--- title: Ableton Live Reviews meta_title: 'Ableton Live Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta_description: Filter 159 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how Ableton Live works for a business like yours. aggregate_rating: rating_value: 4.7 review_count: 159 scale: '5' date_modified: '2026-06-21' parent_category: name: Design url: https://www.g2.com/categories/design --- # Ableton Live Reviews **Vendor:** Ableton **Category:** [Audio Editing Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/audio-editing) **Average Rating:** 4.7/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 159 ## About Ableton Live Ableton makes Live, Push & Link software and hardware for writing, recording and performing music. ## Ableton Live Reviews ### 1. Creative Powerhouse for Electronic Music Producers **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Kuldeep S. | Full-Stack Developer, Computer Software, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 15, 2026 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** I’ve been using Ableton Live Suite for electronic music production and sound design, and the biggest strength for me is the workflow speed and flexibility. The rack system makes it easy to build reusable effect chains, save presets, and experiment quickly without breaking creative flow. I also like Session View and the smooth integration with VST plugins and Max for Live devices. **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** The piano roll and MIDI editing can still feel a bit clunky for detailed composition work compared to some other DAWs. Live 12’s built-in stem separation is useful for quick remixing and idea generation, but the quality is still inconsistent for professional use. Pricing can also feel expensive for independent producers or students. **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** Before Ableton, I struggled to turn ideas into finished tracks quickly because other DAWs felt more rigid and slowed down experimentation. Ableton made the workflow much faster through Session View, reusable racks, templates, and strong plugin integration. It helps me stay focused on creativity and sound design instead of repetitive setup work. ### 2. The Gamechanger of Music Software Called Ableton Live **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Hemdeep M. | Promoter, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 20, 2026 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** I use it for music production, and it’s the only DAW I’ve found that’s truly good for playing live. Live vocal designing has reached an ultimate level for me with Ableton Live. **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** Nothing much, but I don’t think MAX For Live is useful. For me, it just creates extra clutter and takes up space. **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** I feel that Ableton Live addresses a lot of the challenges that tend to come up during live performance. It’s been especially helpful for me when I’m playing live with a synth MIDI keyboard, since it makes live looping feel much easier to manage and far more practical in the moment. So, my situation before was nil and after getting into Ableton live it changed my perspectives towards playing live and production. Earlier, i use to think what exact software used for playing live or music production, especially Electronic Dance music and now i can see that Ableton is the DAW i was actually looking for. It just added as an experience for me in music production as well as playing live. ### 3. Beginner-Friendly Basics with Powerful, Broad Instrument Options **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Valeria V. | Travel & expense admin., Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 21, 2026 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** Has the basic features for a new user or a beginner user. All the way up to more complex features and the broad options of instruments **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** If you are not used to or just beginning, it will be a lot but it could have more variations of the same musical instruments **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** Haven’t had any so far still learning its use. ### 4. Intuitive and Gets Better the More You Use It for Music Production **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Noah W. | Ministry Coordinator, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 11, 2026 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** I like that it's very intuitive. The more you use it, the more useful it is for music production. **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** There isn't much to dislike. I guess the templates could be a little easier to navigate and edit. **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** Recording music and vocals. ### 5. The best DAW on the market for live performance and production. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Music | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 19, 2023 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** Mainly, Ableton Live allows you to produce in a very efficient, effective way and in less time, thanks to its workflow, interface, and new "offline" recording options, even if you are just doing a test. If you have hardware or MIDI controllers, the production experience is amplified to live performance levels. **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** I already have quite a bit of experience with Ableton Live. Perhaps something that is a bit uncomfortable is sometimes the level of latency live because it demands a lot of RAM on not-so-modern equipment. But this is a matter of hardware upgrade if you can afford it. **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** I have been using it for many years and, in addition to other DAWs, it remains my favorite because you can produce and create Live Sets with great speed and professionalism. The vast majority of DAWs on the market specialize in just one part of the industry. Ableton allows you to expand to more levels of creativity and performance all in one. ### 6. Ableton Live for EDM music production. **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Callum B. | Marketing Executive, Hospitality, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 06, 2023 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** I really enjoy Ableton Live's simplistic user-interface, allowing me to easily select a VST and produce music instantaneously. I very much enjoy using Ableton Live's Analog synth, as it allows you full control over shaping the sound by making adjustments to the instrument. Ableton's layout is also visually appealing, making it a software that I can spend a lot of time using. **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** Using Ableton Live for production is fantastic, although, when it comes to mixing audio, I don't find it to be the most convenient. I enjoy having a fader to adjust the levels of each track accordingly, as it makes it clear the level at which the track is sitting in the mix. Although, Ableton Live doesn't have this