Hello,

Sorry - not as pro as most of the people posting here...

I'm trying to help an 11 year old who got a Launchkey for Christmas get started with Ableton. I've been looking at the various Ableton releases and see that "suite" is available. But I've also read that the in-built sounds/instruments/stuff that seems like a major attraction of "suite" isn't included - and I presume due to the need to block access to updates etc, you can't download all the extra "suite" content.

But then I also read about people installing the trial, getting the additional content downloaded, (then later I think) installing the R2R release.

Basically, the 11 year old has little experience, but it seems to make sense to use Ableton given the Launchkey integration - and while there is going to be a learning curve, I'd like to make life as simple as possible by using in-built sounds/instruments etc rather than having to have loads of plugins/addons from the beginning.

Really grateful for any advice on what to install/what order. Or if the "suites" content is just too tricky to get, is there say 2-3 (not too complex) addons to Ableton that will give the kid a wide range of decent sounding stuff to play around with?

Thanks!

 

The "basic" Suite (the 1.something gb download from both the Ableton site and cracked releases) comes with all of Ableton's (and Cycling '74) instruments, effects and devices. The other things that are "included" in Suite are basically just sampled instrument libraries (for Live's Sampler) from both Ableton themselves and 3rd parties. You can download and install all the available Live Packs provided that you find a source for them (dunno if I can post the link here) even on the cracked version. The Launchkey integration is nice but as a Launchkey owner and Live user myself I find it to be a gimmick more than anything. If she's gonna use a MacOS device I'd say just install Logic Pro X (cracked or not) and let it download its entire sound library. The sampled stuff Suite comes with is decent at best and very underwhelming at worst. If all you care about is having a variety of premade sounds to keep her busy I'd say go with Logic.

TL;DR You can install all the Live Packs even on a cracked install provided that you find a torrent for them.

 

Last edited: Dec 26, 2020