Start new musical ideas with a curated selection of sounds and effects. Create beats and melodic parts, sample your world, and continue your tracks in Ableton Live.
Note is a place to form ideas, explore new sounds and find direction. Get your ideas out or just experiment until inspiration hits, using a selection of Ableton Live’s drum kits, synths and melodic instruments. Create your own sound palette by sampling with your phone’s built-in microphone. And use Note’s built-in MIDI Editor to sequence notes, beats and chords or make tweaks as you listen back
Follow your ideas wherever they lead by sending your projects to Live without leaving the app with the help of Ableton Cloud. Open projects from Live’s browser and keep working – you can edit all your MIDI notes, and all your samples and sounds from Note are exactly the same. Ableton Note users get a free license for Ableton Live Lite – simple, intuitive software used by musicians, producers and DJs around the world to write, record, and perform. For Ableton Move users, Note also offers the chance to keep working on a Set from your phone.
Begin with a beat:
• Choose from 76 Drum Sampler kits
• Tap out a beat using the 16-pad grid, or sequence one with the MIDI Editor
• Play each drum hit melodically using 16 Pitches mode
• Quantize your beat or nudge notes to fix loose timing or mistakes
• Add more layers of rhythm
• Create beat repetitions with Note Repeat
• Change parameters to shape your sound
• Experiment with effects or apply swing for variations
Start with a melody:
• Choose from 317 synth sounds and 60 Melodic Sampler instruments
• Play or program your melody or chord progression with the 25-pad grid, piano roll or MIDI Editor
• Set a key and scale to get instantly harmonic results
• Add more layers of harmony
• Change parameters to shape your sound
• Add effects to experiment with sound design
Sample your environment:
• Create your own kits by recording percussive sounds into Note’s Drum Sampler
• Record tonal sounds to create your own Melodic Sampler instruments
• Manipulate your samples by cutting, filtering or repitching them
• Sequence samples into beats, melodies and chords using the MIDI Editor
• Shape or transform your sounds with effects
• Import your own samples or audio directly from videos
Capture improvisations:
• Play something, then tap the Capture button to keep it
• Play at a tempo that feels comfortable and Note will detect it
• Note will recognize the length of the phrase and create a loop
• Quantize it, add to it, or change the sound
• Connect MIDI hardware to play keys and change the sound of your instruments
Create variations:
• Note features a grid-based Session View layout
• Double your loops to create variation within clips
• Duplicate your clips and create different versions of your ideas
• Add, delete or adjust multiple notes at once with the MIDI Editor
• Create eight tracks with up to eight clips on eight scenes
• Try different clip combinations and song structures
• Export your work as an audio file to listen and share
For 5 years I have been enjoying the ever increasing functionality of Ableton Note. A drum pad on the solid phone screen is less than perfect and there are fewer sounds than in Ableton Live. Playing on the screen I’ve gotten very used to. Since the upgrade to MIDI compatibility it can be controlled by any other device and vice versa though at that point I would probably just use the laptop. The above is particularly true because midi editing with my fingers on the touchscreen of the iPhone is a delicate and tricky process. I have much difficulty sometimes with selecting and adjusting notes- often does something I am not attempting. I have had a lot of fun with this product and would recommend it to anyone who is interested in learning or making beats on the go. That said, I have come close to breaking my phone in half in fits of rage during the editing process. Much love Ableton, thank you for this great inexpensive product and for constantly improving it. **Should have mentioned the endless features and functions of this simple phone app. It is about as simple or complex as the user wants to make it. I am still learning about it all the time even now, and it keeps getting better!
Sequencer Setting Update
That one idiot in the back
Hi! Love this little DAW its such a masterpiece from you all and it is so versatile and well put together. The buttons are where my thumbs like and the fluidity of it all makes it very admirable to use on the phone. My one problem is that I use bluetooth headphones on the go, and of course there will be delay because of the bluetooth. Was hoping maybe there could be a step sequencer setting to turn on depending on how the notes are quantitized? The pads given only show a set of notes and im sure it would be easy to have a scroll like function on the left side to scroll through all of the notes through the octaves. And a set of drums would be very easy with the little amount of sounds each kit gives you. And on the right side could select the measures throughout the time selected on the sequencer. Plopping and killing notes with a press of a button would be a million times better than having to only play it live dozens of times to try and get it right. I do love to play how its supposed to when I’m at home and can hear it in real time, but that delay when I’m at work or something really kills the motivation. Having some sort of step sequencing option would be absolutely amazing and I really hope you consider this elaborately-mad idea and or respond to this. Thank you!!
