Just wanted to get some feedback from those who've upgraded from 11. What are the core features that made most difference for you with sound design?
So, as far as midi routing, automation etc.
It seems things like expression control and shaper are mostly the same and Gran III is minimal improvement, more MPE support + Meld and a bunch of new effects.
In fact, the upgrade appears to be more centered around workflow than anything.
Is Ableton 12 worth the upgrade for sound designers?
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- KVRist
- 92 posts since 23 Aug, 2004
Since 11 I feel like they have finally started taking updates seriously. Even the minor versions now come with substantial new features all the time. But yes, it's mostly workflows and smaller conveniences and such. I think Meld is pretty great though.
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- KVRian
- 932 posts since 14 Dec, 2014
I agree Roar alone is worth the upgrade.
Live's Modulators now support Modulation, which is relative to the current knob position (like Clip Modulation), unlike the pre-12 Modulators that were absolute (like Automation) and prevent the user from tweaking a mapped knob.
Auto Filter update was nice, added comb, resampling and vowel filters, I believe the Cytomic models were updated too, the LFO was improved and now has its own soft clipper, which can save time.
Auto Shift is an auto-tune type effect, allowing interesting pitch and formant shifting effects if you abuse it.
Drum Sampler is like a newer compact version of Impulse, has some Playback FX that are much more work to achieve with Simpler/Sampler.
Updated Limiter in Maximize mode is a big time saver to deal with gain changes while designing sounds.
Updated Saturator is not huge change for sound design but could still be useful.
MPE MIDI Tools are great for sound design with chords and such.
Browser Filtering and Tags are a big workflow improvement as sound design usually needs a lot of organization of both input and output files.
Same for Similarity Search and Similar Sample Swapping, makes much easier to play with alternative samples.
Custom icons are cool if you have a lot of folders added to Places.
Bounce Audio and Paste Bounced Audio are another big time savers.
Tuning System are great for playing with different note frequencies (besides making 100 times easier to deal with ethnic/international/non-western music).
Meld is cool because while it is inspired by Mutable Instruments Plaits it doesn't simply use its open source, its macros are actually different, and it has a pretty nice LFO FX system.
Scale Awareness makes people think of MIDI and composition, but there are actually some Audio Effect Devices that follow it (Auto Shift, Resonators, Spectral Resonator), in parallel with all the Audio Effects that have MIDI Input like Shifter or Vocoder (which will follow Tuning Systems if MIDI is used).
Stem Separation probably can be abused as well, someone's undesired artifacts are another's gold mine.
Splice integration, people don't seem to know but Splice has non-music SFX audio, like 136 MB 4 minute field recording of beach sounds, whole pack of just recordings of refrigerator sounds, etc., it is not just pop music loops.
Device A/B Comparison is for comparing 2 device states, I think it is meant more for mixing but can be used for sound design too.
Extensions are going to be huge for sound design moving forward. Just adding Paulstretch was big for me.
Live's Modulators now support Modulation, which is relative to the current knob position (like Clip Modulation), unlike the pre-12 Modulators that were absolute (like Automation) and prevent the user from tweaking a mapped knob.
Auto Filter update was nice, added comb, resampling and vowel filters, I believe the Cytomic models were updated too, the LFO was improved and now has its own soft clipper, which can save time.
Auto Shift is an auto-tune type effect, allowing interesting pitch and formant shifting effects if you abuse it.
Drum Sampler is like a newer compact version of Impulse, has some Playback FX that are much more work to achieve with Simpler/Sampler.
Updated Limiter in Maximize mode is a big time saver to deal with gain changes while designing sounds.
Updated Saturator is not huge change for sound design but could still be useful.
MPE MIDI Tools are great for sound design with chords and such.
Browser Filtering and Tags are a big workflow improvement as sound design usually needs a lot of organization of both input and output files.
Same for Similarity Search and Similar Sample Swapping, makes much easier to play with alternative samples.
Custom icons are cool if you have a lot of folders added to Places.
Bounce Audio and Paste Bounced Audio are another big time savers.
Tuning System are great for playing with different note frequencies (besides making 100 times easier to deal with ethnic/international/non-western music).
Meld is cool because while it is inspired by Mutable Instruments Plaits it doesn't simply use its open source, its macros are actually different, and it has a pretty nice LFO FX system.
Scale Awareness makes people think of MIDI and composition, but there are actually some Audio Effect Devices that follow it (Auto Shift, Resonators, Spectral Resonator), in parallel with all the Audio Effects that have MIDI Input like Shifter or Vocoder (which will follow Tuning Systems if MIDI is used).
Stem Separation probably can be abused as well, someone's undesired artifacts are another's gold mine.
Splice integration, people don't seem to know but Splice has non-music SFX audio, like 136 MB 4 minute field recording of beach sounds, whole pack of just recordings of refrigerator sounds, etc., it is not just pop music loops.
Device A/B Comparison is for comparing 2 device states, I think it is meant more for mixing but can be used for sound design too.
Extensions are going to be huge for sound design moving forward. Just adding Paulstretch was big for me.
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- KVRian
- 928 posts since 27 Apr, 2018
Ableton 12 update was and still is huge. I think it is the biggest feature growth, I have ever observed in any DAW, since I mess around with them.
But hey - I won‘t do your job. Have a look yourself in
https://www.ableton.com/en/release-notes/live-12/
and decide, if there is something in, you consider worth upgrading.
But hey - I won‘t do your job. Have a look yourself in
https://www.ableton.com/en/release-notes/live-12/
and decide, if there is something in, you consider worth upgrading.
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- KVRer
- Topic Starter
- 9 posts since 8 Jul, 2016
What?SamDi wrote: Fri Jul 17, 2026 7:07 am Ableton 12 update was and still is huge. I think it is the biggest feature growth, I have ever observed in any DAW, since I mess around with them.
But hey - I won‘t do your job. Have a look yourself in
https://www.ableton.com/en/release-notes/live-12/
and decide, if there is something in, you consider worth upgrading.
I dont understand why someone would reply by saying I refuse to answer your question. It's like a dumb comedy skit.