Ableton Artist Quotes

"Live certainly revolutionized shows and production. We use it since our first live shows many years back, and it's a very stable sequencer, mixing and clever production tool. We never leave home without it. It's brilliant for quick edits as well as massive productions, it's so flexible and liquid - thanks guys!"

Digitalism

"The intuitive nature of Ableton Live sucked me in and I never looked back. I've done mostly all of the recording, editing and mixing of my new project strictly in Live. An unbelievably rock solid platform that blows my mind each day I work with it."

Daniel Spitz — Anthrax

"Using Ableton Live has been a cornerstone of my writing process for many years now. It offers a world of possibility that is simply unavailable in any other program."

Atticus Ross, producer/composer

"When I first saw Ableton Live, I knew that a new milestone in electronic music history had been reached. Along with the invention of the analog synthesizer, the creation of the digital sampler, the inception of midi, and the development of hard disk audio recording, Ableton Live takes a deserved place in the defining moments of electronic music creation. Live builds on all of the crucial developments on electronic music production, and presents them in a unique interactive performance interface, blurring the line between instrument and workstation. After spending some time with Ableton live, your perception of how music can, and should be created will probably change forever. Mine certainly did."

Bon Harris

"Knowing that you can follow your inspiration without waiting is really important to me, and the amazing feeling of waking up in the middle of the night anywhere in the world and being able to work on music is priceless. Ableton is the perfect tool for that."

Simone Pace — Blonde Redhead

"Ableton Live is the most revolutionary sequencing and production software to emerge from the past 10 years. Ableton Live destroyed the concept of linear thinking while making music. Ableton Live is here to stay."

Mike Huckaby

"As someone who's a latecomer to using Live I have to say that I'm really impressed with how easy it is to just dive in and have a go. One thing I find it incredibly useful for is exploring arrangements with some of our studio jams. As you would expect these jams are in various keys and tempos but with Live I can easily change key or tempo of the audio files and build up arrangements in a quick and intuitive way without having to rerecord anything. When I'm not working with Marillion I work almost exclusively with VST instruments and MIDI. Live is equally at home with this way of working but where it really scores over the competition is the non-linear way it handles what you record."

Mark Kelly, keyboardist — Marillion

"I love Ableton Live because it's so easy to actualize an idea quickly and accurately, but its real power lies in taking that idea to another level using one of Live's unique functions like groove, Looper or different warp techniques. The possibilities become truly infinite!"

Jacob Thiele — The Faint/Depressed Buttons

"I love the creative feeling we have when working in Ableton Live 8. The smoothness of the interface, and the ease of use, all leads to a very productive and satisfying musical experience that i've come to rely on in my compositions."

Richard Hilton, producer, engineer — Nile Rodgers Productions

"Live is a revolutionary instrument that is revolutionizing the world as we know it. It's abilities are creating new avenues in the creative mind. Linking together ideas and thought processes that once could never work together. Ultimately, Live is creating the new sounds and cultures of today and what is to come."

Sinkane, Yeasayer

"I was never a stellar student, but with Live, I always feel ahead of the curve. When I decided to start using it, I sat down in my studio, and a week later emerged from the rabbit hole a better musician. Who needs any other program when Live gives you limitless options?"

M83

"As an artist who likes to experiment with tweaking anything and everything possible, Live is a great tool. It makes processing and re-processing sounds extremely quick and easy which allows me to work at a fast pace without having to reconfigure much of anything. It's freed up a lot of physical and mental space for me in the studio without a doubt."

Brian DeGraw, Gang Gang Dance

"A running joke in our band is that I always seem to have my headphones on; that's because I'm always using Live. When I have to work with other engineers and programs the requests I make are often met with a quizzical look, and we always end up going back to Live eventually for something. Its integrated pitch-shifting and time stretching features are second to none and its ease of use and streamlining mean it's always very easy to get your ideas down quickly. It offers new sound possibilities and is constantly offering up new ways of working with sound."

