Ableton Live 11.1 - Apple Silicon support public beta now available

[apoclypse]

now just gotta decide if m1pro or m1max

I think that particular decision is pretty easy, as the important difference is only related to GPU cores (32 vs. 16) and max RAM (64 vs. 32). If you're doing video/photo editing and maybe plan on gaming, then Max might be reasonable; but for exclusively audio work Pro should be more than enough.

Pretty much this. In-terms of CPU there isn't much difference. I went with the Max since I also work with DCC apps.

[SLiC]

11.1b6 Release Notes

New features and improvements:

In the Shifter device, moving through pitch shifting back to 0 (e.g. no pitch shift) will sound smoother.
Note: There may still be volume changes between no pitch shift and pitch shift amounts due to the difference between the dry and shifted signals (small amounts of shift cause phase cancellations).

Sample information can be displayed or hidden by using the right-click context menu option “Show Sample Information” from the Clip View’s title bar.

The divider between the clip detail view panels and the clip content can now be dragged horizontally to switch between horizontal/vertical and folded mode. The menu entries to switch to horizontal or vertical mode have been removed; dragging the divider is the only way to switch to these modes.

A menu item to toggle automatic mode on or off remains.

Live now shows mouse cursors pointing in a single direction when hovering over split views which can be resized in one direction only. For example, this is the case with the splitter between the session/arrangement view and the device detail view: The device detail view can't be made bigger, but only dragged closed by dragging down. The cursor now indicates this by pointing down only. Similarly, when the detail view is closed, the resize cursor indicates that it can only be dragged up to open it. Note: These cursors are currently available on Mac only.

Bugfixes:

Fixed a bug that caused the Max for Live device MPE Control to block MIDI Program Change messages.

Text now appears as expected in Live’s Preferences and the Multiband Dynamics device.

Fixed a bug that caused the Freezer section of the Spectral Time device to remain active even if the device itself was deactivated.

Fixed a bug where Live no longer loaded an Instrument Rack

Live won't fail to auto-update anymore on certain Windows computers.

[antic604]

The divider between the clip detail view panels and the clip content can now be dragged horizontally to switch between horizontal/vertical and folded mode. The menu entries to switch to horizontal or vertical mode have been removed; dragging the divider is the only way to switch to these modes.

Live now shows mouse cursors pointing in a single direction when hovering over split views which can be resized in one direction only. For example, this is the case with the splitter between the session/arrangement view and the device detail view: The device detail view can't be made bigger, but only dragged closed by dragging down. The cursor now indicates this by pointing down only. Similarly, when the detail view is closed, the resize cursor indicates that it can only be dragged up to open it. Note: These cursors are currently available on Mac only.

This kind of attention to small QoL details is really commendable!

BTW, I wonder why neither Live or Bitwig made the devices panel freely resizeable? I mean both draw them using some sort of vector framework and they obviously scale with GUI anyway. It doesn't bother me as much in Bitwig, but Live's devices panel would benefit from +25% scaling, so that the controls are easier to see, but the rest of the GUI stays intact.

[SLiC]

Yes, also makes me think 11.1 is about ready to launch.
Always good, as we can instantly start speculating on what will be in 11.2 then

[flobby41]

hello guys!
Sorry if i change subject here but i have a quite simple question and Ableton support don't answer me.
I just got a macbook air m1 and i would like to download the 90 day free trial version of live beta. Do i have to download live 11 first and then upgrade to beta to get the free trial version ? Or do i get it directly by downloading live beta ?
Would be great if i could skip rosetta
Thanks in advance,
Best,
Florian

[antic604]

hello guys!
Sorry if i change subject here but i have a quite simple question and Ableton support don't answer me.
I just got a macbook air m1 and i would like to download the 90 day free trial version of live beta. Do i have to download live 11 first and then upgrade to beta to get the free trial version ? Or do i get it directly by downloading live beta ?
Would be great if i could skip rosetta
Thanks in advance,
Best,
Florian

I don't think you can access beta if you don't have license for Live 11.

[WasteLand]

BTW, I wonder why neither Live or Bitwig made the devices panel freely resizeable? I mean both draw them using some sort of vector framework and they obviously scale with GUI anyway. It doesn't bother me as much in Bitwig, but Live's devices panel would benefit from +25% scaling, so that the controls are easier to see, but the rest of the GUI stays intact.

+1 one for that. because it is quite possible. clips can be resized, but not devices, yes with the whole application.... but if it can do that, it can also resize devices seperately, me thinks....

perhaps there is already an entry for in Centercode, if not add it, or i shall add it... using a larger res mainscreen, it is doable, and with push 2..., so, but still... and on a touchscreen, second (of 3) screens, also great....

