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Ability of copying "Locators"
Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2011 10:16 pm
by skumborg
I usually create a project for each song, I make a backing track for. When I have to play a show I make one long project with all the songs together, so there won't be waiting time for new projects to load. I usually export the different tracks and insert them into the long project afterwards. Since I use a MIDI-controller when performing I need to have a lot of locators to every song. But the problem now is: I can't copy these from one project to another. And that annoys me. What I do now is, that I insert a MIDI clip along every locator. I can copy these MIDI clips (from start to end) and paste them, when I've opened the long project. Then I manually add the locators again - sometimes I remember the names of them (I usually marks every verse, chorus etc.), but sometimes I have to do a screen shot of each project, so I can get the new locators exactly as the original ones.
Hope that makes sense
Re: Ability of copying "Locators"
Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2012 4:17 am
by JulienFunk
+1 on this - I need this very often as I go from editing and mixing a track to performing it live.
Re: Ability of copying "Locators"
Posted: Sat Aug 04, 2012 12:05 pm
by parable66
A shortcut for adding locators would be killer as well.... I personally hate clicking the drop down to grab the locator.... its wierd
Re: Ability of copying "Locators"
Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2014 3:24 pm
by niharsavala
+10K on this
Re: Ability of copying "Locators"
Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2014 3:30 pm
by Idonotlikebroccoli
Also, when recording from scene to arrangement view, it would be nice if each scene launch resulted in a new locator in arrangement.
Re: Ability of copying "Locators"
Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2014 5:07 pm
by regretfullySaid
+2, an associate uses locators in his sets and keeps reminding me of this wish and I keep forgetting to ask for the feature so glad to see he's not the only one.
Re: Ability of copying "Locators"
Posted: Fri Jul 12, 2019 10:51 pm
by unity303
SOLUTION: I think I figured out a really crude workaround for this. Extract your locators, the brute force way:
Rename your .ALS project file to .ZIP
Open the ZIP (I used 7-zip on PC) and I found a file, it's basically XML Mark-Up language.
For compatibility, rename extract and rename that file to .TXT
Open the .TXT
Search for "Locators" within that XML-styled .TXT file
You will find all your locators in one area.
Copy all your Locator data and then:
Save that your Locator data to a new file called
AbletonPleaseHelpUsExportTheseLocatorsAutomaticallyWithTimestamps.XML 
You can import your new .XML into something like Sheets.google.com
There is a Time Value column (at least in 10.1) that is MEASURE-BASED,
not a timestamp/framevalue!
Using this value you can calculate the Timestamp (in seconds) based on your BPM. Up to you what you want to do with that!
*DO* Let me know if anybody thinks the above is helpful?
I can create a free (limited-support) script/tool for this for PC/Mac if there is enough interest to simply output a line-by-line sorted text file that says "[mm:ss] LocatorTextGoesHere", but for now I just use a Google Sheets with FLOOR() and MOD() equations.
Re: Ability of copying "Locators"
Posted: Mon Sep 23, 2019 4:48 pm
by Virtual Citizen
Like many users, I add Locators with short notes on tracks when I listen to raw audio recordings, to remember details. However, when I open a clip (in Ableton Live 10 Lite) to Edit it inside Izotope RX 7 and treat it (eg. apply De-Click module, etc), I can't see any of my notes or Locators. The Clip timecode in RX is also completely different (because it is in Standalone mode I am assuming). Anyhow, this makes it hard to quickly find the part you want to edit inside a long clip.
I know RX 7 allows you to import Markers (haven't tested yet), but it sure would be nice if Locator notes could be 'transportered' seemelessly into RX when the window pops up. I can enter markers manually in RX but it doubles the amount of work. If people have solutions to this, I am open to ideas. I am still learning the software.
Re: Ability of copying "Locators"
Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2019 9:54 pm
by Virtual Citizen
Virtual Citizen wrote: ↑Mon Sep 23, 2019 4:48 pm
Like many users, I add Locators with short notes on tracks when I listen to raw audio recordings, to remember details. However, when I open a clip (in Ableton Live 10 Lite) to Edit it inside Izotope RX 7 and treat it (eg. apply De-Click module, etc), I can't see any of my notes or Locators. The Clip timecode in RX is also completely different (because it is in Standalone mode I am assuming). Anyhow, this makes it hard to quickly find the part you want to edit inside a long clip.
I know RX 7 allows you to import Markers (haven't tested yet), but it sure would be nice if Locator notes could be 'transported' seemlessly into RX when the window pops up. I can enter markers manually in RX but it doubles the amount of work. If people have solutions to this, I am open to ideas. I am still learning the software.
(It would be great to have the ability to keep all locators in place when we copy to another track.)
Re: Ability of copying "Locators"
Posted: Sun May 01, 2022 9:38 pm
by JZ Chicago
unity303 wrote: ↑Fri Jul 12, 2019 10:51 pm
SOLUTION: I think I figured out a really crude workaround for this. Extract your locators, the brute force way:
Rename your .ALS project file to .ZIP
Open the ZIP (I used 7-zip on PC) and I found a file, it's basically XML Mark-Up language.
For compatibility, rename extract and rename that file to .TXT
Open the .TXT
Search for "Locators" within that XML-styled .TXT file
You will find all your locators in one area.
Copy all your Locator data and then:
Save that your Locator data to a new file called
AbletonPleaseHelpUsExportTheseLocatorsAutomaticallyWithTimestamps.XML
You can import your new .XML into something like Sheets.google.com
There is a Time Value column (at least in 10.1) that is MEASURE-BASED,
not a timestamp/framevalue!
Using this value you can calculate the Timestamp (in seconds) based on your BPM. Up to you what you want to do with that!
*DO* Let me know if anybody thinks the above is helpful?
I can create a free (limited-support) script/tool for this for PC/Mac if there is enough interest to simply output a line-by-line sorted text file that says "[mm:ss] LocatorTextGoesHere", but for now I just use a Google Sheets with FLOOR() and MOD() equations.
Great job with the instructions! I was able to load the .txt file into an editor and combine my <Locators> values BUT when I reversed the steps and tried to zip the txt file back up and then change its extension to .als I was unable to load the live set. You didnt really say that could be done but possibly you know of the steps to re-construct this back into a standardized .als file? I know XML formatting and I followed the format carefully but I think the wonkiness of converting the text file back into a zip and then an als file got me the error:
"Unknown Compound Stream Type"
Any ideas?