Ableton Note 1.3 for iOS adds the ability to sequence beats, drums, and chords in a compact MIDI editor. And while oddly Ableton doesn’t talk about it, the combination of Note and Ableton’s Move hardware is an appealing one-two mobile punch.
The original story of Note was all about tapping in patterns intuitively. And it’s great – a unique and appealing way to work and start ideas right away. It’s optimally suited to the iPhone handheld workflow in paritcular. Awesome. Really awesome.
“So I can start with a normal edit view, right?”
Until 1.3, the answer was no, which for a lot of folks, I suspect, was an instant turn-off. Ableton has remedied that now with a comprehensive MIDI Editor. You get new, detailed ways of editing, and you can finally start with a clip in case you don’t want to test your finger-tapping skills.
That in itself is not newsworthy – we’ve had editors like this all the way back to the days of Palm software. But Ableton has done a great job of making this elegant and gestural. (The original vision of Auxy finally gets its due, and benefits from the powerful Note engine.)
This is still really a handheld design. Ableton supports the iPad, but it makes little sense on anything but the Mini. (I’d love to see a Pro-optimized layout for iPadOS.)
What it does mean, though, is that the Note – Move combo makes more sense. You have more ways to start out a project on Note to continue on Move, since traveling with your iPhone is a given. (Uh… well, or to most countries it is. Ahem.)
And then you have some great ways of extending the Move’s capabilities with editing. Maybe you want to add some chords:
Or perfect a drum pattern you started on Move, nailing some variations and adjusting velocity/groove:
All of this is eminently possible with Ableton Cloud. If you’re on the go, and squeezing out a few extra minutes this way makes loads of sense. There are times when Move becomes claustrophobic without a display; there are times when Note feels like it’s missing a controller. Solved.
See this tech note for review:
16 Pitches
Also new in this version is 16 Pitches, which is a compact, efficient way of messing around with pitch on drum parts. If that sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because it got added to Move late last year. (Move and Note use the same engine, so you can expect the two to continue updating like this in staggered tandem.)
That’s great in the hardware interface, but honestly having it in both places makes me more likely to use it. Start a 16 Pitches pattern on the train, or on a delayed train. (It’s Germany.) Finish it back in the studio or in bed on Move (with and without the computer attached, respectively). You get the idea.
Editing cheat sheet
I’m gonna screen cap this one and mess around – copy-paste, sorry:
- Tap to add or delete MIDI notes.
- Move MIDI notes horizontally to change their position, or vertically to transpose them.
- Adjust note length by dragging the handle on the right side of a note.
- Drag up and down on a note’s right-side handle to adjust its velocity.
- Long-press and drag to select multiple notes, then manipulate them via gestures or the Note Properties menu at the bottom.
- Long-press, hold, and drag to add multiple consecutive notes (for drum instruments) or add notes with variable lengths (for melodic instruments).
- Use pinch-to-zoom to zoom in and out, changing the grid resolution.
- Long-press the loop brace at the top to duplicate or crop a section of a clip.
- Swipe up on the loop brace to zoom to the loop. Swipe down to zoom out to the entire clip.
- Rotate your device when the MIDI Editor is expanded to full screen to use the editor in landscape mode.
- Switch the grid to triplets using the dedicated Triplets toggle at the bottom of the MIDI Editor in full-screen mode.
- 16 Pitches: Change the pitch of individual drum notes via the Note Properties menu.
Oh and by the way – Apple just added ultra-low latency to iOS 18.4. Even in editing tasks, that makes a huge psychological difference. I can’t even quite describe it, but you’ll want to use iOS more. Yes, yes, you can use a cable, I normally love cables – but it’s a mobile device. But that’s another story.
I know, I know. Do Arrangement View. Let’s see; they have to save something for “Note 2.”
(Android users, sorry, no joy but – there are other options!)
Ableton Note is $8.99 on the App Store.