Top 10 features needed in ABLETON LIVE 10 - plus 90 wishes and suggestions

Ableton is one of the most unique music studio software applications around. From its recording and production capabilities to its overall interface and design, Ableton is unique and has helpful recording features. It is unlike any other DAW, so it takes some time to get used to – especially the relationship between the arrangement window and the session window. Once you learn this software, you can use it for much more than just recording audio, which makes it desirable for not only studio, but also live settings. The latest version of Live 9.6.1 has been released with a numerous improvements and feature changes, as well as bugfixes. In anticipation of Live 10 release, here are our top 10 wishes plus another 90 comments about wishes and suggested improvements for Ableton Live 10 Standard and Ableton Live 10 Suite.

ABLETON LIVE 10 – our top 10 most wanted features:

1. Freeze side chained tracks.
2. Tagged Browser, mark samples as favorites - much needed workflow enhancement. (Allow better filtering in browser, flatten file structure.)
3. No limit to how many macros.
4. A better Piano Roll. Custom colored notes in piano roll. When playing around with chord melodies it gets confusing trying to see each layer separately. Optionally show notes that are being played on other tracks for easy layering-workflow
5. Audio editing - audio editing by allowing you to perform non-destructive edits within a clip. This allows you to stretch, split, pitch, pan, copy, reverse, add, move and re-arrange audio (bitwig)
6. Disabling Automation - only option now is ON, or DELETE.
7. Make it a bit more robust for live DJing:  get some big flashing indicator if you're coming to the end of a clip and it doesn't have a loop.
8. Exposed (easy) and error free sustain pedal automation. (Removing the NASTY SUSTAIN ERROR you’re getting when playing live with sustain and using the midi clips later in your productions)
9. Make Automation envelopes snap to the grid, with definable grid options.
10. Add "track delay" in drum racks, such that single elements of a drum rack can be adjusted in miliseconds

• Learn to produce the way we do! From basic beat-loops, through custom sound designs, full arrangement, mixing and mastering!

• 4 hour studio-session course in Ableton Live 9 from start to finish

• Learn more!

User:

• Brian:  the ability to reverse or invert a clips automation envelopes with a simple action similar to reversing and inverting a midi clips notes! This is something I've been looking all over for and it's a MUST HAVE feature.

1. Upgrades in the live performance section. Something like being able to see two audio files on top of each other, or scratching or incorporating a better beat grid.
2. Better automations (Snap to grid).
3. The audio to MIDI converter helps break down recorded audio to MIDI quickly and easily.
4. +1 feature.

