Wrap Your Head Around Ableton Move | Learn How to Use Ableton Move | Reference Links to Manual, Specs, Release Notes

October 9, 2024

Written

Modulate This! – Synth Tech & Technique Artilcles by Mark Mosher

(Modulate This! Synth Tech & Technique Articles), Ableton, Ableton Live 12, Ableton Live 12.1, Ableton Move

Ableton Move dropped yesterday. Of course, this also means YouTube is flooded with videos. Videos from well-informed people now that the embargo has dropped. A sea of videos from just before the launch that speculated on what Ableton Move was all about. And now lots of commentary videos from people who don’t have one and are just guessing.

While I’m waiting for my move to arrive, I spent a bunch of time yesterday sorting through all this.

I pulled together all my research into a single page to help you wrap your head around Ableton Move, collecting all the official Move tutorials into a single location, as well as all the official reference material.

Hopefully this post will save you time so you can spend more time making music than wading through noise an misinformation.

Full disclosure – from time to time, I freelance as a sound designer for the Ableton Berlin Sound team and have made a few MPE Drift, Wavetable, and Sampler presets forthe Core Library for Live 10-12 and Push 3 Standalone. I don’t benefit financially from any purchases of Ableton products.

Also, you might notice the Modulate This! reference. Modulate This! my category for synth tech & technique articles within my blog vs the Mark Mosher Music News for my artistic work.

Wrap Your Head Around Ableton Move

Screenshot of controls from Manual. Links to manual at end of post.

We’ll start with product announcement videos, then “move” on to the best video I’ve found so far with information right from the source – Ableton Engineering and Marketing. This is followed by my favorite detailed blog post on the Move.

Announcement Videos

First up “Introducing Ableton Move: a portable tool for intuitive music making“.

Next up, it’s worth a quick view of the official 5 minutes Feature Overview video.

Sonic State Interview and Demo with Head of Product for Ableton Move and Demo by Ableton Marketing

Sonic State published a 32-minute video called “Ableton Move Hardware – In Depth SonicLAB Presentation“. It’s really worth watch as Nick Batt interviews Jahannes Russ, Head of Product for Ableton Move. There is also an informative demo by Brian Mauleon in Ableton Marketiing.

A few things you’ll learn about Ableton Move in this video are:

Overview of the instrument
Core features and workflow
Demo of core device instrument and FX
Overview of Data management
Interoperation with Note, Ableton Cloud Synch, and Live
Some developer insights and comments on what is on the radar for their roadmap

It’s worth noting that Ableton Move is based on Ableton Note iOS core code so they will be keeping Move and Note in parity. There is also mention of Ableton Cloud coming to Push 3.

Excellent Detailed Review and Analysis of Ableton Move

Want a detailed run-down and review of Ableton Move? Look no further than Peter Kirn’s most excellent Create Digital Music Post “Ableton Move review: “baby Push” is sampler, mobile Live hardware“.