[jonljacobi]

"BTW, I wonder why neither Live or Bitwig made the devices panel freely resizeable? I mean both draw them using some sort of vector framework and they obviously scale with GUI anyway. It doesn't bother me as much in Bitwig, but Live's devices panel would benefit from +25% scaling, so that the controls are easier to see, but the rest of the GUI stays intact."

According to Ableton, what you see is a combination of drawing and resizable (stretchable) bitmaps. Hence the relatively simple shapes. My only gripe in this area is that the preferences and "about" dialogs don't resize along with the rest of the program. I think they should move the scaling control out of that dialog so they can stretch everything and I don't have to squint at said dialogs.

[machinesworking]

hello guys!
Sorry if i change subject here but i have a quite simple question and Ableton support don't answer me.
I just got a macbook air m1 and i would like to download the 90 day free trial version of live beta. Do i have to download live 11 first and then upgrade to beta to get the free trial version ? Or do i get it directly by downloading live beta ?
Would be great if i could skip rosetta
Thanks in advance,
Best,
Florian

Like antic604 mentioned, you need to own Live 11 to get the beta. I inadvertently straightened out tech support by asking the same question, and they even didn't know. After attempting to instal the beta in as many ways as possible, finally support lets me know they were wrong, and you need the 11 upgrade full paid version to access the beta. The only good part of this for me was they offered me a discount on the upgrade since they had me chasing unicorns for two weeks. Plus I can confirm that owning Live 10 Suite is not going to let you instal the beta, and you can't authorize the trial version.

[flobby41]

thanks! They just answered and you were right, i have to get the license first. I have downloaded the 11 trial version, and i now got a little problem. When i click on "plug-ins", nothing comes, it is like the folder is empty. Is it normal ?
I pop the question here because the support takes too much time to answer..
Best,
Florian

[Tronam]

thanks! They just answered and you were right, i have to get the license first. I have downloaded the 11 trial version, and i now got a little problem. When i click on "plug-ins", nothing comes, it is like the folder is empty. Is it normal ?
I pop the question here because the support takes too much time to answer..
Best,
Florian

3rd party plug-ins might be turned off by default. In the Preferences > Plug-Ins (tab) enable "Use Audio Units" and after scanning they should all be visible. I'd recommend avoiding VST for now because the M1 native version of Live cannot load Intel VST plugins. It can load Audio Units though using Apple's AU bridge.

[machinesworking]

thanks! They just answered and you were right, i have to get the license first. I have downloaded the 11 trial version, and i now got a little problem. When i click on "plug-ins", nothing comes, it is like the folder is empty. Is it normal ?
I pop the question here because the support takes too much time to answer..
Best,
Florian

3rd party plug-ins might be turned off by default. In the Preferences > Plug-Ins (tab) enable "Use Audio Units" and after scanning they should all be visible. I'd recommend avoiding VST for now because the M1 native version of Live cannot load Intel VST plugins. It can load Audio Units though using Apple's AU bridge.

You don't have to avoid VST, they'll avoid installing for you if they aren't native! I'm weening myself into Rosetta plug ins, so far the only ones I have installed on this Air are Amplitube 5 and the VEP AU plug in.

The AU bridge works well though, I'm just hoping to not have to use it much, but I don't know how long I can hold off from Arturia, Lion, iZotope, PSP etc. etc.

My other cheater method here is that I'm not selling this old Mac Pro, so Kontakt and other sample libraries like EW Play etc. live on that computer slave via VEP to the Air. This will probably be my working method even after everything is native. At 96GB this old machine is a good rack sampler.

[Peevy2000]

I've been testing the apple silicon version (11.1b7) for a couple of weeks now & it's been going pretty well, apart from the initial plugin scan which took a few minutes. But now that I've got more plugins installed the scan process seems to have sped up quite a bit.

I do have a question though if anyone can answer it. I recently upgraded to suite & thought the beta would also be updated with suite features/plugins but it's still sitting at standard, is this a limitation of the Apple silicon version or should I have access to suite in the beta? I've tried authorisation within the beta version to see if that was it but it makes no difference.

[chroma]

suite is a separate install - you'll need to download it again.

[Peevy2000]

suite is a separate install - you'll need to download it again.

Yes I have the latest non beta of suite installed, it's just that I thought the beta, would update to allow suite features/addons, but it's still stuck at standard. I've even tried reinstalling the beta & authorising it again but this hasn't changed anything.

I wasn't sure if it was normal to have the beta stuck at standard even though I have suite installed. I'll shoot a message to ableton to find out for sure.