NAMM 2008: Meet Ableton’s president… Gerhard Behles

NAMM 2008: Meet Ableton’s president… Gerhard Behles

19 January, 2008 | 5.13PM

• Written by: francispreve
• Filed under: Music News: namm 2008

When Ableton Live was released in the fall of 2001, no one could have anticipated the impact this application would have on multiple industries.

For DJs, it revolutionized the idea of what could be done on a laptop, blurring the line between live PA and spinning tracks.

For producers, it reinvented the process of recording audio and MIDI, processing sounds and mixing down a composition.

And all of this came from the minds of Gerhard Behles and Robert Henke, while they were both members of the techno project, Monolake.

Robert is still active as Monolake to this day, while Gerhard has assumed the mantle of president of Ableton – and both continue to collaborate on the development of Live.

At NAMM, Gerhard generously granted Beatportal an exclusive interview to give us a bit of insight into one of the most influential music software companies on the planet.

Almost every artist I’ve interviewed is slavishly devoted to Ableton Live, was Live originally developed for the DJ community?

No, actually, but it doesn’t come as a surprise because so many DJs are also producers – and the program was born from a culture of performance-oriented ways of making music.

Naturally, it bridges the worlds of DJs and traditional studio-based production.

The central ideas for the app came from Robert and our work together in Monolake.

Robert to this day actually develops his music as it plays.

Back in the day, what we had to do is improvise, record to tape, then edit, which doesn’t leave many possibilities for tweaking after the fact.

We felt strongly that an integrated environment would be the best way to work and create.

The fact that it works for DJs is an added result of that aesthetic.

Many of the devices and effects in Live are highly exotic versions of traditional effects. For example, Vinyl Distortion, Grain Delay and Beat Repeat – artists really love this – what’s the source of inspiration when you’re developing a new effect or synth?

These are very much Robert’s brain-children. Many of these ideas come from Robert’s experimentation with Max/MSP patches.

Nowadays, we’re happy to have a great team of developers who contribute their own new ideas.

These developers bring in some very serious math and DSP background, which enriches the entire development process, so we plan to continue stretching the boundaries of what an effect can be.

Speaking of Max/MSP, last year you announced a collaboration with Cycling ‘74, the developer of Max. Can you give us any hints as to what may come of this?

The purpose of this is to combine their strengths with our strengths, which we feel complement each other perfectly: Where the Cycling ‘74 universe is all about providing unlimited ways to customize and make unique things, Live is very much about accessibility and worry-free creative flow.

The resulting collaboration will bring the best of both approaches to the Live community.

When will we see the fruits of this union?

I can’t give concrete time frames, as we don’t speak of unfinished projects.

What do you enjoy most about this year’s NAMM show?

Talking to users and hearing about how they use the product. It really is surprising in its diversity and also, virtuosity.

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