Tom Furse, The Horrors

"Live does it all for me, even if I'm a non-programming, live-performing instrumentalist. Good-sounding effects and instruments, open structure, perfect learn functions. Giving me all the possibilities I need. And still I feel we're only at the beginning..."

Bugge Wesseltoft, pianist, composer and producer

"Your program has not failed us once in 4 years of using it. I can't say that about any other program that I have worked with and I've worked with them all."

Ian Pai, Musical Director of Fischerspooner - founding member of the Blue Man Group

"We have been working with Live very heavily over the past few months, writing tracks and performing live. We are using it extensively to sequence and organize sounds and process and manipulate audio in the studio and onstage. While we originally planned on using Live as a performance tool, we like the workflow so much that we've also been using it as a full production environment!"

Eats Tapes

"I love Ableton Live, because it makes me look and sound cooler than I am. From its effects, to its functions. Everything is designed for streamlined writing, whether it's live on stage or recording at home."

James Yuill

"I have been Bruce Springsteen's drum tech on the road and in the studio for over ten years. It is an extremely challenging job because things change from night to night: song tempo, song order, etc... Ableton's flexibility allows me to be able to change with Bruce night to night. What's amazing, too, is I can be working on writing my own music with the same program back at the hotel! It has opened up completely new creative avenues for me!! It's simply the best."

Harry McCarthy, Drum Technician for Bruce Springsteen

"Since the turn of the century, the DAW has gradually succeeded traditional recording gear, and soft synths have replaced those expensive and heavy hardware synths, but the workflow has remained relatively unchanged. Ableton Live re-imagined that traditional workflow and has been one of the greatest and most innovative pieces of music-making software ever developed. It is as easy to use as stacking bricks. When the occasion comes about that one brick is too long or too short, Live has the ability, through its relatively uncomplicated time- and pitch-editing features, to make that brick fit where you want it. Live's usability is enhanced by its seamless MIDI integration. Ableton Live is a powerful tool through which innovation and intuition have become the main focus of making music, relieving aspiring musicians from hours of leafing through manuals and other daunting audio engineering literature."

Philipp Jung and Patrick Bodmer aka M.A.N.D.Y, Get Physical

"I've used Ableton Live ever since version 2. It's become my main software of choice for live interactive performance, beat programming, audio processing, composition, remixes, film and tv scores, and just about anything else I want to do with audio and MIDI. The Ableton team keeps adding great new features for incredible control, robustness, sound quality, and ease of use. It's my favorite platform for creative musical expression."

Vijay Iyer, jazz pianist and composer

"Ableton Live is the perfect tool for stage with all the guarantees. It has become my central core surrounded with real instruments, the perfect bridge to virtual instruments. Live is my unique tool to remix, compose, record and arrange all the different styles I work on, from club to live acts with real instruments. That's the reason I'm using it for years, and it's the soft I teach about in Madrid Art and Technology School."

Miguel Lopez Mora aka Digital 21

"I've been using Live since Version 3, and every version since has gotten better and better and better. It's always been a big part of writing, remixes and live shows for me."

Aaron Johnston, Brazilian Girls

"Lego and computers have stolen my best years of my life and I really just wish they would leave me alone to the forest that calls with all its rustic charms... I'd be sat with a ripe glass of pine, an old trusty guitar and a dream. Doing the Can-Can 'til the sun goes down. Then again, I ain't that guy.

I am made of lego and lego makes the man these days and the legoman makes lego music. It's true that you can build a home with plastic tiles and now with Live you can build a smoke stack of sound with the bricks and mortar that the Ableton folk have laid upon you. They throw in so many tools now: sonic screwdrivers, sharp-ass scalpels, swabs; enough to give any song the Frankensteinian make-over.

For those living beyond cut and paste, this one's for you. The Swiss army have given up. The Ableton crew have stepped up so they gotta step down. I say keep stepping, my steppas."

Jamie Lidell

"After putting Live 8 through some serious work I am extremely pleased with it. Even though I love everything in it, the Vocoder is absolutely amazing. By far the best plugin I have used in a long time...reminds me of when I figured out how to use Beat Repeat!"