design. **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** Ableton Live is an incredible software for producing EDM music, as it is easy to insert VST's and samples to create a beat. Ableton Live also gives you lots of flexibility when it comes to shaping your sounds with the likes of Sampler and Simpler. Having been experimenting with different genres, Ableton Live has been excellent as an EDM production software, and only requires a one-time payment to obtain the license to use the software. ### 7. Best updates are On now. Live the Music with Abelton Live. **Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Suraj M. | Music Producer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 02, 2023 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** The opposite interface makes it little confusing but at the same time it make it more interesting though. Rewire function works good **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** I might be the only one who's facing this issue but it got freeze sometimes and get re-open. All other things are good. **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** My productivity with producing music has gone to next level and all the inbuilt plug-ins and effects are making it new. ### 8. Powerful DAW **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Nellimoottil Jose F. | Manager, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 22, 2023 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** Ableton Live is powerful and simple DAW. Excellent DAW for live performance and sound creation.Ableton live offers variety of effects, sound samples and instruments. **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** I feel the only disadvanage about Ableton live is that it is very expensive as compare to other digital audio workstations available in Market. Other than this there is not much to dislike about ableton. **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** Ableton Live helps me in making lots of good music for my Youtube Channel and we use Ableton Live for school advertisement. I am using Ableton Live for more than 5 years and produced 20+ songs using this powerful DAW. ### 9. A professional DAW to create digital music **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Yash S. | Quality Assurance Officer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 01, 2022 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** It's best thing is that it can be used in live as well as recording in studio. It is best for mixing, mastering, arranging, recording etc. The one thing which make is diffrent is it's interphase is so descriptive **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** This software needs a good systems which can support heavy load. It is not a good choice if one have a basic system with basic processor. So if you want to use it then you have to invest a little more. **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am using it in live performances as well as in my recording studio to make music and also for recording vocals In one word it is a Complete audio solution. It also increases quality of music. ### 10. Great DAW. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Music | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 20, 2022 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** Fun to use and super powerful for creating music, messing with ideas and editing recorded audio. I love the drag-and-drop functionality the most and the ability to pull entire channels from existing projects into the current workspace, **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** The main downside is the inability to share projects with those using previous versions of Ableton; even going backwards from, say, 11.2 to 11.1 isn't possible. I've also had issues opening projects with MP3 audio when moving between PC and Mac. **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** Abelton is a tool for making and editing music, which is a passion of mine. Ableton makes this a fun, intuitive and creative process, and it is very powerful in scope and processing. effects and instruments. ### 11. My main go to software when it comes to audio/music production **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Joseph C. | Joseph Chapidze Audio Engineer , Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 18, 2022 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** One of the simplest and most versatile DAW software I have worked in. It's really easy to install plug-ins and navigate through Ableton in your preferred addons and start producing music or edit any type of audio. **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** There is not much to dislike about Ableton when you are not comparing really small details and are not working on a fully professional level. Besides the technical aspect, i would say the prices are a little bit high for the different versions, but it is still worth the money if you are looking for one of the best music/audio DAW that is out there. **Recommendations to others considering Ableton Live:** If you have doubts and if you are considering other DAW's i would recommend that you still go for Ableton Live **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** The best thing for me personally, is that I can make simple mastering in Ableton without any plug-ins if I wanted to. And simple editing, like cropping, chopping and enhancing audio EQ is no problem without additional addons. ### 12. One of the best DAWs **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Víctor R. | Music Producer and Owner of Clioenllamas.com, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 18, 2022 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** This DAW is extremely useful and versatile. I make all type of music and the tools that this DAW gives me are extremely insane and very good comparing them to other DAWs **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** I dont enjoy the GUI look right now, i came from other DAWs and this is only the one thing i dont like... The DAW looks great but i want to see some improvements when i want to mix, search sounds... **Recommendations to others considering Ableton Live:** If you´re looking for the greatest DAW, now you know the name. Unleash your creativity with the tools that Ableton Live gives to us! **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** I have solved one of my greatest creative blocks i had the last years, i´ve been unproductive for months, so i decided to buy Ableton and try what it looks like and it was really great! ### 13. Software and hardware that help people create amazing music. