Session Notes

Simply sketch.

Notes that live with the set. Lyrics that land on the arrangement.

A Markdown notepad inside Ableton Live 12, built on the Ableton Live Extensions SDK. Jot lyrics, ideas and to-dos without leaving Ableton Live. Tag a lyric line with a bar or a time and send it straight onto the arrangement.

Requires Ableton Live 12.4.15 beta or later, with the Extensions feature (SDK 1.0.0-beta.0).

See it in action

Tag the first line of a verse with where it goes. In View, each line shows its spot; open the send bar and pick Locators or Clips:

Tag a line	Send it

As locators, named on the ruler:

As clips, on the Session Notes track:

Set notes and global notes share one picker. Set notes belong to this set; global notes are in every set:

Features

• Markdown, rendered by default. Write in Markdown; the pencil button or ⌘E switches between View and Edit. Headings, bullet and numbered lists, bold and italic, blockquotes, links, and to-dos (- [ ] / - [x]) you can tick in View.
• Lyrics on the arrangement. Tag a lyric line with its position, then send the block as locators or clips. A position can be a bar ([17]), a bar and beat ([17.3]), a time ([1:04]), or a bit of math ([=8*4], [=bpm]). Untagged lines under a tag follow one bar apart, and a blank line ends the block, so your other notes and to-dos are left alone.
• Two kinds of notes:
  • Set notes are saved inside the set and travel with it: Save As, moving or renaming the project folder, another computer, a collaborator. Keep as many as you like per set.
  • Global notes stay on this computer and are in every set.
• Manage notes in place. The note picker lists This set and Global notes; create, rename and delete notes right there.
• Backups. Every save also keeps a backup on this computer. Restore from backup… in the note picker brings back an earlier version.
• Autosave on close. Done, ⌘S or Esc saves and closes; Cancel throws away the edits since you opened the pad.
• Remembers your place. Reopens the note you had open last.
• File location. The folder button shows where a global note's file is, or a set note's backup, with a button to copy the path.
• Settings. Note text size, a compact or regular window, and Zen Mode, which hides the toolbar for distraction-free writing.
• Built-in help (the ? button) for Markdown and lyric timing.

Settings	Markdown help	Lyric-timing help

Install

1. Download the latest Session-Notes-<version>.ablx from the Releases page.
2. In Ableton Live: Settings → Extensions, then drag the .ablx file onto the page.
3. Right-click a track, clip slot, or scene → Extensions → Session Notes: Open…

Usage notes

• Open it from the right-click menu on an audio or MIDI track, clip slot, or scene. (The SDK has no global menu, so it attaches to the things you can reach almost anywhere.)
• Where set notes live: the first Done that saves set notes adds a MIDI track named Session Notes with no devices, so it never makes a sound. Its clips carry your notes, so keep the track. Lyric clips land on it too. A set that already has a Lyrics track from an earlier version keeps using that one.
• After Done, Ableton Live shows the set as changed. Save the set to keep the notes in it; until then they're safe in the backup.
• Coming from 0.2.x: global notes come across on their own. Ableton Live no longer lets extensions read project folders, so drag your old set notes (the .md files in a project's Session Notes/ folder) onto the pad to add them.

Develop

The Ableton Extensions SDK isn't included in this repo (its license doesn't allow redistribution). Get ableton-extensions-sdk-1.0.0-beta.0.tgz and ableton-extensions-cli-1.0.0-beta.0.tgz from Ableton and place them in vendor/ before installing.

Copy .env.example to .env and point EXTENSION_HOST_PATH at your local Ableton Live install (read by @ableton-extensions/cli, not tracked in git).

npm install
npm start        # build + run in Ableton Live's Extension Host (Developer Mode must be ON)
npm test         # every test file in test/
npm run build    # dev bundle
npm run package  # production bundle → Session-Notes-<version>.ablx
npm run demo     # the web demo, served locally

Node ≥ 22.11 is required (the SDK's minimum). The source is in src/:

• extension.ts: the host side, wiring everything together
• interface.html: the pad (the web view)
• session.ts: opening and saving a set's notes
• setdata.ts and codec.ts: reading and writing set notes as clips on the Session Notes track
• reconcile.ts: deciding which notes the pad shows when the set and the backup differ
• backups.ts: backups, Restore, and bringing notes across from older versions
• notes.ts: global notes and the pad's saved state
• timeline.ts: where each lyric line lands on the arrangement

License

MIT © Bengisu (@swwallowws)