Ableton Forum

Learning Ableton Live 7 on a Mac, OSX 10.5, but having trouble dragging a MIDI instrument into the track area (should generate a new MIDI automatically) or onto an existing MIDI track.

But I'm getting an icon (circle with a diagonal line through it) and no new track or instrument added to the MIDI track.

I'm following the Ableton tutorial movies exactly, but only rarely can I successfully add an instrument.

What am I doing wrong?

Some instruments will add to the track, some will not. Are some MIDI instruments not compatible or disabled?

Anyone?

Thanks!

On windows press controll+shift+T to create a new midi track. I'm sure there is a mac equivalent.

I can add MIDI tracks just fine - but some instruments will not add to the track.

Are some instruments disabled upon installation?

Can you give us a specific example of an instrument that will drag into a new track, and one that will not? If I can get the same behavior on my setup, I can usually figure out why that is, but without knowing I'd just be choosing them at random.

Ste_clectic wrote:On windows press controll+shift+T to create a new midi track. I'm sure there is a mac equivalent.

Cmd+shift+T. In Ableton, OSX Cmd and Windows Ctrl are generally always used for the same purpose. I don't know of any exceptions.

For example, none of the Operator, Sampler, Simpler, instruments will add to a MIDI track.

Impulse instruments will add to a MIDI track.

Are some instrument groups enable, or unlicensed in some way?

I shouldn't get too hung up on VST instruments in Live - I have plenty of other ways of creating instruments, but I was curious as to why these instruments wouldn't work. Is this an issue with v7?

Thanks, everyone.

Oh, weird... yeah, I have no idea why that would be - dragging any of those instruments from the Live Devices browser into either a MIDI track or an empty area works fine for me.

Have you checked the licensing section in Preferences? If you don't have Suite or those specific instruments, then perhaps they won't instantiate. I would think that you'd have Simpler though.

Somewhere in the options is a "demo mode" which allows everything to be loaded, but disallows saving. If you can find it, try enabling that and seeing if the problem persists. If it goes away, then there's a licensing issue. If it doesn't, then I don't even know where to start.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

You ARE a big help! Thanks so much.

It must be a licensing issue, but in Options all of these instrument packs say they're installed and enabled.

I'll keep trying, but it's not a showstopper.

Thanks again.