Ableton has an experimental feature in Ableton Live 12.1 that allows you to export presets to Ableton Move and Ableton Note. Currently, you can export Drum Racks and Drift presets if they adhere to a format that will work within the restrictions of the subset of features supported by Ableton Move/Note.

The following devices can be exported.

I’ve already successfully moved some of the presets I made as a freelance for the Ableton Berlin sound team called “Ghost Ship Pad”. I also created a Drum Rack using samples from my friend Matthew Yost’s Soundtrack Loops pack called “Frightening Sounds” in advance of the upcoming Rocky Mountain Synthesizer Meet Halloween Sample Flip Challenge event on October 29th in Boulder.

Now that I have it figured out, I want to pass along what you’ll need to get started, along with some tips. So, I put this post together, which contains:

• A Demo Video of Moving Presets
• Overview of the Process in Mind Map Form
• A Quick Look at Preset Formats
• Links to Knowledge Base Articles and Templates To Help You Get Started
• Tips and Gotchas While Refactoring Presets Throughout the Post

Demo Video of Moving Presets

I just posted this to YouTube video. It’s a brief walk through of exporting preset “MPE Ghost Ship Pad” which is in the core of Live and Push 3 refactoring it for the proper format as well as reworking it to take advantage of Drift poly-pressure pads.

Overview of the Process

Here is a mind map overview of the process I put together.

Here is gist of it in outline form. More on all this below.

1. Learn the Process
   • Learn the process via KB article
   • Download the Templates for the Instrument and Drum Racks
2. Enable Experimental Export Feature
   • Add a Field to Opitons.txt
     • -_Feature.ExportPresetsToAbl which turns on a new right-click export menu option for instrument racks.
   • Restart Live
3. Prepare Your Preset(s)
   • Format
   • Refactor Existing Presets / Build New Presets
4. Export Preset
   • Right-Click
   • Upload to Move or Note

A Quick Look a Preset Formats

Before I give you the link with all the details, here is a quick look at the preset formats currently supported in Move and Note.

Drift

Drums

Knowledge Base (KB) Articles and Templates

Presets on Move KB Article

Now that you know a little bit about what the formats and process look like, I’ll send you off to read the very detailed KB article here called “Presets on Move” to figure out how this process works. The article also tell you how to find and edit / create Options.txt to enable this experimental option.

The article also has links to templates for Drum and Drift presets, which you can use as a starting point for new presets or for refactoring existing presets.

Add a Field to Enable Export to Options.Txt

To enable preset export, add the following entry to the Options.txt file on a new line:

-_Feature.ExportPresetsToAbl

Here is a KB article on Options.txt to help you find it and / or create one.

⚠️ Note each install of Live has its own Options.txt. So if you are like me and are participating in the Beta programs and have multiple installs, you need to pick the right location.

Export Option Now Available

You’ll now have a new right-click menu to export presets in Move / Note format.

⚠️REfactoring Gotchas & TIPS

I’ve done multiple projects as a Freelance Sound Designer with the Ableton Berlin Sound Team and can tell you that in many cases, with Core Presets, effects are within the same rack as the instrument, and there may be more than two.

Move and Note presets use nested Instrument Racks with the effects outside of the instrument rack. This can present some “gotchas” when getting a preset ready to export.

For example, I have a very deep and complex Instrument Rack called “Awakening Pad” in the Ableton Live core library. It’s based on three instances of Drift with way more than 2 effects. Here is an image of the rack deconstructed with some notes on elements that would need to be taken into account when refactoring this preset.

As a result:

1. You’ll have to Move Effects Outside the Instrument Rack.
2. If there are more than 2 FX, You’ll have to Pick 2.
3. Move can only access the first 8 macros.
4. Any Macros tied to these FX will break when you move them to the outside rack.
5. Since this may free up a few Macros, I recommend you take some time reassign these macros to the instrument.
6. Move pads support Velocity and Polyphonic Pressure but NOT MPE.
7. Macro Variations are not supported.
8. Some sounds in the Core and in third-party presets may already have nested racks with multiple instances of instruments like Drift and won’t work without serious modifications to refactor them into a simplified rack in accordance with the formats above.

Exporting One of My Drift Presets “Ghost Ship Pad” to Move or Note

Here is a screenshot of one of the Ableton Live core Drift presets I made called MPE Ghost Ship Pad, which I refactored to work in Move and Note. More on Refactoring Gotchas & Tips below.

Here are the steps I took to refactor and export the preset.

1. I drug the preset into the inside rack
2. I picked a macro variation I wanted to export. You don’t need to delete the variations, but as of now, there is now way to select variations on Move or Note.
3. This broke the macros I had mapped to those FX so I remapped them to parameters with in Drift.
4. I used the new experimental feature to export the preset by right-clicking on the outside rack.
   • This gives you a Save dialog where you can name the file which I called “MM Ghost Ship Pad Move”. File extension is .ablpresetbundle
5. I used the Move Manager to upload the preset to the Move. At this point I could have also Airdropped or copied the same file to iOS where I could import into Note. I’ll instead move the preset to Set on Move and do a Cloud Sync to use this on Note.

Here is a video of the export process along with footage of my playing the preset on the Ableton Move.

Drum Racks

Drum Racks follow the same general process, so I won’t cover that process in this post. I will offer a few tips though.

Drum Racks with “16 Pitches” mode, with Drum Sampler’s FX per pad, are one of Move’s secret weapons to overcome the current 4-track limitation. Thinking of each pad as a track gives you much more runway. Another way to think of it is that if you were to use 4 Drum Racks in your Move set, it’s like having 64 tracks running through 4 buses with insert FX.

So I do encourage you to dig in and explore Drum Sampler’s “Playback Effects,” especially “Stretch,” to give the sample on the pad a granular vibe. “16 Pitches” and “Playback Effects” give you WAY more runway than you might think with Move.

⚠️ Tip: As of the release date of this article, you can’t toggle Drum Sample “Mode” between “Trigger” and “Gate”. You can set this mode in Live and export it to Move. There are also Templates on the Move with the mode set either way. To get to those, click the Track Button next to a drum rack, hit the hardware < button or scroll up with the job wheel and hit “Back” to get to the root. Then go to Templates and you’ll see some Template kits.

YouTube Walkthrough.

Shoutout to Sonic State and Cursor to XYZ. I first learned this capability was coming via Sonic State’s Ableton Move Presentation at the 28m22s mark.

Then I saw this video video walkthrough by Cursor XYZ. The comments on his video had links to the KB articles.

My hope is that the overview in this post, plus having links to read the KB article and get the templates, will help you get even more out of his walkthrough.

Cheers and Happy Preset Moving

Hopefully all this info will get started and save you some time so you can use move as a portable host for your favorite presets.

Happy preset moving.

Cheers,

Mark Mosher

P.S.

Related to this topic, here is a video I made showing how much you can squeeze out of 4 tracks on the move.