Greetings Abetonians --

First off -- Knobbler is an app for iOS and Android that pairs with a Max for Live device to give you multitouch hands-on control of device parameters, the mixer, and your clips from your tablet or phone over WiFi. Control Live from your vocal booth or drum throne, or jam with friends with its multiplayer capability.

Now for the news - I shipped two big updates in Knobbler land this week.

1. The Android version of the app is now free to download. It started out as a paid app due to shortcomings of the Play Store, but I've worked around them. Search for Knobbler in the Play Store and give it a spin, with 30 days of access to all features.
2. Both iOS and Android now let you use the Knobbler pages (32 assignable, auto-labeling, auto-coloring multitouch faders) and the Bluhand page (all parameters of the currently selected device or rack with support for Variations) after the 30 day trial period is up. Previously, the whole app was paywalled. These were the first features I shipped in Knobbler 4 years ago, and to me they are the most important.

All of the app features, including Mixer (smooth scrolling, all tracks/groups/sends and crossfader), Clips (record, rename, recolor, launch), and Session (mixture of Clips and Mixer page) are available during the 30 day trial. After that, it's a one-time purchase ($20) or subscription ($10/yr or $1/mo) to continue using all the features.

Search for Knobbler in the App Store or Play Store and check it out for free. It works on iOS and Android phones and tablets, Windows or Mac. Requires Live 12.4 or newer, and since it pairs with a Max for Live device it needs Suite or Standard+M4L. It also works great with Push 3 Standalone.

Full feature walkthrough https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRUngy4AaFM

I'm happy to answer any questions about it!

The r/ableton community here has been instrumental in helping to shape the app over the last couple of years, and I'm grateful to all who have commented or emailed me their feedback and ideas ([zack@steinkamp.us](mailto:zack@steinkamp.us)). This is how software gets better! 🫶🫶🫶 Now go make some music!

As of now, I am opening two more slots for Ableton beginners who want to go from absolute scratch to a finished song.

This is a completely pro bono offer where we sit together in a call once a week (1.5 Hours), where the goal is to give you a solid foundation for your production journey.

As you might expect, this is a very intensive course where you learn a specific topic each week. At the same time we will be working on your first song, where I give you feedback and best practice tips along the way.

If you're up for the challenge and ready to commit, I want to hear from you!

This offer concerns Ableton Live Lite, Standard and Suite, Version 9 to 12.

Send me a DM and let's see if we're a fit!

Cheers

Hey all, I’m using Ableton, running into a weird issue. When I create a MIDI clip and draw in four bars, only the first two show up in Arrangement View. No matter how far I extend the clip, anything past bar 2 doesn’t appear in the arrangement. I’ve checked the loop brace, clip length, and tried dragging it manually, but it just won’t reflect past two bars. Is there a setting in Ableton I’m overlooking, or is this a bug? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I thinking of upgrading my current 2016 windows laptop to a MacBook,
I mostly use serum for synth and have like a total of 40 -50 tracks in my project
I have two options but a used m2 MacBook Pro or get a new MacBook Air m4 or m5 if budget prevails,
What should I do?

Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/vcSwwna Website with downloads and the manual: https://djwaveforms.com

I occasionally DJ with different software to have different experiences, an when I dj with Live I love the effects and complete tempo independence, but miss the nice big waveforms. People have been asking for this on the Ableton forum since 2007. The official answer- Serato x Ableton Bridge, was killed more than ten years ago from my understanding.

So I built it. DJ Waveforms is a desktop app (macOS and Windows) that connects to your running Live set through a MIDI Remote Script, the same way any control surface does, and turns it into a DJ rig. I started with just the waveforms mini app but it grew into the whole shebang and I think it's time to share:

• side-by-side moving waveforms, beat-aligned to each clip's warp grid, coloured by frequency band with complete customization of how they look and presets
• beat-exact play, cue, seek, beat jump, nudge and loops on every deck
• mixer that automaps to your racks or plugins controls, completely remappable and customizable, can be mapped to sends, not just the effects on that channel
• performance snapshots which remember the positions of all your knobs and allow to morph or jump from one state to another. One mapped button can turn any amount of knobs, quantized or instant, with quantized or instant release. You can go ham on effects, take them anywhere you want and then instantly return back to normal. I was heavily inspired by the Neuzeit Drop midi controller and since I have one- they compliment each other really well, that's how I play
• customizable number of decks and knobs and panel sizes
• mini-track overview that is used for jumping anywhere in the track, quantized or not
• hot cues with names and colours (also reads the Serato cues already in your file tags)
• a beatgrid editor, and one-pass prep: drop an unwarped file on a deck and it gets analyzed, warped and gridded (most of the times lol). Manual gridding is simplified and quick, but might not work great on the complex tracks witch tempo changes, so Ableton's default warping tool might be better for those cases
• a library of the tracks in your set with key, BPM and energy from your tags, or detected from the audio when there is no tag, filtering, sorting, secondary sorting, comments and more, all stored in a local library and not overwriting your track's metadata in the files
• auto gain
• MIDI mapping for any controller with a learn mode, keyboard shortcuts
• and more!