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Shaktiraj G. | Search Engine Optimization Executive, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 22, 2022 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** It's not simple to make music. It takes effort, time, and knowledge. And Ableton live helps you in achieving the kind of music you want with its incredible interface and workflow. **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** I have experienced glitches when global latency is kept too high. Thus when this happens it feels irritating when you are working seriously on something that you are trying to figure out. **Recommendations to others considering Ableton Live:** If you have been using Ableton live for a long time and you are planning to earn out of it by starting your music production studio business then it is the best DAW for you to provide professional music production service. **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** Ableton Live serves me with almost everything like making a beat, making a song, making a sound, making vocal chops, podcasts. It is a must-try DAW for a music producer. ### 14. I love how responsive and intuitive it is **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Claire Marie L. | Lab Operations Assistant Supervisor, Music, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 31, 2019 ### 15. Amazing software for Music Production! Beats every other software out there in the game! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Cherubs S. | student, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 25, 2022 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** Extraordinary and very powerful music production software! Abelton stock plugins are next level! The new hybrid reverb and morphing feature is out of this world! **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** Uses a massive amount of CPU to run VSTs, Ableton crash sometimes due to its weight on CPU, only if it efficiently used CPU it would have been a lot better, and less amount of crashes would be a lifesaver . **Recommendations to others considering Ableton Live:** JUST GO FOR IT! YOU CANT GET ANYTHING BETTER! **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** Powerful stocks plugins or audio effects are efficient enough to avoid using heavy VSTs, it saves time and every required parameter is given on the face which makes it user-friendly. ### 16. Mixing away **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Allie W. | Internship Coordinator, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 04, 2022 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** I have loved getting to know the application better in order to try and record my own music. It has a lot fo great built in sounds and the interface is great for mixing my songs. **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** It is very hard to understand at first and there are many things that can go wrong. I once recorded a song using the wrong rate for sounds waves and I had to rerecord the entire thing after 2 hours of work already :/ **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** It has been nice to create different things for my students to use, even simple recordings for class needs like telling the students what to do...I have just loved using this with my students to be creative, too. ### 17. Thoughts on Ableton **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Nathaniel B. | Director of Communications, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 12, 2022 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** Ableton is great for music composition. I love the performance view that sets everything up based on loops. It's a great function to create music and I couldn't live without it. **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** It's a little different than other audio workstations, so it takes some getting used to. I also don't like how you can't operate across multiple versions of Ableton (if you're using version 9.0 you can't open or send versions to 10.0). **Recommendations to others considering Ableton Live:** There's a small learning curve at the beginning, but after some YouTube tutorials I feel I was able to get the hang of things pretty quickly. **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** We're able to create great sounds using Ableton. It's our go-to for any theme song or sound effect-related content we need for our videos. It's been great to have such a user-friendly platform. ### 18. Ableton Review **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Sadiqa A. | Music Artist, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 26, 2022 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** Ableton Live has got many plugins that you can implement, it has a drag and drop interface for installing plugins. It can be well synced with instruments to make electronic music. **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** It has a learning curve and some people may dislike it for that but I don't, because the features can not be simplified more. It is still easy to use compared to other alternatives out there. **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am now able to turn my ideas into music that I create with the help of the huge sound effects library the software has got. ### 19. Effective But Buggy! **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Samuel S. | DJ/Music Producer, Instructor at Icon Collective, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 27, 2021 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** I like just how well the software works in terms of workflow, the audio devices, and even using Operator can yield some beautiful productions! A must-have! **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** Although it is easy/practical to use, some of the bugs in it have never been fixed. From the infamous pitch bend bug to just randomly crashing, it needs work! **Recommendations to others considering Ableton Live:** Try another DAW first, this one is super buggy and can ruin your projects! **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** I produce the quickest in this DAW, and it's more common to use when collaborating with other producers. As a producer of Dubstep, this software is perfect! ### 20. Ableton Live makes music production and live performance easy **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Alexander S. | M, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 07, 2022 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** Ableton Live is an awesome music production and live performance DAW software with helpful integrated tools like pitch, tempo, and audio-time manipulation. It also comes with free samples, virtual instruments, and many FX's to start being creative right away! **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** Ableton Live can be a little expensive and you also need a computer with good specs to run everything smoothly. **Recommendations to others considering Ableton Live:** Ableton Live will definitely rewire your brain and exploit your creativity in music. Give it a try! **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** I've been creating music with Ableton Live for 6+ years and it has served really well! From general artist music production to complex film score music creation and composing, Ableton Live is definitely a powerful DAW to exploit your creativity. ### 21. Amazing app for broadcasting and automation **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Rob A. | Lead Account Manager, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 24, 2021 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** I