Ableton Live Integration
Signals & Sorcery sends your work straight into Ableton Live, two ways:
| Scene export | Song hand-off | |
|---|---|---|
| What | One scene, or every scene in the project | Your whole arranged song |
| Lands in | Live's Session view, one row per scene | Live's Arrangement view, the full song |
| You get | Per layer: an audio clip, plus a MIDI clip for MIDI layers | Stems of the finished mix, plus a locator at every section |
| The sound | Each layer on its own; level and pan set on Live's mixer | Exactly your S&S mix, bus effects included; the stems sum to the Mix |
| In Live | Right-click a scene → Import S&S scene… | Right-click a scene → Import S&S mix… |
No file wrangling and nothing to install by hand.
Requirements
- Ableton Live 12 Suite, beta build 12.4.5 or later; Ableton Extensions run only in the Suite beta. Join the Ableton beta »
- The S&S Ableton extension 1.4.0 or later for song hand-offs. S&S installs and updates it for you (see below).
- macOS (the integration is macOS-first today).
Setup: nothing to install by hand
S&S ships the Ableton extension and installs it for you. The first time you run S&S with Ableton present, it places the extension into Live's extensions folder automatically, and it updates it when a newer version ships with the app.
First time only
If Ableton was already running, quit and reopen it once so Live loads the extension. You can confirm it under Live → Settings → Extensions.
Send scenes to Session view
What you get
Each scene appears as a row of clips in Session view:
| S&S layer | In Ableton |
|---|---|
| Drums / Instruments / Synths / Bass / Ensemble / Arpeggiator / Pads | a rendered audio clip and a MIDI clip (no instrument; drop your own) |
| Loops / Stems | a rendered audio clip |
The audio is each layer's own sound, rendered at an even level and centred. Your S&S fader and pan are set on Live's track volume and pan, so the balance matches your mix; panel bus effects are not included. The MIDI is the raw notes, so you can re-voice any part with your own instruments and racks.
Use it
- In Signals & Sorcery, click Export to Ableton on a scene (the ▦ button on the scene), or choose Project menu → Export to Ableton… to send every scene in the project at once. A progress bar shows the render; you never pick a save location.
- In Ableton, switch to Session view, right-click a scene (the launch buttons in the rightmost column) and choose Import S&S scene…
- If you've exported more than one scene, a "Choose scenes to import" window appears; tick the scenes you want (your newest export is pre-selected) and confirm. A single scene imports straight away, no picker.
- Each chosen scene materializes as its own Session row: tempo set, audio + MIDI clips ready to play, with each track's level and pan taken from your S&S mix.
Re-importing is additive: scenes are appended as new rows, so an earlier import is never overwritten. Export the same scene again and it re-renders in place, ready to import fresh.
Hand off a song to Arrangement view
When your song is arranged in Arrange mode, you can hand the whole thing to Live as stems that already sound exactly like your S&S mix.
- In Signals & Sorcery, press Export… in the arrangement pane, tick Ableton hand-off, and press export. (See Exporting your song for the other options.)
- In Ableton, right-click a scene in Session view and choose Import S&S mix… Live imports your newest hand-off.
- The song lands in Arrangement view:
- the tempo is set first;
- one audio track per stem (one per panel, plus any layer that isn't on a panel bus), each clip the full length of the song, unwarped;
- every track at 0 dB and centred: your faders, pan and bus effects are already in the audio, so leave the Live mixer flat to hear your S&S mix;
- a locator at the start of every section, named after it;
- if you also exported Editable stems, each one arrives muted and named "… · pre-bus", ready to swap in when you want to redo a panel's bus effects in Live.
Exporting the same song again replaces its hand-off, and each import adds new tracks in Live, so delete an old import in Live if you re-import.
Where your exports live
You normally never need these paths, but if you want to find, open, or clean up your exports, Signals & Sorcery → Settings → File Locations lists them all (read-only, each with an Open button):
- Export Folder: where S&S stages scenes and song hand-offs for Live to import.
- Extension Install Folder: where the S&S extension is installed.
- Clear Exports: a one-click button that deletes the staged bundles (scenes and song hand-offs) once you've imported them into Live. It doesn't touch the song exports you saved to your own folder.
The same panel also shows your sample, loop, SurgeXT preset, and app-data folders.
Troubleshooting
- No "Import S&S scene…" or "Import S&S mix…" in the menu? Restart Ableton once (the extension loads at launch), and confirm you're on Live 12 Suite beta 12.4.5+.
- "No S&S bundle found"? Click Export to Ableton in S&S first, then run the import in Live.
- "No S&S mix bundle found"? Export the song from Arrange mode with Ableton hand-off ticked first, then run Import S&S mix… in Live.
- Right-click where? On a scene in Session view (the launch buttons in the rightmost column), not on an empty clip slot. This is also where Import S&S mix… lives, even though the song lands in Arrangement view.
- Picker shows an old scene? Every scene export you haven't cleared stays available to import. Tick only the scenes you want, or clear old bundles from Settings → File Locations → Clear Exports.
- Imported something twice? Imports add new rows or tracks rather than replacing old ones; delete the extras in Live by hand.