Play together with Ableton Live: how Circle of Live sets up for improvisation

“It’s okay to not have a plan — it’s okay to just jump and see what happens”: Circle of Live is an event that brings together artists for spontaneous improvised performance. Ableton filmed Clark, Rival Consoles, Sebastian Mullaert, and the organizers at a recent event. Here’s what we can learn from how they work (plus some more Circle of Live selections).

Link Audio, now in Max, Pd, VCV Rack, TouchDesigner, oF, and plug-ins, free

Ableton Live 12.4 is inbound, with Link Audio support coming to Live, Move, Note, and Push. But Live Audio can also be about routing audio over a network to other hosts, too. Julien Bayle (VOID) has an early, open-source implementation. If you’re ready to start experimenting even while this API is still in alpha, you’ve got a wide variety of sound and visual tools to try, all for free.

Peter Kirn - May 3, 2026