Ableton Note is an iOS app for quickly sketching and capturing musical ideas before exporting to Live to finish your track.
Opening Note presents you with the Set screen, where you can manage your existing sets or create new ones.
Tap the New button to create a new blank set.
Each new set opens in the Session View with three tracks loaded.
We'll explore this view in more detail later, but for now, let's get started by making a beat.
Tap a track's icon to enter the Instrument View.
With the Drum Rack selected, you are presented with four pages of controls at the top of the screen,
plus a 4x4 grid of pads for playing notes.
There is also a section in the middle of the screen that currently says 'No Clip' where notes will appear as we play.
Tap any of the pads to audition the drum sounds of the selected kit.
To change the current preset, tap on the Parameter header at the top of the screen.
This opens the browser where you can browse through all of Note's built-in sounds.
The sounds available in Notes can also be found in Live.
As soon as you play notes, Note begins capturing what you play.
Tap the X if you'd like to clear what you've played and start again.
Tap the Capture MIDI button to create a new clip from what you've just played.
If this is the first clip in your set, Note will set the tempo and loop according to what you've played.
You can also overdub into a recorded clip.
First, let's duplicate this clip by pressing the Duplicate button at the bottom of the screen.
The clip is duplicated into slot two.
Tap the Open Sidebar button to show some additional controls for playing notes.
Enabling Note Repeat lets you press and hold on a note to play repeated notes at the selected time division.
Single Pad mode lets you play the currently selected pad with varying velocity.
Once you've played some notes, tap Add to add those notes to the current clip.
The four sections at the top of Drum Rack mode lets you manipulate the sound of individual pads as well as the entire kit.
The first page contains pad controls for tweaking the sound of the selected pad.
The second page contains the sample controls.
Tap the microphone in the top-right to record your own sample for this pad using your device's built-in microphone,
Note will automatically crop the sample to the first detected transient,
but you can tap and drag left and right to adjust the sample's playback,
drag up and down to adjust the sample's gain,
or use a two-finger pinch gesture to zoom in and out of the sample while also adjusting its playback position.
Tap on the sample to access additional sample controls or to swap out the sample for a new one.
Tapping Swap Sample opens the browser where you can choose from the included samples
or any of the samples you've previously recorded in this set.
The third tab contains Pad Effects, which lets you apply any of Note's effects as a Send and Return effect within the Drum Rack.
Tap the Effect preset at the top of the screen to open the Effects browser and select a new preset.
I'll select the Clap sound and increase the Send Amount to hear the effect.
Lastly, the fourth tab, Kit Effects, lets you choose an effect to apply across the entire kit.
Again, tap the Preset header to switch the selected kit effects.
Let's return to the Session View by pressing the back arrow in the top left.
Here we can see the two drum clips we've created.
Let's add some chords to our track. I'll tap on track 3, which defaults to a random harmonic sound.
I'd like to use a different sound, so I'll tap the Preset header to change the selected preset.
When playing melodic and harmonic parts, Note helps you stay in key.
Tap the button in the top right to open the Settings page.
Here you can enable a metronome,
adjust your tempo,
and set the key and scale for your set.
The Instrument View is similar to the Drum Rack view and is divided into three sections with Instruments and Effects settings at the top,
a Note grid at the bottom, and a Clip section in the middle.
I can open the sidebar to switch to a keys layout,
change the octave of the pads or keys, or enable Note Repeat.
I'll stay in Pad mode and capture some notes.
Let's edit these notes.
Tap the Clip section in the middle of the screen to expand the Note view.
First, I'll select just the bars of this recording I want to keep by tapping on each of those bars below the notes.
Tap and drag to the left to delete any unwanted sections of a recording.
You can also long press on any bar to duplicate or delete it, or crop the clip to that bar.
Quantize the record notes by tapping the Quantize button at the bottom of the screen.
Long press the Quantize button to open the Note menu, where you can access some additional note transformation controls.
The Note menu can also be accessed by tapping and dragging to select notes in the Notes editor.
The Note menu has three pages: Operations lets you apply basic transformations like transposing or nudging the recorded notes.
Use the outside arrows to transpose the selected notes by an octave.
Or the inside arrows to transpose by single notes up or down.
These will quantize to scale degrees if a key in scale has been set,
select a time division and use the left and right nudge controls to nudge the selected notes by the chosen amount.
Tap the trashcan to delete the selected notes.
You can always access Undo and Redo buttons in the bottom-left to undo or redo any of your actions.
The Quantize tab lets you apply quantization to the selected notes.
