Akai Professional makes the APC40, a MIDI controller designed to work solely with Ableton Live. A smaller version, the APC20, was released in 2010. Though there are hundreds of MIDI controllers compatible with Ableton, these Akai units try to closely map the actual Ableton Live layout onto physical space. Novation Digital Music Systems has created the "Launchpad" which is a pad device that has been designed for use with Ableton. Ableton has also released their own MIDI controller, the Push, which is the first pad-based controller that embraces scales and melody.[20] In November 2015, Ableton released an updated MIDI controller, the Push 2, along with Live 9.5.

There are a number of additional instruments which may be purchased separately or as part of the Ableton Suite.

Amp - a device that delivers the sounds of various amplifiers and cabinet combos. It is the newest add-on and a part of Suite 8.2.

Sampler - an enhanced sampler.

Operator - an FM synthesizer.

Electric - an electric piano instrument.

Tension - a string physical modelling synthesizer.

Collision - a mallet percussion physical modelling synthesizer.

Analog - simulates an analog synthesizer.

Drum Machines - a collection of emulators for classic drum machines.

(Live 10) Wavetable - A wavetable synthesizer featuring two oscillators and remappable modulation sources.

Session Drums - a collection of sampled drum kits.

Latin Percussion - a collection of sampled latin percussion hits and loops.

Essential Instruments Collection - a large collection of acoustic and electric instrument samples.

Orchestral Instrument Collection - a collection of four different orchestral libraries, which can be purchased individually or as a bundle: Orchestral Strings, Orchestral Brass, Orchestral Woodwinds and Orchestral Percussion. The Orchestral Instrument Collection is included upon purchase of Live Suite but must be downloaded separately.

Most of Live's effects are already common effects in the digital signal processing world which have been adapted to fit Live's interface. They are tailored to suit Live's target audience – electronic musicians and DJs - but may also be used for other recording tasks such as processing a guitar rig. The effects featured in Ableton Live are grouped into two categories - MIDI effects and audio effects.

In addition to the instruments mentioned above, Live can work with samples. Live attempts to do beat analysis of the samples to find their meter, number of bars and the number of beats per minute. This makes it possible for Live to shift these samples to fit into loops that are tied into the piece's global tempo.

Additionally, Live's Time Warp feature can be used to either correct or adjust beat positions in the sample. By setting warp markers to a specific point in the sample, arbitrary points in the sample can be pegged to positions in the measure. For instance a drum beat that fell 250 ms after the midpoint in measure may be adjusted so that it will be played back precisely at the midpoint.

Some artists and online stores, such as The Covert Operators and Puremagnetik, now make available sample packs that are pre-adjusted, with tempo information and warp markers added. The audio files are accompanied with an "analysis file" in Live's native format (.asd files).

Ableton Live also supports Audio To MIDI, which converts audio samples into a sequence of MIDI notes using three different conversion methods including conversion to Melody, Harmony, or Rhythm. Once finished, Live will create a new MIDI track containing the fresh MIDI notes along with an instrument to play back the notes. Audio to midi conversion is not always 100% accurate and may require the artist or producer to manually adjust some notes. See Fourier transform.

Almost all of the parameters in Live can be automated by envelopes which may be drawn either on clips, in which case they will be used in every performance of that clip, or on the entire arrangement. The most obvious examples are volume or track panning, but envelopes are also used in Live to control parameters of audio devices such as the root note of a resonator or a filter's cutoff frequency. Clip envelopes may also be mapped to MIDI controls, which can also control parameters in real-time using sliders, faders and such. Using the global transport record function will also record changes made to these parameters, creating an envelope for them. 

The main purpose is to make a useful tutorial of this amazing DAW because I've noticed that there are not many tutorials of this program and I decided to make a tutorial series about each component of “Ableton Live”. I will be showing you a really interesting written and video tutorial everyday with techniques, tips and how to use every part of this DAW to make a good track or musical composition. If you are amateur in this world of production I highly recommend to use “Ableton Live” because it is very easy and simple to use, you will achieve a professional sound in very simple steps and it will help you very much If you have plans to change of DAW.