love the visual indicators that are displayed while monitoring the microphone. I primarily use the app to sweeten my mic for online streaming and video conferencing. My primary uses include a noise gate, denoiser, EQ, and compressor. The visual indicators displayed for all effects are easily the best. **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** I wish there was a simpler mechanism to output audio from Ableton without using a third-party solution. My implementation has an audio interface as the input, and I need to output to a virtual device. It would be much better if the virtual device could be built into Ableton. **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** I needed to sweeten the mic audio system-wide. Without Ableton, I would have poor audio where VST plugins aren't available. Ableton allows a consistent sound across all outputs, regardless of the app in use. ### 22. Ableton for worship **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Religious Institutions | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 18, 2018 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** I love how easy it is to set up my drum loops for a small worship group. It’s easy to make great sounding tracks for anything we need from a Facebook video sound track, ambient music for events or to supplement our worship band. I love how I can purchase tracks for almost any song and have a great worship set ready that’s sounds professional and helps a group worship without distractions. **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** The change between session and arrangement view was hard to understand. However the tutorial and manual helped. **Recommendations to others considering Ableton Live:** It’s expensive but so powerful. You can take any beat, sample ,clip from any online source and have it match your song in tempo and pitch. **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** Making tracks for online marketing and donor relations. Doing a worship set with musicians who are missing. Having a background drum loop without a drummer. ### 23. Musicians, you will be able to do a ton of things using Ableton **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 24, 2021 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** The workflow of Ableton Live is just out of this world. The user interface of DAW is so compact and straightforward that you have all the tools available on a single screen; you don't need to navigate here and there.The browser is at a glance, has inbuilt search functionality just type in and you will be able to find all the samples, vsts, racsk etc. No other daw provides such impeccable flexibility, the audio manipulation and warping in Ableton is a breeze, the power of making custom effect racks, the comping feature introduced in live 11 is bang on the deal. The Ableton audio effects are so fast and fluid, glue compressor is one of the best stock VST. It has some cool midi effects also like groove pool, arp, randomization, etc. The power of chains and groups in ableton is also on another level. Another best feature of Ableton is its session view, which is very useful for live performances. There are a ton of cools things about Ableton. The creativity reaches a uniqueness when you're in the Ableton work environment. **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** MIDI editing is a hectic task in Ableton. It lacks some features like panning of notes, slicing, shortening of Notes, etc. Another thing I dislike the most is that you have to double click to add a note every time, which somehow affects the workflow and creativity. Stock synth plugins are not that great. 32-bit vsts are not supported. **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** In our Organisation, we use Ableton Live to provide technical support related to visual glitches, audio distortion, crashing, etc. Also, we help users to configure VST plugins, audio effects, creating custom racks. We also provide custom templates and audio chains for different genres. ### 24. Ableton is the flint and steel of the music industry **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Jake K. | Design Technician, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** June 24, 2021 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** I love the connectability of Ableton to plugins and equipment more than anything. **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** I do not dislike anything, it has a great workflow and simplified tools that translate to many other daws **Recommendations to others considering Ableton Live:** I would recommend spending a minimum of 24 hours looking through the help section and manual of Ableton, while also doing your own research on questions you have. Youtube videos are great but will only take you so far, eventually, you need to ditch them as your main source of info and figure it out yourself. Also, Shortcuts are key, I had a printout of all the shortcuts on my wall for the first few years. Without them you will end up doing a LOT of extra work. **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** I make my own music and master others music. I do not know the benefits over other daws in this area but ableton seems to translate well. ### 25. A must for digital music making! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Music | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 28, 2021 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** This program has a learning curve, but not steep. It's chalked full of goodies, including midi mapping, sequencing and recording. **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** Even it has a Live aspect to it - it's not the best for DJs. **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** I'm working on personal projects as well as some film-based scoring. It's great go-to tool for quick sketches and ideas. ### 26. A must in its category **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Higher Education | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 13, 2021 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** It's powerful, it's easy to use for basic functions, it's an all-in-one software. Warp is efficient, and everything which is based on loops. Perfect for electronic music and non musicians. **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** The interface is ugly.A lot of options are hidden or missing. It's not the best DAW to use for editing or recording. Even though, a lot of people use it this way. **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use it for live shows and to do sound design. It can make a lot of things. But it's not friendly to me. Editing sucks and a proper DAW is more than welcome. Good for electronic and non musicians music. ### 27. Powerful DAW for recording **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Online Media | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 30, 2021 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** Easy to navigate. Lots of features. Professional software that is affordable. **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** It can be overwhelming to new users—steep learning curve to use advanced features. **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** I have used it to create simple tracks to run over promo videos and more advanced tracks for hobby. It is very gratifying when the software brings all your ideas together. ### 28. The Digital Audio Workstation Used BOTH by Professionals and Beginners. