Ableton Forum

I'm a n00b to Live (well, by a month or so anyway) and I sat down yesterday trying to think of what I could do with key commands to simplify the workflow and not point and click all the time - because that gets tedious pretty quick on a laptop. I spent about a half hour staring at my keyboard dumbfounded, not knowing what functions to simplify.

Anybody got any advice, or want to share your own?

My most used ones are: Ctrl D (duplicate), Ctrl J and E (consolidate/split, only in arrangement view), I use all the f keys to mute-unmute tracks, Ctrl C and V, (copypaste), and the control commands + Alt, which affects only automation envelopes.

Yeah I use those quite a bit too; I just can't seem to find a function to assign hotkeys to though that hasn't already been mapped to a key command.

p for pencil, o for overdub, i used to use g for global record before i got an alphatrack. sometimes i have keys assigned for device parameters, like on/off. sometimes clip launches, although with the apc, that should be the end of that. oh yeah, t for tap... so nothing exciting, but good for me.

map whatever key arrangement works for you, but i recommend these controls in live. learning all of live's keystroke shortcuts is extremely useful as well. (examples. tab to switch between arrangement and session view alt + apple + l to hide/show the clip/fx view) also don't forget that holding shift will give you all new keystrokes inside live!

pencil
follow
metronome
stop all clips
up & down scenes
launch scene
launch clips for individual tracks
stop clips in individual tracks
global play, rec, stop

Overdub is one of my main ones, then the metronome too

when using a full sized computer keyboard with a number pad I like to map play and stop too - mainly so that I can hit it twice to reset to the start

also, the scene up/down and play buttons and 'stop all clips' can be usefull too

and sometimes it can be handy to map the track headers and the play and stop buttons for each track (only visible in mapping mode)

also, as of Live 8 you can map device title bars directly so that you can jump straight to that device and it will be instant mapped to your controller - that is very handy

my #1 key command is ctrl+alt+del





....thank you, I'm here all week.

davec1 wrote:my #1 key command is ctrl+alt+del





....thank you, I'm here all week.

lol.. i just got that..

I am constantly using Apple-Alt-I to get I/O options open in Session View. That, and the Apple-E/Apple-J commands in the Arrange page.

overdub and the metro gnome is my most used ones i guess. that, and ctrl+e and ctrl+j

Aside from what´s mentioned I use:

Apple+B : Pencil
Apple+R : Rename
Apple+1/2 Increase/decrease grid size (I set to a low size to move a loop around in a big clip)
Apple+Z / Apple+Shift+Z : Undo/Redo
Apple+Shift+T : New midi track
Apple+T : New audio track

I tend to use only hotkeys I can do with one hand.

One I use quite a bit that hasn't had a mention yet. Apple-U for quantizing.

Apart that I am a +1 for Apple c,v,e,r,and j

Just starting getting into mapping the keyboard to trigger stuff live too, sold the UC33e and now only have my nanKontrol so need more buttons! I am not too proud to use the keyboard!

Here are some of mine mapped on the Nostromo N52.

The arrows <->, >-< are split and consolidate.

CTRL-ALT-Delete for Windows users