Mac OS X QuickLook Integration for Live

[dm199913]

I dislike having to wait for Live to open just to see if I have the right project file, I would love to be able to just select the icon in Finder and hit spacebar to get a popup with a preview of the arrangement/session view and a playable preview of the track without having to open Live itself. Would be incredibly useful for those with slow/aged computers

[brianroach]

Just wanted to chime in and say I'd like to bump this about 1000x!!!

Quicklook an .als file to preview the last looped region with visual preview would be epic.

[moe]

that would be indeed be a handy feature! really useful if you work on different versions & to recall what 2014_07_24 Project was exactly

[marvinvo]

Hey, this one may be interesting for you
https://als-preview.de

[sytsew]

This would be VERY useful, and preferably in 2 ways:
1: a sound preview (presound?) to quickly hear if it's the right one.
A window of 10-20 sec in mp3 should be enough for most cases, especially if you can set a window of interest (drag a dedicated loop region) for identifying the characteristic or novel part of the project/song. Some people now entertain the discipline of exporting a snippet of audio at the end of a day, to keep in the project folder, as Live nor other programs can generate the actual audio without loading the program and plugins, duh. Maybe there are some smart people that made a little script to do generate an audio snippet automatically when saving or closing?
2: a visual preview of the project's looks. This is helpful to identify a project version or state, eg if it included some particular instrument or plugin lane (something you can't easily hear).

I believe Marvin Vogel's project (https://als-preview.de) goes in direction 2 and offers some scrolling features, but lacks the sound preview.
Anyone knows options for direction 1 in 2025, other than manual exports (tiny bounces)?

I think anyone thinking to start building such a feature (or add-on) should do some user research on what people want to know mostly when looking/hearing for projects prior to opening. There might be more use cases meriting more advanced-search-like features like filtering for use of particular plugins or instruments. Eg "Where are those old tracks I did with that later corrupted piano plugin and can't remember the song names from?"

[marvinvo]

Hey, these are fantastic ideas!

You're absolutely right — my app currently only provides a basic visual preview. In the future, this could be expanded to include features like displaying MIDI notes or other details. As a Quick Look integration, it might also register searchable keywords for Spotlight.

A sound preview, however, is a bit trickier. I’ve experimented with simple Max for Live plugins that I place on the master channel. These plugins record a WAV file every time I play or pause the track, saving it in the project folder and overwriting it with the latest snippet each time playback stops. This approach seems to be the most straightforward, but it could use some fine-tuning, like implementing a minimum playback threshold (e.g., 10 seconds) for the WAV file. I'm not exactly a Max for Live programming expert, but maybe someone else could refine this idea further!

[sytsew]

A sound preview, however, is a bit trickier. I’ve experimented with simple Max for Live plugins that I place on the master channel. These plugins record a WAV file every time I play or pause the track, saving it in the project folder and overwriting it with the latest snippet each time playback stops. This approach seems to be the most straightforward, but it could use some fine-tuning, like implementing a minimum playback threshold (e.g., 10 seconds) for the WAV file. I'm not exactly a Max for Live programming expert, but maybe someone else could refine this idea further!

A Max patch might indeed be a good way to start (prototyping) but it would of course be better if native support plus UI integration became available. Meanwhile I found some people harness python scripting for automating actions inside Live, eg with Clyphx. I've not yet tried it.