Using Sets exported by iOS apps

• Live Versions: All
• Operating System: All

Many iOS apps can export your music in an Ableton Live Set (.als) format, which you can open and further edit within Live. Once exported, Live will open the Set in Session view, with all parts rendered as audio, as well as their corresponding MIDI clips.

After exporting from the app, an Ableton Live Project folder is created. This folder contains one or two Ableton Live Set (.als) files, which can be opened with Live, as well as the necessary audio files from the Sets.

If the session on your iOS app contains up to 8 tracks, you will find one related Ableton Live Set (.als) in the exported Project folder, which you can open with any Live version, including Live Lite.

If the session on your iOS app contains more than 8 tracks, you will instead find two related Ableton Live Set (.als) files in the exported Project folder:

• One Live Set containing all the tracks. This Set can be opened with Live Intro (up to 16 tracks), Live Standard and Live Suite.
• One Live Set containing the first 8 tracks of the session, so it can be opened with Live Lite (this Set has Live-Lite added to the file name).

In any case, all exported audio samples are stored within the Project. So even if you can only open the 8-track version of your exported session, you can use all of the audio files in the Project by importing them as additional clips into Live Lite.

Are you an iOS developer?

Interested iOS app developers can apply to receive access to the Ableton Live Export SDK.  Go to our GitHub page and use the  ‘Request SDK’ button.