Buying Live after using the free Trial
The Ableton Live Trial allows you to try Live Suite free for 30 days. Once the trial period expires, you can still open Live Sets created using the Trial, but you will no longer be able to save or export your work. You will not be automatically charged when the trial period expires.
To continue using Live after the Trial, you can buy and install any Live edition: Intro, Standard, or Suite. For how these differ, visit the guide to Live edition features. The paid edition must be separately downloaded and installed. Any unsaved work in Live Trial cannot be saved after the Trial expires, so be sure to regularly save and export any work in Live Trial you expect to continue. For how to use a paid version of Live after using the Live trial, follow the steps in this guide.
Buying and installing a paid Live edition
Uninstalling Live Trial after the trial period
Continuing work in Sets created with Live Trial
Buying and installing a paid Live edition
The Live Trial includes all the features of Live Suite, while Intro and Standard offer more affordable ways to buy Live, with a smaller selection of features. Visit the feature comparison chart to find out which edition of Live is right for you.
Note: If you used Suite-only features in your Live Trial Sets, these will not be available when opening the Sets in Live Intro or Standard. To continue working in Sets containing edition-limited features, follow the steps below.
After purchasing Live, a serial number will be registered to your account. You can then download the installer for the paid edition you purchased. Even if you've already installed Live Trial, paid editions of Live must be separately downloaded, installed, and authorized. It is not possible to authorize a Live Trial installation using a serial number for a paid Live license, or vice versa.
Uninstalling Live Trial after the trial period
Once the trial expires, you can uninstall the Live Trial application, following the steps below. Deleting only the Live Trial application does not affect the Live Application for paid editions.
Windows:
Go to Start → Settings → Apps → Installed Apps. Find the Live Trial application and click the three-dots menu, then select Uninstall:
macOS:
Go to Finder → Applications. Drag the Live Trial application to the trash, or right click on the Live Trial icon and select Move to Bin / Trash.
Continuing work in Sets created with Live Trial
Live Sets created in Live Trial can be opened in any purchased edition of Live of the equivalent version number (e.g. Live 12.1) or higher. However, if the Set contains a feature not included in Live Intro or Standard, you'll receive an error message that the device cannot be used:
If you continue using the device, you will be alerted that saving and exporting are deactivated.
To resolve this error and recover the sounds from your Trial Set, you can freeze and flatten the affected tracks. This flattens the track's contents to audio so they can be heard in your paid Live edition Set, without the unauthorized device being active.
After freezing and flattening, re-authorize Live to enable saving and exporting.
- Go to Live → Settings → Licenses & Updates → Authorize at ableton.com
Once your paid Live edition is authorized, you will be able to save and export your work.
Note: Once the trial period expires, an unsaved Live Trial Set cannot be saved, even if you purchase a Live license afterward.
To conserve your work in an unsaved Trial Set, the best solution is to record the audio playback from the Set using another audio application on your computer or resampling. You can then import the resulting audio files into a new Set in your paid edition of Live.