Ableton Live just came out today for all you ableton lovers. There are a ton of videos over at the Ableton website covering all the new features. Here is a quick run through of some of them....
New groove engine
Groove patterns can add life and swing to straight sequences. Live 8's new groove engine lets you apply groove patterns in real time, extract grooves from audio or MIDI sources, quantize audio and MIDI in real time. It also comes with a new groove library.
New warping engine
Live 8 introduces a new, more direct way of working with warping and some important Warp Mode enhancements. You can now warp audio events by adjusting the events themselves on the timeline. Beats Mode has been updated, and there's a completely new Complex Warp Mode. Plus you can slice audio files to MIDI tracks based on transients.
Looper
A much-requested feature, the Ableton Looper effect gives you classic sound-on-sound looping without the limitations of a hardware device. Looper is set up for remote operation, so you can record, overdub, undo and more without touching the computer.
New effects
Live 8 includes five powerful new effects: Vocoder, Multiband Dynamics, Overdrive, Limiter and Frequency Shifter. These effects cover all the well-known aspects of these devices, but really shine due to some innovative features and enhancements from the Ableton labs.
Workflow enhancements
Version 8 makes Live easier with a number of most-wanted enhancements and some deceptively simple detail work including real-time crossfades in the Arrangement View, enhanced MIDI editing, group tracks, a screen magnifier and more.
Here is the new controller they teamed up with AKAI to make. Looks pretty crazy....
Akai also released a 25 KEy Midi controller that looks like a smaller version of the MPK49. Also for you wind instrument lovers they have released a USB Electronic Wind Instrument
More stuff coming with NAMM going on. Trying to catch up....
AKAI
Ableton LIve