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Tony E. | Outbound Booking Specialist, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 23, 2021 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** It doesn't matter if you've never used audio recording software before or if you have a lot of experience with other programs. Ableton Live is extremely easy to use, you won't get lost at any point during your recording, mastering and composing process. Everything you need is at your fingertips. It's very stable, really, I have never had a bug or need to approach tech support. It is a truly stable and comprehensive program in every possible way. **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** Nothing, and you'll agree as soon as you start using it. You can customize your work area, close, move and open tools depending on what you need at the moment. You can activate the "Help mode" within the program that shows you, in each tool, work area and button present in the program, a description that lets you know what the tool or work area is for. Ableton LIVE takes care of everything! **Recommendations to others considering Ableton Live:** Just make sure your laptop or desktop meets the technical requirements necessary to use Ableton Live, and make sure you select the correct folder where your plugins are saved. That's all. **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** I have had experiences in the past with other DAWs. The main problems were errors, compatibility with plugins, a very complicated and boring interface, which makes it difficult for you to do something as simple as wanting to record a demo, or simply record an idea. Those are the kind of DAW where you need a ton of patience, browsing through YouTube for specific tutorials on how to do a simple task like using a plug-in or doing some EQ on your recordings. Ableton Live solves all of that by providing all that information while you are using it. ### 29. Ableton offers limitless creative expression within a streamlined DAW. **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Sam B. | Sales Development Representative, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** February 02, 2021 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** When Ableton Live is utilized to the full extent of it’s interface, key commands and signal flow, it allows for a seamless production process from idea to composition. It is incredibly easy to use external VST plugins within Ableton, and further manipulating the sounds using the wide selection of highly customizable audio effects gives you as much room for customization as possible. Using Ableton with external mixing plugins can match the work flow and quality of industry standard mixing programs such as Pro Tools. Industry level mixing capabilities paired with the production interface I previously mentioned make this software a powerful tool for music production. **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** The learning curve is steep. It takes time to understand the signal flow, but utilizing busses, sends, and audio effect rack parameters in the correct ways can take your production far. There are countless resources available online to help learn from basic to advanced techniques and these can make the learning process much smoother. **Recommendations to others considering Ableton Live:** Switching from other DAW’s to Ableton can be very overwhelming due to the amount of information and parameters to learn, but it is definitely worth the switch. **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** Ableton can be used to add audio to video files, which offers an entire new avenue for audio related work opportunities for film scorers, composers and media producers. I have used Ableton for about 8 years, first as a passionate hobby, and then as a career pursuit and side opportunity during my career as an audio engineer. ### 30. Highly capable software integration for hardware unmatched by other DAW's **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Maximilian H. | Freelance, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 25, 2021 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** As a musician who has always been an enthusiast of synthesisers and drum machines, Ableton Live has always been an easy bet for being able to be able to send and receive information meaning it performs just as though it was a hardware sequencer in my eyes. The layout is also very well streamlined for mixing and easy to navigate. **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** Sometimes I feel that my Ableton stutters when using too many VST effects when recording even though I have a powerful machine, this affects audio being recorded so means I usually record in dry and add effects in post. Not the end of the world but still can be annoying when you find a sound you're looking for and want to record in the moment. **Recommendations to others considering Ableton Live:** Perfect for those who want to integrate a live setup and record with easy functionality **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am able to work to video well and integrate my music with my work which is an exciting prospect. ### 31. Couldn't Imagine Using Any Other DAW **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Music | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 02, 2021 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** This program is everything. It's got a sleek and intuitive interface, tons of cool effects and preamps, and it's useful for anything I want to create. **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** There is nothing I don't like about Ableton. It is perfect, and I love it. **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** I've been using Ableton for over 12 years at this point, and I'm still learning more and more every time I use it. It is deceptively simple and surprisingly robust. One of the biggest benefits for me over time has been the integration of live instruments in addition to MIDI information. ### 32. Great **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Music | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 21, 2021 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** I like how easily we can drag and drop plugin and midi &scale feature in new version **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** in new version I don't like how audio clips look and shortcut for automation **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** With ableton I am able to convert my ideas into song very quickly and very easy to use interface ### 33. Perfect for theatre performances or church services **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Erin P. | Co-Founder, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 