Software Engineering Daily Ableton Live with Tobias Hahn
Jan 22, 2025
Tobias Hahn, Engineering Manager at Ableton, discusses the intricacies of developing Ableton Live, a leading music software used by artists like Daft Punk. He delves into the challenges of maintaining legacy code while innovating with modern technologies, emphasizing real-time audio processing. Hahn highlights the collaboration between engineering and UI design, illustrating how product owners and tech teams work together to enhance user experience. The conversation also touches on integrating machine learning and the importance of a supportive culture for onboarding new engineers.
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Ableton Live's Legacy Codebase
- Ableton Live's codebase has evolved over 25 years, starting with C++ in a pre-standardized era.
- This legacy includes homegrown classes for strings, pointers, and UI, influencing current development.
Rewriting Legacy Code
- Rewriting large legacy codebases is often problematic, as seen with Ableton's UI framework attempt.
- Optimizing third-party frameworks negates their benefits, leading to in-house GPU rendering solutions.
Real-time Audio Constraints
- Audio software has stricter performance requirements than UI, clicks/dropouts are unacceptable.
- Ableton Live uses driver callbacks and buffer sizes to manage audio processing scheduling.
