Strangely, the big new feature in Ableton Live 11.1 won’t be of any use at all to a majority of the DAW’s user base, but for those who have been waiting for it, its arrival is very good news indeed.
We’re talking about native support for Apple’s M1 Silicon Macs, the first batch of which was released well over a year ago. This means that owners of these machines - such as the MacBook Pro 14-inch and 16-inch, M1 13-inch MacBook Pro and M1 MacBook Air - are now able to run Ableton Live without the need for Apple’s ‘translation’ software Rosetta, unleashing the full power of their computers in the process.
While owners of Windows machines and older Macs may be nonplussed by this news, Live 11.1 does also give them an updated Shifter device to play with. This adds a new mode for real-time monophonic pitch shifting, as well as delay, an envelope section, an LFO and glide functionality.
There are also a couple of new Max for Live utilities: Align Deay and MIDI Shaper. Align Delay enables users to compensate for lag when sending signals through their system, while MIDI Shaper generates modulation data that can bring more expression to MIDI performances.
Other tweaks include improvements to comping, updates to Clip handling and more.
Live 11.1 is available now, and is free for Live 11 users. Find out how to upgrade on the Ableton website.
