Ableton unveils new music-making app for iOS

Ableton says that “Note is a place to start ideas, experiment with sounds and find direction. As part of your regular music-making routine, it can help you hone the skill of starting or ease into a creative headspace at the start of a session.” It is also designed to connect with Ableton’s cloud service to help musicians take ideas to their regular studio setup.

The tool features a curated selection of Live’s drum kits, melodic instruments and synth sounds, which users can use in their compositions. It enables users to create a “sound palette” by recording real sounds and field recordings, and then send those compositions to Live’s browser and continue composing. Creators can use the feature to generate ideas, play with sound and find direction.

“Play just for fun, or start song ideas to continue in Live,” Ableton says. “Using Ableton Cloud, you can send your Note Set to Live without leaving the app.” Users can also continue working on the same devices, and edit MIDI notes and samples in exactly the same way.

The app could be launched on Android soon depending on its development, the company said.

Ableton’s Note is the third music-creation app announced this week, including HYPH, a tool intended to help users combine single-instrument stems into full songs, which can be used for backing tracks, user-created videos, personalised playlists and vocal recordings. The app will be launched as invitation-only prior to its commercial release.

TikTok, meanwhile, has partnered with several companies including Universal Music Group, Syco Entertainment, Republic Records and Samsung on a new tool called StemDrop, which will provide TikTok creators around the world with the stems from new music releases, allowing them to produce their own versions.