Developer Response
Hi there, thank you for the amazing feedback and for taking the time to address the missing features. We work hard to give all of our customers a great experience, and we want to keep improving. We have forwarded your feature wishes to the team and really appreciate both the kindness and the honesty. Hi, thanks for the feedback. Feel free to add other feature requests to our improvement plan, by opening the Help menu in Note's Setting Page and then tapping the "Feedback" button. Thanks again, Ableton.
Changing the game.
figet speener
This app has changed the game. I haven’t touched anything else on my I pad, my vast arsenal of hardware synths, samplers are getting neglected due to the ease and speed of using this app. Once you get past the tiny learning curve you will start to discover features you thought were absent but are in fact hidden in the UI. Each instruments clip can be automated independently! This blew my mind. Saves so much time/work when you import your project into Ableton live. Importing your whole project into Ableton could not be any easier. Just save your project from Note to Ableton cloud and everything is there. Grab the complete project file from your Ableton browser from Ableton Cloud onto your current project and it’s all there fully automated ready for production. If you get creative you can work outside of Ableton Live as well as an instrument, or for loops. Connect to an interface and record your projects/clips into logic syncing time with Ableton link. This is the fastest workflow I’ve ever experienced and my vote for best music making app for 2022 and all time. A must have! My number one recommendation is please please pretty please with cash on top, add midi controller support.Oh please now MIDI out to complete its perfection.Would love to live sequence external gear/vst’s with this super fast workflow.
Developer Response
Thanks so much for the great feedback. We have forwarded this to the team and want to thank you for your support in making this app great for making music on the go! All the best, Ableton.
Getting better. Don’t stop the updates
Svengranlund
So Mote started vey weak for an Ableton product. I played with it for a week to learn all the quirks then set it down. Now everytime I see an update I pull it out and play again. The app is 100% better than when it was first released but it’s got a long way to go. I’m trying to keep it simple they’ve made it awkward. There are plenty of iOS daws for them to get ideas for useabilty but it is still not precise nor easy to sketch an idea which is what I think they were going for. It lacks a synth engine!!! There is nothing worse than having a musical idea and get stonewalled because lack of things we need to bring idea to life. They have weird stabs and chords and the Notes section in the instrument is lacking more than any musical app I’ve seen. We need a synth engine that we can play. No one cares about the cool stylistic look of the app. We App want functionality!! Make this more feature packed and then give full integration to Ableton Desktop and you’ve got the perfect app. Gave it 4 stars to motivate the developers but it’s really a 3 star at best app. It is getting better though. Please keep the updates coming! Thank you
Developer Response
Hi there. Thanks for the review. As for features you're looking for that aren't currently available, please go to the Settings Page in Note, then click Help, and then click Feedback - you can submit your feature requests directly to the developers. Thanks - Ableton
We constantly update Note to bring you new features and improvements:
- New Slicing Mode for Drum Samples
- Ability to add external folders to Note’s Sample Browser
- New Auto Pan-Tremolo Effects Device
- New workflow for zooming and start/end for samples
- "Crop Sample" in sample options
Version 1.7.3
The developer, Ableton AG, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Linked to You
The following data may be collected and linked to your identity:
Identifiers
Usage Data
Data Not Linked to You
The following data may be collected but it is not linked to your identity:
Diagnostics
Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
Information
Seller
Ableton AG
Size
951.6 MB
Category
Music
Compatibility
Requires iOS 15.0 or later.
iPhone Requires iOS 15.0 or later.
iPad Requires iPadOS 15.0 or later.
iPod touch Requires iOS 15.0 or later.
Languages
English and 4 more
English, French, German, Japanese, Simplified Chinese