I tried recording a demo video I would be happy with and kept failing (framerates, colours, mixing on camera...), but I hope screenshots are self-explanatory.

I have only ran it on my own windows laptop and a mac on the latest Live version and played some sets with it- worked great for me. Before I take anyone's money for it I want the community to play with it on different hardware, other Live versions and editions, Windows audio setups, controllers I do not own etc.

The current build is a free open beta through Oct 15, 2026. The full app, no trial pauses, no signup, no account, no telemetry. When it switches to paid ($79 one-time, $59 at launch), the beta build reverts to a free trial that pauses playback briefly every 15 minutes.

The Windows build is not code-signed yet, so SmartScreen will warn you; click "More info", then "Run anyway" and anyone with a DJ controller.

Requirements: Ableton Live 11 or 12 (I run 12 Suite, every other edition is exactly what I need tested), macOS 11+ or Windows 10/11. Download at djwaveforms.com. I am not affiliated with Ableton.

I will try to answer everything in the comments, technical or otherwise.

Hey everyone,

I'm having an issue trying to use two different M-Wave MIDI controllers (SMC-Mixer and SMK-25) simultaneously in Ableton Live 12 on Windows.

Here is the problem:

1. When both are connected via USB, the Midi Suite app (v1.12.0) incorrectly identifies both controllers as "SMK25" (it reads the SMC-Mixer as an SMK-25).
2. Because the SMC-Mixer is reporting the wrong Product ID / Firmware identity to Windows, the OS creates duplicate ghost ports like SMK25, SMK25 #2, SMK25 (Port 2), SMK25 #2 (Port 2).
3. In Ableton Live, selecting one controller grays out/disables the other because the DAW treats them as conflicting duplicate ports.

What I’ve already tested:

• Connected both directly to different laptop USB ports (bypassing the USB hub entirely).
• Performed a deep clean of hidden/ghost MIDI drivers in Windows Device Manager (devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1).
• Sent a support request to SincoAudio / M-Wave regarding a firmware update/fix.

Has anyone experienced an M-Wave device (like the SMC-Mixer) flashing/reporting the wrong device ID? Is there any tool to rewrite the firmware identity or force Windows/Ableton to assign independent drivers?

Thanks for any insights!

https://imgur.com/a/xG0F9bj

Ableton has release Live beta version 12.4.15b1 Lots of bug fixes. This one was noteable:

"Fixed a bug that could cause Live to hang when rendering, bouncing, or consolidating in Sets with many audio tracks and audio clips in the Beats Warp Mode with the Transients Granular Resolution."

Release notes here: https://www.ableton.com/en/release-notes/live-12-beta/

Hi,

Does anybody know if there are any multi sampled piano packs available that will be compatible with push 3 in standalone mode?

Or loadable in Ableton only plugins / no vsts

I have long stems from a recording project. When I try to drag and drop them in a file it just buffers forever My computer is old and I’m due for an upgrade in processing power. In the meantime is there anything else that can be done?

As the title states, does anyone here use a MAC with a silicone series Ultra chip? I’m looking at running some local AI LLM’s while also using the same Mac Studio for producing. I was curious if you are able to get low buffer sizes of 32 or 64 sample sizes with no issues. When asking the AI algo’s they all sugggest getting a single chip architecture. I’m genuinely curious if anyone uses an ultra, and if so, have you run into any problems? Thank you in advance for your input!

I'm fairly new to Ableton and I was learning how to manipulate envelopes like pitch bend and modulation. After making some changes to the pitch Bend I tried to go back to edit the MIDI data and notes, made a few changes then was unable to hear the track no matter what I did. I made sure it wasn't playing in session and I'm at a loss at this point as to how to hear the track. I could delete and record it again in a new track but I want to know what I did wrong.

If I solo the track and play the track directly from the midi editor I can actually hear the track. ​​​​

I appreciate any help. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Paying song, no sound from track.

Able to hear track from midi editor.

Tried doing so but found the KHS effects to not color it as good, maybe adding some live FXs?

Im making an orchestration for a film im writing. Im using MIDI and writing it on music notation paper as i go. eventually, i will commission all the instruments to be recorded live.

The problem i have is when its time for a solo instrument to come out and shine, the rigid nature of timing really takes away from the nuances i want.

Should i record it at a standardized speed and automate the BPM?

