Ableton Live 8.3 Now Available – Here’s What’s New

Ableton Live has been updated to version 8.3, an update that they say improves stability, introduces automatic updating, and direct SoundCloud upload from within Live.

Here’s what’s new:

  • A new “Upload to SoundCloud” option is available in the Export Audio/Video dialog. When enabled, Live will open an upload client after the file has been rendered to disk, so you can upload the rendered file directly to your SoundCloud account.
  • Added automatic software updating. When enabled, Live will automatically download and install software updates in the background. Users who update to Live 8.3 from an older Live version will see a dialog box when launching Live 8.3 for the first time, where Automatic Updates can be enabled or disabled. You can always change the settings in Live’s “Licenses/Maintenance” Preferences.
  • Changed the naming of the Live application. The application is now called “Ableton Live 8” and does not include a specific revision number. The revision number can still be found in the About screen in the Help menu.
  • The Windows installer has been updated to a newer version.
  • The default installation path of the Live application has changed on Windows.
  • Added usage data collection. When enabled, Live will send data about your Live installation and usage to ableton.com. This data will be used to help our developers identify bugs and improve the software. Usage data collection is optional and can be enabled/disabled in the “Licenses/Maintenance” Preferences.
  • Added control surface support for Akai MPK Mini.

Bug fixes:

  • Fixed a crash that could occur when modulating a parameter in the Corpus device with Max for Live.
  • Fixed crashes and audio dropouts that could occur when hot-swapping through AAS instruments.
  • Fixed a crash that could occur when undoing the deletion of the last warp marker in an audio clip.

The update is free for all Live 8, Suite 8, Live Intro and Live Lite 8 owners.

23 thoughts on “Ableton Live 8.3 Now Available – Here’s What’s New”

  1. The upload to soundcloud feature is nice I used it already to upload a track after rendering to a “private” soundcloud file as a backup that i can easily listen to from my ipod to write lyrics later

    1. I guess it’s not really hate but frustration because Ableton have seemingly been stuck at version 8 for about 3 years now. Over this time quite a long list of feature requests has accumulated (among other things 64bit support) but all the users get are some minor patches for version 8.

      On the other hand, there is Bitwig studio, which (at least promises) to become what people would have expected of Live 9…

      1. Well, they DID say they wouldn’t make a new version until 8 was stable… Maybe 2015?

        I bought half a year ago and was really happy until Propellerheads came out with Rack extensions.

    2. consider yourself lucky because Live 8 was the worst release that ableton has had to date. Do some searching and you will find that even ableton admitted that there were serious problems with ableton 8.

    1. You can install on a 64-bit OS. It just runs as a 32-bit app. This is no big deal from a processing standpoint, but a huge deal from a RAM usage standpoint.

  10. What does “Added control surface support for Akai MPK Mini” mean? It’s been working fine with Live since it came out.

  11. ok, so the big feature i’m seeing here is that the developers want to spy on me to find out where the code is shtty. what a non-update

  12. Few months ago I read somewhere – maybe Gearslutz, I don’t remember – that Native Instruments was going to sell some of its products to other companies, namely, the Reaktor.

    I think it’s more probably to see Ableton selling its brand to other company than Native Instruments doing so. Either way, I think the world of DAWs are becoming truly boring. We need a new and exciting DAW, with something never seen. There’s no excitement nowadays in the world of DAWs. Pretty much the same things with different design.

    This update from Ableton is the paradigm of what I’m saying.

  13. Excitement and change are less important in your daw than stability and ease of use. I wish more companies would work on those things.

    1. Basically, I have to agree with your opinion. But nevertheless I think that it is important that DAW developers keep in touch with the needs and requests of their customers (and in the case of Live 8, there are already tons of these).

      I guess it depends whether you use your DAW strictly as a recording and editing tool or if you use it more like an instrument. In the latter case, change also means inspiration and new possibilities – which is also important.

      But again, If somebody only records and edits, it is completely reasonable that he prefers stability over workflow improvements that are more useful to electronic music producers…

    2. IMan>Excitement and change are less important in your daw than stability and ease of use

      But many (most?) people buying stuff in today’s market are not grandpa and grandma.

      For software makers I think there’s an issue of live by the sword die by the sword. They want the money from young people who LIKE change and excitement, but then they don’t want the responsibility of having to constantly provide change and excitement.

      If people want change and excitement in everything somebody will provide it and I’m guessing people will just wave goodbye to grandma and grandpa.

  14. My wish list:

    – Multi-monitor support
    – Floatable Piano Rolls
    – Option to draw in Automated Envelopes using vectors to achieve smooth envelopes (think photoshop and illustarator)
    – 64-bit support
    – Built in Mp3 / FLAC export codecs for quick test renders. 50mb WAV files are too clumsy for cloud usage
    – Internal activity monitor for easier isolation of VST/AU CPU/MEM hogs

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