Jeremy Jacobs, JPLS - M-nus Rec.

"Seriously, this is the most amazing imaginable news. Live 8 looks insane. And all that Max & Akai collaboration--even that built-in Looper--I thought that will not happen in a long time if ever. I'm getting emotional here. What a start for a new year. We're super excited, can't wait to see Live 8 in action!!"

Samuli Kosminen, Múm

"I have been using Live since version 5 and have started to use Live exclusively for production and mixing, over the last couple of years. Live is that missing link for a producer like myself who is used to tracking somewhere upwards to 60 people at a time, as is the case with some of the Parliament-Funkadelic projects I've produced. Most of those sessions were finished in one day, recorded live and all in one take but I find that with the way digital recording systems are set up today, the fluidity needed to re-create those types of recordings, is just not there. You can easily lose the feel before you even begin. With Live, all of that has changed and creating music finally feels like it did before."

Junie Morrison - Ohio Players, Parliament-Funkadelic, Soul II Soul

"I have never experience so much excitement in the music industry when Live is discussed. It has received the seal of approval by such a wide span of artists, and it continues to increase. I love making mistakes when composing with Live, as the non-destructive faux pas turn my efforts into 'How'd he do that' gems! I live for using a product that always pushes forward, listens to the community and develops technology that consistently "WOWs" and keeps me smiling."

Josh Wink

"Live is awesome. For me it's consistently the fastest and funnest way to create music...whether that be creating beats in the studio, programming a DJ mix or performing live. And with the new synths and sample sets there's not much more you need."

Al Riley - Engineer (Tricky / Coldcut / The Cinematic Orchestra / Jazzie B)

"Ableton is special to me because it's one of the only sequencers i can use both in the studio and live on the stage, which is a major plus when it comes to cross compatibility between my Mac and PC setups. I never felt more comfortable experimenting live on stage with such an application, even triggering my visual system from Live!"

Deadmau5

"Ableton Live allows me to explore new sonic possibilities while keeping things surprisingly organic on the stage and in the studio."

Jamie Levinson, White Rabbits

"As a composer, I think Ableton Live has to be the software that has given me the most immediate way to write new things on a computer, rather than tape."

Pete Townshend, Interview in EQ magazine, August 2007

"Live made making music fun again. I was in a creative rut and it re-sparked my musical juices."

Ski-Beatz, MusicTech Focus--'The in-depth guide for the creative musician', February 2008

"I use Live anywhere, anyhow. I use it on my laptop as a notepad for remembering and experimenting with musical ideas, and as a personal-computer game--because I have more fun with it than most video games...Live is one of the most transparent and creative softwares I have ever used. The whole process is easy, simple and fun, yet with accessible sophistication and professional results."

Thomas Bangalter, Daft Punk

"Live has been a godsend and has completely changed the way the band, Garbage, writes...It is now an integral part of our pre-production and writing process. Live's flexibility allows us to make decisions at any time regarding the tempo and key of the song, without having to go back and re-cut the track."

Billy Bush, Garbage

"The most important thing for us is that Live makes making music fun. When you're having fun, you're making better music."

Josh Gabriel, Gabriel & Dresden

"Live is such a versatile piece of software that almost everyone I meet who uses it has their own adaptation of the software's capabilities. Live takes what used to be hours and hours of cable and instrument routing and puts everything in layman's terms, allowing almost anyone to generate music within five minutes of initializing the program."

Matthew Dear

"Ableton is the shit; they saved my life. Now they have created the industry standard in live electronic music performance. Hats off!"

Telefon Tel Aviv

"From a live perspective, the flexibility of Live is fantastic. While the MPC was a great drum machine and sequencer, it simply never allowed me to work with the speed and simplicity of Live. Even during rehearsals, I can quickly and easily put together new drums patterns, play around with effects and EQs, sequence scenes and structure things and all, crucially, without breaking the flow of making music with 4 other people. The range and depth of options available is almost a little bewildering..."

Hot Chip