5. Show a real mixer in Arrangement View, without having to use dual display mode. So I can see it on a MacBook Pro screen, for example.
6. After recording into Arrangement view, automatically enable tracks, so I don’t have to click the BTA button. Or make this a switch in Preferences.
7. Search for project's devices.
8. ‘Hide advanced features’ option like in Logic. Would be great for educators.
9. View and use two loop braces within a single clip.
10. View two clips’ contents from adjoining tracks simultaneously.
11. Better finishing/mastering tools.
12. Global/default groove, like in Live 7.
13. More preferences…like in Logic.
14. Customizable key commands.
15. ‘Name clips after track’ command.
16. ‘Color clips after track’ command.
17. Strip silence command.
18. Guitar amp devices that are worth using (“This is one of the biggest shortcomings with Live. The Amp and Cabinet are great for lo-fi effect use, but hopeless for actual guitar playing.”).
19. More video edit functionality (“Even a couple of transitions or simple titling would help). And of course the ability to drop movies into Session View!
20. Move Arrangement View mixer to left hand side of the screen.
21. Track icons, and customizable ones at that.
22. Vertically zoomable Arrangement View (a slider that can be dragged like in Logic, that zooms/expands the entire thing vertically - a little different than what Live does now).
23. An iOS version (haha)
24. Take folders with easy editing between different takes like in Logic to make a composite track.
25. Audio Engine - High Audio Quality & Summing.
26. Sysex implementation in Live Standard with Midi control editor for new and old synths/gear, leveraging existing knobs on the devices to Control and record with Live. For example a "plugin" like Ctrlr (... or maybe allow tools like Ctrlr to snap into Live like a Midi Plugin, fully controlled/recorded by Live).
27. Enable/add touch-optimized-mode with Windows 10 PCs (like Surface Pro/Book/Hub etc.)
28. Latency comp for send to FX/Groups channels.
29. More Effects Plugins.
30. Better curves for the automations.
31. VST Bridge.
32. A logic like zoom as an option in preferences where more key mappings would be available (“Perhaps that could be adjusted to any key+mouse combo along with heaps more functions… This is something that might not take too much effort but would increase the versatility by lightyears.”).
33. Randomize & humanize velocity without plugin (inside piano roll menu / or track menu).
34. Better "simpler" with independent pitch & tempo editor.
35. Better drum roll with import custom map support.
36. A "Flip Phase" button on each track (a huge oversight on Ableton's part for years.).
37. More Keyboard commands - slice to midi, bounce in place.
38. Mixer Overhaul - much needed and needs to be in arrange view
39. Updated Audio Effects & Instruments
40. Custom track Icons
41. An editable middle Value for Macro Mappings. - In Lives Map Mode, you can set a min. and max. Value for most Assignments and I would really like to set the middle Value as well. This would give you so much more Flexibility when you build your own Racks. Right now you have to use M4L Devices to implement this.
42. A Transient Designer as a part of Ableton Live’s standard Audio Effects. There are probably M4L Devices that can be used, but there should be one added to the standard Audio Effects, because of the possibilities for DJ and Mixing-Tools when using Racks.
43. Audio playlists - like in ProTools.
44. Feature that allows you to select a number of tracks at the same time, then drag a device from the browser to load into all of them simultaneously.
45. The ability to undock devices in floating windows (like 3rd party plugins) so that specific effects from separate tracks simultaneously can be seen. Alternatively the secondary window could also be a place to view wanted devices from a session in one place, that way it'd be less messy than a bunch of floating devices.
46. Making Audio options behave in the same way as Midi.
47. Nudge clips in arrangement view.
48. For drum racks, extract all chains as separate tracks.
49. Copy/Paste Scenes & Clips with Push.
50. Recognize Apple smart folders.
51. Add native file management/categorization for Push.
52. Option to Freeze/Flatten as one command instead of two.
53. Follow Actions for Scenes
54. A "Next Event" button for Scenes
55. Including the option to zoom using the mouse’s scroll wheel (For this particular request there’s an online petition running on change.org. If you want scroll wheel zoom support in Ableton Live, visit the petition page here and add your signature.).
56. Make the second window an actual second window, where doing something in one does not limit what can be seen/done in the other. So manipulating and seeing two tracks at the same time stops being an issue.
57. Possibility of editing multiple midi clips in the same view with different colors for the different voices.
58. Strip silence function.
59. Improve the midi editor.
60. Taking the difference between Session View and Arrangement View to the extreme, and having two separate versions of Ableton: One what we know it as now, scrappy and quick for performing, and another more sluggish but finally packed with features other DAWs have had for years.
61. Tabbing to transients would be useful in the timeline, like in protools.
62. Multichannel support. As in multiple master faders. No workarounds. Being able to pan between multiple channels.
63. Limiter and track versions like Cubase.
64. An upgrade Font system. That way we don't have to sometimes guess from memory what somethings say from a distance. Also, a whole GUI upgrade would be amazing!
65. Track style playlists for comping.
66. Group within groups.
67. Decent Mixer page similar to PT, Logic, FL, etc.
68. Pitch or tuning function for audio… ala Melodyne/Vari Pitch etc.
69. SMPTE for writing to picture.
70. Don’t erase undo history on save.
71. The ability to comp vocals.
72. A separate undo history for each device (“you know when you tweak something too far, and then you continue to work for hours, and you really want to do undo what you tweaked at the very beginning, but undoing that far is impossible? If every device had its own "history," at least during the current active session, that would be extremely helpful. “).
73. A good audio editor (like soundforge) built in.
74. Record Capture.
75. Stereo pan knobs for stereo tracks rather than just the one.
76. Ability to scrub through long samples while previewing in browser.
77. The ability to export to mp3.
78. Pitch/Modwheel automation in the arrangement view rather than just the clip view.
79. Ability to warp and modulate sounds in the drum kit.
80. Auto-Save Option.
81. New Themes.
82. A linear phase setting for EQ8.
83. Add some preferences for GUI font’s customization (for decrease fat\bold type).
84. Make it a bit more robust for live DJing: -easy way of scrubbing through a clip-store several cue markers per clip -some sort of safety feature so you can (a) never accidentally stop a clip if it's the last clip playing, and (b) get some big flashing indicator if you're coming to the end of a clip and it doesn't have a loop.
85. Delete clips via midi.
86. The audio editing capabilities from arrangement view in session mode, like having an audio clip in session view and dragging and dropping samples into it like in arrangement view.
87. Better sample file management.
88. Adding a midi plugin like with audio plugin: In the track itself.
89. Chord sets (8-16 chords types that work well together) that can be played like within a drum rack style environment.
90. Improve the relationship between session and arrangement, including the possibility of creating an optional, inverted view of the Session View that appears on the same screen as the arrangement, lined up (see Bitwig). Create faster ways to make specific scenes get copied over to the Arrangement at a determined location.
91. Upgrade Sampler and give it full time-stretch functionality. Make the sample mapping screen bigger, easier to read.

What would you like to see in Ableton Live 10? Feel free to comment on our facebook.