What do you guys think of Live 12? I will upgrade eventually depending on what else they add with future updates but would like to hear your guy's thoughts? Even though some of the midi changes are definitley welcome additions (like strumming feature or updated humanisation) most seem kinda redundant that sounds cool in theory but will I actually use them frequently? probably not.
Like I don't see the need to auto place 5ths or 3rds to chords like it's easily done manually lol

UI organisation seems decent and sound simularity could be useful maybe

Roar does look cool as hell though and so does the new granulator even though Quanta is still probably better, not rly sure on the new synth seems mid

 

The new browser takes some getting used to and some time to set up. once set up, its good.

Roar is fun, nothing groundbreaking, but great for sound design.

Meld, the new synth, is actually better than i thought it was initially while beta testing. ive spent more time with it and its great.

The new ui improvements are welcome, though i doubt i will use the split screen.

midi stuff is cool, time stretching midi leads to interesting results.

overall performance seems improved. 10 percent faster or so

 

I don't work with Live, but impresses me how ugly it is. I know we work with audio and looks doesn't matter, but I think they could modernize their UI a bit, or allow users to make their own themes, like Reaper (that is also ugly, but can become lesser with tweaks).

 

CPU load seems to be handling much better then 11, I'm liking everything so far.

 

I am in the same boat as OP and was going to start a new thread but might as well ask here.. what are the pros and cons of upgrading from Live 11 to 12?

For me, live 11 works perfectly fine. I don't have many of the issues people have brought up, it just works and everything is fast - or normal I should say. I have a 12th gen CPU with fast storage drives and it all works fast as can be.

The whole browser thing kind of scares me because I don't want to waste a bunch of time on reorganizing everything when everything is already carefully organized as I like and need it to be in separate folder structures I made. I dont use favorites, colors or tags at all because it takes up too much browser real estate, can be confusing and is redundant for me. Plus too many plugins are useful in multiple application categories. I rather save chains for specific purposes and put them in custom folders for instant recall. I either go directly to my custom folder or search a name and there it is easy as can be.

My biggest gripe with Live 11 is when I update a plugin that is now only VST3, older projects using VST2 don't automatically swap in the new VST3, it just says missing plugin, which means I have to manually find the plugin used, drop it in and try to match the settings I was using, which is impossible for most plugins. I hate that!! Does Live 12 fix this? I would upgrade just for this one feature.

Apart from that, is there anything groundbreakingly new in 12? Its not like the sound engine will make projects sound better by itself, so there has to be some logical reasoning to bother with it. I make my own samples so don't care about packs or any of that. The browser and arrangement view are workflow perfect for me now, is 12 really better/faster for workflow or just non-essential gimmicky kind of moving stuff around? I don't need to see everything at once on one screen. I have so many synths already, for me to even care a tiny bit about a new one it must bring something substantially new to the table otherwise its meh for me.

So I ask, what are your personal pros/cons - Live 11 vs 12 ?

 

Last edited by a moderator: Mar 7, 2024

It's Nice! Slower than my 11 release but I'll do with little slowness for the new sleek interface.

Edit: The slowness just lasted couple hours. I optimized the hell out of it. It's 1.5-2x faster than 11. I'm Lovin' it.

 

Last edited: Mar 7, 2024

themes have been a thing in ableton for at least 15 years, but maybe reaper can do more customization (dunno never used it)?

 

I remember now why I quit using Ableton... Unable to use symlinks for sample library locations.

 

Why not?

Personally, I dont use those but I just put large sample libraries in a custom folder with custom subfolders, on high capacity SSDs, both internal and external, "+Add Folder" in browser, and they are always in the left browser section for quick and easy access. If say I want a Linn kick, I can find it in 3 clicks by manual folder / mouse search or via type text and 1 click via search function. I dont know how it can get any quicker and easier than that. If say its a Kontakt library on external SSD, the slowest part is Kontakt itself loading. I never run into any issues with latency or slow operations.

 

It looks quite pleasant to the eye, the new midi tools are fantastic, the other workflow additions to the sample browser, etc are more than welcome. Unfortunately I still find the UI to be annoying and the workflow to be extremely inconsistent otherwise I'd be using it right now.

 

I don't call this ugly. Pretty sleek, modern, minimal design. It can't have too much graphic because as the name suggests, it was designed to be used for live shows in mind. So it needs to minimize the CPU usage so the DAW can run at real time without any noticeable latency. All its stock plugins run at zero-latency mode. Depeche Mode used Ableton Live for their drum sample layering at their live shows.

 

Last edited: Jul 24, 2024

I just can't get used to Dark themes...lol! That why I never even bothered with Cubase.

 

The global microtuning support touted in this release feels unacceptably basic & limiting, so much so that existing m4L and external tools already do it better than what they implemented into Live so far.

I intensely dislike the fancy browser and awkward access to plugins, without normal folder-based sorting that previous versions had already.

Everything else is fantastic, really great and snappy midi editing tools are the highlight for me.

 

Similarity analysis on samples is a very long process if you have a large sample library. I had to turn it off.

On my PC notebook I had a lot of audio crackling with v11 and nothing with v12 !

Browser needs a bit more work to handle large number of VSTs.

I'm very happy with this v12, go for it !

 

I used to work around Live 11 constant disk-churning by renaming the index.exe to index.xxx until I wanted the indexing to happen, then rename it back to .exe

Live 12 doesnt like that and constantly throws up an error dialog. So I'm stuck with the disk churning again until I can figure out a new workaround.

 

Last edited: Mar 7, 2024

this is so dumb but the fact that you can now zoom in horizontally on the audio waveform is sooooooo useful for my eyeballs

 

also I'm not sure if this was already available in ableton 11, but the new pack called PERFORMANCE, which includes like 4 max for live plugs, is insanee!!!! the variations and "snapshots" of the entire set is insane!!!!

 

Regarding design I personally think Bitwig accomplishes that with much more success. The main advantages of using Live is the DSP, M4L and the tons of content made exclusively for Live. Imo ofc.

 

Last edited: Mar 8, 2024