Ableton Live 11 is there! Woohooo! As with every major update that means cool new plugins, sounds and functions. This time it’s super easy comping, MPE integration for controllers such as the Roli Seaboard, the new probability function in the midi editor for more organic beats and a bunch of new plugins and sounds.
So there’s more things for us to play with, more ways to express our creativity and shape our sounds and that is always very welcome!
But there’s one new feature in Ableton Live 11, that I think is the biggest improvement over Ableton Live 10. It’s not sexy and its importance and power can easily be overlooked. And it’s probably not what you think.
Ready, Set, Go!
In my 10+ years of being a professional producer at a radio station I learned one thing that is more important than having tons of creative options. It’s the ability to create fast and efficiently. If that production has to be finished in two hours, because that’s when they are going to play it in the show, you need to have efficient workflows in place. There’s no time for creating a Pro Tools Session from scratch, with subgroups and routing and loading all the plugins. You need to have it all in place from the get go.
Better Workflow = More Creative Freedom
In music creation it’s not different. You want to have it all in place. When that idea hits you, you want to lay it down as quickly as possible. Losing time while loading new tracks and plugins can mean the idea slips into nirvana and is gone forever. And in good cases when the idea doesn’t slip away, it still means we have spent time and effort on something technical, while we could have spent the same amount of time and effort on music creation.
Problem Solved
The new feature in Ableton Live 11 I’m talking about solves that problem. It is something that has been there in Pro Tools for years, and I craved to see this in Ableton Live, too. Now it’s there and it’s … Templates.
Yep, templates. Not sexy, not shiny, nothing that gives us more creative options. But maybe one of the biggest workflow enhancements.
Before Ableton Live 11, I had what I call start projects. These were empty Ableton Live projects, with a number of midi and audio tracks, loaded with the most relevant plugins. Which is exactly what a template is, with one exception.
When I opened one of my start projects and forgot to save it as a different project, before I started to create, the start project would be overwritten and I had to recreate it later. This happened to me on a regular basis and it’s always been a pain in the butt.
Finally
With templates that just can’t happen anymore. A template file is not a project file, so when you double click that template a new project is created. The template stays untouched. Time and effort saved for music creation.
Thanks a ton Ableton!
What is your favorite feature in Ableton Live 11? Do you use templates? Please leave your comments below!