Ableton Live 8 wasn’t exactly what you’d call a sweeping success when it was released in 2009. In fact, issues with stability and usability were so poorly received that it led Ableton to publicly commit to refocusing on the values that got them to Live 7: “quality over innovation”.
Thankfully, Ableton managed to course correct, but - somewhat ironically - an innocuous preset for Multiband Dynamics, one of Live 8's new devices, would end up becoming vastly influential, spawning legions of tutorials, a free copycat plugin and a new style of punchy, in-your-face compression named after the preset itself: OTT.