27, 2021 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** It is very easy and quick to set up, so you can get going right away. **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** The interface is a little outdated and isn't super intuitive. **Recommendations to others considering Ableton Live:** Don't be put off by the initial presentation. It's a powerful tool. **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** It's an all in one solution for live music applications, and can do a lot of things at once with one program. ### 34. Ableton Lifestyle **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** lorenzo c. | Sound Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 18, 2021 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** Ableton is the easiest and most effective DAW that I ever used. It's very accessible and user friendly and it allows many kinds of workflow from live performances to studio production. The built-in tools are quite powerful and very light on the CPU of the computer, without even mentioning Max for Live which is basically a whole other world that can be used within Ableton. MIDI is extremely easy to program and to map as well as warping and manipulating audio files. I use Ableton pretty much for everything: producing, recording, mixing, mastering, editing. **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** There are few downsides to the software: the editing is not as accurate and it doesn't go as much in depth as for example Pro Tools. The latency can be a headache sometimes, even with MIDI. Exporting separate tracks is also a bit weird because it exports only stereo files even for mono tracks and consolidating clips together normalizes the audio which is something you may not want all the time. I'd say there are a few things that can be improved even if it remains for me the fastest DAW to work with. **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** I'd say collaboration and exchanging projects with other artists it's quite easy as well as practicing or creating something on the spot. For example in a studio situation Ableton makes it quick and easy to plug in a MIDI keyboard, find a sound and practice a song maybe before recording it on a real piano in the live room. ### 35. Best tool for music production **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Giovanni G. | Content Manager, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 15, 2021 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** With ableton you can do whatever you want: from music production to live sets and sound design. **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** it is not cheap, but every euro is worth **Recommendations to others considering Ableton Live:** don't buy an external plugin before trying all the possibilities offered by ableton **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** I have a tool to do everything I want with audio or midi files ### 36. Ableton Live Review **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Daniel I. | Founder, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 15, 2021 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** Ableton DAw is very easy to use as well it provides wide range of great build in presets and instruments. And with a bit of learning you have the freedom to create your own favourite instrument presets or mastering rack.And you can simply use it even without a gear recording notes straight from your computer keyboard. I use it since 2008 ableton v.7 . The DAW is one that one beginner can easy learn to use fast and produce its own music. **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** Sound engine of Ableton i think needs bit of improvement. **Recommendations to others considering Ableton Live:** Easy to use.Stable program . **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am running an electronic music record label as well i produce music for my artist alias with Ableton.It helps me a lot in very different ways ,mastering music for distribution and more. ### 37. Best tool for live electronic music performances **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Keenan C. | Director of Policy and Advocacy, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 25, 2021 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** The UI is fantastic, and its so intuitive. Looping is seamless, and the integrated Push controller makes navigation easy. **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** Recordings are not phase accurate, some oversights with the Push, and no realistic subscription model. **Recommendations to others considering Ableton Live:** Its a great piece of software for live looping and creating electronic music tracks. It doesn't do as well in traditional studio environments where phase accurate samples are necessary. **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** Creating performance environments where other pieces of software (like MainStage) have failed. Makes improvisation a breeze. ### 38. Best music making software **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Alternative Medicine | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 27, 2021 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** It is very user friendly. Sounds great and comes with good plugins **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** Price. It also lags sometimes and glitches. **Recommendations to others considering Ableton Live:** Buy the push **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** Sharing files with other musicians. ### 39. Ableton live is my hub, it gives a new depth to creativity. **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Perla T. | Assistant Audio Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 15, 2021 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** Having both arrangement and session view, the easy access, the simplicity **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** High cpu usage, mixing and editing limitations (16 return tracks and not lot of editing tools) **Recommendations to others considering Ableton Live:** If you are a music creator, and/or performer Ableton Live is the right tool for you **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** It has given me a great creativity flow i wouldn't have had it with any other DAW, also it speeds up the whole process with its simplicity and easy access ### 40. Everything is possible with this DAW ! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** CA Jigar S. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 04, 2020 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** Ableton alone is capable enough to make any type of music through its amazing set of plugins and instruments. Ableton is the new choice of bedroom producers and high-level professionals. Ableton has all the features like quantize, midi mapping, plugin support, and the workflow are very easy and smooth. It has everything in it and can be used by all types of music producers and musicians. I have been using Ableton for more than 5years and I have no complaints about the software. I tried many music software but none of them made it in my day to day use. Ableton Live is capable enough for performing electronic music on the go. it is suitable for a small party and big DJ events as well. Ableton also supports world-class powerful plugins to take your music to the next level and here the next level means we are talking about industry-standard audio production work. **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** low specs pc or computer faces lots of load time as it is a powerful daw to do everything. Ableton live may seem costly to people who are just starting out as a beginner in the industry. It also has a free demo download available but one cannot export from the trial version. Ableton's theme and look is different from the other software one might find it uninteresting. **Recommendations to others considering Ableton Live:** Ableton Live is the best DAW. I love using the software and solves every problem of mine. I have been using Ableton for more than 5 years now and I have no complaints about it. It has features like live performance mode, auto quantize, midi mapping of any midi instrument manually, world-class plugins support, high-quality music-making mainly used for making music for songs, albums, dance music, chill music, dubstep and everything that one can think about. **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** it helps in making music which I have in my mind. It has lots of sounds and instruments to use for making music. DAW alone is capable enough to make music without extra costly plugin even. It has live Performance mode which can be of real help during Home Parties and Big DJ events. music-making speeds up with this software. one just needs to hang around with the software to grasp it fully. ### 41. Delightful DAW for production **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Maheshwara M. | Audio Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 18, 2021 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** I love the midi capabilities of Ableton and it makes my production work very easy. It is easy to quickly get a hang of and plugins just work as a drah and drop. **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** What I hate most is the DAW's inability to find plugins properly and only work with one specific folder. It becomes a hassle to find and place all your plugins in one folder. **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** The proble I'm solving is my production needs. Ableton provides a great platform to record, draw or sample midi clips. You can also create your own midi player with Ableton features like simpler or groove extraction. ### 42. The best DAW available **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Peter O. | Collaborator, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 14, 2021 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** The Ableton designers anticipated features producers need throughout the songwriting process while leaving plenty of flexibility for individual approaches. **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** Ableton feels slightly more difficult to use on a PC than Mac. **Recommendations to others considering Ableton Live:** Some other DAWs night be more appropriate for the occasional user, but Ableton is far superior for professional production. **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** Great integration with analog gear. Clip viewer makes iterating on ideas as easy as possible. ### 43. Ableton Live: Exceptional Power in One Place **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Matthew R. | Creative Producer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 15, 2020 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** Ableton Live has so much creative potential buried in its unassuming layout. The stock effects and instruments are incredibly diverse and sound wonderful. In addition, this software has a tremendous amount of workflow optimizations via keystrokes, interface, and routing options. Not only will you be able to create virtually anything you want with Ableton and its stock tools, but your productivity will increase exponentially as you learn all the features it has to offer. **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** The only criticism I can really give Ableton Live is that there are some features I would love to create automations for that are currently unable to do so. Specifically, I would like to see richer automation options for manipulating and warping waveforms in real time. **Recommendations to others considering Ableton Live:** Don't be alarmed by its non-traditional interface. It looks very different from DAWs such as Logic and Pro Tools, but is incredibly powerful once you get the hang of the layout. Also, make sure to watch a lot of Youtube tutorials or anywhere else you can find them on the 'hidden' features of Ableton. There are many, and they are all useful. **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** I create music for myself as well as for commercial use (podcasts, commercials, short films, Youtube channels etc.). Ableton allows me to work under strict time constraints while still allowing me to be as creative as possible in the moment. At the same time, when I have all the time in the world, Ableton cultivates my sound design experimentation sessions wonderfully. ### 44. Ableton for beginners **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Liam C. | Music Professional, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 16, 2021 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** The endless amount of possibilities: live performance, music production, sound design... **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** It is not as intuitive as other DAWs at first **Recommendations to others considering Ableton Live:** If you are a DJ, or a one man band, or a live performer who needs technology, ableton is the best platform to supply your needs. Once you crack it, you will enjoy its countless benefits. **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** I use ableton live for live sets. Great tool for using loop based performances ### 45. Great Tools for Building Beats **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Brandon B. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** July 21, 2020 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** My favorite thing about Ableton is that I can record MIDI instruments. I also like that I use plugins to manipulate the sounds of instruments. **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** There is definitely a learning curve to getting started with Ableton. It takes time. I'm also not a big fan of the user interface, it's rather dry in my opinion. **Recommendations to others considering Ableton Live:** I recommend trying out the production software that is available before purchasing Ableton. **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** I am able to add production to beats I found online and also to make beats that will compliment my rapping. ### 46. Highly Recommended!! A++++ **Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Music | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 15, 2021 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** Love the GUI and speed of workflow. Grouping and routing **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** Lack of playlists VST Plugin Management Price **Recommendations to others considering Ableton Live:** If you require a DAW to enable quick workflow with your production, look no further! **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** Quick Bespoke Production, Quick Edits ### 47. Amazing DAW for Live Performance & EDM Production **Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Chance N. | CEO, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** April 26, 2020 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** Ableton has the best MIDI Controllers & they are all configured and mapped so using them is a breeze. The Ableton Push 2 is truly a game changer for any musician. Anyone who is looking to elevate their live performances or has an interest in producing EDM music should definitely invest **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** The multiple View & Layout of the DAW can be hard to pick up right away & it does take awhile to really grasp everything **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** I'm able to find inspiration for new music much easier using Ableton Live & The Push & the different midi controllers I use in Studio at the Excitable One Studio. I'd also recommend checking out the Trigger Finger Pro & the Impulse 49 for Midi controllers ### 48. Ableton Live: a powerful tool to make your music! **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Francesco A. | Graphic Designer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 01, 2020 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** Ableto Live is one of the best software DAW leader of the market. This software is really good because it helps musicians making their music. with this software you can rec your performance track by track without worrying about complexity or trouble interface. I like best the clean and simple interface, the great compatibility with vst, plugin and other functions that integrate the software with other third part applications, such as native Instrauments, Kontakt, Guitar Rig Pro etc. **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** I don't like so much of the software the absence of specific tools that helps you to edit in an efficient way the tracks. For that purpose I recommend Adobe Audition if you are a CC user or if you are a free user Audacity. With the combination of these tools you can create really good music in few hours. **Recommendations to others considering Ableton Live:** I really recommend this software to all musicians or music producers because it is a really powerful tool and it can be used for every kind of purposes. **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** Before using Ableton I used FL studio by Fruity Loops that is a really good software but is a bit more complex to use than Ableton. So I decided to choose Ableton because I figured put that could help me a lot in my rec sessions. I use also a Focusrite scarlett 2i2 as audio device and I'm really satisfied in terms of compatibility with that without problems. I am able to record my composition with both guitar and mic and keyboard at the same time. ### 49. All the tools to make great music at your fingertips **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Joseph B. | Order Processing Associate, Music, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 02, 2019 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** Live is the most intuitive and well-designed DAW on the market today. Whereas other DAWs are based on the classic tape machine & console workflow, Live breaks out of that paradigm and implements new ways of making music geared toward a new generation of computer musicians in the digial age. **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** There are key features missing that I have to use in Logic Pro and Pro Tools such as audio-comping (aka playlisting), integrated pitch correction tools, destructive midi effect plugins (such as humanize). Ableton also limits the amount of bussess, sends, and returns you can use in a project which for bigger . projects can be hard to work with. **Recommendations to others considering Ableton Live:** I highly recommend Live to any one out there making electronic music or any other genre of music with heavy usage of midi, automation, and programming **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** Ableton is the fastest DAW to produce music with in my opinion, so I save a ton of time getting ideas off of the ground. ### 50. Simply The Greatest Musical Tool **Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Damaged G. | Producer / Live performer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 27, 2019 **What do you like best about Ableton Live?** Without doubt the most versatile and flexible tool for, music creation, production, and live performance. Nothing else even comes close. Pair it with some custom control surfaces and it becomes an instrument. It is utterly sublime. **What do you dislike about Ableton Live?** With version 10.1 and the new Push 2 controller there really isn't anything I don't like. Whilst I appreciate that no tool will suit every workflow, there is now virtually nothing I can't do in this one package. **Recommendations to others considering Ableton Live:** You can get a free, fully featured demo so you've got nothing to lose. Download it, give it a go, and see if it's for you. **What problems is Ableton Live solving and how is that benefiting you?** I've been using Live now for 10 years and using some creative thinking and some additional MIDI translation tools I've been able to make Ableton do things it was never meant to do. Combine it with a bit of custom Python scripting and you can turn any set of disparate input devices into a single, cohesive performance surface. Forget Max as well I'm barely scratching the surface. ## Ableton Live Discussions - [Maybe I am missing it now, but is it there any ways I can get more skins for Ableton?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/maybe-i-am-missing-it-now-but-is-it-there-any-ways-i-can-get-more-skins-for-ableton) - 1 comment, 1 upvote - [What is Ableton Live used for?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-ableton-live-used-for) - 1 comment - [View Ableton Live pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/ableton-live/reviews?section=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-06-23+05%3A25%3A00+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=04c9de6b-95cd-461b-841f-dfbb859b9be8&secure%5Btoken%5D=efada0587f9125dbf1bbbd226afc6456ddbb919448f80daa53b61255072c9851&format=llm_user) ## Ableton Live Integrations - [FL Studio](https://www.g2.com/products/fl-studio/reviews) ## Top Ableton Live Alternatives - [Audacity](https://www.g2.com/products/audacity/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (456 reviews) - [Adobe Audition](https://www.g2.com/products/adobe-audition/reviews) - 4.4/5.0 (413 reviews) - [GarageBand](https://www.g2.com/products/garageband/reviews) - 4.3/5.0 (275 reviews)