Is there a way to record the trumpet solo part orginacally with the pulling of time i want then get everything to follow the timing of that track until the solos over?

I know theres a way to do this with audio tracks, which from my research seem like the way to go, but im still switching notes around and am not focusing on dynamics just yet so i dont want to freeze the midi track / make it an audio track.

New user- I’ve seen lots of YouTube videos about mixing and most suggest setting your main sound element (like your kick) at -12 dbs peak. I’ve also seen vids saying to keep your faders at zero. So my question is, how do you set your main element to -12 dbs w/out using the fader? I think the answer is to use a utility to set the level, but seeking confirmation.

Bonus Q- when/how/where in the tracks chain do you use VU meters?

Appreciate helpful replies for someone trying to learn from those who know 🙂

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coDmjZ1yX_c

Hey everyone, I had a few questions regarding how to spec an MBP to last me a while with music production using Ableton as well as how you guys maintain them for longevity. I currently have a late 2018 MBP and a pc. When it comes to music production, even with my interface (Scarlett solo, older gen prob 2 or 3) my MacBook lags and caps out the cpu like crazy, especially when using newer synths like serum 2. On my pc I’m able to run things better but even then I still experience issues and hitches every now and then, and of course the largest downside is complete lack of mobility when it comes to working remotely on tracks or bringing my device to the studio to plug in.

When it comes to the new MBPs, here are my questions:

M5 vs M5 max vs M5 pro: is the M5 enough for music production? I doubt the m5 pro is necessary since I won’t be doing intensive video related work but mostly curious about the max.

RAM: is 24 enough? Kind of a main decider between the max and the regular m5, with the regular m5 i can afford 32GB of ram but with the max I’d have to settle for 24

Timing: is it even worth buying a MacBook right now or should I wait for the next one to drop seeing as we’re in the fall and I know apple drops new products around this time.

Longevity: how do you guys keep your MacBooks lasting long? Is it up to replacing the battery when it needs to be? Do you guys install any OS updates at all or do you just keep the device with the firmware it came with and never update it? I want this MacBook to last me the next good handful of years and it feels like my 2018 began falling off quite hard after 4-5 years.

Cheers guys, thanks for helping and if there’s any other info you guys would need from me to give better feedback I’m more than willing to explain anything else.

Screenshot of my issue

Hey, I've posted about an issue I'm having on this sub a couple weeks ago, and only this morning wrapped up my Ableton support ticket about it. They were not able to help me unfortunately.

My issue is: seemingly after a recent macOS update (15.7.9) on my M2 MacBook Air, Live was suddenly using 50-60% of CPU in Activity Monitor. This is on a blank copy of Live, on a blank project, with no audio playing, and the CPU meter in Ableton shows 0%.

I know this is not normal behavior. I only noticed it because Live was suddenly taking a noticeable toll on my battery life, and in the past I do remember Live effectively blending in with the rest of the system processes, using roughly less than 10% CPU. It still does this on every other PC/Mac I have with Live installed.

The support agent and I have weeded out any other potential causes with my particular setup. They ultimately told me to just contact Apple about it.

On my last post, a couple other people came forward with similar issues, whether in the comments or DMs. One of those people is on the latest update of macOS 26 and is seeing the same numbers in Activity Monitor. The other stated they’ve had outright performance issues all of a sudden, after updating macOS (if it’s 15 or 26 is unknown).

I'm wondering if it's happening to everybody but only some people actually notice. Basically, I really don't know if this issue is universal.

For the sake of insight and troubleshooting, what I would like to know is:

- which model of Mac you have

- which macOS version (down to the decimal)

- which version of Live (down to the decimal)

- your CPU usage numbers in Activity Monitor, on a blank idle project

I'd really appreciate anyone willing to share, thank you so much.

That one Ableton support comment only has links for Intro, Suite and Standard, and alas I use Lite (podcast).

I can only find 12.3.5 on the Ableton website, which I tried, but it's incompatible with my template.

I am ridiculously eager to get going in the production scene. I’m only 18 so got bags of time. I’ve developed myself into a good DJ over the last year purely by listening to sets.

Anyway, I now want to get into producing and have seen mixed feedback on paid courses and YouTube videos, and was wondering are courses such as syntho actually worth it? I’m looking to get into uk garage, tech house production if anyone has any other pointers?

One thing I will say is that I learn in a strange way, I learn best when I’m able to ask questions and get live feedback, purely just reading from a book or following along is something that doesn’t bide well with my brain.

Thanks!

If it doesn't, does anyone know good ways to record MIDI on iPad (connected to a digital piano/MIDI controller with sustain pedal) and sync with Ableton Live on PC?

If it doesn't, does anyone know good ways to record MIDI on iPad (connected to a digital piano/MIDI controller with sustain pedal) and sync with Ableton Live on PC?