live are bundled with Pro Tools and M-Audio gear. And that makes sense: Live helps sell more mobile interfaces and USB DJ controllers and Trigger Fingers and keyboards and so on. M-Audio is now making software, but its design and market are very different from Live’s.
It looks like growth for the Ableton platform. We’ll have to invade the office with a video camera and make one of those embarassing vodcasts I keep hearing so much about. Dave, get some furniture and do some decorating. (Or, alternatively, we could do a computer music-themed Trading Spaces where I decorate that and you work on my apartment.)