Ableton (www.ableton.com) has announced new music products: Live 9 for music creation and Push, the company’s first hardware instrument for Live.

Live 9 — due in the first quarter of 2013 — features include: session automation; a new browser puts all instruments, effects, samples, and plug-ins in one view; a selection (3,500 in the Suite edition) of production-ready sounds; the ability to extra music from samples; and more. Prices start at US$99.

Push provides direct, hands-on control of melody and harmony, beats, sounds and structure, powered by Ableton Live running on your computer. Dynamic pads, buttons, encoders and display combined with a workflow allow you to play and compose musical ideas without the need to look at or touch your computer — and without interrupting the musical flow.

Push will also be available in the first quarter of 2013 for $599. It includes Ableton Live 9 Intro and works with any edition of Ableton Live 9 (Intro, Standard, Suite).