Compare LiveSet
LiveSet next to the tools you already use
LiveSet does one thing the others do not: it keeps the whole set editable while it plays. But it is not a drop-in replacement for a mature DAW or for a club DJ deck, and each comparison below says where the other tool still goes further.
Comparison
LiveSet vs Ableton Live
Live is a studio that also performs. LiveSet is a performance instrument that also composes.
Read the comparison →Comparison
LiveSet vs Traktor
Traktor plays finished records. LiveSet plays a set that stays editable while it runs.
Read the comparison →Both comparisons say how to read themselves. Our own column is counted from the LiveSet source and traceable to our facts file. The other column summarises publicly documented behaviour in software somebody else builds and keeps changing, so it carries no version and it stands as a starting point for your own look. Send us a correction and the next deploy carries it.
If you only read one thing
Which one you should be using
Three of these four answers send you somewhere other than LiveSet. Buying the wrong tool for how you play is expensive, and a wrong sale costs us more than no sale, in refunds and in what you tell your friends.
You mostly produce, and play out occasionally
Use Ableton Live.
The arrangement view, the device library and years of muscle memory are worth more to you than live editability. We are not going to out-DAW a DAW, and would not try.
You play other people's finished records
Use Traktor.
Track library, key detection, store integration, and club-grade mixing on hardware built for it. LiveSet plays a set you built, and playing records is a different job.
You play your own material and want to change it mid-set
LiveSet is for this.
Four editable decks on one crossfader, scenes you launch, and every part still open to the last bar, drop the kick, sweep the filter, rewrite the pattern while it runs.
You are on Windows or Linux, or you need Audio Units
Not yet, wait for us.
LiveSet is macOS-first and Apple Silicon native, and Windows and Linux are on the roadmap, unshipped. It hosts VST3 and CLAP, and it does not host Audio Units. Better to know that now than after you have paid.
Where the others still go further
The whole list, before either comparison
A comparison page that only lists what the other tool lacks is a sales sheet. These are the boundaries on our side: the ones that would make LiveSet the wrong choice for you, stated before you have spent an hour finding them.
macOS only, Apple Silicon native
Windows and Linux are planned and not yet shipped. If you are on either, this is not yet a tool you can use.
VST3 and CLAP, no Audio Units
The engine hosts CLAP and VST3. There is no AU host, so an AU-only instrument has no route in.
No key detection, no harmonic display
You mix by ear, with no Camelot readout. There is no key analysis and no harmonic-mixing view.
No jog wheel or platter
The deck waveform is a compact strip. Nudging happens on a controller or the keyboard. There is no platter.
Beatgrid is set in Compose
Gridding is preparation work. You do not re-grid a track live on the Perform deck.
It mixes stems, it does not make them
A deck carries per-stem levels for drums, bass, vocals and other. Separating a track into those stems is not something LiveSet does.
No track-store integration
No Beatport or Beatsource browsing. You bring your own files and your own project.
Macros reach effects and the voice
A macro or a step lock targets an effect parameter or an instrument parameter. That is the whole target space.
What is true either way
What is true regardless of the comparison
Whichever tool you come from, this is the shape of the instrument. Every number here was counted from the code, and none of them was rounded up for a web page.
- 16
- kinds of track source, from a one-shot to a granular lane
- 10
- engines in the built-in synth, under one component voice
- 30
- effects, plus a slot for your own plugin
- 7
- crossfader curves, including a battle and a Pioneer contour
- 69
- controllers recognised on sight, at four honesty tiers
- 4
- decks, each a full editable project
How to read these
We do roughly half the things a full DAW does, and the half a live act touches during a set.
If you produce in the studio more than you play out, a mature DAW is the right tool, and this page is the wrong one. LiveSet is for the night the set is the main thing: controller-first, scene-led, and editable to the last bar.
From the Atelier
The instrument itself
The comparisons make more sense once you have seen what LiveSet does. Start on the product page, or read the full spec at liveset.app.