Ableton Live Intro launches today

Ableton Live Intro - three words that are likely to prompt toothy grins among bedroom producers, live performers and DJs alike as they wake up this morning to discover that sequencing on a budget just got a lot more feature-packed.

How so? Today marks the official beginning of Ableton’s tenth anniversary celebration, dubbed Able10. To celebrate its birthday the developer has swiftly launched Live Intro into the entry-level market segment that until just today was occupied by Live LE. With more features included in the new package plus a lower price-tag, the developer has left musicians with plenty to smile about as they log-on and discover the news. Nor has Ableton forgotten existing Live LE customers - instead all users of either LE 6 or LE 7 are being offered a free upgrade to the new software.

Indeed, no part of the new launch appears to have been overlooked. According to the developer, Live Intro has been six months in the making, and ultimately offers “all the killer features of Ableton Live at a killer price”. It also marks a new effort on the company’s part to capture the all-important beginner market.

While LE offered a great way for newcomers to get to grips with Ableton, the software still only offered the bare bones of the Live experience to those unable to step up to Live 8 or Live Suite. This is not a criticism likely to be leveled at Live Intro, with features including full ReWire support (slave/master), MIDI sync, drum racks, and Groove Pool, plus 500 instruments and drum kits from the Ableton Suite library and, if that wasn’t enough, a mighty 7GB of loops from the likes of Loopmasters, Sonivox and Chocolate Audio. Never has using an entry-level DAW seemed so alluring.

Additionally, the software is reported as being able to cope with a maximum of 64 audio tracks and unlimited MIDI tracks, 12 audio effects, up to eight Ableton instruments or racks and four instances of plug-ins. Up to four stereo ins and four stereo outs are supported, while eight session view scenes can be run at once.

There is, we are promised, more to come from the Able10 anniversary celebrations, the theme of which is reportedly “gifts for everyone”. But as an initial present for musicians who want to discover the Live family but have so far lacked the cash to indulge, the launch of Ableton Live Intro could prove to be the highlight of the entire campaign. If you spot a muso grinning happily this morning, be sure to wish them a happy birthday on Ableton’s behalf.

Updated info from Ableton: 20th November ‘09 - Both versions of Live that ship with the Akai APC40 and Launchpad do have ReWire enabled. However, these two hardware products will only work as basic MIDI controllers when Ableton Live is a ReWire slave. Users only get the full two way communication between hardware and software when Live is used as a ReWire Master