The Velocity tab lets you adjust the velocity of selected notes.
You can two-finger tap and drag to draw a velocity ramp.
Let's extend this clip to make it a little more interesting.
Drag from left to right across a selection of bars to duplicate those bars.
I'll transpose some of the notes in the duplicated section to create a slight variation.
Let's explore the sound controls.
Tap the first tab at the top of the screen to access the sound controls.
Tap and drag up and down on any control to make adjustments. You can also tap and drag left and right to make fine adjustments.
You'll notice that as I'm adjusting a control, a dotted line appears on top of the Notes view.
At any point you can tap the Add button at the bottom of the screen to capture these control movements as automation.
The control with automation recorded will display a small dots to the top left of the control.
Tap on the label of any control to access its automation settings,
where you can mute the automation, delete the recorded automation,
or insert a fixed line at the current control value, which lets you fix different parameter settings for different clips.
I'll just use Undo to get back to the automation I had recorded.
Instrument Mode also provides two effects to manipulate your sound.
These can be switched by tapping on the Preset header.
And any of these controls can also be automated.
Let's head back to the Session View and record a bassline.
I'll tap on track 2, which defaults to a bass track.
Remember that each of these tracks is just a default setting and can be changed to use any of Note's built-in sounds.
I already know what sound I want to use, so I'll tap Preset header to switch the selected preset.
Tap on the middle section that says 'No Clip,' then tap the plus button to create a fixed length clip.
Let's go with two bars.
Now that we have some parts recorded, let's explore the Session View a little more.
Tap the Stop button in the bottom-right to stop playback for now.
Long press on any track to access the Track menu,
or long press and drag to rearrange the order of tracks.
Long press on any clip to access the Clip menu, or long press and drag to move clips around even between tracks.
Note lets you work with up to eight tracks and up to eight clips per track.
Tap on any clip to play that clip.
Tap on any of the Stop buttons in a track to stop that track playing.
The starting and stopping of clips is quantized to the next down beats.
Tap the Mixer button in the bottom menu to open the Mixer section,
which includes track mutes and solos
and track volume controls.
Tap the Show Scenes button to show Note's scenes, which let you trigger entire rows of clips.
You can also long press on scenes to duplicate or delete them or to change their order.
Let's build out some sections for our track using the Clip Edit menus.
You can add up to eight tracks to your set by tapping the plus at the right of the Session View.
This will immediately open the preset browser with a random preset selected,
or you can browse to choose a new sound for your track.
Let's load the Sampler instrument.
First, I need to add a sample from the Sample page.
I could record my own or add one from the library.
You can also import samples into Notes by AirDropping from a Mac, or exporting from other apps using the iOS Share menu.
You can create a quick render of your set by going into the Settings page
and tapping Export Audio to export your set in WAV or M4A formats.
This will render the set in the order of your scenes from top to bottom, using the longest clip in each scene as the scene's length.
The final step is to export the set so we can develop the idea further in Live.
Head back to the Sets page by tapping the button in the top-left.
Tap the three dots in the bottom-left to access the Global settings.
Here you can enable Ableton Link as well as Ableton Cloud, which lets you share Notes that directly to Live
or other iOS devices via your Ableton account.
To do this, you'll first need to enable Ableton Cloud.
This will open your web browser and ask you to log into your Ableton account to grant access.
Once Cloud is enabled, a new section will appear at the top of the screen showing which sets are currently synced to your Ableton Cloud.
You can have up to five sets saved in Ableton Cloud at once.
Tap the three dots to the right of the set's name to access some additional options for that set.
Here you can duplicate and rename the set as well as change the artwork displayed alongside it.
The Share section gives you two ways to export your set.
The Share To menu lets you share your set via the iOS Share menu, for example, via AirDrop or saving to Dropbox.
The set is shared as an ablbundle file, which can be opened by Live as well as other instances of Note,
so you can easily share your sets with friends or collaborators.
The second option is to upload the set to Ableton Cloud. This will take a few seconds to sync the set.
Over in Live, we first need to enable Cloud. Open Live's preferences by pressing Command or CTRL + Comma.
Then under the Library tab, enable the Cloud Manager.
Be aware that you will need at least Live 11.2 to access Cloud.
Once enabled, a new Cloud option will appear under the Places section of the browser.
Click sign in and you will be redirected to your web browser to grant access to Cloud from your Ableton account,
Once signed in, any sets you have in Cloud will be available to access.
Double click the .abl file to open the set and continue working on it in Live.
The set will open with native Live devices loaded for each track.