Ableton Move : User Thread

I have to admit I’ve been surprised at how much more I prefer Move for most things compared to Push 3S these days. Obviously a ton more limitations, but it’s also a more focused workflow in a lot of ways.

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Agreed… for me it’s because there’s always a good starting point with the four instruments and effects ready to go and unlike a template in push it changes every time you create a new set so you don’t get stuck in the same rut… wish push 3 had the ability to create similar starters.

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In fairness it absolutely does, I took push on a trip last summer and banged out one sketch after another in a similar way to how I use Move. It’s just that it also does so much more that it’s easy to get sidetracked.

But for sure Move is uniquely streamlined and focused for this.

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Can you use both Push and Move as controllers together, or “There can be only one”

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I only tried it once — they were both always focused on the same device, so there was no real reason to use both in Controller Mode. And the user manuals explicitly say that it’s not supported, which makes me think the scripts may crash or lock up in certain scenarios (although it was perfectly stable during my short test).

That said, I’ve had a lot of fun using Push 3 in Controller Mode and Move in Standalone. Create an audio track in Live with Monitor set to “on,” send Move’s audio from the headphone jack into your main interface via an aux splitter, and connect Ableton Link for tempo sync. If you load the Move project into Ableton Cloud, you can drag your Move tracks into Live one-by-one and repurpose the track for something else without breaking your flow OR losing any flexibility.

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This is generally my experience as well — Move is limited, but super fast and convenient. Push is so, so powerful but requires patience and personal discipline if you want to actually DO anything.

I use one for playing notes, and one for launching and recording clips

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Today I became the poster boy for the Ableton Move user journey / experience.

Aimlessly chillin on the couch, I made this:

(pardon for this being not arranged at all but the Move exports clips in a wonky way).

ANYWAYS, wifey hears synths, says it reminded her of this album by Vangelis. I’m like, yeah, won’t ever finish this. She’s like, maybe you should.

Well, I did.

As I understand it, this is what Ableton want people to do. And it works. Don’t feel the 4 track limit at all.

Hope it’s a pleasant listen ;).

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If you are in Live Control Mode. Is it possible to use the step sequencer with an external midi keyboard? E.g. Hold down a step and then play notes on the keyboard.

I havent tried but I dont see why not. Its easy enough to use the pads to do this though.

I think (as with the push) it is not possible to connect an external keyboard to ableton and then use the step sequencer. I would love to be wrong. Hence I ask. Maybe someone could try.

I try to implement something similar. but I am failing :frowning:

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I tried it the other night and could NOT enter notes into the step sequencer using my Launchkey 37 mk3. I tested with Move in Controller (Launchkey connected directly to my laptop) and Standalone (Launchkey connected to Move’s USB port) mode. In both modes, Move recognizes the notes coming in and the pads light up accordingly, but the notes are not captured when you add steps.

One mostly-reasonable workaround is to hold a chord on your external controller, hold the lit up notes on the Move pads, then enter the step. One hand needs to move between the controller and the sequencer, but you can form chords on a controller you’re comfortable with and translate it to the pads with a nice visual aid. It will be a hassle if, say, you use the sustain pedal to key in dense multi-octave chords then need to scroll around on the Move keyboard, but that’s a workaround in and of itself — the sequencer lends itself to one-handed chords at the best of times.

Note that I’m using a stable release for Move (1.4.1) and a beta release for Live (12.2b14). Maybe someone on the Move beta can weigh in as well.

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Did you try holding the sequencer step while playing the chord on the external controller? I’ve not tested any of this as I use the Move exclusively in controller mode and don’t require an external keyboard. Just suggesting the method as that seems to be a fairly common way to input notes into an external sequencer.

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Yeah, i 100% expected it to work so i spent a bit of time troubleshooting! But I tried it while holding the step and entering the notes, and while holding the notes and tapping the step, and couldn’t get either going. I also tried disabling the Launchkey script so that it was just sending generic MIDI, and I tried it with and without the Remote checkbox in Live’s preferences.

FWIW I just tried it with Push 3 in Controller mode, and it’s the same. If you hold notes on the external controller and tap a step, it inputs a C3 regardless of what the external controller is sending. And if you hold a step and input notes, nothing happens.

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Thanks for taking the time to test. :slight_smile:

Not a feature I use but a fairly common one with regards to sequencers. If someone is on the Ableton Move Discord server, perhaps they could pass that along as a feature request.

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Can’t you just play the chord, use capture. Then copy that trig to the step you want?. This is what I do.

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thanks a lot for testing! i think that maybe no controller can do this.
i tried for hours trying to understand how this could work using a midi remote script and the live api and i found none… i think this is not implemented. maybe some expert could help out…

edit: by changing the firmware of the controller there is for sure a way. but not in the remote script

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Has anyone tried adding cords with the launch key mk4 it has presets and user chords that can be recorded to a pad.

I can not imagine that it is different to the case tested by @jrjulius .

I have an other tiny question. Is it possible to step automate parameters, controlled by an other device (e.g. a launch control)? This might work :slight_smile:

This just popped up in my YT feed:

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