KOOROW
Ableton Live 12.3 is out, and some of its new features fix problems producers have complained about for years. KOOROW has been using Ableton since Live 8 or 9, and in this review he tests the update inside a real darkpsy project: bouncing whole groups, pasting bounced audio, A/B on Ableton’s own devices, the new tremolo mode in Auto Pan, and built-in stem separation.
The video is in Persian. This article walks through every step in English.
What’s new in Live 12.3, at a glance
- Bounce Group: turn a whole group into one audio track and free your CPU.
- Splice in the browser for Splice account holders.
- Paste Bounced Audio: copy any section and paste it as audio.
- A/B on Ableton devices: compare two settings of the same effect.
- Auto Pan-Tremolo: a real tremolo and gate mode.
- Stem separation: split a track into drums, bass, vocals and others.
1. Bounce a whole group to audio
This is the update KOOROW was waiting for. In a real mix you group your sounds, for example all your leads, and add a chain of plugins on the group. Do that on a few groups and your CPU hits the ceiling. Those plugins are part of the mix, so you cannot just remove them, and until now you could not freeze or flatten a group. The only way out was to export or record the group’s audio.
In 12.3 you right-click the group and choose to bounce it. In the video KOOROW groups the snare he made in a previous video with an older snare of his, adds EQ and an 1176-style compressor so the two layers glue together, and bounces the group. A few seconds later the whole group is a single audio track and the CPU is free for the rest of the mix.
2. Splice inside the browser
If you have an original copy of Live and a Splice account, you can now use your Splice samples directly from Ableton’s browser. KOOROW mentions it for completeness. It is not very useful for the styles he makes, but it is a new feature worth knowing about.
3. Paste Bounced Audio
This one speeds up everyday work. Say you want the tail of a texture, or a section of a vocal FX you have already edited and panned, as an audio clip:
- Select the section in the arrangement and copy it.
- Right-click on an audio track and choose Paste Bounced Audio.
- Whatever was playing in that selection arrives as audio.
It was possible before by freezing, dragging the frozen part to an audio track and unfreezing, but that took several steps. The big advantage is that your original track stays untouched. With freeze and flatten you lost all the settings of the sound. Now you can grab one piece as a one-shot and keep the source editable. Ableton’s whole goal is to make the workflow simpler, and this is a good example.
4. A/B on Ableton’s own effects
Most third-party plugins, from companies like Waves, already had an A/B switch. Now Ableton’s devices have one too. It is useful whenever you are unsure which of two settings is better, on a filter, an EQ or any effect.
In the video KOOROW is undecided between phaser and flanger on the same device. He sets up the phaser, right-clicks and switches to B, sets up the flanger, and then flips between the two to decide. Comparing is what matters, not the specific settings.
5. Auto Pan becomes Auto Pan-Tremolo
For years producers used a trick: turn up the phase in Auto Pan and set the rate to 1/16 so that, instead of panning, it gates the sound on and off. Ableton finally added a proper tremolo to Auto Pan. KOOROW sets it to 1/16 and finds it does the gate effect much better than the old trick, and plans to use it a lot. No more workarounds.
6. Stem separation
The last and most important addition: Live 12.3 can split a track into stems, drums, bass, vocals and the rest. No extra AI tool, internet connection or vocal remover is needed.
- Right-click the audio clip and choose to separate it into stems on new audio tracks.
- Pick the stems you want. Choose high quality rather than high speed.
- Wait for the separation to finish.
Because of copyright KOOROW tests it on one of his own unreleased tracks, the one you hear in the intros of his videos, a fully mastered track. The result:
| Stem | Result in the video |
|---|---|
| Drums | Separated excellently. |
| Bass | The bass line itself was fine, but its high frequencies were damaged. |
| Vocals | A short “meow”-like sound in the track was detected as vocal. |
On a mastered full track that is a strong result. It is great for remixing, and for loops that contain everything, drums, bass, vocals and leads, it gives you each line separately to arrange or remix. Many people have asked KOOROW how to pull a vocal out of a track. Now Ableton does it.
Learn Ableton Live properly
Private Ableton Live lessons with KOOROW are project-based and also available in English. Koorow Premium adds weekly lessons, project breakdowns, presets and feedback on your own tracks.