// THE VERGE — MOBILE & WEB
Ableton Live 13 announced with a step sequencer, new drum synth, and more
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Live 13 is one of the biggest updates to Ableton’s music-making suite in years.
Live 13 is one of the biggest updates to Ableton’s music-making suite in years.
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Today, Ableton announced Live 13, which is expected to arrive in early 2027 with a slew of new features. Most of the changes are seemingly minor on paper, but when combined, they make for the biggest update to the digital audio workstation (DAW) in years.
The feature most likely to draw attention is the addition of a proper step sequencer. While Ableton’s Push controller had a dedicated step sequencer, and you could effectively use the piano roll as one, the desktop app never included one. Ableton didn’t phone this feature in either — it’s a powerful sequencer. You can change velocity, timing, chance, length, and repeats for each step in the grid. Each track can have its own length, playback rate, and direction, letting you create something complex and evolving.
The addition of ARA plugin support will also likely excite pro producers and vocalists. This means compatible plugins can now be used directly on audio in the DAW. For example, pitch correction and time-stretching tool Melodyne previously required you to import audio from Ableton into Melodyne, then render it back out to a track in your DAW. Now it can clean up messy vocal takes directly in Live’s UI.