I'm curious - I'd like to know who's using the Live optional extras - Operator and Sampler? And what about the Essential Instrument Collection supplied with the boxed version of Live 6?

Hi VV...I'm not surprised by your reply, I've also taken to using Sampler on everything! Operator is more mysterious, for sure. The 'Ableton Live 101' update for Live 6 doesn't have a huge amount of specific info on Operator and Sampler, because they're optional extras, and we wanted to focus on the elements that ALL Live 6 users have access to. There just wasn't enough space to include everything. There will, however, be more coverage of Sampler and Operator in the near future, in other forms...probably! :-)

Hi Tim and Alex, You're raising a lot of questions there! First off, if you're having any serial number problems with your Live upgrade, email [email protected] - they will make sure you get what you need. And getting no sound when recording? I'm not clear - is it recording the audio to your drive? Can you see the waveforms? Or it could be a monitoring problem - have you configured your audio inputs and outputs in Live's preferences? Believe it or not, Live is very simple to use at a basic level. I've taught it to schoolkids and professional musicians alike...but it's a lot faster to learn with somebody to show you. That's where the 'Ableton Live 101' DVD available from this website should come in :-) And Reason - that won't help with recording live instruments; it doesn't record audio at all! If either of you want more specific info, let me know!

Tim, The Black Box does require drivers, you should make sure you've downloaded the latest from www.maudio.co.uk. If you can see the waveforms being recorded, then it's got to be a monitoring problem. This gets a little harder to solve in text communication! Check your audio output assignments in Live's preferences/audio tab. Check your audio tracks are all activated and sending to the Live master track. You may need to check your Mac's system preferences/sound outputs - is it using the correct audio output? You can ReWire GarageBand and Ableton - just launch GarageBand first, and Live will slave to it. There's no direct routing of audio or MIDI between them, but when you render from GarageBand your Live parts will be included. And..Alex is right to describe Reason as a plugin, as far as Live is concerned!

Hi - to see the audio or MIDI in/outs for your Live tracks, choose "In/Out" from the "View" menu. You can then use the Input Type and Output Type boxes to choose from your particular hardware options. Hope that clears it up!

Alex, that's really interesting...the RC50 looks awesome! And it's funny how many bassplayers have moved to the Live/laptop world...but I was wondering: couldn't you do all of this with Live and a MIDI pedalboard, like the Behringer one? I'm not clear why you need a hardware loopstation AND Ableton Live?

Alex, there's no formal Live training from Ableton at the moment, but there are courses appearing at colleges that do music technology. You may find that general music technology courses include Live. I've been teaching Live since version 2, to groups and individuals, and the best qualification you can have is experience - jamming, recording, etc. That's what people want to know - what you have done, and what you are doing. That will impress them more than a piece of paper. And of course, I have to say, keep an eye out for Live-related products from MacProVideo! :-)

Hiya papercut...forgive if I'm telling you something you know already; the mixer in Live 6's session view is scalable, and gives a lot more info than the mixer in previous versions. It have a peak level indicator, which continous updates to show the latest peak, and can be reset at any time by clicking on it. Does this help? You can't view the expanded mixer in session view, but just hit 'tab' to switch between views. I would prefer to be able to view the expanded mixer in either view - maybe in Live 7! :-)

Alex, that's BAD news! So far I've been quite lucky with computer failures, I've had to return a couple of laptops, but never lost any data. Thanks for posting this, it's a remind to us all to SAVE regularly, and to BACKUP frequently! :-)

Hi Andy, yep, we agree about additions to the Ableton Live 101 item - STAY TUNED!